appointment of a lieutenant-governer which is to be vested in the General Government. It is not said in so many words that he is to be a colonist, but I think it may be taken for granted that he will be. It is not very likely that we shall get any right honorable gentleman or eminent statesmen, from home to come out here for an appointment of that kind; and I take for granted, therefore, that the General Government will always nominate Mr. Somebody or other, of local distinction, to this office of lieutenant-governor. Suppose any of our politicians, whether of this province or of any other in the Confederacy, say Canada, Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, to be assuming this role of lieutenant-governor in any of our provinces. He has this disadvantage to begin with; he has to that moment been passing through that ordeal of abuse under which every prominent public man in this country must have suffered before attaining any distinction whatever. .. No matter over what colony appointed, or from what colony coming, a lieutenant-governor will have hard cards to play, and will have very much to put up with from the people over whom he is set, on this mere score of his past political exploits, and he will not find it easy either, to get along without exciting a good deal of ill feeling, as he goes. He has been known as a politician, and will be held to be favorable or unfavorable to this or that party in the province he governs. But how do we stand here, Mr. Speaker, as to the attributes of our own provincial legislatures and governments, on the one hand, and those of the Federal power on the other? Do we follow American example,and give so much to the union and the rest to the provinces; or so much to them, and the rest to it? Either rule would be plain; but this plan follows neither. It simply gives us a sort of special list for each; making much common to both, and as to much more, not showing what belongs to either. I cannot go now....into detail on this head. I can give no more than some few specimens; and I take first the three subjects of the fisheries, agriculture, and immigration. These three subjects are equally assigned to the General Legislature on the one hand, and the Provincial Legislature on the other. It is provided by the 45th resolution, that in all such cases, wherever any statutes of the general and local parliaments clash, those of the General Parliament shall override those of the local. So that in these matters of the fisheries, agriculture and immigration, either the local legislatures must not legislate at all, or if they do the General Legislature may at any time undo anything they may have done. One can easily foresee any amount of clashing of authority in such cases. Fishery regulations of all_sorts-bounties perhaps; the thousand questions affecting agriculture. Or to take just one that suggests itself as to immigration; one province wishes, perhaps, to encourage immigration of a certain kind, say, for instance, from the continent of Europe. It is a legitimate wish; but the Federal Legislature may, perhaps, in the varying shifts of public opinion, adopt a different policy, and reverse all that the province may have done. To what end give powers to the local parliaments which may thus be taken away at any moment by the Federal Legislature? But, Mr. Speaker, there are a hundred other cases as to which I could satisfy the House, had I time for doing so, that more or less of this confusion arises. Take the subject of marriage and divorce for one-a subject on which there is a great deal of local prejudice and feeling, and into which even religious convictions largely enter. That matter is given to the General Legislature. But on the other hand the larger matter, civil rights-of which this of marriage and divorce, from one point of veiw, forms a mere part is given to the local legislatures. I turn to another matter, haphazard-the subjects of railway legislation, of railway incorporation, and of railway amalgamation. What Legislature has power in these matters under this scheme? I am not sure that there are not here as nice a lot of pretty little questions as one would desire to see in a summer's day. .We find it stated that "The seat of Government of the Federated Provinces shall be Ottawa, subject to the royal prerogative." It is distinctly laid down as a part of our system that the royal prerogative, the right to change the seat of the Federal Government at will, is to be maintained. But I venture to say that the maintaining of that right is simply inconsistent with the practical working out of a federal system. And this is a matter involving a good deal of anomaly, as honorable gentlemen will see when they begin to think of it. The Governor General or Viceroy, the all but king of this Confederacy, with his all but Imperial Government, and all but Imperial Legislature, constituted no matter how, resident within the territorial jurisdiction of a subordinate province ! The police of the Federal capital, not Federal but provincial! That thing won't do. We have a large class whose national feelings turn towards London, whose very heart is there; another large class whose sympathies centre here at Quebec, or in a sentimental way may have some reference to Paris; another large class whose memories are of the Emerald Isle; and yet another whose comparisons are rather with Washington; but have we any class of people who are attached, or whose feelings are going to be directed with any earnestness, to the city of Ottawa, the centre of the new nationality that is to be created? In the times to come, when men shall begin to feel strongly on those questions that appeal to national preferences, prejudices and passions, all talk of your new nationality will sound but strangely. Some other older nationality will then be found to hold the first place in most people's hearts. In all the provinces the provincial governments will, in a quiet way, want money, and the provincial legislators and people will want it yet more; grants for roads and bridges, for schools, for charities, for salaries, for contingencies of the legislative body-for all manner of ends they will be wanting money, and where is it to come from? Whether the constitution of the Provincial Executive savours at all of responsible government or not, be sure it will not be anxious to bring itself more under the control of the legislature, or to make itself more odious than it can help, and the easiest way for it to get money will be from the General Government. I am not sure, either, but that most members of the provincial legislatures will like it that way the best. It will not be at all unpopular, the getting of money so. Quite the contrary. Gentlemen will go to their constituents with an easy conscience, telling them: "True, we had not much to do in the Provincial Legislature, and you need not ask very closely what else we did; but I tell you what, we got the Federal Government to increase the subvention to our province by five cents a head, and see what this gives you $500 to that road-$1,000 to that charity-so much here, so much there. That we have done; and have we not done well?" I am afraid in many constituencies the answer would be: "Yes, you have done well; go and do it again." I am afraid the provincial constituencies, legislatures and executives will all show a most calf-like appetite for the milking of this one most magnificent government cow. And even this is not all. Not only will you have these comparatively direct demands-more or less ingeniously, but always irresistibly-made, but you will have demands made in a more indirect form which it will be yet easier to carry, from their consequences not being so clearly seen, and which will therefore be still worse in their effects. I speak of that tremendous catalogue of outlays which may be gone into without the appearance of a grant to any particular province-the costly favours which may be done in respect of interprovincial ferries, steamship lines between or from the provinces, railways between or through the provinces, telegraph lines agriculture, immigration, quarantine, fisheries, and so forth. There will be claims of every description under all these heads; and besides them there will be the long roll of internal improvements of all kinds whether for the benefit of one or of more than one of the provinces. For any local work in which it can be at all pretended that it is of general interest, pressure may be brought to bear upon the General Government and Legislature, and whenever one province succeeds in getting any such grant, every other province must be dealt with in the same way. Compensation must be made all round, and no human intellect can estimate the degree of extravagance that before long must become simply inevitable. Sir, with our Upper and Lower Canada we have had pretty good proof of this. We know that whenever anything has had to be done for one section of this province, it has constantly been found necessary to do something of the same or of some other kind for the other. If either needed anything very badly, then the ingenuity of the Minister of Finance had to be exercised to discover something else of like value to give the other. In one word, unless I am more mistaken than I think I can be, these local governments will be pretty good daughters of the horse-leech, and their cry will be found to be pretty often and pretty successfully-"Give, give, give!" * * * * * We are going to be called upon to spend money for yet another kindred purpose, and a large amount too-and this, as a part of this scheme. Our star of empire is to wing its way westward; and we are to confederate everything in its track, from Newfoundland to Vancouver's Island, this last included. But, between us and it, there lies the Hudson Bay territory. So, of course, we must acquire that for confederation purposes; and the plan is, that before we get it we shall have to pay for the elephantthough, after we get him, we may find him costly and hard to keep. * * Disguise it how you may, the idea that underlies this plan is this, and nothing else that we are to create here a something-kingdom, viceroyalty or principality-something that will soon stand in the same position towards the British Crown that Scotland and Ireland stood in before they were legislatively united with England; a something having no other tie to the Empire than the one tie of fealty to the British Crown-a tie which in the cases, first, of Scotland, and then of Ireland, was found, when the pinch came, to be no tie at all; which did not restrain either Scotland or Ireland from courses so inconsistent with that of England as to have made it necessary that their relations should be radically changed, and a legislative union formed in place of a merely nominal union. Suppose you do create here a kingdom or a principality, bound to the Empire by this shadow of a tie, the day of trial cannot be far distant, when this common fealty will be found of as little use in our case as it was in theirs; when, in consequence, the question will force itself on the Empire and on us, between entire separation on the one hand, and a legislative union on the other. But a legislative union of British America with the United Kingdom must be, in the opinion of, one may say, everybody at home and here, a sheer utter impossibility; and when the question shall come to be whether we are so to be merged in the United Kingdom or are to separate entirely from it, the answer can only be "At whatever cost, we separate." Sir, I believe in my conscience that this step now proposed is one directly and inevitably tending to that other step; and for that reason-even if I believed, as I do not, that it bids fair to answer ever so well in the other respects-because I am an Englishman and hold to the connection with England, I must be against this scheme. * * The real danger is not of war with the United States. It is from what I may call their pacific hostility-from trouble to be wrought by them within this country-trouble to arise out of refusal of reciprocity—repeal of the bonding system-custom-house annoyances-passport annoyances; from their fomenting difficulties here, and taking advantage of our local jealousies; from the multiplied worries they may cause us by a judicious alternation of bullying and coaxing, the thousand incidents which may easily be made to happen if things are not going on quite well in this country, and the people and government of the States are minded to make us feel the consequences of our not getting on quite so well as we might. Whether the union of the States is restored or not, this kind of thing can go on. The danger is, that either the whole United States, or those portions of the United States which are near us, and which are really stronger than we are, and enterprising enough and ambitious enough, and not very fond of us, and not at all fond of the Mother Country, not at all unwilling to strike a blow at her and to make us subservient to their own interests and ambition-the danger is, I say, that the United States, or those portions of the United States near us, may avail themselves of every opportunity to perplex us, to embroil us in trouble, to make us come within the disturbing influences of their strong local attraction. Now, to pretend to tell me that the United States or the Northern States, whichever you please, are going to be frightened, from a policy of that kind, by our taking upon ourselves great airs, and forming ourselves into a grand Confederation, is to tell me that their people are, like the Chinese, a people to be frightened by loud noises and ugly grimaces. I do not believe they are. * CLXXIX THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT, 1867 (30 & 31, Victoria, c. 3) An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the Government thereof; and for purposes connected therewith. (29th March, 1867.) Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom': And whereas such a Union would conduce to the welfare of the Provinces and promote the interests of the British Empire: And whereas on the establishment of the Union by authority of Parliament, it is expedient not only that the Constitution of the Legislative Authority in the Dominion be provided for, but also that the nature of the Executive Government therein be declared: And whereas it is expedient that provision be made for the eventual admission into the Union of other parts of British North America: Be it therefore enacted and declared 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 as follows: I. PRELIMINARY. 1. This Act may be cited as The British North America Act, 1867. Short title. 2. The provisions of this Act referring to Her Majesty the Queen Provisions reextend also to the heirs and successors of Her Majesty, Kings and Queens ferring to of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. II. UNION. the Queen. 3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the advice of Her Declaration Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, to declare by Proclamation of Union. that on and after a day therein appointed, not being more than six months after the passing of this Act, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and "A single line imported in the system, that mighty and complex and somewhat indefinite aggregate called the British Constitution.' Hon. Edward Blake, in The Ontario Lands' Case. Construction of subsequent provisions of Act. Four Provinces of Ontario New Brunswick shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada; and on and after that day those three Provinces shall form and be one Dominion under that name accordingly.1 4. The subsequent provisions of this Act shall, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, commence and have effect on and after the Union, that is to say on and after the day appointed for the Union taking effect in the Queen's Proclamation; and in the same provisions, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the name Canada shall be taken to mean Canada as constituted under this Act. 5. Canada shall be divided into four Provinces, named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 6. The parts of the Province of Canada (as it exists at the passing and Quebec; of this Act) which formerly constituted respectively the Provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, shall be deemed to be severed, and shall form two separate Provinces. The part which formerly constituted the Province of Upper Canada shall constitute the Province of Ontario; and the part which formerly constituted the Province of Lower Canada shall constitute the Province of Quebec. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Decenial census. Executive power in 7. The Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall have the same limits as at the passing of this Act. 8. In the general census of the population of Canada, which is hereby required to be taken in the year One thousand eight hundred and seventyone, and in every tenth year thereafter, the respective populations of the four Provinces shall be distinguished. III. EXECUTIVE POWER. 9. The Executive Government and authority of and over Canada is the Queen. hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen. Provisions re- 10. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor-General ferring to Gov-extend and apply to the Governor-General for the time being of Canada, ernor-General. or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator for the time being carrying on the Government of Canada, on behalf and in the name of the Queen, by whatever title he is designated. Constitution All powers under Acts to be exercised by Governor General with advice of Privy Council or alone. Provisions 11. There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the Queen's Privy Council for Canada; and the persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be, from time to time, chosen and summoned by the Governor-General and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and Members thereof may be, from time to time, removed by the Governor-General. 12. All Powers, Authorities, and Functions which under any Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, are at the Union vested in or exercisable by the respective Governors or Lieutenant-Governors of those Provinces, with the advice, or with the advice and consent, of the respective Executive Councils thereof, or in conjunction with those Councils or with any number of Members thereof, or by those Governors or Lieutenant-Governors individually, shall, as far as the same continue in existence and capable of being exercised after the Union in relation to the Government of Canada, be vested in and exercisable by the GovernorGeneral with the advice, or with the advice and consent of, or in conjunction with the Queen's Privy Council for Canada or any Members thereof, or by the Governor-General individually, as the case requires, subject nevertheless (except with respect to such as exist under Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) to be abolished or altered by the Parliament of Canada. 13. The provisions of this Act referring to the Governor-General-in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor-General acting by and with the advice of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.' 1 The Federal Constitution came into force 1 July, 1867. For the powers of the Governor-General, see Nos. CLXXXIII, CLXXXIV. |