The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-05 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAT, MARCH 5.

LAST night another heavy debate took place on
that very important, though not very interesting
I subject—the Bill for allowing the Canadians to ar-
range their own Clergy Land Reserves. The Tories
made a great muster of their forces under the whip
of Mr. Polices MACKENZIE, determined to risk even
an important colony upon the chance of winning some
partisan advantage. Their success was u bad as
their cause.
The question at issue is simply, whether Canada
shall be governed by a majority of its representa-
tives in local Parliament assembled, and by the
QUEEN, their and our Sovereign, or whether it shall
be ruled by a small minority of the province is
league with Toryism, Bigotry, and Selfishness, at
home. In the fate of this question is involved the
continued connexion of that great colony, and
its two millions of people, with the mother coun-
try, or its early, and willing separation from
the British Empire. For in Canada the progress of
self-government has reached a point at which no re-
striction or limitation, under any pretense,
ecclesiastical or political, is possible; when,
to reuse full colonial freedom, is to preci-
pitate its independence. The responsibility of any
such rupture of their SOVEREIGN'S dominions the
ABERDEEN Cabinet has refused to assume ; but the
road which statesmen shrink from treading, Sir
JOHN PAKINGTON has boldly rushed into.
From the conclusion of the capitulation of Mont-
real down to the Union of 1840, the religious policy
of Canada and of England towaris Canada was
that of perfect equality. The first Quebec Act
passed in 1774, placed :all sects in Canada on
the same footing; and it was to carry out that
great principle that, by the second Quebec Act,
in 1791, the proportion of the waste lands which
form the gist of the present dispute wu reserved for
the maintenance of its Protestant clergy, the Romish
priesthood having been previously provided for.
At first those Reserves were of little value, and the
other Protestant ,linisters being entitled to tithes,
they were appropriated to the clergy of the Church'
of England. But in 1829 the law officers of the
I Crown advised the then Colonial Minister that this
I exclusive appropriation was illegal ; and, in 1840,
the QUEEN'S Judges informed the House of Lords
that the Church of Scotland had as much right to
participate in the fund as the Church of England ;
adding that they could not deny other sects might
lawfully advance claims thereto. Historically
it is therefore indisputable that the object of Lora
Oa`NVII.t.E, who introduced this provision about the
Reserves into the second Quebec Act, was to provide
for the Protestant Ministers of all denominations in
Canada. Now who so fit to appropriate and distri-
bute their proceeds amongst them as the Canadian
Parliament ?

But, says Sir lons PANINGTON, the Imperial Act
of 1840 has made the appropriation, and what it
made it only can alter. Now the appropriation it
made gave ono half the proceeds to the Church of
England, though its members only form one-
fourth of the population of Upper Canada, and
one-fourth to the Church of Scotland, whose
members constitute but a sixteenth. And
this distribution which Lord SYDENUAII at
the time termed " ninnstrous " is now asserted to
have been a compromise that cannot be parted from.
IBut a compromise, between whom? Not between
the contending parties of Canada—not between the
Colony and the Mother Country. It was a compro-
mime forced by the heads of the Church at home, by
the Tory leaders of the Imperial Parliament. on a
Liberal Administration too weak to resist; but which
in accepting it warned the powerful who thus
coerced it, that in such a compromise, there could be
no permanence and no peace, because there was no
justice. And so it has proved.
The Canadian Parliament never accepted the com-
promise. Year by year, as its strength has grown
and its confidence in itself has clothed its proceedings
in moderation, it has protested against this act. Ses-
sion after session, majorities after majorities, have
claimed the right to deal with the question. Nor
have these majorities been made up of Roman
Catholic elements; for last night Sir WILLIAM
MOLKSWORTII, in his valuable speech, showed that in
the local Parliament there was as absolute majority
of its Protestant members in favour of the claim ; and
that out of Parliament there was a positive majority
of the Protestant people. What, then, is to be done ?

Not even Sir JOHN PAKI4OTON dares to say that
the "monstrous " distribution of 1840 should be per-
severed in. He admits a change must be made. But
not, he exclaim., by the provincial Parliament. If
mgive them the power they will secularise the
And so fear and apprehension of what may
be the oonseijuence of an act of justice, and a conces-
sion of constitutional right, are to induce the Imperial
Parliament to disregard colonial entreaties, and to
perpetuate a just ground of complaint against the
mother country, until there is no door open to the
colon but freedom in independence. No : answers
Sir WILLIAM MOLLSWORTII; give the local legisla-
ture all they ask; trust them with all their own con-
cerns ; and be assured that even if the fund be secu-
larised, no harm to religion will be done, whilst
British supremacy will be secured.
. _

Whether the fund will be secularised is a ques-
tion which the mother country has not the smallest
interest in. We do not force the Australians to
amortize one-seventh of the proceeds of their waste
lands to ecclesiastical purposes. Why then compel
two millions of Canadians to do anything of the sort ?
If they think proper to apply the fund to educa-
tional, and not to ecclesiastical purposes, they will
not degenerate into Paganism ; they will provide out
of their own individual pockets for the public wor-
ship of the faith they profess ; and in so doing they
will improve the condition of the province—by
extending education whilst providing for religion.
In this respect what is called the secularisation of the
Clergy Reserves will be a most happy result for Canada.
But it is not clear that secularisation will be the
consequence of this bill passing the Imperial Leicis-
lature. That was the gratuitous assumption which
ran through the speeches of the members of the late
Cabinet last night. Hitherto, however, all resolu-
tions having that tendency have been rejected by the
Canadian Parliament; hitherto, the provincial ad-
ministration has declined to say it has any suchpur-
pose; and if that be at last the result of Canadian
legislation, it will be so because it is the convio-
tion and the desire of the Protestants of Canada,
who form a large majority in its Legislature.
But secularisation, or no secularisation, is not the
question just now. That is their affair. Our duty is
to acknowledge in them the right to deal as they
please with what is their own, with what we have no
possible interest or concern in; with what we
can be sufficiently well informed and instructed about
to deal properly with; and with what it is positive,
downright tyranny in us to wish to dispose of.

It is our interest, as it ought to be our glory, to
keep and preserve Canada. We have now the oppor-
tunity—we can now do so. By keeping it, we shall
show an example of well-poised, just, and honest con-
nexion ; of mutual rights both understood and prac-
tised, such as the world never saw before. In pre-
serving it, we shall prove to those who
envy our renown and hate our strength,
that the lessons of colonial revolutions and
of provincial rebellions have not been lost or thrown
away upon us. In conceding this power to Canada,
we may wound some old and obsolete prejudices;
but in disregarding them for the sake of justice and
right, we shall purify still more our own minds, befit
ourselves still more for that high destiny which it is
lour privilege to fulfil here on earth ; and, in found-
ing and rearing noble colonies, we shall at last
have discovered the way to retain them in their
greatness. The opinion of the House of Emmons
last night was shown in the division that closed the I
debate, when 275 voted for Justice to Canada, and
only 192 for Toryism and Intolerance.