AFFAIRS OF CANADA.
WILLIAM IV. 1836—1837
Commissioners had been appointed to inquire into the ground of the complaints which for some years had been alleged by the prevailing party in the legislature of Canada, and by their friends and agents in the British parliament. Early in this session the report of these commissioners was laid before both houses, and on the 6th of March the subject was brought before the commons by Lord John Russell. His lordship declared at the outset that lie did not intend to cast any censure upon the conduct of the house of assembly in Lower Canada. He considered their course to be so much the same with that which other popular assemblies had followed in similar circumstances, that instead of an act of self-will, or caprice, or presumption, it seemed to be rather the obligation of a general law which affects all these disputes between a popular assembly on the one hand, and the executive government on the other. The course of these controversies, he said, seemed to impress this general lesson—that popular assemblies are hardly ever wrong in the beginning, and as seldom right in the conclusion of such struggles. They began with the assertion of right, and ended with the establishment of wrong. His lordship proceeded to state what were the demands of the leading party in the house of assembly. The first was, that the legislative council, which had hitherto been appointed by the crown, should for the future be an elective assembly. The second was, that the executive council should be responsible in the same way that the cabinet was in this country. By a third, it was exacted that the law of tenures should be changed, without respect to the rights obtained under a British act of parliament. Fourthly, it was demanded that the land company should be abolished, with a similar disregard of the rights required under the same act. Having stated the difficulties of the case, Lord John Russell proceeded to propose his remedies. It was now four years and a half, he said, since the judges had received their salaries, and it was high time for parliament to interfere on their behalf. He proposed to apply a certain portion of the revenue of Canada to such payments as in their rejected supply bill of 1833 the assembly had under certain conditions agreed to. The total amount of these would be £148,000, and in so applying them they would simply be applying the revenue of the colony for its own benefit. His lordship next proposed to adopt the recommendation of the commissioners which had been sent out in 1855, and exclude the judges from the legislative council; and to provide that in future the members of that body should not be chosen so exclusively from persons of the English race, but that alternately one of French and one of British extraction should be selected. With respect to the executive council, it was proposed that there should not be more than two or three official persons among its members, and that the rest should be selected by the legislative council, and from the house of assembly. The privileges of the North American Loan Company were to be preserved inviolate; a provision might easily be framed to prevent any abuse of them. As the complaints made against the Canada tenures act were in some degree well founded, it was proposed to repeal that act, care being taken that the lights of individuals vested under it should be respected. Complaints had been likewise made of the commercial relations between Upper and Lower Canada: the upper province, by the act of 1791, was allowed no communication with the sea, except on the payment of heavy duties; while the lower province put various impediments in the way of its commercial progress. It was proposed that, with the assent of the legislatures of the two provinces, a joint committee should sit at Montreal, composed of four members of the legislative council and eight of the representative assemblies of each, making twenty-four persons in all, who should have power to prepare laws and regulations upon all matters of reciprocal intercourse. These propositions were embodied in a series of ten resolutions, of the first of which, relating to the payment of the judges, &c., Lord John Russell then moved the adoption. These resolutions met with violent opposition on the part of the Radical section of the house of commons. Mr. Leader called the measure a coercion bill, and reminded the noble mover of the rule of unlimited concession in government which his lordship had a few nights before quoted from Mr. Fox, and desired him to apply it not merely to Ireland, but to Canada. He moved as an amendment on the fourth resolution, “That it is advisable to make the legislative council of Lower Canada an elective council.” Mr. Robinson said that the whole of Mr. Leader’s argument was founded on the modest assumption that the government, and commissioners, and legislative council had been wrong, and Mr. Papineau and the house of assembly as uniformly right in everything that had been done. Mr. O’Connell warmly advocated the cause of the Papineau party, whose sole object was, separation from this country. He called for “justice to Canada.” He remarked:—“Give them a legislative council elected by themselves; place them in possession of all the rights and privileges which as British subjects they could reasonably demand; and then if they persevered in their opposition to the home government, it would be time enough to think of adopting some such measures as were now proposed.” The Canadas, he urged, ought not to be governed with reference merely to British interests: Great Britain did not want Canadian revenues. Sir William Molesworth, Colonel Thompson, and Mr. Roebuck followed on the same side of the question. The speech of the latter was more violent than any of his party. Like all the orators on his side of the house, he dwelt much on the example of the American revolution, and on the sympathy and assistance the United States would give to the Canadians if they should resist. He asked, “What is the evil, and what is the remedy? You say, Great merit exists among the public servants. But do you propose to prevent the recurrence of that difficulty? Not at all. You pay the arrears. But who will pay the servants next year? Do you believe that the house of assembly will do so? You know as well as I do that the supplies will again be stopped; the same outcries will be raised, and then, I suppose we shall have another special commission, another delay of three years, another evasion of the difficulty, another breach of faith. Distrust will continue; exasperation will increase; their powers of resistance will increase also; one effort will be made, and you and your shuffling policy, your degraded government, your unworthy peculating and mischievous officials, will be dismissed with ignominy and hatred. I hear eternal talk of the evil consequences of stopping the supplies to those official servants, and hear nothing in reproof of the legislative council, who shut up last year all the primary schools in the country, and left 60,000 children without instruction. All your regards are turned the wrong way. You sought to make out a case of hardship to the servants of the people, but turned a deaf ear to the complaints of the people themselves. But I would ask his majesty’s ministers, Have they well weighed the policy of this measure, and do they know its inevitable result? If not, I will tell them. The direct effect on the minds of the Canadian population will be a determination as soon as possible to get rid of a dominion which entails on them results so mischievous and degrading. Every year will hereafter strengthen the feeling, and lasting enmity and discord will thus be entailed on the mother country and the colony—discord that will cease only when the colony shall become a great, powerful, and independent community. The immediate effects of this feeling will not be seen in open and violent revolt, but in a silent though effective warfare against your trade. Non-intercourse will become the religion of the people: they will refuse your manufactures, and they will smuggle from the States. The long line of frontier will render all your attempts to prevent this smuggling unavailing. The people will refuse your West India produce, and they will view with hatred your schools of unprotected emigrants. Impatiently will they wait for the moment in which they shall obtain their freedom, and become part of that happy, and, for our interests, already too powerful republic. A war will be waged through an unrestricted press upon your government and your people. In America you will be held up as the oppressors of mankind, and millions will daily pray for your signal and immediate defeat. The fatal moment will at length arrive; the standard of independence will be raised; thousands of Americans will cross the frontier, and the history of Texas will tell the tale of the Canadian revolt.”
In reply to Mr. Roebuck’s declamation, Sir G. Grey, the colonial under-secretary, appealed to all the papers on the table, to all the instructions which had been sent out to the local government, and to every act which had been done in pursuance of these institutions, and he asked if anything had been done of which a free and independent people had the slightest right to complain? Every grievance which had arisen out of former misgovernment had been redressed: and now the house of assembly took their stand on another ground, and declared that if the constitution were not altered they would stop the supplies. The cry was raised by the house of assembly in Lower Canada alone; the people of Upper Canada disclaimed any share in it. The debate was adjourned to another day, when it was opened by Mr. Hume, who, in a speech of three hours’ duration, impugned the whole conduct and policy of the government towards Canada. Finally, the three first resolutions being simply declaratory, were agreed to without division. The fourth, also, was carried on a division by a majority of three hundred and eighteen against fifty-six. This resolution was to the effect, “That in the existing state of Lower Canada, it is unadvisable to make the legislative council of that province an elective body; but that it is expedient that measures be adopted for securing to that branch of the legislature a greater degree of public confidence.”
After this decision ministers expressed a hope that the opponents of the resolutions would not throw any obstacle in the way of government. Delay, however, was the object of the Canadian party, apparently in the hope of giving time for a demonstration of popular feeling on the other side of the Atlantic. The committee was not resumed till the 14th of April, and then the fifth resolution came under consideration. This was to the effect, “That while it is expedient to improve the composition of the executive council in Lower Canada, it is unadvisable to subject it to the responsibility demanded by the house of assembly of that province.” On this occasion Mr. Roebuck again opposed government, and intimated that the loss of the colony would be the certain eventual consequence of their adoption. At the same time he disclaimed all interest in, or desire to accelerate this consummation. Mr. Roebuck broached a plan of his own for the settlement of the dispute. Since the house would not make the legislative council elective, he proposed to abolish it altogether. The only useful power at present exercised by the legislative council was that of proposing amendments on the bills passed by the house of assembly. This office he proposed to transfer to an executive council of twelve persons, to be named by the governor, who might amend any measure sent up from the assembly, but not to have the power of rejecting it; that would rest with the governor. The great object of this scheme was, he said, to concentrate responsibility, and to bring it to bear on known individuals; but it was plain that the effect of it would be to bring the executive in constant and direct collision with the popular branch of the legislature by doing away every intermediate power. The other principal feature of Mr. Roebuck’s scheme was, the establishment of a general assembly at Montreal, composed of delegates chosen by the houses of assembly of each of our North American colonies, and clothed with certain judicial and legislative powers. In its judicial capacity this assembly was to constitute the tribunal before which the judges of the various provinces might be impeached; and, moreover, might act as a court of appeal, and exercise the functions now performed by our privy-council. Its legislative offices would relate to all matters of dispute or communication between two or more provinces. Lord John Russell remarked, in reply, that whatever might be the merits of Mr. Roebuck’s propositions, he had no authority from the colony to make them, and therefore parliament could not think of making them the basis of pacification, As for the threat that the people of Lower Canada would, if their demands were rejected, throw themselves into the arms of their republican neighbours, his lordship contented himself with saying, that it would not be their interest to act thus; nor did he think that the United States would be anxious to seek a quarrel on this question. Mr. Robinson supported and Mr. Charles Buller opposed the resolution. Mr. Roebuck again spoke in reply, and complained that Lord John Russell was doing all in his power to insult and vilify the people of Canada. He doubted, if Sir Robert Peel was in power, that with his wary prudence and caution, he would carry out these resolutions. The right honourable baronet and his friends, he said, were silent on certain questions; they no doubt acted so that they might come into office with clean hands. Sir Robert Peel said that he did not desire to withhold his sentiments on this subject. In his speech, the right honourable baronet took the same view of the policy of the government that had been expressed by Lord Stanley. He observed, that if no other, interests but those of the French Canadians were involved in the question, and if the continuation of British connexion were unpalatable to them, he would say, “God forbid that we should force it upon them.” In that case he should think it more for our interest than theirs that the connexion should be dissolved. But he-doubted, if he were to make the people of Lower Canada an offer of establishing their own government, that they would be disposed to accept it. At any rate the question could only be considered in reference to the French Canadians: there was a British population in the province, which had a right to look up to this country for a continuance of the connexion and protection on the faith of which they had established themselves in it. On a division the resolution was carried by a majority of two hundred and sixty-nine against forty-six.
On the 21st of April Mr. Leader moved the postponement of the further consideration of the resolutions, in order to give time to the Canadian people to state whether or not they agreed to Mr. Roebuck’s scheme for the settlement of the existing differences between the province and the mother country. This motion was negatived by a large majority; and the house then went into committee on the sixth resolution, which declared the necessity of maintaining inviolate the privileges conferred by an act of parliament on the North American Loan Company. Mr. Roebuck moved as an amendment, deferring all resolutions on the subject of the land company “until an inquiry shall have been instituted into the circumstances under which the land held by that company had been obtained.” The company found supporters in Lord Stanley, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Robinson; and even Mr. Grote, and others of the radical section, declined voting for the amendment. On a division the resolution was carried by one hundred and sixty-six against six; and this closed the discussion on this subject in the house of commons. On the 1st of May the resolutions were communicated to the house of lords in a conference.
The subject was brought before the house of lords by Lord Glenelg on the 9th of May, in a speech of considerable length, but which contained the same arguments which had been so frequently urged in favour of the resolutions in the house of commons. The resolutions were supported by Lord Ripon, although he objected to the wording of the fourth resolution, in which it was declared that “in the existing state” of Lower Canada, it was not advisable to introduce the elective principle into the formation of the legislative council. The inference from this mode of expression was, that a state of things might arise when it would be considered advisable to do so; but he could not acquiesce in the principle under any circumstances. The only opposition to the resolutions came from Lord Brougham, who objected to them entirely, as well to the principles as to the policy of them. His lordship chiefly dwelt upon the violation of the Canadian constitution by the advance of moneys, without the consent of the house of assembly. Under the eighth resolution it was intended to replace the £30,000 advanced out of the military chest, to provide the means of defraying colonial expenses. Lord Aberdeen remarked that Lord Brougham, who seemed so shocked at the idea of interfering with the rights of the assembly, had himself been a member of that government which made this advance; and the house of assembly had designated it as a monstrous, and unconstitutional interference, and had prayed that an impeachment might be instituted against the noble and learned lord, and his late colleagues, for committing it. The resolutions were agreed to without a division, Lord Brougham alone saying, “Not content.”