The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have transferred to our columns the Bill to make tem-
porary provision for the Government of Lower Canada. TI.o
preamble sets forth the impossibility, in
.the present state of
that Province, to call together the House of Assembly ; that
it is expedient the Province should be governed on Constitu-
tional principles ; that es, in order to the preparation of such
measures as it may be desirable to propose to Parliamentfor
improving the Constitution of the Provinces of Lower Canada
and Upper Canada, or either of them, and for regulating
divers questions in which the said Provinces ere jointly inte-
rested, the Governor-General of her Majesty's Provinces in
North America has been authorised to summon a meeting,
consisting cf the Governer-General and of certain other persons
representing the interests and opinions of her Majesty's sub-
jects inhabiting the said -Provinces. It is in the meantime
necessary that temporary provision should be made for the
Government of Lower Canada. The Acts constituting a
Legislature for Lower Canada are suspended until the Ist day of
November, 1840, and her Majsty is authorised to appoint, or
to authorise the Governor of Lower Canada to appoint, such
a number of Legislative Councillors as to her Majesty shall
seem meet, and to provide for the removal, suspension, or re-
signation of such Legislative Councillors. The ordinances
made by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the ma-
jority of the Legislative Councillors, are not to continue in
force beyond the Ist day cf November, 1842. Ordinances
shall first be proposed by the Governor for the adoption of the
Legislative Councillors, and only when the Governor and at
least five such Councillors are present. It is not lawful
to alter by any ordinances the laws respecting the
constitution or composition of the Legislative Assembly, or
the right to vote, or the divisions for purposes of election, or
to impcse any new taxes. The Governor is authorised, with
the advice and consent of the Council, to appropriate all mo.
neys which may be in the hands of the Receiver-General, and
to appropriate a sufficient part of them to repay what may have
been issued out of the 142,1601. 14s. 6d., granted by the Act
of last session for advances on account of charges for the ad-
ministration of justice and the civil government of Lower Ca-
nada, provided that no appropriation for any one year exceed
the appropriation of 1832. The provisions cf the Act of the 31
Geo. 111 , respecting the 'disallowance or approval of laws en-
acted by the Legislature, constituted by that Act, shall apply to
ordinances under this Act.- The time fixed for the suspension
of the constitution may be shortened by an order in coun-
cil. The Act, it will be seen, is of great simplicity,
and it does not occur to us that it can give rise
to much discussion. Out of evil often comes good. The re-
volt has forced on the consideration of Government the pro-
viding for matters in which the two provinces are jointly in-
terested, and it has at the same time impressed teen's minds
with the necessity of seizing the present moment for an ar-
rangement, without which serious consequences might happen.
Lord Glenelg alluded very pointedly to this very important
subject in his speech on Thursday night. His Lordship stated
that the difference between the habits of the people of the two
provinces, and the great extent of them, presented obstacles
of a formidable nature to the union of the provinces, and he
seemed inclined to think a federal union preferable. " This,"
he said, " would have a very considerable effect in adjusting
the disputes between the provinces, and it would give the'
Upper Province a just influence over the questions in which it
has an interest. •It would at the same time, by bringing to-
gether the natives of the two provinces to discuss measures
of mutual interest, induce them to give their attention
to subjects of greater importance ; it would enlarge
and 'liberalise their views, and raise them above those
narrow and local questions which have hitherto divided them."
His Lordship added, " But in this I am not aware that the
Upper Province acquiesces." We trust that the Upper Pro-
vince e ill acquiesce in some such plan as that alluded to by
his Lordship. Something must at all events be done to pre-
vent the collision between the two provinces. There is, as
our readers will not fail to perceive, abundance of work already
carved out for Lord Durham. But, as the adage has it,
" Where there is a will these is a way." We have no doubt
that his Lordship will enter on his task with all the earnest.
Hess and straightforwardness belonging to his character, and
that his honesty of purpose and sincere disposition to promote
the welfare of the provinces will not be lost on the leading
Canadisus. This is one of those critical periods which, if
properly taken advant,ge of, may secure for a long period a
good understanding between our North American colonies
and the Parent State._Morning Chronicle.

We have received from the Secretary of the Delegates
and Members of the Trades' Societies, forming the London
Committee acting on behalf of the Glasgow cotton-spinners,
a statement addressed to the Trades' Societies of London,
and the working classes generally, with a request that we
should publish it in the Chronicle., With this request we
have complied, and it will be found in another column. We
have no wish to fasten on the Trades' Societies of London,
in the absence of all evidence, the charge of sanctioning acts
of atrocity similar to those attributed to the Secret Committee
of Glasgow cotton-spinners ; but we would adVise them care-
fully to avoid whatever may lead to the inference that they
do not view these acts with proper abhorrence. The state-
ment appears to us to be by no means calculated to benefit the
five cotton-spinners who have, after a very fair trial at Edin-
burgh, been sentenced to seven years tr,lnsportatien,
while it must leave on the minds of all who read
it the painful impression that its framers do not view
with proper abhorrence the system of assassination and arson
which, though not brought by legal evidence distinctly borne
to the prisoners, was unquestionably organized in Glasgow.
The books and papers of the committee at Glasgow, and parole
evidence in abundance, sufficiently prove that money was con-
tributed by the workmen for various purposes, among which
were arson and murder, to say nothing of injuries to the per-
son by means of vitriol ; that a secret committee had the dis-
posal of the money so contributed, and rewarded the perpe-
trators of such acts of atrocity according to a graduated scale ;
and though there was not strict legal evidence that Maclean
was the author of the murder charged in the indictment, or
that the other individuals were accessories to the murder,
not a shadow of doubt can remain that murder was among
the means by which the secret committee sought to effect
their object. The verdict of not proven is not equiva-
lent to not guilty, as the framers of this statement seem
to suppose. The capital charges were found to be not
proven; but a verdict of not proven always implies that
the jury have reason to doubt the innocence of the parties ac-
cused. In Scotland, as well as in this country, where doubts
exist the accused are very properly allowed the benefit of
them. The Court very properly refused to allow evidence to
be received which did not bear directly on the charges in the
indictment ; but the London Committee may be assu ed that
the facts which have been ascertained will be made available to
the public good. Those who are entrusted with the public safety
would be grossly deficient in their duty were they not to protect
society from a system which threatens it with destruction, and
which reflects so much disgrace both on Scotland and Ireland,
where it has taken but too firm a root. The matter will as-
suredly not be left where it is. We are sorry to add that we
have the best reason for believing that the different Trades
Unions in London have not contented themselves with sym-
pathizing ssith the men who have been convicted in Edin-
burgh, but have actually transmitted large sums of money to
them since the trial.-11.fornina Chronicle.

The debate in the House of Lords last Thursday on Cana-
dian affairs was confined to the subject of the papers laid be-
fore Parliament by her Majesty's Ministers, and to the address
by which it was proposed to convey to Queen Victoria the
sense of the Legislature with regard to the unfortunate trans
actions which formed the burden of those documents, as like-
wise with regard to the provision which ought to be made for
the necessary consequences of such transactions. The speech
with which the discussion was opened by the Colonial Mini-
ster, though in some of its passsges able and interesting,
considered as an essay upon the habitual state of Lower
Canada, was, for the purposes of the speaker—namely, as
a defence of the Ministerial policy in dealing with the
discontents of that long-agitated Province—remarkably feeble
and defective. Against the charges which have long been
in every man's mouth, of vacillation, improvidence, igno-
rance of what ought to have been feared from the disaffected,
and of what was actually brewing among their leaders—la-
mentable imbecility, mischievous delay, and the needless out-
break of civil war, which might by a prudent mixture of firm-
ness and concession have been without difficulty averted—
against all or any of these known charges, for every one of
which Lord Glenelg ought to have been prepared: his Lord-
ship, to employ. militrry language, was unable to " show any
front." At the close of his speech the Noble Secretary left a
deep impression upon the minds of most of his hearers, that
not a word could be said for him in reply to the mute but sig.
nificant testimony of the numerous voids exhibited by the
printed correspondence, in proof of the frequent absence of
that vigour and activity in his department which the actual
condition of the interests confided to him has so obviously
called fcr. By one of those hearers, an unmerciful,
and even foul advantage was taken of the vulnerable
points in the case of Ministers, and, indeed, of some which
were scarcely vulnerable. Lord Brougham, the Noble and
learned " friend" of the Melbourne Cabinet generally, and
particularly of Lord Glenelg, although the latter Noble Lord
somewhat contemptuously declined the endearment, attacked
the Colonial Office and its garbled papers in a spirit which
indicated no consciousness of a good cause, and from which,
certainly, a bad one derived but little succour. When we
say that, as a piece of declamatory Litteraess, consistent, sus-
tained, paid elaborate from one end to the (eler, this appears
to us to have been among the most perfect- of its kind that
ever proceeded from Lord Brougham, we give the Noble
Baron—" learned, by the courtesy of the Ilouse of Peers"—
the highest praise, because it is the only praise that can con-
scientiously be awarded him. It was voluble, virulent, and
sarcastic • as a political discourse it was false, unsound, ab-
surd, and unconstitutional ; and, to crown all, it was delivered
with such measured and cold-blooded artifice of manner es
must have convinced the most careless observer that the Noble
and (by courtesy) " Learned " Lord was hula credulous
of the truth of nine propositions out of every ten that he was
himself affirming. The two grand war horse's of the " learned"
Baron's speech were—lst, that the civil war of Lower Canada
has been the fruit -of the repressive resolutions of last year,
passed by both Lords and Commons in this country, but never
carried into effect in the shape of an Act of Parliament. That
the Act by which Ministers had pledged themselves to follow
up the above resolutions was never brought forward as it
ought to have been has, it is true, been pretty clearly traced to
au alarm in Downing-street lest the Whig-Radical eke-
dons might have been alfected by it ; for be it rereembered,
that her Majesty's Ministers have never failed to give a du
tiful and obsequious support to the most ferocious fladicals
in the kiegdora, no matter for what place they might he
candidates, and no matter with what violence they might
oppose any anti-revolutionary measure of the Whigs, pro-
vided only that on party questions of a nature to deter-
, mine who should be in office they would vote as the Se-
cretary of the Treasury might desire. The non-performance