the House of Assembly, or of assenting to or dissenting from Bills passed by the said two Houses; or to take from him the power of granting reprieves and pardons : 4. To pass any law altering the succession to or affecting the style or dignity of the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland, or relating to the appointment of a Regent : 5. To absolve any person from his allegiance: 6. To define treason, or to alter the law relating thereto : 7. To pass any act of attainder : 8. To pass any law containing anything contrary to the law of nations, as received and administered in the Courts of Great Britain: 9. To define piracies and felonies on the high seas : 10. To pass any law respecting captures by land or water: 11. To pass any law affecting the command, regulation, discipline, or enlistment, of Her Majesty's military or naval forces : 12. To lay any duty on supplies for Her Majesty's military or naval forces: 13. To make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender : 14. To make any judge's tenure of office dependent on anything but good behaviour, or to diminish his salary during his continuance in office: 15. To lay any differential duty on exports or imports to or from any part of Her Majesty's dominions, or any duty inconsistent with any treaty that already has been, or may hereafter be, entered into between Her Majesty and any foreign country: 16. To confer any privilege or immunity on the inhabitants of New South Wales that is not equally conferred on the other subjects of Her Majesty : 17. To establish slavery: 18. To repeal or alter any of the provisions of this Act, except those expressed to be subject to alteration by the Parliament of New South Wales: And any enactment of the Parliament of New South Wales containing anything in contravention of this clause shall be void. 29. And be it Enacted, That Her Majesty in Council shall have original jurisdiction in all cases arising under any provision of this Act, whereby powers and prerogatives are reserved to Her Majesty, or whereby the power of the Parliament of New South Wales is restricted, and also in all cases wherein the boundaries of the said colony are brought in question, with power to assign any part of such jurisdiction, or remit any case to the courts of the colony, or to any court which Her Majesty may establish in the colony for the purpose. 30. And be it Enacted, That Her Majesty in Council shall have appellate jurisdiction in all cases whatever arising within the said colony, and may, by Order in Council, limit and regulate the exercise of such jurisdiction. 31. And be it Enacted, That no alteration shall be made in any of the provisions of this Act herein expressed to be subject to alteration, unless notice of such intended alteration has been published four times in one of the principal newspapers of the said colony, at intervals of three calendar months, the first of such publications to be made with the assent of at least two-thirds of the whole number of the members of each House previously thereunto given, and a year at least before the bringing in of any Bill containing such alteration; and no such Bill shall be considered as passed by either House unless twothirds of the whole number of the members of such House concur therein. 32. And be it Enacted, That, with the reservations, and subject to the restrictions herein before mentioned, the Parliament of New South Wales shall have power to repeal or alter any law, charter, or letters patent, in force within the said colony, including such of the provisions of this Act as are expressed to be subject to alteration by the Parliament of New South Wales, and to make new laws for the government of the said colony, as fully as the United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland have power to repeal or alter any laws in force within the realms of Great Britain and Ireland, and to make new laws for the government thereof. M. D D ON THE CLERGY RESERVES OF MARCH 5, 1853. [The following speech was delivered on the second reading of the Bill, the object of which is fully set out by Sir W. Molesworth. The Secretary for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle, was in the House of Lords, so the chief burden of the Ministerial defence fell on Molesworth, who was First Commissioner of Works. An amendment by Sir John Pakington that the Bill be read that day six months was defeated by a majority of 83: 275 supporting the second reading and 192 against. In the House of Lords the second reading was passed nem. con. and the struggle took place in committee over an amendment by Lord Derby, in effect preserving the rights of the Churches of England and of Scotland. This was defeated by a majority of 39: content 78, not content 117.] SIR, The right hon. baronet' who has just addressed the House, commenced his speech by deprecating the treating this Bill as a party measure. I cordially concur with the right hon. baronet in that deprecation, because this Bill raises two questions of the utmost importance, which ought not to be decided under the influence of party spirit. The first of these questions is the great and fundamental one of the colonial polity of the British Empire-namely, whether it ought to be a rule of our colonial government that all questions which affect exclusively the local interests of a 1 Sir John Pakington. colony possessing representative institutions should be dealt with by the local legislature. If this rule be assumed to be a sound one, then the next question is, whether it should now be applied to the greatest of England's colonial dependencies, with a population of nearly 2,000,000 of inhabitants—whether it ought now to be applied to Canada with reference to the question of the clergy reserves? The object of this Bill is to apply this rule to Canada. The right hon. baronet seemed to have some difficulty in understanding the intentions of the framers of this Bill. Their intentions are to transfer to the Legislature of Canada the power of dealing with the clergy reserves, irrespective altogether of the mode or manner in which that Legislature may think proper to deal with those reserves. In my opinion the questions, whether the Legislature of Canada ought or ought not to maintain the present application of the proceeds of the clergy reserves-whether it ought or ought not to secularise those reserves, are questions for the Canadian and not for the Imperial Parliament to debate. I shall, therefore, not follow the example of the right hon. baronet, the greater portion of whose speech was not addressed to the real question at issue, whether we should transfer to the colonial Legislature the power of dealing with the clergy reserves, but merely expressed his opinions as to the manner in which the Canadian Legislature would exercise such a power. Sir, the right hon. baronet has admitted over and over again to-night that the rule of colonial polity which I have just mentioned is a sound general rule; and the right hon. baronet cannot deny that the question, how the proceeds of that portion of the lands of Canada which are called the Clergy Reserves," should be disposed of, is one which affects exclusively the people of Canada. But the right hon. baronet has asserted that the question of the clergy reserves should be treated as an exception to the general rule that local questions should be dealt with by the local parliament of a colony. The reasons which have been assigned by the right hon. baronet for making this exception may, I think, be reduced to two chief ones. First, that the question of the clergy reserves is essentially an Upper Canadian and Protestant question; secondly, that the Act of 1840 was intended to be a final settlement of this question. With the permission of the House, I will consider each of these arguments separately. First, the right hon. baronet has repeatedly affirmed that the question of the clergy reserves is essentially an Upper Canada question; that the representatives of Upper Canada were as nearly as possible equally divided upon it; and that the majority, which carried the resolutions which the House of Assembly passed last September in favour of a Bill similar to that now before the House, had consisted in a large proportion of Roman Catholic members of the lower province, whose religion had been amply and munificently endowed. Thence the right hon. baronet inferred that the Roman Catholic members of Canada ought not to have power to legislate on questions affecting the endowments of Protestants, and that such questions should be dealt with in accordance with the wishes of the Protestants of Canada alone. |