The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-08-09 00:00:00

Lord Stant

Howard on such a subject, from his acquaintance with the

country and it

habitants, are peculiarly valuable, and as

the provisions of the bill are of

great importance to a consi-

derable number of our readers, we are

glad to be

present them with a full report of

Howard's address

which made a deep impression on the house, and was warmly

applauded by Lord Stanley. Our honourable member proves
himself on every occasion a well-qualified representative of a
commercial constituency ; and by his attention to every
measure which affects the mercantile interests of the coun-
try, or of this borough, has shewn that he is not only of the
service to the government, but the best member

greatest

that Liverpool could have chosen. The following is Sir

Howard's speech

I should not like to give a silent vote upon this subject ; a
subject involving question,, of the greatest importance in
principle, in practice, and iii tendency.
Immature seizures upon liberty, by untimely applications
of constitutional theories ill adapted to the peculiar condi-
tion and actual wants of the communities to which they are

to be applied, invariably occasion disorders and reactions
hurtful to freedom and pernicious to the people for whose
benefit those theories were designed, and who are thus made
the subjects of such rash and ill-advised experiments.
It is not my intention to notice at all any religious dissen-
tions, or to advert to any divisions with respect to religious
persuasions which may or may not have appeared in recent
disorders in Newfoundland; bat taking the population as a
whole, I will say that there never was a case in which the
truth of the position to which I have adverted is so apparent
as in that which we are now considering. It is clear, from
what has been laid upon the table of this house, from all
that we know here, from what has been stated by the
honourable member for Droitwich, and by the honourable
member for I?iskeard, that it was a great mistake to confer
upon this colony, in 1832, that constitution which we are
now called upon, either to modify or take away. Freedom
to be well enjoyed,stiould never be seized upon immaturely.
The way to profit by 'conjunctures favourable to the advance-
ment and diffusion of freedom is not to attempt all that a
perfect or highly-advanced theory teaches and admits of,
with respect to a people more or less accustomed to the en-
joyment and workings of free institutions. The practical
statesman should let himielf down to an exact and deliberate
consideration of the actual, the backward, imperfect, or
perhaps primitive state of society. to ascertain whether the
people in the community in question be in a state to receive,
with advantage and safety to themselves, the prof

d sys-

tem ; and if riot, to adopt the necessary measures to prepare
them gradually to discharge the difficult and important
duties which free institutions impose upon all classes of the
people; and then, and not till then, to confer those institu-
tions upon them.

Now.l think this has not been observed with respect to
Newfoundland. I know something of that island. Ifirst
became acquainted with it in almost all its parts inhabited,
as well as in some parts uninhabited, I having been ship-
wrecked upon its shores, and mercifully preserved with the
other survivors of a terrible calamity, in which one-third of
the officers, soldiers, crew, and all the women and children
perished, and here I feel it impossible not to express the
strongest possible feelings of gratitude towards a kind-
hearted, hospitable, and generous people, for their uncom-
mon kindness and even tenderness to us, and among whom
there numbered a very large portion of the countrymen of
the right hon. the member for Cork. When I returned
some years afterwards to British North America, 1 found
Newfoundland at my command; and in that situation, and
in the government afterwards of one of the continental pro-
vinces of British North America, I was enabled to bring up
my information with respect to Newfoundland to the peril:o
at which this constitution for them was discussed and framed,
and to express my apprehension and conviction that it would
lead to trouble and disorder. Why, sir, at that time the
population of Newfoundland, always migratory and uncer-
tain, could not have been 60,000—1 doubt whether it was
above 50,000--dispersed on part of a coast of an island near
400 miles long and 300 broad. The honourable member for
Montrose states that the population at present is near
100,000. The last official returns state it to be 75,000. In
1832 there could not have been any schools, excepting, per-
haps in St. John's and some other towns. There are at
present only 16 schools, and not, I think, above 3,000 scho
lars of both sexes. I do not say that at that time nothing
was required for the organization, improvement, and better
government of Newfoundland ; but I think that that some-
thing ought not to have been the constitution then prema-
turely conferred upon it. A resident governor, with respon-
sible executive council, the settlement and improvement of
the country, an improved organization and administration of
justice, and public education, was all that was required at
that time, and I should have thought for some time to come.
However, the constitution was given—it has occasioned the
disorders, the accounts of which we have before us. It is
quite impossible that things can go on as they are ; and a
case is made out which calls upon us either to take that con-
stitution away or to modify it. This case presents a choice
of evils. Of these I take what I deem to be the lesser evil,
that of modification, and shall accordingly support as a whole
the bill proposed by my noble friend the secretary of state
for the colonies.

First, with respect to that part of the remedial measure
which consists in raising the qualification, I entirely approve
of that. I think something like this should have been done
at first. If lam told that in 1832 the state of Newfoundland
was such that no sufficient qualification could be had without
acting almost exclusively, I should say that that was a sig❑
most distinctly denoting that that community had not ar-
rived at a state to receive and to work a representative sys-
tem. And even where communities appear to be sufficiently
advanced to receive such a system the qualifications for re-
presentatives as well as voters should be comparatively high,
that the representation may be select, and the constituency
by limitation respectable and intelligent. Then as society
improves the qualifications may, if necessary, be reduced to

open the representation and extend the constituency, but
here too we are forced back, raising the constituency instead
of reducing it, and all these are the necessary reactions of a
rash and untimely experiment.
I now come to that part of the bill which I own I approach
with great dread, and upon which I entertain great scruples
and doubts : I mean the abolition of the council as a sepa-
rate branch of the legislature, and combining together in one
chamber the elementary principles of nomination and elec-
tion ; and I only vote for this as a case of extreme necessity,
a temporary expedient to avoid the greater evil, that of abro-
gating the constitution altogether. But, in so voting, I pro-
test against the dangerous and unconstitutional innovation
which this makes in principle upon the British and British
colonial constitution; so that, whilst supporting my noble
friend the Secretary of State for the colonies in this mea-
sure with the strong objections which 1 feel to it in principle,
I may learn from him distinctly that he admits these objec-
tions in principle, that this is to be a temporary measure,
and that whenever the state of society in Newfoundland ad-
mits of enlarging the constitution by resolving to the ele-
mentary principles of nomination by the crown, and election
by the people, into their distinct and appropriate estates and
chambers, that this will be done. But now I must refer to
this measure, which, as a principle, was, it appears, designed
to be applied originally to Newfoundland in 1832. Sir, I
protest most strongly against the principle of applying the
British constitution in mutilated form to any British com-
munity. If a colonial community be in such a state as not
to furnish materials sufficient for the machinery of a repre-
sentative system in all its branches, according to the form
and principles of the British constitution, this too is a sign
that that community has not arrived at a state such as to
supply the machinery requisite for the working and success
of the representative system, and therefore that the commu-
nity should be kept in that less perfect form of government
which consists of a governor and executive council. Ad-
verting, then, to the reasons assigned by the noble lord the
Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1832, for having, on
the grounds of this insufficiency, designed to apply a consti-
tution to Newfoundland in this mutilated form, had he not
then been restrained by the then existing royal instructions,
I beg leave, with the greatest respect to that noble lord,
to express my entire dissent from that reasoning, and
from the deductions drawn therefrom. I protest, too,
, against the peculiar constitution of British Guiana being
drawn into a precedent for imitation with respect to Bri-
tish colonial communities. That constitution is foreign.
It was established there before that colony became a British
possession. It may be well to leave that colony for a time
under the peculiar form of government which it formerly
possessed, and to which the people are habituated ; but I
must protest against that form of government being applied
in any degree to British Colonial communities. So, with
respect to Australia. I object strongly to the establishment
of a representative system in one branch ; and hope here,
too, that the constitution will, as soon as possible, be ampli-
fied. The two elementary principles—aristocratic and demo-
cratic, compounded together in one chamber cannot long sub-
sist together : one or other must prevail, and that one must
be the democratic principle. As with respect to the House
of Peers here, so with respect to the colonies • the councils
as separate branches of the legislature are the foundations
of the monarchical principle. These cannot be abolished
without endangering the monarchical form of government, or
monarchical principle. The separate action of the other two
elementary principles in their separate estates, their jealousies
of each other, their attachments to their privileges, the
resistance of each to the encroachments of the other, are
indispensibly necessary to maintain the balances of the
British constitution, and thereby enable the crown to coun-
terpoise the democratic principle. I doubt very much whe-
ther—having amalgamated these principles. having abolished

. . _
or withheld —a
council as a branch of any legislative hotly,
when it is found necessary in process of time to resolve these
two principles into different branches—clamours will not
then be raised to make the councils elective. In every case
the object should be to raise an imperfect, backward state of
society to such a comparatively perfect state as to admit of
the application of the British constitution in its triple estate
perfect in its form and branches, and not to lower and muti-
late it, to adapt it to an imperfect, unsuitable, and almost
primitive state of society, by depriving that constitution of
its essential form, feature, and mechanism ; taking out, in
short, one of its principal wheels.
Sir, there has been too much tampering already with the
colonial councils; as separate branches of the colonial legis-
latures they have been too much deprived of the aristocratic
principles , • too much of the democratic principle infused
into them. The monarchical principle has thereby come
into defect, the crown thereby deprived of much of its ne-
cessary intinence. I am prepared to show with respect to
the history of Massachusets and other parts of the old pro-
vinces, that it was by such subversions of the monarchical
principle and of the councils, and by their becoming elective,
that the power of the crown was ultimately overpowered in
the legislative bodies, where both branches being elective
combined against the other. Sir, I think that the colonial
councils as branches of the colonial legislature require to be
supported, to be invigorated and encouraged, ix a due and
suitable manner, considering the great run that has been
made and is making against them. Observe the collisions
that are taking place in Prince Edward's Island between the
Council and the Assembly. Collisions, as the House of
Assembly state are so serious, that there is no prospect of
agreement; and, therefore, they demand a change in the
council, or no co
constitution. I have no doubt that they may, under the
reformed in 1839
in-
fluences.be induced to p
of these examples,
mem-
bers, six of
der the crown.
and of these onl
was a great mista;kep
the influence of Ythe
into a separate
now is only 47,000 pray for an elective
uncil at all, for the legislative council was
and with respect to the
almost universal suffr;aia
of the value of t 35 only !
rhervoiwotnis, to thatit consisted of nine
thesemem-
Nboeing functionaries holding situations un-
der
would advise my noble f •
the council consists of 12 members,
threee are functionaries, and so far under
yet these troubles continue. It
provincialre too to erect Prince Edward's Island
for the Colonies, to annex Prinrcieutu
Brunswick, and I will venture to a"
lensdatiorticfibelilmr:nt. The population
must then have been very trifling,
that of the voter is
If the representative property
these squabbles continue, I
Edward's Island to New
interest, but the subjects of
the Secretary of State
bnl ea
ctchoeurnet, though
pe
rso
ntahle
dispute would be speedily settled,
ombojercetiotrnollo
I
Sir, I have advisedly spoken all this, to
mayigtil:tathere will be no
be of course some
. guard myself
ingiving this
against any supposition
gotten the lessons which experience and some study
tau
for-
me, when conducting colonial governments ; with thesaeught
planations I shall vote for the bill of the noble lord. ex-

More-than a hundred emigrants left London, on Monday, for
Nelson, the new settlement of the New Zealand Company, in New
Zealand.