our ancestors and of our brethren; let us "keep the old paths," in which, while there is much facility, there is no danger. My Lord, there is an argument used against the introduction of Executive responsibility, by Sir Francis Head, which it may be well to notice, because it has been caught up by shallow thinkers everywhere, and is often urged with an air of triumph, that, to those who look beyond the surface, is somewhat ridiculous. It is said, that if this principle had been in operation, Papineau and Mackenzie would have ministers in the respective Provinces they disturbed! But, do those who urge this objection ever stay to inquire whether, if there had been responsibility in the Canadas, either of these men could have assumed so much consequence as to be able to obstruct the operations of Government and to create a rebellion in a British Province? Nothing made a dictator tolerable in ancient Rome but a sense of common danger arising out of some unusual and disastrous posture of affairs, which rendered it necessary to confide to an individual extraordinary powers-to raise one man far above all others of his own rank-to substitute his will for the ordinary routine of administration, and to make the words of his mouth the laws of the land. When the danger passed away, the dictator passed away with it. Power, no longer combined in one mighty stream, the eccentric violence of which, though useful might be destructive, was distributed over the surface of society, and flowed again through a thousand small but well-established channels, everywhere stimulating and refreshing, but nowhere exciting alarm. In political warfare, this practice of the ancients has been followed by the moderns with good success. O'Connell in Ireland, and Papineau and Mackenzie in Canada grew into importance, from the apparent necessity which existed for large masses of men to bestow upon individuals unlimited confidence, and invest them with extraordinary powers. I wish that the two latter, instead of provoking the maddest rebellions on record, had possessed the sound sense and consummate prudence which have marked every important step in the former's extraordinary career. But, who believe that, if Ireland had had "justice" instead of having it to seek, that ever such a political phenomenon as the great agitator would have appeared to challenge our admiration and smite the oppressors with dismay? And who dreams that, but for the wretched system upheld in all the Colonies, and the entire absence of responsibility, by which faction or intrigue were made the only roads to power, either of the Canadian demagogues would ever have had an inducement, or been placed in a position to disturb the public peace? I grant that even under the forms that I recommend, such men as Papineau and Mackenzie might have existed; that they might have become conspicuous and influential; and that it is by no means improbable that they would have been Executive Councillors of their respective Provinces, advising the Governors and presiding over the administration of their internal affairs. But suppose they had; would not even this have been better than two rebellions-the scenes at Windsor, St. Charles and St. Eustache-the frontier atrocities and the expenditure of three million sterling, which will be the cost before the accounts are closed? Does any man in his senses believe, if Mackenzie or Bidwell could have guided the internal policy and dispensed the local patronage according to the British mode, that either of them would have been so mad as to dream of turning Upper Canada into a Republic; when, even if they succeeded, they could only hope to be Governors for a few years, with powers very much more restricted and salaries not more ample than were theirs for life or as long as they preserved their majority? Possessed of honours and substantial power, (not made to feel that they who could most effectually serve the Crown, were excluded by a false system from its favour, that others less richly endowed might rise upon their ruins), would these men have madly rushed into rebellion with the chances before them of expatriation or of an ignominious death? You well know, my Lord, that rebels have become exceedingly scarce at home, since the system of letting the majority govern has become firmly established; and yet they were as plentiful as blackberries in the good old t times, when the sovereigns contended, as Sir Francis Head did lately, that they only were responsible. Turn back and you will find that they began to disappear altogether in England about 1688, and that every political change that makes the Executive more completely responsible to the Legis lature and the Legislature to the country at large, renders the prospects of a new growth, "small by degrees and beautifully less." And yet, my Lord, who can assure us, that if the sovereigns had continued, as of old, alone 3 responsible; if hundreds of able men all running the same course of honourable ambition, had not been encouraged to watch and control each other; and if the system of governing by the minority and not by the majority, and of excluding from power all who did not admire the mode, and quarrelled with the court, had existed down to the present day;-who, I ask, will assure us, that Chatham and Fox, instead of being able ministers and loyal men, might not have been sturdy rebels? Who can say that even your Lordship, possessed of the strong attachment to liberty which distinguishes your family, might not,-despairing of all good government under such a system,-instead of using your influence to extend by peaceful improvements the happiness of the people,-be at this moment in the field at their head and struggling, sword in hand, to abate the power of the Crown? So long as the irresponsibility principle was maintained in Scotland, and the viceroys and a few bishops and courtiers engrossed the administration, there were such men as Hume and Lindsay, and such things as assemblies in Glasgow, general tables in Edinburgh, and armed men in every part of that noble country, weakening the Government, and, resisting the power of the Crown; and up to the period when Lord Normanby, assumed the government of Ireland and it became a principle of administration that the minority were no longer to control the majority and shut them out from all the walks of honourable ambition, what was the attitude in which Mr. O'Connell stood towards the Sovereign? Was it not one of continual menace and hostility, by which the latter was degraded and the former clothed with a dangerous importance? And what is his attitude now? Is it not that of a warm-hearted supporter of the Queen, whose smiles are no longer confined to a faction but shed over a nation, every man of which feels that he is free to obtain, if he has the ability and the good fortune to deserve, the highest honours in her power to bestow? Daniel O'Connell (and perhaps it may be said that his tail suggested a comparison) is no longer a political comet blazing towards the zenith and filling the terror-stricken beholders with apprehensions of danger and a sense of coming change; but a brilliant planet revolving in an orbit with the extent of which all are familiar, and reflecting back to the source of light and honour the beams which it is proud to share. Who any longer believes that O'Connell is to shake the empire and overturn the throne? And who doubts, had he despaired of justice, but he too might have been a rebel; and that the continued application to Ireland of the principles I denounce, would have revived the scenes and sufferings through which she passed in 1798? If, my Lord, in every one of the three great kingdoms from which the population of British America derive their origin, the evils of which we complain were experienced and continued until the principles we claim as our birthright became firmly established, is it to be expected that we shall not endeavour to rid ourselves, by respectful argument and remonstrance, of what cost you open and violent resistance to put down? Can an Englishman, an Irishman or a Scotchman, be made to believe, by passing a month upon the sea, that the most stirring periods of his history are but a cheat and a delusion; that the scenes which he has been accustomed to tread with deep emotions are but mementoes of the folly, and not, as he once fondly believed, of the wisdom and courage of his ancestors; that the principles of civil liberty, which from childhood he has been taught to cherish and to protect by forms of stringent responsibility, must, with the new light breaking in upon him on this side of the Atlantic, be cast aside as useless incumbrance? No, my Lord, it is madness to suppose that these men, so remarkable for carrying their national characteristics into every part of the world where they penetrate, shall lose the most honourable of them all, merely by passing from one part of the empire to another. Nor is it to be supposed that the Nova Scotians, New Brunswickers and Canadians -a race sprung from the generous admixture of the blood of the three foremost nations of the world-proud of their parentage and not unworthy of it, to whom every stirring period of British and Irish history, every great principle which they teach, every phrase of freedom to be gleaned from them, are as familiar as household words, can be in haste to forget what they learnt upon their parents' knees; what those they loved and honoured clung to with so much pride, and regarded as beyond all price. Those who expect them thus to belie their origin, or to disgrace it, may as soon hope to see the streams turn back upon their fountains. My Lord, my countrymen feel, as they have a right to feel, that the Atlantic, the great highway of communication with their brethren at home, should be no barrier to shut out the civil privileges and political rights, which more than anything else, make them proud of the connection; and they feel also, that there is nothing in their present position or their past conduct to warrant such exclusion. Whatever impression may have been made by the wholesome satire1 wherewith one of my countrymen has endeavoured to excite the others to still greater exertions; those who fancy that Nova Scotians are an inferior race to those who dwell upon the ancient homestead or that they will be contended with a less degree of freedom, know little of them. A country that a century ago was but a wilderness and is now studded with towns and villages, and intersected with roads, even though more might have been done under a better system, affords some evidence of industry. Nova Scotian ships, bearing the British flag into every quarter of the globe, are some proofs of enterprise; and the success of the native author, to whom I have alluded, in the wide field of intellectual competition, more than contradicts the humorous exaggeration by which, while we are stimulated to higher efforts, others may be for a moment misled. If then our right to inherit the Constitution be clear; it our capacity to maintain and enjoy it cannot be questioned; have we done anything to justify the alienation of our birthright? Many of the original settlers of this Province emigrated from the old Colonies when they were in a state of rebellion-not because they did not love freedom, but because they loved it under the old banner and the old forms; and many of their descendants have shed their blood, on land and sea, to defend the honour of the crown and the integrity of the empire. On some of the hardest fought fields of the Peninsula, my countrymen died in the front rank, with their faces to the foe. The proudest naval trophy of the last American war was brought by a Nova Scotian into the harbour of his native town; and the blood that flowed from Nelson's death wound in the cockpit of the Victory mingled with that of a Nova Scotian stripling beside him struck down in the same glorious fight. Am I not then justified, my Lord, in claiming for my countrymen that Constitution, which can be withheld from them by no plea but one unworthy of a British statesman-the tyrant's plea of power? I know that I am; and I feel also, that this is not the race that can be hoodwinked with sophistry, or made to submit to injustice without complaint. All suspicion of disloyalty we cast aside, as the product of ignorance or cupidity; we seek for nothing more than British subjects are entitled to; but we will be contended with nothing less. My Lord, it has been said, that if this system of responsibility were established, it would lead to a constant struggle for office and influence, which would be injurious to the habits of our population and corrupt the integrity of the public men. That it would lead to the former I admit; but that the latter would be a consequence I must take leave to deny, until it can be shown, that in any of the other employments of life, fair com 1 Chief Justice Haliburton's Sam Slick. (See Professor Pelham Edgar's article on Canadian Literature in The Cambridge History of English Literature.) 2 The American frigate Chesapeake, captured off Boston by the Shannon, was brought into Halifax on 6 June, 1813, by Lieutenant, afterwards Admiral Sir Provo Wallis, a native of Nova Scotia. Midshipman G. A. Westphal. petition has that effect. Let the bar become the bar only of the minority, and how long would there be honour and safety in the profession? Let the rich prizes to be won in commerce and finance be confined to a mere fragment, instead of being open to the whole population; and I doubt whether the same benefits, the same integrity, or the same satisfaction would grace the monopoly, that now spring from an open, fair and manly competition, by which, while individuals prosper, wealth and prosperity are gathered to the State. To be satisfied that this fair competition can with safety, and the greatest advantage be carried into public as well as into private affairs, it is only necessary to contrast the example of England with that of any Continental nation where the opposite system has been pursued. And if, in England, the struggle for influence and office has curbed corruption and produced examples of consistency and an adherence to principle extremely rare in other countries, and in none more so than in the Colonies, where the course pursued strikes at the very root of manly independence, why should we apprehend danger from its introduction or shrink from the peaceful rivalry it may occasion? But, my Lord, there is another view that ought to be taken of this question. Ought not British statesmen to ask themselves, is it wise to leave a million and a half of people, virtually excluded from all participation in the honourable prizes of public life? There is not a weaver's apprentice or a parish orphan in England, that does not feel that he may, if he has the talent, rise through every grade of office, municipal and national, to hold the reins of govern ment and influence the destinies of a mighty empire. The Queen may be hostile, the Lords may chafe, but neither can prevent that weaver's apprentive or that parish orphan from becoming Prime Minister of England. Then look at the United States, in which the son of a mechanic in the smallest town, of a squatter in the wildest forest, may contend, on equal terms, with the proudest, for any office in twenty-eight different States; and having won as many as contents him, may rise, through the national grades, to be President of the Union. There are no family compacts to exclude these aspirants; no little knot of irresponsible and self-elected councillors, to whom it is necessary to sell their principles, and before whom the manliness of their nature must be prostrated, before they can advance. But, in the Colonies, where there are no prizes so splendid as these, is it wise or just to narrow the field and confine to little cliques of irresponsible politicians, what prizes there are? No, my Lord, it is neither just nor wise. Every poor boy in Nova Scotia (for we have the feelings of pride and ambition common to our nature) knows that he has the same right to the honours and emoluments of office as he would have if he lived in Britain or the United States; and he feels, that while the great honours of the empire are almost beyond his reach, he ought to have a chance of dispensing the patronage and guiding the administration of his native country without any sacrifice of principle or diminution of self-respect. My Lord, I have done. If what has been written corrects any error into which your Lordship or others may have fallen, and communicates to some, either in Britain or the Colonies, information upon a subject not generally understood, I shall be amply repaid. Your Lordship will perhaps pardon me for reminding you, that, in thus eschewing the anonymous and putting my name to an argument in favour of Executive responsibility for the North American colonies, I am acting under a sense of deep responsibility myself. I well know that there is not a press in the pay of any of the family compacts, that will not misrepresent my motives and pervert my language; that there is not an over-paid and irresponsible official, from Fundy to the Ottawa, whose inextinguishable hostility, I shall not have earned for the remainder of my life. The example of your Lordship will, however, help me to bear these burdens with patience. You have lived and prospered, and done the State good service, and yet thousands of corrupt boroughmongers and irresponsible corporators formerly misrepresented and hated you. Should I live to see the principles for which I contend, operating as beneficially over British North America, as those immortal acts, which provoked your Lordship's enemies, do in the mother country, I shall GG be gratified by the reflection, that the patriotic and honourable men now contending for the principles of the British Constitution, and by whose side, as an humble auxiliary, I am proud to take my stand, whatever they may have suffered in the struggle, did not labour in vain.-I have the honour to be, with the highest respect, your Lordship's humble admirer, and most obedient servant, JOSEPH HOWE. 31 Geo. III, cap. 31. The Special Council to consist of not less than twenty members, and no business to be transacted unless eleven be present. Repeal of pro- CXLI AN ACT TO AMEND AN ACT OF THE LAST SESSION OF (2 & 3 Victoria, c. 53.) 17th August, 1839. Whereas, an Act was passed in the thirty-first year of the reign of his Majesty, King George the Third, intituled "An Act to repeal certain parts of an Act passed in the fourteenth year of his Majesty's reign, intituled ‘An Act for making more effectual provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America,' and to make further provision for the Government of the said Province," whereby among other things it was enacted that there should be within each of the Provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada respectively a Legislative Council and an Assembly, to be constituted in manner therein described, and with such powers and authorities as therein mentioned: And whereas an Act was passed in the last session of Parliament, intituled "An Act to make temporary Provision for the Government of Lower Canada," whereby it was enacted that from the proclamation of the Act until the first day of November one thousand eight hundred and forty so much of the said Act of the thirty-first year of the reign of his Majesty, King George the Third, and of any other Act or Acts of Parliament, as provides for the Constitution or calling of a Legislative Council or Assembly for the Province of Lower Canada, or confers any powers or functions upon them or either of them should cease; and by the said Act now in recital provision is made in the meantime for the appointment by his Majesty of a Special Council for the affairs of Lower Canada, and for the making of laws or ordinances for the Government of the said Province by the Governor thereof, with the advice and consent of the majority of the Councillors present at any meeting of the Council: And whereas it is expedient that some of the provisions contained in the said lastly-recited Act should be altered: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that the number of Councillors forming the Special Council in manner provided by the said Act passed in the last session of Parliament shall not be less than twenty, and that no business shall be transacted at any meeting of the said Special Council àt which there are not present at least eleven Councillors. II. And be it enacted that from and immediately after the passing of this Act so much of the said recited Act passed in the last Session of Parliament as provides that no law or ordinance made by the Governor of the said Province of Lower Canada, with such advice and consent as therein mentioned, shall continue in force beyond the first day of November, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, unless continued by competent authority, shall be and the same is hereby repealed: Provided always that laid for thirty every law or ordinance which by the terms and provisions thereof shall be venting the making of permanent laws; but all permanent laws to be days before Parliament previous to beconfirmed. made to continue in force after the said first day of November, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, shall be laid before both Houses of This Act was passed after the Act of Union was withdrawn in 1839 (see No. CXLII, note), pending Poulett Thomson's report on Canadian affairs. |