The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-02 00:00:00

LONDON,

It must, consequently, be with no small degree of
curiosity that the reflective politician in England
turns to an oration like that of the Hon. Provincial
Secretary at Halifax—an oration in which the mis-
representations of so many factious antagonists are
categorically exposed, and in which the character of
the policy pursued towards the two Canadas by the
local administrators, and by the supreme authority in
Downing-street, is very earnestly, and, to a certain
extent also, very successfully vindicated.
In refuting the specious and sophistical ac-
cusations condensed into the " Resolutions" of the
honourable leader of the Opposition, the Pro-
vincial Secretary, on the 20th of March, displayed to
the derision of his colleagues, and of the majority of
the Canadian representatives, the inconsistency with
which, in the preamble of his " Resolutions," Mr.
JOHNSTON described the Executive power as at pre-
sent constituted to be one altogether uncontrolled,
having asserted almost simultaneously, in so many
words, that " a Governor might arrive who
would obstruct the party obtaining power,
holding opinions contrary to his own."
Well might the Provincial Secretary inquire
how two statements so diametrically opposed to each
other could by any possibility be reconciled. Well
did he, in the exordium of his very masterly oration,
cast ridicule upon this factious and contradictory
mode of forcing embarrassments at once upon the local
and the supreme Governments. Recognizing the strange
and perverse ignorance displayed,in this manner by Mr.
JOHNSTON, as to the structure of the British Colonial
Constitution, the Members of the House of Assembly
might reasonably ask themselves if a man like this—a
man as ill-informed as he is glaringly disingenuous
—could be reasonably entrusted with all the serious
and heavy responsibilities devolving upon the prin.
cipal leader of the Opposition. But the Provincial
Secretary had anything but done with this redoubt-
able assailant of himself and his Ministerial col-
leagues. A little further on, referring to .the miser-
ably erroneous and whining remonstrance incorporated
among the " Resolutions " against the notion that
" a Minister of the Crown may hold himself free to
disallow what a predecessor in the exercise of his
official functions had established," Mr. Howz could no
longer conceal his mingled sentiments of scorn and
indignation. His comments upon the paragraph are
altogether so felicitous that we must gratify ourselves
and our readers by transcribing a few sentences ver-
batim. He exclaims, therefore, in regard to this
particular— _ _

" What arrant want of all constitutional knowledge
the harried (I) leader of the Opposition displays, if he
really penned this passage in a spirit of querulous com-
plaint. Why, Sir, what are Ministers of the Crown for,
euder our admirable system, but to advance with the
spirit of the age, and to change, in accordance with that
spirit, what their predecessors had established? Are
riot Ministries changed, and Cabinets reconstructed, for
;his especial end? If what was once established could
never be changed—if extravagance could never be re-
trenched—or a man once in office removed, we should be
living under a despotism, and not under a constitutional
monarchy."
Upon the second recital, to the effect that "the
Lieutenant-Governor has been denuded of all power,"
Mr. Hewn observes that the accusation is wholly in-
exact ; and upon the continuation of that recital,
that "so long as the Lieutenant-Governor is to be
viewed as the head of the Provincial Administration,
he must either sink into insignificance or become the
instrument of Executive obstruction," he gainsays
the truth of the declaration that in any respect
whatever the Noble Lord in question can be re-
garded as the head of the Administration. " Lord
ELGIN," he observes, with a sententious and decisive
brevity, "is Governor of Canada, and Mr. LA-
FONTAINE is the leader of the Administration. As
to the amount and nature of the authority exercised
over the affairs of the Canadian Government by the
Noble Earl, her Britannic MAJESTY'S Principal Co-
lonial Secretary, the Honourable Canadian Adminis-
trator insists that that supreme power is not only
judiciously apportioned, but also, and in an especial
manner, judiciously exercised. " I admit," says he,
" that Lord GREY, havingfrankly yielded theprinciples
of Responsible Government, has left them here, as in
Canada, to their natural and appropriate development;
giving us good counsel when be thinks us wrong,
and husbanding his great powers for great occasions ;
he does not control our free action in questions purely
provincial, or irritate and obstruct by needless inter-
ference." The admirable and argumentative harangue
from which we have made the foregoing extracts
proved altogether as successful in its influence
upon the judgment of the House of Assembly,
as it was eminently successful as an oratori-
cal display : the Resolutions introduced by way
of amendment by Mr. Hewn being carried
by a majority of twenty-six over fourteen. Those
resolutions declared, among other things, the implicit
confidence reposed in the integrity and ability of the
Noble Lord the Governor of Canada, by the House
of Assembly of Nova Scotia, and the entire
satisfaction with which the same provincial Cham-
ber 'dewed the- character of the political, admi-
nistrative, and legislative institutions of the
province. From what has already been observed
by oursel►es, it will be seen that the speech of the
Hon. Provincial Secretary at Halifax, to which we
have here directed public attention, is one sufficiently
remarkable to deserve a very careful and serious ex-
amination.

The Ministers of the French Republic, MM. BA-
aocna and CARLIER, are bold men ; they have ven-
tured to do that which even CHARLES X. shrunk
from attempting in his most bigotted moments,—he
contented himself with establishing a censorship of
the press ; they have ventured to prohibit the sale of
every newspaper that is not opposed to the con-
tinuance of that Republic of which they are the
sworn servants. Taking advantage of a doubtful
decision of the Court of Cessation, which relates solely
to the sale of books by persons not booksellers, they
have at once jumped to the conclusion that this de-
cision will also apply to the sale of newspapers, and
accordingly have prohibited newsvenders from sell-
ing any but Royalist journals, and, to make assurance
doubly sure, they send police to all the shops to seize
any journal which is not Monarchical. There can
be no excuse made for this conduct on the ground of
the necessity of stopping a Socialist propaganda (not
that we admit for the moment the validity of such
an excuse) ; the laws are already sufficiently strin-
gent—they empower the Minister to seize and prose-
cute any journal which may contain an article offen-
sive to the powers that be; and the journal to which
this stringent measure was first applied, the Evene-
meet, has always been opposed to Socialism. It is
the property of M. VICTOR HUGO, whose name is a suffi-
cient guarantee that nothing subversive of society will
be found in its columns. It was the first journal that
advocated the claim of Louis NAPOLEON BONAPARTE,
to the Presidency of the Republic, and on every oc-
casion in which he has acted independently, as, for
example, on the occasion of his letter to M. EDGAR
NET, it has strenuously supported him, but, unfortu-
nately, M. LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE has of late
chosen to govern by and for the parti-pretre, and the
clerical party hate VICTOR lIUGO as theologians alone
can hate ; hence all former friendships and services
rendered by, him are as nothing. The PRESIDENT
has bound himself to do the behests of the parti-
pretrs: they demand the confiscation of the property
of M. VICTOR HUGO, and those who boast them-
selves the especial defenders of the rights
of property confiscate it accordingly. Since
this prohibition of the sale of the Evenement, a
similar prohibition has been extended against the sale
by newsvenders of the National, the Presse, the SiMe,
the Voix du Peuple, indeed of all, except the Alinis-
terial and Monarchical journals. Never were men
more mistaken in their lives than have been MM,
Banocni and CARLIER, if they imagined that by this
attack upon the liberty of the press they would
succeed in preventing the circulation of the prohi-
bited journals. On the first night that the sale of
the Esenement was prohibited the persons who could
procure the journal mounted on chairs and
read it aloud in the public streets, and already
a plan has been organized for ensuring the
presence of a number of each of the prohibited
journals in every wine shop, café, and place of public
resort in Paris, and for sending a number of each
regularly to every workshop. The only effect there-
fore of this blundering attempt to interfere with the
liberty of the press will be to turn the casual pur-
chasers of the various journals into constant sub-
scribers, and to increase their circulation enormously.
In the mean time it would be well that both the
PRESIDENT and his Ministers should remember that
they are responsible to the Republic for their acts