property, should be respected, or not disturbed without full compensation. Now, this Bill provides that existing interests shall be respected, and it does so at the special request of the Canadian Legislature. What more can be required? The principle of property does not require that the unformed expectations and non-existing rights of uncreated persons should be respected. On the contrary, our law abhors perpetuities, as opposed to the nature of things. It forbids a man to entail his estate beyond a very limited extent; it seizes a portion of certain kinds of property as they pass from generation to generation. For precisely the same reason that a man ought not to have power to entail his estate for ever, the State ought not to entail any portion of the public estate in perpetuity. Therefore, provided that existing interests be respected, the State is not bound to respect an endowment by any obligation arising out of the principle of property, but only on the grounds of the public utility of the endowment or of the inexpediency of disturbing it. Therefore, if this Bill passes, the Canadian Legislature may secularise the clergy reserves without violating any principle of property, provided that it respects existing interests. It should be remembered that, if this Bill passes, the Canadian Legislature will only acquire the same power over Protestant endowments that it now has over Roman Catholic ones. How the Canadian Legislature would act, I cannot pretend to say, nor will I attempt to determine. I will only express my strong opinion that the longer you delay giving to the Canadian Legislature power to deal with this exclusively local question, the more

certain you may be of the ultimate disendowment of the Church of England in Canada.

The right hon. baronet seemed to think that the secularising of the clergy reserves would be very injurious to the Church of England in Canada. I disagree with him. I should be sorry to support a measure, which, in my judgment, would be injurious to the Church of England, because individually I prefer the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England, to those of any other religious denomination. But there is so strong a feeling throughout North America against religious endowments by the State, and in favour of the voluntary system, that the fact of the Church of England being endowed, tends to make it an object of suspicion and jealousy, and to do it perhaps more harm than it derives good from its share of the clergy reserves.

I will only refer to one other argument which has been urged against this Bill by the right hon. baronet. That argument was, that the friendly feelings which had sprung up since the re-union of the Canadas between the British and French population would be liable to be disturbed; and there would be danger of the revival of animosity and discontent among the inhabitants of Upper Canada, if they were now to be deprived of the fund for the support of religious worship which they had so long derived from the proceeds of the clergy reserves. To this I answer, that all experience shows that there is no surer mode of engendering animosity within a colony-no more certain way of begetting hatred of a mother country-no speedier process for inspiring colonists with disaffection and disloyalty, than for the Imperial State to league

itself with the minority of the inhabitants of a colony to defeat the wishes of a majority with regard to a strictly local question. Now, if you reject this Bill, you will league yourselves with the minority of the inhabitants of Canada-with the minority of the Protestant portion of the population of Canada-with the minority of the Upper Canada section of that Province, in order to defeat the wishes of three different majorities.

I have now examined, and endeavoured to reply to, the chief arguments which have been urged against this Bill by the right hon. baronet, the member for Droitwich. I will therefore conclude with repeating, that the real question, stripped of all matters foreign to it, which the House has now to decide, is-will you adopt as the rule of your colonial polity that all questions affecting exclusively the local interests of a colony which possesses representative institutions shall be decided by the local legislature? That rule should, in my opinion, be the axiom from which your whole system of colonial government should be deduced. The strict adherence to it would more than anything else strengthen and render permanent your vast colonial empire. I therefore entreat you now to apply it to the greatest of your dependencies by assenting to the second reading of this Bill.

[The members of the Committee, in addition to Sir W. Molesworth, were Lord John Russell, Sir G. Grey, Mr. Leader, Mr. Ward, Mr. Hawes, Mr. Ord, Lord Howick, Sir T. Fremantle, Mr. F. Baring, Sir R. Peel, Mr. C. Buller, Lord Ebrington, Sir C. Lemon, and Mr. French. The Committee held seven meetings and examined fourteen witnesses. The Report was accompanied by Appendices on:

A. Measures taken for the Advancement of Religion in Australia.

B. Papers respecting Immigration into New South Wales. C. Treatment of Convicts.

D. Discontinuance of System of Assignment of Convicts.

E. State of the Penal Settlements of Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay.

F. Report on Macquarie Harbour.

G. Sale of Waste Lands in the vicinity of Port Philip (sic). H. Civil and Military Expenditure of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.

I. Miscellaneous.

Although it appears from the note on p. 304 that Molesworth did not agree with the recommendation to establish penitentiaries abroad, the Report was adopted unanimously, it evidently being the subject of compromise between members, who were not altogether of one mind on the question.]

APPENDIX.

REPORT OF SELECT COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION, 1838.

The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the system of transportation, its efficacy as a punishment, its influence on the moral state of society in the penal colonies, and how far it is susceptible of improvement; and who were empowered to report their observations, together with the minutes of evidence taken before them, to the House; have examined the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following report:

In order to comply with the instructions of the House, your Committee have instituted a laborious inquiry into the system of transportation. That inquiry occupied the greater part of the last, and some portion of the present session, during which period there have been examined no less than twentythree persons, nearly the whole of whom have had personal, and many of them official, experience of the system of transportation; not to mention a great mass of information acquired from official documents, furnished by the Colonial Department.

For the sake of brevity and clearness, the result of the labours of your Committee may be arranged under the following heads: first, as to the history, nature, and amount of the punishment of transportation; second, as to the apprehension produced by the threat of transportation, and its tendency to prevent crime in this country; third, as to the effects of transportation on the character of those who have undergone that punishment; fourth, as to its influence on the moral state of society in the penal colonies; fifth, as to its economical effects on those communities, and to what extent their pecuniary interests would be affected by its continuance or discontinuance; sixth, as to the cost of the system of transportation; and last, as to whether