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

Council which had rejected the Bill ; and solely because tile
House of Assembly bad imposed these conditions on the pay-
ment of those and some other officers ?

It is almost incredible that the Colonial Minister should
have supported the Legislative Council in their refusal
of supplies in the way he did for so many years,
thereby encouraging the discord, and increasing the irrtation
which unhappily existed between the House of AsA!mbly and
Legislative Council; and it is equally strange ant the Co-
lonial Ministers consecutively during all this time, should
have declared in the House of Commons, and expressed in
their dispatches, their great anxiety to conciliate the House
of Assembly.
It appears that Lord Glenelg grew wiser after the
ill-
starred resolutions of April were passed ; for, on the 14th of
July last, he writes to Earl Gosford, " Should the House of
Assembly be disposed to vote the supplis, excluding Only the
debatable items, your Lordseip will not, on that account, re-
fuse the terms 'which they may offer."

Lord Gosford seems also to have acted, in payi:lg the
salaries from the money voted by the House of Common:, on
the very principle the House of Assembly had acted
upon since 1833 ; and, writes in his dispatch of
the 23th of October, 1837, to Lord Glenelg---" I have
to remark that in those instances where the House of As-
sembly had reduced, in their votes of 183:3 and 1836, the
salaries of certain officers, such, for example, as the
icians to the gaols, the provincial Aide-de-Camp, the Masters
of the Royal Grammar Schools at Quebec and Montreal, I
have paid the arrears only at the reduced rate, from Ist April,
1836."

I think it will be apparent that if the Governor of Lower
Canada in 1833, and the Colonial Minister of that day, had
acted in respect to the supply voted by the House of Assembly
as Lords Glenelg and Gosford, at the eleventh hour, were dis-
posed to do in 1837, tit., present lamentable state of aiflirs in
that province might have been prevented. A careful atten-
tion to the proceedings respecting supplies in Lower Canada,
will, I think, prove that the House of Assembly has all along-
done their duty ; and that the obstinacy of the Legis-
lative Council, and the conduct of the Colonial Ministers,
have brought on the present discontent and excitement. I
. .

say, theredore, that it is their duty to make atonement for their
past errors by frankly conceding those just demmds of the
Canadians, which will ensure peace and contentment in the
province.
I believe than no man will deny to the Huse of Commons
the power of controlling and of stopping the supplies, if the
Ministers of the Crown shall lose its confidence ; and on the
same principle the power of the House of Assembly in Canada
ought to be supported.
I admit that it is a power to be exercised only in extreme
cases, when other Constitutional means have failed to
procure redress ; but each Assembly must be the best judges in
every such case.

Whatever may have Leen Lord ,31enelg's opinion on that
subject before 1836, he expressly admits in his despatch of the
7th of June to Earl Gosford, the power in the following words
—" His Majesty does not deny that this (the stopping (-,f sup-
plies) is a power which the law has intrusted to the represen-
tatives of the people."

I hope I hive proved to your satisfaction that it was the
Legislative Council and not the House of Assembly which re-
fused the supplies ; and that the representatives of the
have the rower to do so if they think fit ; and after the facts
I have related, the House of Commons ought, in toy opinion,
to abolish the Legislative Council, instead of depriving
the
House of Assembly of their Constitutional rights.
I remain, your obedient Servant,
JOSEPH HUM-E.