The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-10 00:00:00

carried on in conformity with the views of the majority in
the Assembly. But I think that, for the well-being of the
Colonies, and the security of the Mother Country, it is
necessary that such a change should be rendered more per-
manent than a momentary sense of the existing difficulties
can insure its being. I cannot believe that persons in
power in this country will be restrained from the injudi-
cious interference with the internal management of these
Colonies, which I deprecate, while they remain the petty
and divided communities which they now are. The public
attention at home is distracted by the various and
sometimes contrary complaints of these different conti-
guous provinces. Each now urges its demands at diffe-
rent times, and in somewhat different forms ; and the in-
terests which each individual complainant represents
as in peril, are too petty to attract the due attention
of the empire. But if these important and exten-
sive Colonies should speak with one voice—if it were felt
that every error of our Colonial policy must cause a com-
mon suffering and a common discontent throughout the
whole wide extent of British America—those complaints
would never be provoked ; because no authority would
venture to run counter to the wishes of such a commu-
nity, except on points absolutely involving the few Impe-
rial interests which it is necessary to remove from the
jurisdiction of Colonial legislation.
" It is necessary that I should also recommend what
appears to me an essential limitation on the present
powers of the representative bodies in these Colonies, I
consider good government not to be attainable while the
present unrestricted powers of voting public money, and
of managing the local expenditure of the community, are
lodged in the hands of an Assembly. As long as a re-
venue is raised, which leaves a large surplus after the
payment of the necessary expenses of the Civil Govern-
ment, and as long as any member of the Assembly may,
without restriction, propose a vote of public money, so long
will the Assembly retain in its hands the powers which it
everywhere abuses, of misapplying that money. The pre-
rogative of the Crown, which is constantly exercised in
Great Britain for the real protection of the people, ought
never to have been waived in the Colonies; and if the
rule of the Imperial Parliament, that no money-vote should
be proposed without the consent of the Crown, were in.
troduced into these Colonies, it might be wisely employed
in protecting the public interests, now frequently sacrificed
in that scramble for local appropriations which chiefly
serves to give an undue influence to particular individuals
or parties."
" These general principles apply, however, only to those
changes in the system of government which are required
in order to rectify disorders common to all the North
American Colonies ; but they do not in any degree go to
remove those evils in the present state of Lower Canada
which require the most immediate remedy. The fatal
feud of origin, which is the cause of the most extensive
mischief, would be aggravated at the present moment by
any change which should give the majority more power
than they have hitherto possessed. A plan, by which it is
proposed to ensure the tranquil government of Lower
Canada, must include in itself the means of putting an end
the agitation of national disputes in the Legislature, by
settling, at once and for ever, the national character of the
province. I entertain no doubts as to the national charac-
ter which must be given to Lower Canada: it must be
that of the British empire—that of the majority of the po-
pulation of British America—that of the great race which
must, in the lapse of no long period of time, be predomi-
nant over the whole North American Continent. With-
out effecting the change so rapidly or so roughly as to
shock the feelings and trample on the welfare of the exist-
ing generation, it must henceforth be the first and steady
purpose of the British Government to establish an English
population, with English laws and language, in this pro-
vince, and to trust its government to none but a decidedly
English Legislature.
" There can hardly be conceived a nationality more
destitute of all that can invigorate and elevate a people,
than that which is exhibited by the descendants of the
French in Lower Canada, owing to their retaining their
peculiar language and manners. They are a people with
no history and no literature. The literature of England
is written in a language which is not theirs ; and the only
only literature which their language renders familiar to
them, is that of a nation from which they have been sepa-
rated by eighty years of a foreign rule, and still more by
those changes which the Revolution and its consequences
have wrought in the whole political, moral, and social state
of France. Yet it is on a people whom recent history,
manners, and modes of thought so entirely separate from
them, that the French Canadians are wholly dependent for
almost all the instruction and amusement derived from
books ; it on this essentially foreign literature, which is
conversant about events, opinions, and habits of life per-
fectly strange and unintelligible to them, that they are
compelled to be dependent. Their newspapers are mostly
written by natives of France, who have either come to try
their fortunes in the province, or been brought into it by
the party leaders, in order to supply the dearth of literary
talent available for the political press. In the same way,
their nationality operates to deprive them of the enjoy-
ments and civilising influence of the arts. Though de-
scended from the people in the world that most generally
love, and have most successfully cultivated the drama—
though living on a continent in which almost every town,
great or small, has an English theatre—the French popu-
lation of Lower Canada, cut off from every people that
speaks its ewn language, can support no national stage.
" In these circumstances, I should be indeed surprised
if the more reflecting part of the French Canadians enter-
tained at present any hope of continuing to preserve their
notionality. Much as they struggle against it, it is obvious
that the process of assimilation to English habits is already
commencing. The English language is gaining ground,
as the language of the rich and of the employers of labour
, naturally will. It appeared by some of the few returns
which had been received by the Commissioner of the In-
quiry into the state of Education that there are about ten
f times the number of French children in Quebec learning
English, as compared with the English children who learn
, French. A considerable time must, of course, elapse
before the change of a language can spread over a whole
people ; and justice and policy alike require, that while
the people continue to use the French language, their
Government should take no such means to force the Eng-
lish language upon them, as would, in fact, deprive the
great mass of the community of the protection of the laws.
But I repeat, that the alteration of the character of the
province ought to be immediately entered on, and firmly,
though cautiously, followed up; that in any plan which
may be adopted for the future management of Lower
Canada, the first object ought to be that of making it an
English province ; and that, with this end in view, the
ascendancy should never again be placed in any hands but
those of an English population. Indeed, at the present
moment this is obviously necessary; in the state of mind
in which I have described the French Canadian population,
as not only now being, but as likely for a long while to
remain, the trusting them with an entire control over this
province, would be, in fact, only facilitating a rebellion.
Lower Canada must be governed now, as it must be here-
after, by an English population; and thus the policy
which the necessities of the moment force on us, is in ac-
cordance with that suggested by a comprehensive view of
the future and permanent improvement of the province."
CONCLUDING RECOMMENDATIONS.
" In existing circumstances, the conclusion to which the
foregoing considerations lead me, is, that no time should
be lost in proposing to Parliament a Bill for repealing the
31st Geo. 111. ; restoring the Union of the Canadas under
one Legislature, and reconstituting them as one Province.
" The Bill should contain provisions by which any or
all of the other North American Colonies may, on the ap-
plication of the Legislature, be, with the consent of the
two Canadas, or their United Legislature, admitted into
the Union on such terms as may be agreed on between
them.
" As the mere amalgamation of the House of Assembly
of the two Provinces would not be advisable, or give at all
a due share of representation to each, a Parliamentary
Commission should be appointed, for the purpose of form-
ing the electoral divisions, and determining the number of
Members to be returned on the principle of giving repre-
sentation, as near as may be, in proportion to population.
I am averse to every plan that has been proposed for giving
an equal number of Members to the two Provinces, in
order to attain the temporary end of outnumbering the
French : because I think the same object will be obtained
without any violation of the principles of representation,
and without any such appearance of injustice in the scheme
as would set public opinion, both in England and America,
strongly against it; and because, when emigration shall
have increased the English population in the Upper Pro-
vince, the adoption of such a principle would operate to
defeat the very purpose it is intended to serve. It appears
to mo that any such electoral arrangement, founded on
the present provincial divisions, would tend to defeat the
purposes of union, and perpetuate the idea of disunion.
" At the same time, in order to prevent the confusion
and danger likely to ensue from attempting to have popu-
lar elections in districts recently the seats of open
rebellion, it will be advisable to give the Governor a
temporary power of suspending by proclamation stating
specifically the grounds of his determination, the writs of
electoral districts, in which he may be of opinion that
elections could net safely take place.
" The same Commission should form a plan of local
government by elective bodies subordinate to the General
Legislature, and exercising a complete control over such
local affairs as do not come within the province of general
legislation. The plan so framed should be made an Act
of the Imperial Parliament, so as to prevent the General
Legislature from encroaching on the powers of the Local
bodies.
" A General Executive on an improved principle should
be established, together with a supreme Court of Appeal,
for all the North American !Colonies. The other estab-
lishments and laws of the two Colonies should be left un-
altered until the Legislature of the Union should think
fit to change them ; and the security of the existing en-
dowments of the Catholic Church in Lower Canada
should be guaranteed by the Act.
" The constitution of a Second Legislative Body for
the United Legislature, involves questions of very great
difficulty. The present constitution of the Legislative
Councils of these Provinces has always appeared to me
inconsistent with sound principles, and little calculated to
answer the purpose of placing the effective check which
I consider necessary on the popular branch of the Legisla-
ture. The analogy which some persons have attempted
to draw between the House of Lords and the Legislative
Councils seems to me erroneous. The constitution of the
House of Lords is consonant with the frame of English so-
ciety; and as the creation of a precisely similar body in such
a state of society as that of these Colonies is impossible,it has
always appeared to me most unwise to attempt to supply its
place by one which has no point of resemblance to it,
except that of being a non-elective check on the elec-
tive branch of the Legislature. The attempt to invest
a few persons, distinguished from their fellow. colonists
neither by birth nor hereditary property, and often only
transiently connected with the country, with such a power
seems only calculutcd to ensure jealously and bad feeling
in the first instance, and collision at last. I believe that
when the necessity of relying, in Lower Canada, on the
English character of the Legislative Council as a check
on the national prejudices of a French Assembly shall be
removed by the union, few persons in the colonies will be
found disposed in favour of its present constitution. In-
deed, the very fact of union will complicate the difficulties
which have hitherto existed; because a satisfactory choice
of Councillors would have to be made with reference to