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concession of equality in the Upper Chamber, we are restrained from forcing through measures which our friends of Lower Canada may consider injurious to their interests, we shall, at any rate, have power, which we never had before, to prevent them from forcing through whatever we may deem unjust to us. I think the compromise a fair one, and am persuaded that it will work easily and satisfactorily. But it has been said that the members of the Upper House ought not to be appointed by the Crown, but should continue to be elected by the people at large. On that question my views have been often expressed. I have always been opposed to a second elective chamber, and I am so still, from the conviction that two elective houses are inconsistent with the right working of the British parliamentary system. I voted, almost alone, against the change when the Council was made elective, but I have lived to see a vast majority of those who did the deed wish it had not been done. It is quite true, and I am glad to acknowledge it, that many evils anticipated from the change, when the measure was adopted, have not been realized. I readily admit that men of the highest character and position have been brought into the Council by the elective system, but it is equally true that the system of appointment brought into it men of the highest character and position. Whether appointed by the Crown or elected by the people, since the introduction of parliamentary_government, the men who have composed the Upper House of this Legislature have been men who would have done honour to any legislature in the world. But what we most feared was, that the Legislative Councillors would be elected under party responsibilities; that a partisan spirit would soon show itself in the chamber; and that the right would soon be asserted to an equal control with this House over money bills. That fear has not been realized to any dangerous extent. But is it not possible that such a claim might ere long be asserted? Do we not hear, even now, mutterings of a coming demand for it? Nor can we forget that the elected members came into that chamber gradually; that the large number of old appointed members exercised much influence in maintaining the old forms of the House, the old style of debate, and the old barriers against encroachment on the privileges of the commons. But the appointed members of

the Council are gradually passing away, and when the elective element becomes supreme, who will venture to affirm that the Council would not claim that power over money bills which this House claims as of right belonging to itself? Could they not justly say that they represent the people as well as we do, and that the control of the purse strings ought, therefore, to belong to them as much as to us? It is said they have not the power. But what is to prevent them from enforcing it? Suppose we had a conservative majority here, and a reform majority above-or a conservative majority above and a reform majority here-all elected under party obligations what is to prevent a deadlock between the chambers? It may be called unconstitutional-but what is to prevent the Councillors (especially if they feel that in the dispute of the hour they have the country at their back) from practically exercising all the powers that belong to us? They might amend our money bills, they might throw out all our bills if they liked, and bring to a stop the whole machinery of government. And what could we do to prevent them?..

The second feature of this scheme as a remedial measure is, that it removes, to a large extent, the injustice of which Upper Canada has complained in financial matters. We in Upper Canada have complained that though we paid into the public treasury more than three-fourths of the whole revenue, we had less control over the system of taxation and the expenditure of the public moneys than the people of Lower Canada. Well, sir, the scheme in your hand remedies that. The absurd line of separation between the provinces is swept away for general matters; we are to have seventeen additional members in the house that holds the purse; and the taxpayers of the country, wherever they reside, will have their just share of influence over revenue and expenditure. We have also complained that immense sums of public money have been systematically taken from the public chest for local purposes of Lower Canada, in which the people of Upper Canada had no interest whatever, though compelled to contribute three-fourths of the cash. Well, sir, this scheme remedies that. All local matters are to be banished from the General Legislature; local governments are to have control over local affairs, and if our friends in Lower Canada choose to be extravagant, they

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will have to bear the burden of it themselves. No longer shall we have to complain that one section pays the cash while the other spends it; hereafter, they who pay will spend, and they who spend more than they ought will have to bear the brunt. It was a great thing to accomplish this, if we had accomplished nothing more-for if we look back on our doings of the last fifteen years, I think it will be acknowledged that the greatest jobs perpetrated were of a local character-that our fiercest contests were about local matters that stirred up sectional jealousies and indignation to its deepest depth. We have further complained that if a sum was properly demanded for some legitimate local purpose in one section, an equivalent sum had to be appropriated to the other as an offset-thereby entailing prodigal expenditure, and unnecessarily increasing the public debt. Well, sir, this scheme puts an end to that. Each province is to determine for itself its own wants, and to find the money to meet them from its own resources. But, sir, I am told that though true it is that local matters are to be separated and the burden of local expenditure placed upon local shoulders, we have made an exception from that principle in providing that a subsidy of eighty cents per head shall be taken from the federal chest and granted to the local governments for local purposes. Undoubtedly this is the fact-and I do not hesitate to admit that it would have been better if this had been otherwise. I trust I commit no breach of discretion in stating that in Conference I was one of the strongest advocates for defraying the whole of the local expenditures of the local governments by means of direct taxation, and that there were liberal men in all sections of the provinces who would gladly have had it so arranged. But, Mr. Speaker, there was one difficulty in the way-a difficulty which has often before been encountered in this world-and that difficulty was simply this, it could not be done. We could neither have carried it in Conference nor yet in any one of the existing provincial legislatures. Our friends in Lower Canada, I am afraid, have a constitutional disinclination to direct taxation, and it was obvious that if the Confederation scheme had had attached to it a provision for the imposition of such a system of taxation, my honourable friends opposite would have had a much better chance of success in blowing the bellows of agita

tion than they now have. The objection, moreover, was not confined to Lower Canada-all the Lower Provinces stood in exactly the same position. They have not a municipal system such as we have, discharging many of the functions of government; but their General Government performs all the duties which in Upper Canada devolve upon our municipal councils, as well as upon Parliament. If then the Lower Provinces had been asked to maintain their customs duties for federal purposes, and to impose on themselves by the same act direct taxation for all their local purposes, the chances of carrying the scheme of union would have been greatly lessened. But I apprehend that if we did not succeed in putting this matter on the footing that would have been the best, at least we did the next best thing. Two courses were open to us-either to surrender to the local governments some source of indirect revenue, some tax which the General Government proposed to retain, or to collect the money by the federal machinery, and distribute it to the local governments for local purposes. And we decided in favour of the latter. . .

There is another great evil in our existing system that this scheme remedies; it secures to the people of each province full control over the administration of their own internal affairs. We in Upper Canada have complained that the minority of our representatives, the party defeated at the polls of Upper Canada, have been, year after year, kept in office by Lower Canada votes, and that all the local patronage of our section has been dispensed by those who did not possess the confidence of the people. Well, sir, this scheme remedies that. The local patronage will be under local control, and the wishes of the majority in each section will be carried out in all local matters. We have complained that the land system was not according to the views of our western people; that free lands for actual settlers was the right policy for us-that the price of a piece of land squeezed out of an immigrant was no consideration in comparison with the settlement among us of a hardy and industrious family; and that the colonization road system was far from satisfactory. Well, sir, this scheme remedies that. Each province is to have control of its own crown lands, crown timber and crown minerals,— and will be free to take such steps for developing them as

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each deems best. We have complained that local works of various kinds-roads, bridges and landing piers, court houses, gaols and other structures-have been erected in an inequitable and improvident manner. Well, sir, this scheme remedies that; all local works are to be constructed by the localities and defrayed from local funds. And so on through the whole extensive details of internal local administration will this reform extend. The people of Upper Canada will have the entire control of their local matters, and will no longer have to betake themselves to Quebec for leave to open a road, to select a county town, or appoint a coroner. But I am told that to this general principle of placing all local matters under local control, an exception has been made in regard to the common schools. The clause complained of is as follows:

6. Education; saving the rights and privileges which the Protestant or Catholic minority in both Canadas may possess as to their Denominational Schools at the time when the Union goes into operation.

Now, I need hardly remind the House that I have always opposed and continue to oppose the system of sectarian education, so far as the public chest is concerned. I have never had any hesitation on that point. I have never been able to see why all the people of the province, to whatever sect they may belong, should not send their children to the same common schools to receive the ordinary branches of instruction. I regard the parent and the pastor as the best religious instructorsand so long as the religious faith of the children is uninterfered with, and ample opportunity afforded to the clergy to give religious instruction to the children of their flocks, I cannot conceive any sound objection to mixed schools. But while in the Conference and elsewhere I have always maintained this view, and always given my vote against sectarian public schools, I am bound to admit, as I have always admitted, that the sectarian system, carried to the limited extent it has yet been in Upper Canada, and confined as it chiefly is to cities and towns, has not been a very great practical injury. The real cause of alarm was that the admission of the sectarian principle was there, and that at any moment it might be extended to such a degree as to split up our school system altogether. There are but a hundred separate