IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) V // /«<»^ y 5r w/j. 1.0 I.I 1.25 t ilM iJIM '- i^ 1112 2 .t i^ lil|2.0 1.4 1.8 !.6 yw m % :> > /; / ''^ yS^ Photographic Sciences Corporation ^ -^ # !« .^ |\ ? If RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT FOR CANADA : AN ENQUIRY AS TO THE h) -^ CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCES «■« Cj<^ O -\f^ xC?7 OP THE LATE MINISTERIAL RESIGNATIONS. '^ , '\^«-^ It needs no change in the principles of Govcrnmenf, no invention of ,-, new Con- st.tuUonal theory, to supply tlio remedy which would, in my opinion, completely remove the existmg political disorders. It needs but to follow out consistently the areat princi- pie ot the British Constitution, and introduce into the Governnu^nt of these sre.t (-oionies those wise provisions, by which alone the working of the representative system can in any country be rendered harmonious and efficient-"— Lorrf Durham's Report. W^' MONTREAL: ARMOUR & RAMSAY; KINGSTON: RAMSAY, ARMOUR & Co.; HAMILTON: A. H. ARMOUR & Co. ; QUEBEC: T. CARY & Co.; TORONTO: HUGH SCORIE. 1844. 'h Mfe * NOTICE The following pages were begun witli an intention, on the part of the writer, of merely addressing thorn as a communication to a newspaper ; but he soon found the manuscript extending far beyond the limits of a letter. To make a series of letters, would have been to render frequent repetitions necessary, and yet materially to break in upon the connexion of his argument. Hence its appearance in its present form. The writer follows the course usual in such cases, of preserving his incognito ; but from no love of the anonymous. In what he has written, he has carefiilly abstained from that personality of attack which constitutes its abuse and makes it so often objectiona- ble. For the purposes of an argument that is strictly political, and neither assails private character nor deals in other than notorious facts, there is no occasion for the writer's name to be made public. On the contrary, if he be a well known man, his name will be likely to prevent his argument from being read dispassionately ; it not, it may go very far to prevent its being read at all. ,, RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT FOR CANADA, &.C. Sic. he. The OfRcial Gazette has lately told us that we have a new Provincial Ministry ; provi- sional, no douht, and incomplete ; bnt still a Ministry, an Executive Council sworn to ad- vise the Governor, and held accountable to the Province for the advice it shall j^ive. The machine ol Responsible Coverninent, after the rude shock that for two or three weeks had seemingly stopped its movements, is again moving, thoui^h not altogether as it ilid before. Hp.s the shock. damaged it ? Will the system work, or iS its failure about to hurry ns into a state of " constituted anarchy," worse than that from which Lord burham and the Union, by making Canada a Province with a real Go- vernment of its own, promised to rescue ns, — worse, because following upon the boldest re- medial measure within the power of the Crown, because proving that measure insuffi- cient, because leaving us no room to hope for the successful application of the principle of the British Constitution to the Government of a British Colony ? The question is one of no little moment, and seems to nip to call for a more thorough exami- nation of the subject than the limits of news- paper discussion ?dmit. Random assertions affecting this public man and that, may he made by any one with little trouble, and if need be in few words. Of them, therefore, we are always sure in the war of politics to have enoiigh and to spare. But in a case of this magnitude we want somclliing more. For. the public mind to judge correctly, the real facts of the whole case require to be stated, and the great principles involved in it discussed. It is not every one who has the time or the temper to do this. Faute cle mieux, the occasion leads me to propose niaking the attempt. I am not vain enough to fancy I can succeed in doing all I wish. But as an Anglo-Canadian, an atten- tive observer for some years past of the course of Canadian politics. and not unacquainted with cither of the two great sections of the Province nor with either of its races, I feel called upon to do my best. I have alway? been and am a staunch supporter of Responsible (jovornment ; I have never regarded but with e.\tu'ine regret the bitter national jealousies that have prevail- ed in this part of the Province ; and to my thinking, the great use of the Union is that it has given Canada the means of seeming the former, and the opportunity of putting an end for ever to the latter. If it is to fail of either of these ends, every Canadian will have bitter reason to lament the failure. At the opening of the Session of Parliament lately brought to a close, no one could doubt the fact ot our having a Responsible Provincial Government, and a stiongone too. Its majori- ty in the House was such as hardly to leave the minority a chance to act at all against it. Its measures, numerous and important beyond all precedent, seemed likely all to pass, almos by acclamation. Complaint might be madt and objections, but no one supposed defeat possible on any question of the least importance. Two strong majorities were united ; active or- ganised opposition to them there was iiterally none. Out of doors there was more said, but not more doing. The Government was be- yond question popular ; whether or not its pop- ularity was on the wane it might have been hard to say, but certainly there was no sign of such a re-act.'on as could cheer its opponents with the hope of its early overthrow. The leading features of the host of Bills it brought Ibrward for Parliamentary sanction were popu- lar. On the one question that at one time seenr.ed to threaten it — the removal of the Seat of Government — it gained a decisive triumph. Thrje weeks after, in the very middle as it seemed of a fdur months' Session, almost noth- ing iinished, the scene changes. The Execu- tive Councillors, all but one, are out of office. For a fortnight Parliament is in a ferment, de- bating the reasons of their resignation, and patching up and hurrying into laws a few of the great and some dozens of the little measures of the Session. All else is lost. The vacant offices remain unfitted. The scramble can only end with a prorogation ; and now, after the prorogation, we have the announcement of a new but obviousl} provisional Administration. To what is all this owing? Something wrong, it is quite clear, there must have been somewhere. Was it in the systen), or only in the men ? Must Responsible Government in a Colony of necessity lead to such results? Or is the fault traceable to any of the paities here charged with the task of carrying it into prac- tical effect? Has the Governor General been wrong, or those, if any there were, who may be presumed to have been the secret, irrespon- sible advisers of the course he has taken ; or should the blame rather rest on the ex-Miuis- tcrs? Let the fiiult rest with whom it may, if only it be not in the S3"stem itself, there is hope it may do good by the lesson it will have taught our public men, whenever it shall have been rightly tinderstood, and its immediate conse- quences felt. The blunders of public men do mischief; but they are not without their use, inasmuch as they iiiay serve, and often do, to prevent other public men from making worse. But if It be the system that Is In fault, if it be in the nature of things impossible to make the machinery of the Biitish Constitution work bettor In United Canada, the prospect is beyond question gloomy. We cannot advance further towards democracy than the forms of the Bri- tish Constitution allow, but by first severing the tie" that binds us to the Parent State. nfiSPONSIBLE WOVERNMRNT POK CANADA. And R3 to the ancien regime, the irresponsible rule of Downing Street checkoc! only by tlie rival but worse doinination of n handtul of ir- responsible officials in the Colony, those who tan are welcome to think a return to it endu- rable. The tree must yield its fruit. Union or no Union, Canada can never be tolerably go- verned without rejiresentative institutions.— And representative institutions imply Rcspon- f ihle _ Government, or nojic— the British Con- Jtitiition, or Absolute Democracy. The more cheering view for me. In the late difficulties between the Governor General and his Council, I see no necessary conse- quence of Responsible Government, but merely mistakes made by men who should have known better. _ The cause of quarrel is not to be sought in the peculiar circumstancies of Ca- nada, which by some have been tliought to make the experiment of constitutional govern- ment here unduly hazardous ; in the sec- tional jealousies of two newly united Pro- vinces, the past fends of its two races, the rival claims of religious sects, the unforgotten animosities of civil war. It cannot even be referred to the peculiarity of the Colonial re- lation which has made some doubt the possi- bility ot introducing the essential features of the British Constitution into any Colony. It was no question of Downing Street dictation, no matter at issue between the Colonial Office and the Colony ; but simply and solely a ques- tion between the Representative of the Crown and his Provincial adviseis, a question with reference to which Canada is so nearly in the position of an independent state, that'in deci- ding It we may safely follow the very letter of British precedent. At home, the relations between the Crown and its advisers have long since been settled beyond controversy ; and there, ever since the revolution which established it, the system of Ministerial responsibility has in all respects Worked well. The position of the Crown at home difiers from that of the Representative of the Crown in a Colony in one particular alone. Ihe Sovereign is held responsible to no one, and absolutely incapable of doing wrong. The Representative cf tiie Sovereign though respon- sible for his acts to no one within the limits of his government, and incapable therefore of doing any wrong of which tliey can be the judges, IS responsible for all his acts to the So- vereign whose delegate he is. Ministerial accountability at home is established by the mere will of Parliament ; the two legislative t)odies tacitly agreeing to hold certain servants pt the Crown responsible for the e.xercisO of all Its Prerogatives, and tlie Sovereign acquiescing in the check thus placed on his authority". in a Colony the result is attainable only with the permission of the Mother Country, as the Goyemor^s responsibility to the Crown makeg It impossible for him to acquiesce in such a system unless with that permissinn, ITe um^t have had leave to act by Colonial advice and in accordance with Colonial opinion ; and the instructions he receives from time to time must bo framed to admit of his so doing. As re- gards Canada., this perinissioii hiis been ac- corded ; ahd it is our own I'iitilt if wc fail to hold our (iovernor's Ministers answer;ible to ourselves for the acts of his Administration. No doubt the (iovernor, from the fact of his responsibility to the Imperial autliority, stands in a somewhat ditlerent relation to his Council froni that in which the Sovereign stands to his Cabinet. The Sovereign can agree to any thing; the Governor, only to what he may conceive consistent with his duty as a delegate of the Sovereign. His share, therefore, in the actual administration of atfairs must be more active than that which the Crown need take Lt home. He is bound to be of his Council in fact, as well as over it in name. But this dis- tinction in no way affects the essential princi- ple. We hold only the Councillors answerable to us ; the Crown alone holds him responsible. If, indeed, the Crown were to command him to do what no Councillors responsible to the Colony dare be responsible for his doing, the case v.'ould be one of threatened collision be- tween the Colony and the Parent State. In such a case, however, there Would be far less probability of actual collision than under the old system ; for the discussions to which such orders would give rise, instead of at once coming before the public to excite the public ]iassicns, would be carried on quietly at the Council Board and by confidential despatches, between public olficeis sworn to the discharge bi their duties, and who may be presumed to have a common interest in preventing mischief. But tiiat, I repeat, is not this case. Whether the retiring Councillors were right or wrong, is a mere question as to tlie relations between a Governor and the Members of his Executive Council ; and British usage is the test by which it is to be decided. In my opinion, the retiring Councillors were in the wrong; so decidedly in the wrong, that I cannot hesitate to charge upon them the deep responsibility of having brought about, by their mistakes, the collision that' has taken place. I say_ « mistakes," advisedly, because 1 have no wish to charge them with any graver fault than a misapprehension of their"" public duty. Some of tliem, I feel sure, must have been drawn reluctantly, and against their better judgment, into the rash course they have taken, by the over-urgency of the more unquiet spi- rits of their number. And even of the latter class there are those, whose personal motives no one but a hostile partisan would impeach. On Monday, the 27th ult., Mr. Lafontaine announced in the House the fact of tlie rcsio-- nation, in terms altogether unexceptionable, promising an explanation at as early a day as he and his collcages siiould be in a position to render it. The day but one after, Mr. Bald- win proceeded accordingly to give it, in a speech of considerable length and ability, which stated, however, no special hcis out of which the resignation had necessarily aiisen, but rirM-ely asserted, and sougiit to prove, a ijcnejal dillerencc of views as to Rcsponsilde Govern- 4 , + If I « *f i^- nitSPONSIliM; COVEUNMKNT TOR CANADA. mont helwpeii the Governor (Jrncral and the reMi,'iiin)r genth'iiu'ii ; a dillureiice of views which hnd lor soine tiiiio led to ccrtiiin prncli- cal fmltarrussiiifiits in thn conduct of the Go- vernment, hut of the existence of wliich they, the ex-Ministers, had hut lately hctowie quite aware. This speech over, the Councillor who had not .resigned read iu his place, ohscrving that tliey appeared to him to explain the cir- cumstances of the case far hotter than the state- ment just made, two documents; the one a note from Mr. Lafontaine to the GovernoT Ge- neral, in suhslance identical with Mr. Bald- win's speech ; the other the Governor Gene- ral's reply to Mr. Lafontaine, detailing' the facts of the rcsif^nalion, and protesting in stror."' terms against the explanation which the ex- Councillors were ahout to give, fis mis-stating the whole affair, and especially misrepresent- ing His Excellency's views. Here, for the time, the matter ended ; for the House, with a very jaoper sense of the nature of a parliamen- tary explanation, would not sutler further re- joinder. But in the Upper House, where the explanations did not take place till the day after, another of the ex-Ministers, Mr. Sulli- van, not only commented at length, and with much freedom, on the Governor's letter, but added to the statf:ments it contained, and to those made by Messrs. Lafontaine and Baldwin, several other assertions as to matters of fact, then for the first time connected with the re- signation. In tlie debates that followed in the Lower House, the ex-Councillors who spoke, seemed to vie with each other in making new disclosures; and stories were told, one after another, of the course taken about all sorts of appointments by tl>e Governor and his prede- cessor, as though the gentlemen who told them had really forgotten, that when they took office, they took the Executive Councillor's oath of secrecy, as to all that should ever come under their notice in that capacity. Much has been sai(l of the unconstitutionali- ty ot the production before Parliament of the Governor's letter to Mr, Lafontaine. Of course, no one acquainted with English parlia- mentary usage can pretend to say that it would be thought constitutional in England, to put forward the Sovereign's name so prominently in a controversy on a great constitutional ques- tion. But it is a mistake to supj)ose that a letter from the Sovereign, stating the Sovereign's opinion on a political q^ucstion, cannot, under any circumstances, constitutionally form part ot a parliamentary explanation. Ko longer since than in 1839, such a'.letter, addressed'by Her present Majesty to Sir Robert Peel, was actually read in the House of Commons; and no one thought of complaining that its pro- duction was in any way irregular. Lord Mel- bourne's Ministry, it \vill be remembered, re- signed office on the Tthof May in that vcar, sn consequence of a voto in the House of Commons on the Jamaica Government Bill. The next day the Queen charged Sir Robert Peel to form a new Government ; and, on the (lay after, Sir Robert Pod laid befori' Ifer Ma- jesty the names of the Ministers who were to lorm his Cabinet. The list was approved, and' the new Premier proceeded at once to advise Her Majesty, that in his opinion it would be necessary, on grounds of state policy, to re-, move certain of the Ladies of Her Majesty's Hwisehold. The (^ueen demurred to this ad- vice, and the day following addressed to Sij; Itobert the following letter :— " Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1839. "The Qutcn having coiisiJered the iiroposal made lo her yesicrday by Sir Robtrt Peel, to re- move the ladies of hor btddiamber, cannot consent to adopt a courso uhich she conceives to be con- trary 10 usage, and which is repugnant to her feel- ings." This letter, embodying — in a few words, it it. true, but still embodying — the Queen's per- sonal reasons for disagreeing with her advis- ers on a point involvijag a constitutional prin- ciple, was read without cavil in the British House of ComraoDs ; not as a rejoinder to Sir Uoljert, I adrit, but by him and as part of his opening ej .ition. Having in his hands the written tApression of her Majesty's opi- nion on the point in controversy, that states- man, no mean authority on a question of con- stitutional usage, felt it his duty to state to the country that opinion in no other words than those which the Queen herself had -"en fit to use. If from British we turn to Canadian prece- dent, the case becomes far stronger. Only last year the memorable letter of Sir Charles Bagot to Mr. Lafontaine, a letter embodying in it quite as direct an appeal to Parliament and the country gs Sir Charles Metcalfe's does, was read in. the House of Assembly, under cir- circustancesso similar as to make the prece, dent absolutely perfect; and at that time four of the nine Ministers who have just retir- ed from office— Messis. Sullivan, Dunn, Kil, laly, and Hincks— were of the number of Sir Charles Bagot's responsible advisers. The orators of their party are now loud in condemn- ing tKe production of the Metcalfe letter, and Messrs. Sullivan and Hincks have contrived to be among the loudest and most indignant of them. Alas ! that the rapid changes of Cana, dian politics should make some Canadian poli- ticians' memories thus lamentably treach-- eroiis ! I am not to be understood, however, to main- tain that the ordinary production of letters of this description is desirable, or would on con- stitutional grounds admit of defence or ape-, logy. I admit that such free use of the Vice- regal name is irregular, and ought not to have been made. But, on the other hand, it ought not to be rendered necessary, Mr. Lafontaine's note told Sir Charles Metcalfe that he and his colleagues were about to state positively in Parliament that he (Sir Charles) held certain unpopular and most mischievous opinions on a great coiistiiutionai question. It was the out- line of a special pleader's argument in proof of this proposition. Appointments, it stated, had been made against or without the advice of th'. Council, and the Governor had determined M RK9P0N.SIULE OOVKRNMKNT I'On CANADA. f to reserre a bill brought in and carried as a Ministerial measure. Hut it did not specil'y the obnoxious appointments nor tlie reserva- tion of the bill as the cause of the resiijnation, as acts that they could not on principle del'eiul, and which therefore forced them to leave of- fice. They were cited as the evidence of the mischievous tendency of certain alleged per- sonal 0[)inion3 about llesponsil)lo fiovernment. To prove that he entertained the opinions as- cribed to him, expressions made use of by him in the course of the lon^ discussion which the subject underwent in Council were freely Earaphrased ; with what dectree of fairness in is opinion, his reply clearly shows. Public rumour, even, was dra;;;!5cd in to complete the chain of proof on the two points. It was upon them, in short, that the resii^nation is distinct- ly declared to have taken place. Mr. Lafon- taine and his resi^'ninfj' colleairues, says the letter, " have recently understood that his Kx- cellency took a widely diflerent view of the position, duties, and responsibilities of the Ex- ecutive Coi^ncil, from that under which they accepted office, and through which they have been enabled to conduct the Parliamentary business of the Government, sustained by a large majority of the popular branch of tlie Le- gislature." "This ditierence of opinion had led to appointments to olRce arainst and without their advice, and to the reservation of the Se- cret Societies Bill. His Excellency, when they remonstrated against these .acts, frankly told them there was " an antagonism between him and them on the subject." The public had even become aware of the fact, and mag- nified it to their cost. To be sure, the Go- vernor said he did not me:in to change the sys- tem he found established, but " he did not dis- guise his opinion " that another system would work better. As a mere matter of theory they might not have cared much about thi^ opinion ; « but when on Saturday last they discovered that it was the real ground of all their differ- ences with his Excellency, and of the want of confidence and cordiality between his Excel- lency and the Council since his arrival, they felt it impossible to continue to serve her Ma- jesty as Executive Councillors," &c., " IF his Excellency should see fit to act upon his opi- nion of their functions and responsibilies ". Now, in the whole course of f3ritish history Regal attribute. And they of all men to af- fect surprise and indignation, that he should have defended himself against a cliargo thus inonstiously iinpruccdenttul and u,iconslitu- tional, in what they are pleaded (facetiously, one miirhl suspect, were they notgiave public men) to call an unprecedented and uncoiislitu- tional manner ! What was the Governor General to have done, wlieu Mr. Lafontaine's note apprised him of the course which these sticklers for British observances were aiiout to take ? Was he to have peremptorily refused them permis- sion to explain ? In England, unquestionably, were it possible a minister could there be sup- posed to intend such a course, permission would I e withheld. While there withheld, the li|)S of an ex-Minister are sealed. His friends may defend him, but his own voice is un- heard, no matter what the temptation, till such time as the permission shall be accorded ; and whatever the limitations imposed when the permission may bo given, the inexorable com- mon law of Parliament compels him to observe them. Rut the system is here new. Mr. Viu'er's keen sense of right, and intimate familiarity with constitutional usage, did in- deed lead him to remonstrate strongly against the ofiering of explanations without full and express permission, and to ask Mr. Baldwin whether or not he had that permission from His Excellency, with reference to the state- ments he was then making. And what was the ex-Minister's reply ? "I have ; and if I had been refused it, 1 would have come down to tliis House, would have stated at once the fact, and would have fearlessly called upon the House to believe of myself and my col- leagues every thing good and nothing evil." British precedent again ! To my judgment the Governor's letter ought to have been read by those to whom it was addressed, as a condilional rcfutal of the per- mission to explain. It ends with an energetic and formal " protest " against the explanation they were about to make. That it embodied a counter explanation is nothing to the point. Of course I have no idea but that it was in- tended it should bo read in the House by Mr. Daly, ill case the explanation it protested against should nevertheless be made. It is quite evident that the Governor General from the Revolution to the present day, was thought it would be necessary, jf the^ ex- there ever an explanation like this offered to an English House of Commons ? Did ever ex- Minlsters of the Crown of Great Britain pro- pose in their place in Parliament to attempt to prove the personal opinions of the Sovereign unconstitutional, and the Sovereign himself, by necessary inference, uufit to reign ; assert that these opinions were the cause of a want of cor- diality between him and them ; and tell Par- liament they had resigned because they felt thev could not consistently remain in office )/ he should see fit to act iipon such opinions I Yet this is what our ex-Ministers have just been doing, with reference to the high func- tionary whom they profess to clothe with every Ministers grounded their resignation on what they asserted to be his personal opinions, to meet that assertion with his own personal denial. But how ought they to have acted with this written protest in their hands ? Iix England, the permission to explain is asked in writing ; and the answer to the request, of course also in writing, is made by a responsi- ble minister. In the case of the explanations of 1839 already quoted. Sir Robert Peel look the precaution of reading in kis place Lord Melbourne's note to him, to the efTect (hat his Lordship had taken the Queen's pleasure upon the subject and was authorised to signify to, him " Her Majesty's full permission to ex- r V I RUSPO.N&IULK CiOVKUNMENT I'DU (ANAl»\. f ! 1> plain tho ciicninst:inccs utulor which he rc- C(;iitl^ rfiliiH|uishe(l Ihe i5tli'ni|it to I'oiiii i'.u Adniiiiistri'.tioii.'' Will it do to say that here in Canada an iiiirrcorded coiiveiMitiuri of one or more gt-nlk'nit^n with a (iovi'inor Gciiri.il, in the coiiise of whicli thoy undiTslinid hiin to have given thcin such a iiciniisMoii, hut which is toUowcd, livst, by a retiuist tor a written statement (Jf the intended cxpianiitionj and then by a written emphatic protest against that statement, authorises them to comedown to I'arliamcnt and iiy their organ make that same statement and enlarge «i)on it in a set speccii, without so much as letting fall a hint of the existence of the protest? Sir Robert Peel, we liave seen, read the (iuecn's k't:er as a part of his explanation. If these gentlemen took the'oposite course because they thought tho public reading ot Sir Charles's letter would be unconstitutional, it was their bounden duty so to have advised His Excellency ; for they were then, strictly speaking, just as niuch his advisers as they had ever been. A very few hours' delay at most would have enabled them to do so. And a conierence on the sub- ject might and should have resnltc', if not in an absolute dealing U[) of the whole matter ii> dispute, at least in the preparation of such a statement as should have rendered the Gover- nor's protest unnecessary, and (irevented the discreditable contradictions as to matters of opinion and fact to which the opposite course has led. Knowing as they did beforehand, that the protest would certainly be read if the assertions it protested against should be then made, they rendered themselves responsible to the country for the protest, by the act of proceeding, as they did, to make those as- sertions. Had the matter ended here, it had been bad enough. Bad as it was. there was one way to make it worse. It was just possible that Kxe- cutive Councillors, sworn to secrecy, could allow themselves to think that a permission such as I have described absolved them from the obligation of their oath, and jiermitted them to tell the House any thing that in the heat of debate should strike them as being worth their while to tell, about this man's apjiointrnent, and that man's application and private history, and an otter of otiice to a third, and an accident that prevented another oiler from being made, and the circumstance of one Councillor's hear- ing of a certain fact from the lijjs of the Go- vernor General while other Councillors heard of the same or other facts in the streets, and the asserted acts and opinions of an absent man, (also sworn to secrecy as to both,) nay, even the personal actions of a Governor no longer living ! But surely no one ever dreamed that a British precedent could be found for Ministerial revelations like these. At home, every public man is forced to act under a sense of the monstrous unfairness of such bit-by -bit disclosures, — of the destruction of all public confidence that must be the consequence of ever suff'erinu: any man to make them. But, waiving altogether these considera- tions, and supposing for the nioinrnt the pro- ct ediugs of the ex-Ministers to have been in point of form as regular as they really were irregular, I maintain (and the distinction is one of the utmost importiiiice) that the ground of their roignalion, us staled by llicmsdvcs, was not oiif upon which, according to Hritish usage, a Ministry has a constitutional light to resign. By their own showing, they resii,'ned on an abstract principle, an alleged dillirence of opinion between the fJovemor General and themselves as to their " position, duties, and responsibilities." Now in England, when a resignation occurs in consequence of a dillcr- ence between the Sovereign and his advisers, it is invariably made to take place upon some given, unmistakealile fact or facts; never Ujion a general, deb.iteable jiiintiple. Since the ]iassing ot the ilelorm Hill, there have been two instances in point: the one in lb:i'2, when William the Fourth refused to create Peers to carry tlie Keform Bill ; the other in 1839, when tire present Queen refused to allow the dismissal of certain Ladies of her Household, In these cases it would have been easy for Lord Grey and Sir Bohert Peel to have said to Parliament, " the Sovereign aud 1 clearly take a widely dirterent view of the position, duties, and rcs])onsiliilities of the advisers ot" the Crown. I abandon the attempt to conduct the government of the country, because I feel it impossible to hold oflice with consistency if the Sovereign should see lit to act on the opinions I object against." There really was in both instances a wide difl'crence of ojdnion, and one that extended to this as well as to a variety of other most exciting questions. But no. The object there always is as much as possible to narrow — never to widen — any breach between Royalty and those who arc presumed to speak the wishes of the nation. To quarrel with the Sovereign upon a general principle is to make the Crown a paity to a public discu>sion of the principle, to set it at lend with some one or more of the great par- ties in the State, to force it either to tiiuinph over them, or to humble itself by conce..vin;r to recant Hny opiniDn. Tiliey came back to jjowit, and the Heform liill was actually cairled witluint the Kinw's having; to create the Peers alter all. In IKJD, af,'ain, Sir Holiiirt I'eol's facts were to the same tenor; in view of all the circum- stances under which he wra called U)ion to form a government he had thouv^hl it reciuisltn to advise Her Majesty to remove certain of the Ladies of her Court, liy way of strenirtheninii; the new AdministrEtion ; Her Majesty had refused to do so; and he had in consequence felt it impossible for him to undertake the con- duct of the f^overnment. Still, iiojudt^mcot nsked as to tlie Queen's opinions. The former Ministry were stron;^ eiiiiu;i;h to return to oflico ; nnd when two years later, they had become too weak to hold it, tiic Peel Ailministratiou came in, without its havins; ever been made necessary to iletermine the ireneral abstract question that had really been at issue. Such is the wise rule crtablished in tho Mother Country by an unbinken chain of pre- cedents ever since the establishment there of Responsible Government. If our ex-Ministeis had rii?;htly understood the system they profess to be maintaining, tHcy never could have made the gross mistake of which their own plea con, victs them. Quarrel on a matter of opinion with a Oovernor enjoying the highest reputa- tion for political sagacity with men of all par- ties in (ireat Britain ; when, as they were bound to know, no public man in CJreat Britain ever thinks of a quarrel of opinion with the Crown ! And this, too, although from the tenor of their revelations it would seem that they could with ease have taken the safe Brit- ish course of resignln^^ on a fact, had they only been so minded ! From the explanations of the resigning Councillors, 1 turn to the essential 'fact of the dispute as it is disclosed by Sir (Jharles Met- calfe's letter. On the Friday before the resig- nation Messrs. Lalbntaine and Baldwin, it ap- pears, wait(.'d on the Governor General, and told him it was their wish and that of their col- lea8;ues who had deputed them, that His F.x- cellcney should agree that in future, before making any appointment or oiler of ap])oiiit- ment, ho would cause to be laid before the Councillors, a list of the applicants for such ap- pointment ; that the Councillors were to be at liberty to recommend any one they pler.sed whether on the list or not, and that he, the Governor, would at all events make no appoint- ment prejudicial to their inllucncc. In the event of his refusal they gave him distinctly to understand that they should feel it their duty to resign. The Governor did refuse to ])e a I)arty to the proposed agreement, and the fur- ther discussion of the matter was put off to the Council meeting to he held the next day. There the subject was debated at great length ; hut the Governor persisted in his refusal, and on the following mornin'j; (Sunday) the resigna- tions were tendered in form. The truth of this statement it i'l impossible to (piDStion. As the propositi(mi were nut at first made in writing, niul became afterwards the subject of a long discussion, in the course of wli'ch tiiey were naluriilly expressed in a variety of form, no one can be sure of the exact Words used ; but their scope and intention no one can for a moment doubt. Kvception was taken hv one or two S|peakers in the House of Assembly, to the use of the word " pledge " ia relerence to them ; but with what show of rea- son it is hard to see. Tlu' (iovernor (ieneraL Wiis certainly reciuired to come to a distinct uiu derstanding with the Councillors, to (^ive them a positive promise, assurance or pledge (the words all mean the same thing) as to the man- ner in which be would from that time forth ex- ercise the Koyal Prerogative of appointing to otficc under the Crown. The preferring of this demand was r. blun- der second to none of the many of which they stand convicted. One might almost venture to call it the great and crowning blunder of the whole. Assuredly, it is not to be vvonilered at,, that their own statement did not disclose the fact of Its having been made. Before the day? of Responsible (Government in England, it was common enough to demand jiledsres from the Crown ; and light often were they given, and right often broken. After several civil wars,. the beheading of one King and the dethroning of another, John Bull found out that pledges were of wonderfullv little value, and in a hap- py hour hit upon the expedient of utterly ali- juring them, declaring the Crown incajiable of accountability to any one, r.nd holding its ser- vants instea(f liable to a strict responsibility to himscilf for every thing they should do at its bidding. In ('auada, too, we have had our troubles ; complaint after complaint of gross mis-government ; pledge given upon pledge, that every thing should be set ri'i;ht directly; (iovernors in ([uick succession diiven home by agitati(m, owing to the eternal violation of these pledges ; and at last, to make the parallel com- jilete, a civil war. After the civil war we are told that we too may try the remedy that at home has been fotmd to act as a specific fui all these symptoms ; that instead of begging or bullying for promises, and quarrelling with Governors for not making or not keeping them, we may quic^tly take care of ourselves, if we please, by }u)ldii;g our tJovcrnor's Ministers responsible, as in Kngh'nd they hold the Min- islers of the Crown. Our very Ministry, the chamjiioits of the newsystem, are hardly warm in office before they are off on the old tack ; in- sislinii: on promises from the Governor, and de- nouncing him to the country because he says he will not make them. Why, the very fust axiom of British Consti- tutional Law is that "the King can do no wrong"; in other words, that he cannot be held responsible in any sense or way for any public act tu any one. But the act of giving- a pledge as to a future course of conduct, no matter who is the party that gives it, makes that party accountable to those to whom it is «f nCWHM HMSPONfllin.K OOyKRNMF.NT KOIl CANApA. vf, I \ pivrn. Thfl only sort of plnlfrr nii Knjrlish Kiii'^ cftii make is a plnlni' inailr ilnoiif^li lii% Ministcy.i iind im lltnr rrsiHinsiliiUdj ; not a jilt'ilia; lo llu'm or miy one else ii|ioii liis own. A King \vl\() liiis Iioiiik! Iiimsclt liy a jiPtsciial eiifriiinLMnent to iiis Minisluis, or to litluT Ilonsrt of I'lulianient, has made liiniscll" pri- soiially rosiiDOMlilc, so far iis the sulijdcl inatlnr of that enji;ai!;oiiicnt is in (|UPslion, to tii.ise Ministers, or lo tliat Mouse; of l-'ailiaoifnt. It is an uiisunlity in trrnisto say that he ran take; imi'li a step witiiout instantly ccasin;^ to he the Kin;< he is. Inste'ail of lu'liii^ a Sovereign in- cap.ilile of heinj; ch;ir),'e(! with wroni^, fcs the (.'onstilutinn declares hini,h(! wuiilil iiave decln- rcd liimself iiaiilc to be chi'.r;;ed with wronp; — to I'c called to account us to the nuiiner in which his pledpts inity or may not be redeemed, and, hy necessary intori'nce, liable to censure or punishment, if, wlun so called to nceount, ho shall fail to satisfy his subjects on that head. The essential fcatnr(! of the Hritish IVIoni'.rchy, as at present constituted, would be lost ; and whatever it mi:j;ht for a time conlinue to be called, it. would have become in fact, from that instant, either the unlialanced Monaichy of the olden time of civil wars and dethronements, or else a Republic. If, indeed, the people of Eni^land chose to make this charif^e — a thin;:; their statesmen are much too wise, by the way, to think of— no one doubts their power to hrinp; it about. The same " ris^ht of revolution " that established the present system ia IfiBS, could establish another. There is no third party in the case. If the nation willed it, the Sovereig;n could accede to the change, ])vecisely as .Fames the Second, when the nation willed it, cf)idd abdi- cate. The Representative of the Sovereign here, however, has not even this matter of fart pow- er, to assent to such a depniture from the rules of the established Constitution. He is not inerely not accountable to us ; lie actually has not it in his power to make himself so. He is accountable to his Sovereign, and could not but be recalled, were lie to lake a single step to- wards the transfer of that accountability from l!ie Sovereign of the Empire to the ])cople of this Colony. The act would be almost, per- haps quite, an act of treason ; and would very possibly earn for him the honours of an im- pcao'iment after his recall. As to supposing that any Ihitish Minister will ever dare to ad- vise the Crown to give a Governor of Canada leave to make such a transfer, or that the Bri- tish Parliament would ever sufl'er such advice, if given, to be followed, the fancy is too idle to be argued against. At every turn the path is hedged in with inipossibiHtics. By what sad fatality can it have happened that nine jiublic men, undertaking to lead a great party, to govern a great Province on tlie principles of the British Constitution, have gone so far out of their way to walk in It? That this view of the case, unanswerably Jressed upon tlie House by Mr. Wakefield's fesohitions proposed in amendment to Mr. Price's Resolution, and hy his ablf spfpcli in support of them, conjinanded the assent ot thai body, is dcmonstiiitcd by the adoption of Ihn amciiiliiiciit wlii'h was afterwards bionght for- ward by Mr. Hiiiilton. That ameodim nl stal- ed that th(! Jlnusi' '' most h'imhiy beg have to disclaim in a negative lorm, any desire tiiat the Head of the (iovernmeiit should be called upon to enter into any stipulation as to tlin tuims upon which a I'rovincial Administration may deem it prudent cither to aicrptofor continue iii ollice ; that mutual ccjiilidence which is essential to the well-being of any tio* vernment, necessaiily picsuining that they are understood, while a due rts|iecl for the prero- gative of the Crown, anserlin^Jhi: right ofbein^ cmsulttd there- upon. ^ ^ f -Mr. Lafovtuine's Leltir. arid RESPONSIBLK CiOVERNMENT FOR CANADA. 9 done. Tao Minister, \v'lifitlier his advice was V . required or nut, tenders his resignation, ihat lie may not he hehl resifonsihlc. !Suf;h, I re- peat, is the one simpk*. elil'ctual check upon the prerogative, wiiich alone the British Con- stitution can recognise, either at home or here. l^ut not to dwell on this consideration, and looking at the proposal of the ex-Ministers to the ( jovernor General on the subject of patron- age as a mere piece of general advice given by them withciit tiie remotest view to a resigna- tion on their part, if it should not he assented to hy him, I still cannot hesitate to maintain, that even in this light, it was not altogether unexceptionable, whether tried by tlKjtest of British practic", or by that of the interests of the public ser I'icc here, it will be found want- ing. Insiyingthis, I am not to be understood as maintaining the vidiculous notion which some friends of the ex-Ministers seek to ascribe to all tiiose who condemn their course, — the no- tion that the patronage of the crown should be distributed by the Governor General wilho\it advice from his responsible Ministers. I hold fo no such exploded absurdity, any more than they do. It would need proof" strong as holy writ" to make me believe that it could ever enter into the head of any Governor General, having Responsible Ministers at all. If Coun- cillors are to he responsible for .ippointmenfs, or for any tiling else, they must in point of fact bo consulted : — in Canada just as much as in England. _4s much, but not more. It is not quite cor- rect, the notion current with some parties here, that the patronage of the Crown in England is a purdy Ministerial affair. In the main it cer- tainly is, but not wholly. Ministers have a very great deal to say about its distribution, because they are responsible i'or it ; but it does not follow that they always have it all their own way. During all the " ten years of tiic Whigs," from 1831' to 1841, it is well known tliat thoy ue' er had the control of the Army patronage. A staunch Tory presided all the while at the Horse-Guards ; and from 1832 to 1S37 the personal leanings of the Sovereign were notoriously with him, and T;ainst them. Yet this Army patronage comprised a multi- tude of appointments that could be turned to jiolilical account. In 183'J the Queen insisted with Sir Robert Peel, on having her own way entirely about another class of appointmenis also liable to be turned to political uses; and Varlianient indirectly sustained her mi so do- ing. Such cases are exceptions, doubtless ; but they have occurred, and sliow how hard it is to state the rule. Indeed, in ordinary cases, whoever may be the Slinisters, unless there he some strong political reason in the way, any expressed wish of the Sovereign always lias wci'^il. From the amount of ib.e patrcn= age, the Sovereign in the immense majority of cases can have no wish or opinion. Here, where there is so much less, a Governor natur- olly forms an opinion of his own in a larj^rr B proportion of cases ; and his doing so has a tendency to make the check on the Ministe- rial exercise of patronage so much the more considerable. Being oftener felt, it is more disrelished by those who feel it. The dele- gate of the Sovereign, they may complain, meddles more with patronage in Canada than the Sovereign does at home. What right has he to assume greater powers than his Master has? None, most certainly ; and I claim none for him. All I admit is, that the very fact that he has a Master, and that his powers are therefore less — not greMer, — lays him under the necesnity of attending more carefully to their exercise. His Master may please him self; he must justify himself to his Master, and to that end must try all the time to know what he is doing. Simply because he is not a King, he inust form opinions of his own, and cannot give them up but for reason good to be shown him from time to time, if need be, by his Ministers. To return, however, from this necessary di- grcssLjn, to the proposal of the ex-Councillors. That proposal went much further than to af- firm the truism that they ought practically to have a voice as to acts for which they were accountable. It laid down a universal rule as to the dispensation of patronage, and prescribed a certain course to he followed in order to the observance of that rule. The rule was, that the Governor General " should rot make any ap- pointment prejudicial to their influence " ; the mode of procedure, that before any appoint- ment or offer of appointment should be made, a list of the candidates sliould always be laid before thii Councillors collectively, that they should have the opti .a of recommending any one they pleased, whether on the list or not, and lastly, that the Governor's decision should hs comniunicated to them before being made known to the party interested or to the public* It is rather hazardous work, this laying down of universal rules; a kind of work very little in vogue under the Enj;lish system, very little affocted by English statesmen. It may he doubted whether an absolute rule was ever sta- •Notf:.— I bave used the phrase "Councillors collectively," iiisteiut of "Council," becaude it was stated in the House by one of the ex-Minister» ihntil was not their intention to have had the lists officially rererrcd to the Council, but only laid be- fore Its Members when assembled as a Cabinet. The difltinclion is purely tecbnical, but I observe it to avoid all charge of misrepresentation. With the same view, I remark that in changing the order of the requirements from tlmt in which Sir Charles Metcalfe's letter places them., I only follow the arrangement chosen by another ex-Minister in mak'ng hk explanation in the Legislaiive Council ; and that what I have mcntion»d as the last step in the [Jioposcd order of procedure, though otnitttd in Sir Charles Metcalfe's iRtter (nn doubt from ita comparative unimportance) was so spoken of in that gentleman's speech, and is besides clearly implied in the claim set up in Mr. Lafontaine's letler " of knowing, before others, Iiis Excellency's intentions." 10 RESPONSIBLE GOVEUNJIeNT FOR CANADA. ted to himself by any English Minister, as to the distribntion of patronage. Most certainly, never did English King and Ministers lay their heads together to frame and announce one. If however, we must needs have one in Canada, the form cannot very well be that proposed in this instance to Sir Charles Metcalfe. Not to advise appointments prejudicial to one's own influence is a tolerably instinctive Ministerial notion, the world over. It is sura every where to be often enough acted on, be the Ministers who they may ; and it is equally sure, where- ever Ministers are responsible, to have its full effect on Crown or Governor. So let it have in Canada. But to announce it as a rule of action, and to call on the Crown or its Repres- entative to endorse the announcement, were to tell defeat the very object aimed at ; were to one's pol'tical opponents, nay to make the Crown tell them, that party interests are going to be preferred to the public interest, and what more damning confession, in a free country, can a party make ? No, no, if a rule must be stated, and above all by the Crown, it must be the mere rule of merit and capacity. In plain truth, however, it is little i)ettcr than a waste of words to be laying down any formal rule about the matter at all. The objections to the proposed mode of pro- cedure are of a graver character. All appoint- ments in the Province, no matter how insigni- ficant, to b-! discussed in Cabinet Council! The Provincial Cabinet to advise the Governor deliberately, and in form, on each; and to be formally made acquainted, as a state secret, with the decision of the Governor on each be- fore any one else is to know it ! All very well, when appointments of consequence may be in question ; but the majority of appoint- ments never are of consequence. In England, they go through no such form ; though the Satronage of the Crown is there as much a linisterial affair as a reasonable man can wish to see ic here. Each Minister there superin- tends that of his own branch of the service. On appointments of importance tliey naturally consult together in Council before taking the Royal pleasure. In other cases they proceed more or less independently of each other accor- ding to circumstances, but always, of course, with a general understanding among themselves as to the limits of this independent action. Trusting each other as party fiieiKls and i-ien of honor, the acts of each are the acts of all. No other system could be kept up as a matter of practice, for a week. And no other system can as a matter of practice be kept up here, either. It is very true that the number of ap- pointments is so much less here, th.it one does not at first sight see the absurdity of tlie scheme quite as one would at home. But it is not re- ally much less absurd. The time of all the Executive Councillors, met together on public business, is to be spent in reviewing lists ol Candidates for appointments, a large propor- tion of which will yield to the incumbent no emolument at all, and the great majority of which will not be worth to him more than a ministers. very few pounds, or may be a few shilling?, yearly ; on every one of these appointments the Governor and they are to make asort of treaty, he opening to them the case, they announcing their matured opinion, and then he his deci- sion. Is the Executive Council of a great Pro- vince like Canada to waste 'ts time in elabo- rate trifling such as this? Most people have been in the liiihit of thinking it has weightier afiaiis to attend to. And if it has not, it had better at all events, not tell the country so ; or before long the country will he coming to the conclusion, that the whole thing is a farce, not worth a tithe of what it costs. The general understnading is— and, joking apart, it is a cor- rect one— that the Executive Council has a great amount of important business to attend to, land claims, the final audit of public accounts, questions of finance, the control of the Board of Works, thesrltlcmcntof all sorts of ques- tions of any difliculty occuring in any other department of the Government, and all those more general matters of public policy that come undci'lts notice as a Cabinet Council. Does it want more, to keep it busy V The news- papers say, and I believe it is matter as well of fact as of notoiiuty, that at the time of the resiiination, there were before the late Council, exclusive ofland and Cabinet Couiicilbusiness, upwards of live hundred several questions, great and small, waiting its tardy action— many of them for many months. Great need to invent for it new Cabinet Council talk-work, by way of making the arrear hereafter lighter ! A^ain, and airain, and airaln- at whatever risk of being tedious,— I must insist on it, that if we are to have here British Responsible Gov- ernment, we must have it a^ a whole, princi- ples and usages t02;ether, the old system they have at homo ; not a newly edited collection of theories and practices, taken hap-hazard, now from England, now from the Canada of the (lays of Sir .fames Craig, and now and then from our neighbours across the line. We may safely rest assured, that I'or some few .years to come, at least, we shall not, by altering, do much to iTiend it. " Do vou then mean to say," says some par- tizan of the ex-jMinistors. '• that you think the conduct of the Governor-General to his late Ca- binet in regard to the distribution of patronage was in accordance with British usage, and therefore on ynur showing correct?" Fair and softly, my" Responsible Government friend. I mean to say, I am quite sure that neither the conduct of the ex-iMinisters to the Gover- nor General, nor yet their notion of what ought to be his conduct to them, in this matter of patronase, was correct, or any thing like cor- rect. There, as a Responsible Government man, I am disposed to stop. The question you ask is neither your business nor mine. 'Whe- ther the (Governor was right or wrong is not the point tliat we Canadians have to determine, but one for those alone to raise who sent him here. Our business is with our own people, who have been, or hereafter may become, hw RE3P0.\SIBLL; «OrKRNMt:NT roil canada. It ^ jirotesliiig always against the Irresponsible Go- vernnicnt notions of those who raise it, 1 will even say a wore! or two about the mode in whicli the dispensation of the patronage of the Crown is understood to have been actually irianai^ed of late years in Canada, as between the Representative of tlie Crown and liis res- ponsible advisers. The subject is not an easy one to treat of, for the most obvious of reasons ; because so very little is hnown aiiout it by any one but the advisors themselves. Common ru- mour and the disclosures made during the late debates are all one has to '^.o by. One fact is tolerably certain, that the first Governor of Canada, whose Ministers declaied themselves responsible to the Province for his acts, and prepared to resin;n oi-. a vote of want of confidence, save tliose Ministers very little trouble about the disposal of ]iatrona2-c. Lord Sydenham, unless fame does him great injus- tice, took as much upon himself in the way of giving and pinmising as in that of creating places. SirKichard Jackson is understood to have acted, as an ad interim ruler naturally Avould, on advice in every thing ; but it was tiie fashion to account for most of the appoint- ments lie made, by referiing them to Lord Sy- denham's personal engagements and intentions. >Sir Charles Bagot was commonly supposed to have taken advice on most niiitters ; but it \\as always matter of notoiiety that ho did not on all, and that some of the most iiiijiortant of all his oli'ers of political aiipointmont were made of his own "mere motion." After the re-con- struction of his Cahinet, and as his health with- drew him more and more from )Hiblic business, there was naturally less of this ; absolutely none, most p( ')])le su|i|]03cd. liut two facts that came out in the late debates sliov/ tliat tiiis idea was incoirect. One of Mr. Hincks's an- ecdotes had reference to a ]iromise of appoint- ment made by Sir Charles (hiring this period without consiilting tlie Council, to a gentleman recommended to him from England. And the extract read b\ Mr. Price from a letter wiit- ten to himself by Mr. Jialdwin in Feb. 1812, only just before the jiresent Governor ariived, represented the position of the Ministry, from the tendencies of the Head of the Government on the subject of patronage, as even then quite embarrassing. Of what Sir Charles IMetcnlfe has done and not done in the ])remiscs, we have heard a great deal ; but the jiainting is not the lion's, and one hardly knows how far to tiust its fairness. Some traces there are in it ot gross unfairness. It was at liistsaid confidently, ibr instance, by two ex-Connciilois, that in refer- ence to the Chair of the Upper House, Sir Charles IMetcalfe acted without advice fiom his Council. But it afterwards came out, in a speech of a third e.x-Couneillor made several days afterwards, thai the Council had advised Sir Charles in the matter, aiul had advised him to name one of their own body to the appoint- ment— temporarilj-, to be sure, it was added, and without increase of emolument. And on further questioning, a fourth ex-Councillor ad- ded that he had himself submitted to the Go- vernor a list of names as recommended by his colleagues and himself, and that the name of the gentleman appointed was on that list. So that at last the sweeping charge had narrowed itself down to the facts, that the Governor did not make the offer to the person or persons they most wished, nor in the order they wished, and that he did ofler the appointment (or rather, de- termined to offer it, for the offer itself seems by accident not to have been made) to a person w'hoin they would not have liked at all. Again among the ajipointments universally supposed not tohave been at their suggestion, was that of Mr. Stanton to the Collectorship of Toronto, one of the best places in the Piovince. They were taunted in the House with this appoint- ment by Sir Allan MacNab, and asked why they did not resign when it was made, instead of wailing till so long after to pick a quarrel with so much less occasion. No answer. Next day, another Member of the House asks them in so many words whether they did or did not advise the act. It turns out that they did ! but the ex-Minister who makes the tardy avowal adds to it by way of explanation that they did so, not because they thought the act right and were prepared therefore to justify it, but be- cause they knew the Governor held an opinion which they did not hold about Mr. Stanton's claims to compensation, and his appointment was the easiest way to get lid of the embar- rassment. What a notion of Responsible Go- vernment! In England which would they think the worst, the silence, or the speech that followed it? IJeyond question, however. Sir Charles Met- calfe must have made ajipointments without or against his Councillors' advice. The only dif- ficulty is to ascertain how many. That the number has not been great, I cannot but feel pretty sure. There is nothing like evidence to prove that in this respect he set out with any less favourable rule or feeling than his imme- diate predecessor. Fcrliaps he may latterly have been inclining more than at first towards a course of semi-independent action. The thing is not unlikely. "And if so," rejoins our ex- Ministerialist, " if so, was he not wrong ? How came he to incline that way, but from a rooted dislike of Responsible Government"? There may have been another reason ; but of that presently. For the moment I feel more dis- posed to meet the question by a second. How came our cx-Ministeis, who had quietly made themselves responsible, by staying in office, for every unadvised piece of patronage till then committed, to choose that unlucky Friday, when no particular enormity of the kind seems to have been in question, for their sudden con- version to the true faith as they have since that day held it ? On their own showing, they had all been letting the thing go on for some four- teen months ; and several of them had been " art and part " in the enormity ever since the Union. What made them all at once, in the middle of the Session, just when they might sunjiosc Sir Charles ftlctcalfc could not possibly ;;; t .^n without them, insist on his injtantly 12 RESPONSIBLU UOVERNMENT FOK CANADA, II promising to take a new course, never till then proposed to him, never suggested to any of his predecessors ? The reservation of the Secret Socictii Bill has been spoken of as a sufficient reason for the resignation. If the ex-Ministers, at the time, thouglit it was, it is p. pity they did not say so ; for a resignation upon a public act of that cha- racter, an act by which the Governor placed himself in direct opposition to their apparent party interests, would have been perfectly con- stitutional in form, and open to none of tiie grave objections on that score, which attach to the course they took. Further than this, how- ever, I cannot go. In point of fact, a resigna- tion on that ground would, in my opinion, have been indefensible ; and, for a reason that may be briefly stated. I am not going into any argument as to the merits or demerits of the Bill. It may have been all that is good, or all that is bad, for any thing I need here say to it. The only mate- rial point is this, that it was a Bill of a most ■unxisual character. It went to disqualify for public employment, all persons who sliould de- mur to a test-oath or affirmation, to the effect that the party taking it was not a member of any Society bound by an oath of secrecy, or having secret signs, the Masonic Society alone excepted. I have not a word to say in favour pf such Societies, nor against the policy of any course of action, executive or legislative, cal- culated to put an end to the nuisance (for such I regard it) of their existence in Canada. Nor yet, so far as I can see, from all that has trans- pired on the subject, had Sir Charles Metcalfe. It was his opinion that the Bill was not calcu- lated to attain its object ; but his letter to Mr. Laibntaine declares that he « deprecates the existence " of such Societies, and I am not aware that he is asserted to have ever held any other language about them. But all this is nothing to the point. The one essential fact, I repeat, is this ; that there never was a law like it passed before, in the mother country or here ; or, so far as m knowledge extends, any where else. Were it ever so wise, it was without a precedent in British legislation. Now, what is it notoriously the sworn duty ol a Governor to do with such a measure, when jt comes before him for the Royal sanction ? The Royal Instructions, which from ti>ne im- memorial have been addressed to all Canadian Governors on their assumption of office, say, you shall reserve for the signification of the Royal pleasure every Bill that may by law re- quire to be laid before the Imperial Parliament, and, also, " every other Bill which you shall consider to be of an extraordinary or unusual nature, or requiring our especial consideration and decision thereupon." Had Sir Charles Metcalfe, in this case, any sort of option ? What, then, becomes of Responsible Govern- ment, says some one ? Were the Ministers not mponsible for the act, and entitled to olTer ad- vice upon it ? Certainly. They are responsi- ble to Canadian opinion for every exercise of •very prerogative in Canada, and may, rby necessary consequence) advise as to any. Nay, I gp further; in a case like this, it was their duty to have oH'cred advice. They liad iidvised the Governor to allow them to bring in the Bill as a Government measure. The tenor of the Royal Instructions could not be unknown to them ; and as soon as the Bill had passed, or was certain of passing tlie two Houses, they ouglit to have further advised His Excellency, that under those Instructions, it was clearly his duty to reserve it for the Queen's sanction at home. They did not do this, and the Governor made up his mind with- out asking them. They complain that he did not ask them, or else tell them his mind sooner than he did. As to asking, he surely was at liberty to do that or not, as he pleased, in a case so transparently obvious. If they had wished to speak, there was nothing to prevent them. And as to telling thcni sooner ; to say that with the printed Royal Instructions, and their knowledije of what liad passed, in refer- ence to the Bill, between the Governor Gene- ral and themselves, they needed telling to make them know the course he would take, were to say something a little strange. Right or wrong, he h?.d refused to lay down as a rule of executive action, the principle embodied in the Bill, saying, tliat although utterly averse to secret Societies, he thought the rule propos- ed to him was unwise. He had then reluc- tantly assented to their introducing a Bill into Parliament to carry out their views, telling them when he did so, that he thought it " an aibitraiy and unwise measure, and not even calculated to effect the object it had in view." Which of two things ougiit an assent of this kind to have been held to mean, — a promise to assent to it in spite of his Instructions, or a warning not easy to be misunderstood, the other way ? But His Excellency might have been more explicit. Beyond all question he might : and so, too, might they. Again, as witirthe pa- tronage controversy ,'.the question we are driven back upon, is rather a personal than a public one. How came there to be the general mis- understanding and reserve there was, between the Governor General and his late advisers? The ready answer of more than one para- graph-writer and speech-maker is, " Back- stairs influence"; a vague charge, alwaj-s easy to make, hard to establish, next to impossible to disprove. What is there to make it probable in the present instance ? Sir Charles Metcalfe's well-known character for honest, self-relying independence, earned by forty years of official service ? The habit of reserve that during the session gave no one the power to state what his personal opinion wiis on any matter under discussion ? And by whom was this back-stairs influence exerted"? The speeches made in Parliament all pointed, I believe, to one man, the Member for tlie County of Bcauharnois ; a man of unquestion- able ability, and who has rendered to the cause of Responsible Government for Canada an amount v! service second to that rcndeied « I IIESPONSIBM-: UOVERNMIiNT FOR CANADA. 13 iinii f. 4 i)y no other mr.n livinj^. We have his dis- tinct asseition made in the llousp, that until the Monday morning after the rcsisrnatioii he had never liad a conversation with the Covcr- nor General, in Canada, on tiie local politics of the day ; an assertion which only a fool could have tliouglit of niakinf;;, had it been untrue. But, after all, what coukl back-stairs intlucncc really have to do in the matter? It was not the Governor who made the move, but his late advisers. IJack-stairs influence should result in removals, not resignation. There was, then, what Mr. Lafontaine's letter represents .Sir Chailes Metcalfe to iiave called " antagonism " between him and them. Admitted. In 1832 there was an antagonism (far, far more serious, as I shall soon "show) hetween 'William the Fourth and his advisers. They knew well tiiat the King was at heart opposed to their great measure and to them- selves, hut they wailed quietly, as we. have seen, tillhis refusal at the critical moment to create Peers f'oiced them to resign; and then, they resigned without a word said about anta- gonism. In 1834, there was still antagonism, and they were still omnipotent as ever in the House of Commons ; but they sought no pre- text for bringing the House to issue about it with the Crown. An accident (the death of Lord Spencer) made some Ministerial changes necessary, and gave the King the opportunity^ to get rid of them. The act was not theirs, because they knew that in England antagonism is no suflicient ground of resignation. The Min- istry that took their places was defeated in the ne\v House of Commons ; and they came in again, and remained the King's Ministers till the day of his death, some three years after, every one knowing all the while that between ' him and them there was still all the aptanon- ism there had ever been. Such is the Entc- lish principle. Upon any other, dethrone- ments would not be much less common than changes of Administration. Are we to have another principle for Canada ? Can we suffer our public men to say that the first hint of an- tagonism between a Governor and them is to make them at once throw office and the inter- ests of the Province to the fjur winds, and post down to Parliament to toll the country that he is good lor nothing but to be recalled ? With ResponsiCile Government, we ought to have abovit as little occasion for a Governor's r( call, as at home they have for a King's dethrone- ment. The two remedies are not quite equally violent ; but they are the same in kind, and one is not more rc])ugnant tlian the other to the spirit of the British Constitution. But the precedent I have been citing proves vastly more than for my jiresent purjiose I have any occasion to prove. The antagonism between King William and his Cabinet was one of public princijile, and was so strong as to lead him to seize the only opportunity"^ he had of dismissing them from his councils. What sort of antagonism was there between Sir Charles Metcalfe and his late Ministers ? ^Vas he really hostile to their partv, their measures, and themselves— anxious to reverse their policy, and surround himself with their ojiponents ? By the admssion of all who have ever known him, and his public career has been Ion"' and eventful bejdiid that of most men, Si'r Charles Metcalfe is a tlioioughly able, honest nii'.n. Strong party feeling lie never had an opportunity to show, nor even to form. But in general political sentiment and opinion he has always been recognised as being what politi- cians would term a Liberal, although not at all what they would teiui a party man. The man can be nothing else, who has rained himself through every step of promotion in the civil seivice of our East India Empiie, from the Igwest to the very his;hest ; who, as an Acting Governor General of India, signalized his year's administration of allairs by an act so daringly liberal as the establishment of the Freedom of tlie Press ; who was chosen by the Whig.Radical Government of 1837, at their utmost need, to govern a colony in a state of legislative rebellion, as Jamaica then was; who succeeded there iu making himself liter- ally tlie most popular Governor Jamaica had ever known ; whom the Conservative Admin- istration of ia!2 selected to u.ndertake the government of Canada under the liberal sys- tem then lately established here ; whose ap- pointment every Liberal at home applauded as the best and wisest they could have made. Yet this man, we are told to believe, in spite of his own repeated, solemn declarations to the contrary, is adverse to the principle of Responsible Government ; so entirely adverse to it that it is impossible for Responsible Go- vernment men to act with him as Executive Councillors ! For my part, I have no such easy political faith as to make myself believe anything of the sort. I can easily believe that he may have thought the advice of his late Ministers, in particular cases, short-sighted and unwise, and that he may have told them so ; that their views as to patronage may have sometimes struck him as being too much thoie of political partisans ; that the roughness and reserve of manner of some among them, of which their best parlia- mentary lucnds have had constant cause to complain, may have given him deep offence, and not without reason] that he may have un- derstood it to indicate a settled resolve on their part to reduce him to a cypher, to prevent him liom ever acting as his own judgment might dictate, perhaps at times to trick him into acts winch tiiey know he would not, it fully ex- plair.ed to him, approve, I can believe that the -escrvc which ,uich a feeling would natu- r : ■• eate on his part, may as naturally kave bco;i . .isunderstood by them ; and that in this way there may have been established before long, between him and them, an antagonism of misunderstanding (if I may vce the' term) quite decided enough to account for the want of cordiality and conlidence that has been complained of, without resorting to the ali- Jurdly impossible theory of a decided hostility H RKSHONSIBLE GOVERNMENT FOll CANADA. K II on Sir Charles Wetcalle's part, to Responsible Goveriinieiit, or lilieral measures, or liberal men. More 1 do not believe. Had Sir Charles Metcall'e been received and treated by his latfi Council with the consideration and ennfidence to whicii iiis position, talents a.itl character alike entitled liiiti, I cannot but leel conlident that the result would have been al- to;rether dilieront. I may perhaps be told that in assuniinf; ihis explanation ol' the antai^onisni about wbicii so much has been said, I assume more than I have a ri^iht to do ; more than the known facts of the case warrant us in believint;. Let the Jiistory of the late Session answer. I am much mistaken, if it do not prove the cx-Ministers quite imprudent enoui^h to have made all the mistakes I cliarsc upon them, in their early intercourse with the Governor General. It may also, at tlie same time, throw some lii^lit on the question, and how tbey came to choose the lime they did lor their i'lnal rupture with him. The Session opened with the announcement that the removal of the Seat ot Government was to be made a Cabinet question. With tiiat decision of the'rs, 1 have no fault to find. I^ike every one else in Canada, 1 hold that the Home Government ought to have settled the question, instead of forcing it, with all the angry excitement its discussion must produce, upon the Province. This mischief done, however, the best course the Provincial Government could take was to make the dis- cussion as little exciting as possible, by an early, fmal decision of the controversy ; a re- sult which they made much more probable, when tbey made the inatter a Cabinet ques- tion. But having done this, they siiouid have done more. Tiiey could not hut know that Mr. Harrison's resignation would have to be explained in Parliament at a very early day ; that the necessity for this expianatio'n must force from them their seat of Government mes- sage at that early day ; and that the discussion of the question in either House might Ibllow immediately. In England, under such cir- cumstances, Ministers \vould have taken care to write beforehand to all tiieir supjiortcrs in both Houses asking their attendance on or he- tore the day when the message was to come down ; a course which at once prevents sur- prise and pleases those to whom the attention is paid. This was not done ; few of their friends in the Upper House had reached King- ston when the message came down to that body : and the Opposition, by discussing it there immediately, defeated them. Hence, when the measure had passed the Lower House, it became nesessary to bring it on a second time in the Council ; to obtain the vote of the real majority of that body ; and this most unusual step, following closely as it did, upon all the irritations of the debates in the two Houses, produced the secession en muisse of the minority,— that is to say, of 14 of the 19 Upper Canadian Councillors. A quorum of the Council from that day forward, could hard- ly be kept together ; and the continuance of the Seosion, and the fate of u// its niet of them that 1 have'heie to speak. The mistake of the measure was in the general ir.- discretion with which its authors set about it. Their wish was to unite several chartered in- stitutions, one of them (King's College) a richly endowed nrporation. From the unen- dowed corporations ojjposition was not to be anticipated ; but from King's College every one knew it was certain, (/ the Membeis of the College Council resident at Toronto were to be left to act by themselves in its behalf. The Council by law consisted of the Governor of the Piovince, i.s Chancellor, the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, the two Law Ofllccrs (or Upper Canada, the President of ihc College, (at i)resent,the Bishop of Toronto), the Princijial of the Upjier Canada Minor Col- lege, and the live senior Professors of King's College ; in all twelve persons, the Chancellor, or rather Member presiding in his absence, having the right to vote on all questions, and to give a casting vote besides. Had the whole Council been called together, as it might have been by the Chancellor's summons, there is no doid)t that a majority would have voted the assent of the Corporation to a union of the several Colleges into one University ; per- haps not on the precise terms laid down in the Bill, but at any rate on terms that would have well satisfied the country and met every real object that the measure was intended to secure. Yet this obvious step was not taken. The Ministry were content to frame their Bill, and at once introduced it into Parliament, with the full knowledge that the voice of King's Col- lege would be constantly raised against it as an act of injustice and spoliation. So, of course, it was; and other objections too were raised, which probably they' had not foreseen. The i'lill jiroposed to create a " Univcisity of To- ronto." It was urged that no University had ever been aralcd by an Act even of the Im- perial Parliiiment ; such creation having al- ways been held the exclusive Prerogative of the Crown. The Bill proposed to enact that no other University, or College with the power of giving degrees independently of the University of Toronto, should ever be erected in Upper Canada. It was urged that this was an infringement on the Prerogative, yet more at variance with the principles of English Law. ^ylthout the consent of King's College, pre- viously obtained, even the Crown which gave it ils chaiter could not lawfully inteifere with it, With that consent, the Crown alone could have done all the rest. . Parliament, until the Crown should have first created the University proposed, could not in either case act at aU. But the easier course which would have dis- armed opposition had not been taken. Instead of quietly removing dilficulties, Ministers had nndertaken to btcak through them as they stood, by main force,— by what they thought the omnipotence of a Parliament in which they thought themselves omnipotent. When it was too late, the consequences of their error 16 RKSPOKSnn.E OOVEnNMKNT fOR CANADA. sbrfid tlic^m hi the lace. Tlicir Hill was po- puhii' ill V[)\m Caniulii, luit it w.is ass.iilod a.s an act of r nnliscation ; anil tlicir Lower L'aiia- tliaii Cricnils shrunk from supimrtin^j; it. 0\\ the rni'mora!)le Fiiday of IMcs^rs. Lafoiitaiiu; aril! H.tl(lwiii'i) visit to (lovernmeiit House, Mr. Draper sjiokc a-^'ainst tlic inoaHure, as tlio Advocate of Kind's College, at the Har of the Asscmldy. On t!ie Monday of Mr. Lafonlaiiie's announcement that ci;'lit of his colleafjiies and himself were out of olllce, the discussion on the second roadinj; was to have come on ; and the best informed, I helieve, had nodmiht tiiiil, but for the resijrnation, the extreme dislike of the Lower Canadians to all iiiteiference with vested ri!;hts would have forced the Ministrv, however, much against their will, to with- draw it. Is it too much to ascribe the antagonism le- twecn Sir Charles Metcalfe and these gentle- men to a misunderstanding, the natural conse- quence of indiscretions on their part, precisidy like these, into which every memlier of parlia- ment knows them to have" fallen, and not a whit less glaring? Or is it too much to suppose that the e/l'ects of these, their Parliamentary indiscretions, had something to do with their choice of a time for their final rupture with theGoverror? Their relations with him, already the reverse to friendly ; the chances of their being able to keep Parliament in session from week to week uncertain ; the material for months of hani work before Parliament ; their measures so crowded upon each other as almost to prevent their getting on with any ; some friends whol- ly alienated, and others in any thing but good humour; some unforeseen defeats past, and some worse defeats seemingly inevitable ; it was not quite so strange as under other circum- stances it would have been, that they took the course they did. Should the Governor yield— and, as I am unwilling to suppose that'the ut- ter unconstitutionality of their demand upon him occurred to their minds when they made it, I would give tiiem the full benefit of sup- posing that they hoped and thought he might- should the Governor yield, one great cause of their uneasiness would bo removed, and the others could all the better be dealt with for its removal. Should he not yield, the quarrel with him on a great popular principle would save them from their other embarrassments at once, would throw on him the odium of break- ing up the Session and disappointing the coun- try of its measures, would re-unite and swell their party, would bring them back to power almost directly, more secure in their hold of office, stronger, more resistless, than they had ever been. The blow was struck, and the Governor did not yield. The first inist'ike led to more ; and in a day or t'-o the last chance of their return to power was the chance of the Governor's resignation or recall. To make sure of that chance every eftbrt has ever since been made. What the eflbrts have been worth, the last sentence of the Governor's prorogation speech tells prclty plainly. Ho has Jhcre said, in terms not to be misunderstood, that he would iem:iin at his post, and meet the Provincial Parliament again. One must he a jioor judge of character to suppose he will not more ihan keep his word. The tales that have been told of his I'alling health, and despotic notions, are about equally idle ; but even the invention that has manufactured them, has not gone far enough to, represent him as a man inlirm of purpose, or wanting in moral courage. As to public opi- nion at home, it is as likely to condemn him as the St. Lawrence is to run up the Falls of Nia- gara into Lake Erie. He has the confidence and respect of ins and outs alike. All wdio may not take the trouble to CAamine into the circumstances of the case, will take it for granted that he is light. None who do, will make up their minds to say he is wron". To wait till ho shall be recalled, will be to wait a a long while. In other respects, also, the plan has failed. Sir Charles has not suflered the responsibility of the breaking uj. of the session, and the loss of its measures, to fall upon himself. He has empliatically declared that it was in no sense his act, or his wish. Of course, no appoint- ment of a new Ministry could have cnalded Parliament to go on at once with the work ol maturing all the measures of the session ; for the new Ministers must have gone to their constituents, and must, besides, have taken some time to determine their course about the measures, before they could have come down prepared to act upon them as a Governnient. Jhit what Sir Charles could do, he did ; hy al- lowing the two Houses all the time they were willing to take, and even recommending them, (at the risk of being said to infringe upon their privileges) not to drop more of the measures before them than they could help. They were not wrong in dropping as inany as they did ; for unnecessary legislation on great questions, with no organised Government to be answera- ble for it, is a thing not to be thought of by Re- sponsible Government men. Technically, they iiad a perfect right to drop every thing". But this not done, the ex-Ministers had, at least, no moral right to mutilate their own Bills, or to suppress them otherwise than as Parliamentary rules allowed. Their Upper Canada Municipal Bill, for instance, they had consented to pro- ceed with ; but they struck out from it iirpoit- ant clauses, (which they had themselves thought it necessary to put in) lelative to the administration of justice by Police Magistrates and Recorders, because those clauses would have given a trilling amount of patronage to the Executive. The consequence of the mu- tilation was the failure of the Bill to become law. Tiieir Customs' Management Bill had passed the House shortly before the resignaticn ; and its mover, Mr. Hincks, had been ordered by the House to carry it to the Legislative Council for their cnncurrence. Some three weeks afterwards, on the day before the proro- gation, to the surprise of every one not lu the secret, (for in the hurry of other business this ttliSPOiNSlULE GOVKUNMENT VOR CANADvl. » Rill, though a most important one, had been ost sight ol) u was found that in the face of this order, lie had seen fit to keep it all the while III his own hands. It wa ' ^T'''' "" ^''" ^'''af'<^s Metcalfe, but on he e.v-Ministers, who so made the crisis, and so used it, tiiat the responsibility for tiic loss ot these, and so many other ffreat uublic measures, rests. Nor hcs Sir Charles Metcalfe suflered them to make their quarrel with him a quarrel on the great popular principle of Kesponsihle (;o- vernment. He has been the fust Governor of Canada, publicly, in his own name, to recog- nize It ; to declare that !ic « subscribes entirely to the Kesolutions of the Legislative Assembly of the 3rd iseptember, 1811, and considers any other system ol Goverment but that which re- cognizes responsibility lo the pcoi)le, and lo the Kepi^sentative Assembly, as imi,ractical)le on this Province," that « while it is his Iwunden Uuty to maintain unimpaired the Frerosjative of the Ci-own, he recognizes the Resolutions adop ed by the Legislative Asseml)ly on tiie 3rd day ot September, 1841, as constituting the guide, according to which the administration ot the Government of this Province has since been, and is to be, conducted." The former of these declarations is that of liis letter to Mr Latoutaine ; the latter forms part of a messa-e to the House of Assembly, What more une- quivocal assurance that he is not at variance with the country on^is great quesiion, can he One only ,-the assurance of his actions. And this, so lar as opportunity has yet oliered, »t seems to me he has given. Irritating as tire resignation ol his late Ministers, tireir course in the House, and the course of their friends who took up their quarrel, must in the nature oHiungs have been, he is not known to have oflered one of the vacant offices to any but Re- sponsible Government men. Mr. Viger, whom he has induced to accept the post' of senior Executive Councillor, is one of the very few men in Canada, wiiose high personal character and the steadiness of whose political principles party malignity has never to this hour question- ed ; amanot weaUh,butever the man of his peo- ple ; a man wiio has for fifty years been the abl^ and determined asserter of popular ri^'-lits -i man, who, within the last five years, has^alloV- ed himseli to be lor nineteen months the inmate ot a gaol, rather than procure his dischar-'e by an aclvvii.ch he regarded as a compromise of tiiose rights. Mr. Draper, the other gentleman Arho has accepted a seat at the Council Board, was a leading member of the Responsible Pro- vincial Government which alfirmed the Reso- lutions of September, 1811 ; took an active part in t!ie framing of those Resolutions ; and only fourteen months at nues ion, to my thinking, is soon answered. The late Ministers, on their own showing, were re- sponsible Ministers. Since their rr'si^nation some ot them have, to be sure, tried l.ardi' throw upon the Governor the responsibility of many acts to which, by Jiolding office Ion-, at er they rvere done, they had made them! selves consenting, responsible parties. But for their own personal acts, at any rate,-the mode and time they chose for resigning office, the destroyed le-nslation of the session, the agita- on into vvhich they have thrown the countiv the hazards to which, by their imprudence in t..us resigning and yet more by their iinathoi- sed and tnost unwarrantable explanations al. terwards hey have exposed the principle of ResponsiM Government, and th,. imeresl ahke ol party and the P,ovince,~for je RKSI'ONMIMI.K CiOVKRNMKNT FOR CANADA. "■'T' these, at least, oven they surely caniiot pre- tend to tie otiierwisi) than personally ros|)onsi- l>le. I am far frrm saying that what tlicy have nli puihr >) as disloyal ; and >inless,hv a fatality yet str-in-er and sadder, the community shall sustain them • n this rivalry of unreason ; the present crisis wi Isoon only be remembere.l as the occasion ot the final and complete establishment in Can- ada ot the British constitution as a whole,— its satety-givin,": principles and iisajres all to^-ethl er._ The next Ministry will hold no doul.Hiil position. Responsible lor the public acts of the (lovcrnor, and no less responsible for their own they will have to treat him with the conrtesy, consideration and confidence which arc his riKht, hilt without everlendina; themselves for an hour to any act which they may deem a departure from that course of pub'lio imlicv which is the people's rin;ht. Responsible also, stil following English rule, they will all have to hold themselves, to Parliament and public opinion, for the acts of each, except in the lew cases where (as in England) the "openiuirs- tion" may be their declared course. Thev will have to he careful to propose Iririslation ever in the right direction ; but, warned by the late w'- ministration, never more at once than can he dniie nt once. Mntli as Administrnlivfl olliccw and as leu;if,lators,lhev will have to consult cnrc- lully the views and feelinjsof the people,-not merely ol the whole people collectively, but of the people of particular localilies niwl of either onirin; Jhrniip; uhiolutvhimtlimfr on either ot the two sections of the Province, nor yet on Pilherol the races that inhabit one of them; seeking by equity and moderation to allay whateverjealousies may still remain hetwee'ii them, to make thern what otherwise they never Ci'n be, the united people of a prosperous Pro- vince. ' On these principles, the time-tried principles Hritish freedom, failure is a thing impossi- ble ; im iiny other, success is no less impossible. «' rt needs no change," ( (piote the words of the Matesman to whom wo owe the recognition of Kesponsible (Jovernment lor Canada, " it needs no change in the principles of (Government, no iMventiim of a new constitutional theory, to sup- ply the remedy which would, in my opinion, completely r. move the existing political disor- ders. It needs but to follow out consistently the rrreat principles of the British constitution, and inlrnduce into the Government of these great Colonies those wise provisions, hy which alone the workiiu-: of the Representative system can in any country be rendered harmonious anti clhcient." r < t a d ¥ Pl P( on APPENDIX. 1 m'> < t t n«iolulioni of (lie I.ruiilative AMcml.Iy of Cntmiln, of the 3r.l Sept., ISJI, on the subject of Hci- pomible Government. M„V Tl"! '•?*,"""' important aa wrll os tlia most undouMed of l|,« poliiic.l rights of the people of n, « Pro, „cc, i, (hat of ha»h,g a Provineikl Pnrlia' mcnt for the protcelion of their liberties, for the ex- ercise of « Constitutinnnl influence orerlho Execu- I've DepBrtmenIs of their (fovcrnment, and for Le- gislation upon all m, tiers of internal Govrrnmcnt. J. Ihatihe lltud I iho KxcrutiveOovcrnment of ml: .y'T' *"■'"» ""*''" ■'"''in'its of his Govern- ment, 11,.. ffpre.cnlat.ve.f the Sovereign is respon- « b le to 1 10 Imperial authority alone ; but that, never- hcless tl„; T, „ n ;rment of our local nfTairs can onlr be conducted by him, by and will, the a.sistance' t '^H.|,and information of subordinate olficcrs ii III' J rovuico. brnnrhl^^p".?''''» '''■'"■''•''?'"' '"'"""'" "«! difrercnt nv «Mri i"'^""' ^rPV""'"' I'arliament that harmo- ny which IS ebsenlial to the peace, welfare, and good government of the Proving, the chief uviZ a Provine?„ T.""?"-"? ° .""' ^"^-^'^'S"' "n»"tuting a I rov.ncial Administration under hin, ought to bo TXZT"^ ° ":? ""ii'^"" "f ••«= represent - lives of the people thus nrtording a guarantee tliat the well-understood wishes and interetis of the peo- pe which our Gracious Sovereign has d eclJre^ . al be the rule of (he Provincial Government, will, vernid """' '""^""y represented and go- '1. That Ihc people of this Province have, more- oyer, a right to expect from such Provincial Adnii- nwtra lion the cxerl.on of their best endeavours, hat the rmpcrial authority shall be exercised in the maiirifr most consistent with their well-under- stood wishes and interests. Message from His Excellency the Governor Gene- ral to the Legislative Assembly of Canada, presented Friday, 1st December, 1843. C T.Metcalfe. The Governor General transmits to the T.egisla- live Assembly, in reply to their Address of yester- day s dale. Copies of all communications that have passed between him and those Members of Ihc late Lxccutive Cuui.uil who have tendered their resigna- II n on the subject of those resignations. Government House, } Kingston, 30lh November, 1843. \ Mr. Lafonlaine, in compliance with the request of he Governor General, and in behalf of himself and his ate colleagues, who have felt it to be the^ duty to tender their resignation of omce, states, for His Excellency s information, the substance of the explanation which they propose to offer in the r places in Parliament. "^ They have avowedly taken office upon the prin- -.[.1- -1 .-pnn...i.i,iiy „, tut; ucprcscntafives of the Poeple in Parliament, and with a full recgnilion on their parts of the following resolutions, introduc" f into the Legislative Assembly with the kiioir- T. ! m T"TV'^ "*" *' S^l't'-nber, 1841 .. ihopl?"' ''?''■ ''^""! ,'•'«"""»'' Government of Ihc Province, being within the limits of his Go- vernmont the Ucprescntatiro of the So.erl„ i, • I arnev'''°.,'V'"= ^'T''"' ""'hority^alo^ ""'but Imt. nevertheless, the management of our local "lairs can only be conducted by him, by and with " Ji airo^n"''":'."".!' """^ '"'■"'""-tioJor.ur r- ^^ Uinate oflicers in the Province ;" and •' that in or- "tlo PrJ!!;"" ■ 7 p "'."'""""' different branches of " sent a riho^'"''"""'"'.;'"'' '^"'"'"" «'"«=»' »• essential to the peace, welfare, and good govern- ment of the Province, the chief adviser, of the lU- vincial Administration under him, oueht to be "I tTve'.TtZV","' ^''"'^•"r" °^""' «*P^"«"- " hi. .r'"'?, People, thus affording a guarantee " to t« 7«"-''l'l"»'<«'J «i»l.es an'd i.fterests of Iho leople, which our Gracious Sovcreien has " v" me„f"'"l^ ''T'" "'■'"« ProvS Go- vernmcnt. will, on all occas bns.bc faithfully re- " present.-d and advocated." '"'miuiiy rc- .^P^^ ^V? '?^^'y ""Jef'tood that His Excellency took a widely different view of the position duiiea and responsibilities of the Executive Counil from Which they have been enabled to conduct the Par- liamen.ary business of the Government susnined LrgllaS."''^"'"^ °^ ""^ P"''"'"' ^-f""''' of Iho Had the difference of opinion between His Ex- cel ency and themselves, an.l, as they have re.n.oii to belieye, between Hi., Kxecllcncy and the Parii i ment and people of Canaila generally, been mer |V thcorel.cal the Members of the !Me Execut vc Council might, and would, have felt it to be tieir ^ ty to avoid any possibility of collision, which might have a tendency to disturb the tranquil am amicable relations which apparently subsisted be- tween the Executive Government and Ihc Provin- cial Parliament. But that difference of opinion h, led not merely to appointment, to office again ? he r advice, but to appointments, and proposals to maYe appointments, of which they were not in o m^d In any manner until all opportunity of offerin ™dvi e respecting them had passed by, and to i deter, nation on the part of His Excelle;,cy to rcser efo it expression of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon, a B.n introduced into the Provincial Parliament, wAh His Excellency's knowledge and consent a. a Government measure, without an opportunity being givenTt, ' f bSv'"f'"^"r J^-^^-'tive Council ,0 ftfte the p - Uabihlyofsueha reservation. They therefore frit themselves in the anomalous position of h n. „e. cording to their own avowals and solem p'ublic 'ledge,, responsible for all the acts of the Executi e Government to Parliament, and, et the same time no only without the oppor.unity'of offering a Iv7c^ resecting these acts, but without the knowS of their existence, until informed of them from or^! vate and nnofr.cia! sources. P When the Memhers of the late Exown upon any such question, or to prrvent his acting in such manner as he might see best after wei;;hiHg their advice and he.iriiig their reason", this House, without feeling itse'.f called upon to express any opinion on the policy of the bile .Vdministrn- tion, are yet bound to deolare their opinion that there is nothing in the si'iil claim o'llie Executive which may not be held to be the ni;eessiiry conse- quence of the principles oCResponsihle Government, cmhodied in the llesoluiions oflh'jSnl September, IS-ll, to which this House (irmly udlieres. The Honourable Mr. Boulton's Resolution moved on the same day as an addition to Mr. Price's; carried by a vote of GO to 7 : — That this H"U3e, in dulifn! submission to their Gracious Sovereign, and with the utmost rcsppct for the exalted station and liigli charicler of His Excellency, is most anxious to guard against any misennstruetion which possibly might ho placed U|)nii the airirinalive declaration of their opinion upon this (U'licale and most vitally important onslilulional qiiesl ion, and therefore most humbly beg leave to d selaiin, in a negative form, any desire' that the Head of the Government BhonkI ho called upon to enter into any s'.ipulation as to thi; terms upon which a Provincial Administration in:iy deem it prudent, ci.iicr to acct pi of or coiilinne in olliee; lliaf mutual confihiice, which is essential to lliu well being of any Government, necessarily presumes tlial they Address of the House of Assembly to the Governor General, as amended, of the 2nd December, 1843:— To His Excellency the Right Honourable Sir Charles Theoi'hilus Metcalie, Baro- net, Knight (Jrand Cross of the most Hon- ourable Order of the Bath, one of Her Ma- jesty's most Honourable Privy Council, Governor General of British North America, and Captain General and Governor in Chiel", in and over the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Island of Prince Edward, and Vice-Admiral of the same. May it please Your Excellency :— We, Her Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons of Canada, in Provincial Parliament nssembled. humbly beg leave to represent to Your Excellency, the deep regret we feel at the retire- ment of certain members of the Provincial Admin- istration on the question of their right to be consult- ed, on what we unhesitatingly avow lo be the Pre- rogative of the Crown, appointments to offi e ; and further to assure Your Excellency that llieir advo- cacy of this principle entitles them to our confidence, being in strict necordanee with the principles em- braced in the Resolutions adopted by tiie Legislalive Assembly on the third day of September, one thou- and eight hundred and forty-one. That this House, in dutiful submission to their Gracious Sovereign, and with the utm.ial respect for the exalted station and high eharaet«r of Your Excellency, is most anxious to guard against any misconstruction which possibly "might he placed upon the aiiirmalive dtelaraiion of their opinion, upon this delicate and most vitally important con- stitutional question, and therefore most luuubly beg leave to disclaim in a negative form, any desire that the Head of the Government should be called upon to enter into any stipulation, as to the terms upon which a Provincial Ailminislralion may deem it prudent eitlier to accept of or continue in olTiee j 111 it mutual confidence, which is essential to tlio well being of any Government, necessarily presumes that Ihty are niiderstood, wliile a due respect for the Prerogative of the Crown and proper constitu- tional delicacy towards Her Majesty's Uepresenla- tive, forbid their being expressed. Second Address, prepared by the Honourable Mr. Boulton on the 6lh Dec. 1843, but withdrawn after debate on the next day : — That an humble Address be presented to His Ex- cellency the Governor General, expressing tlie deep anxiety of this House at the delay which has taken place in the formation of anew Administration, sinrc Ihe resign;ition of the lite advisers of His Excellen- cy the Governor General, communicated to this House on the first instant. Tliat Hit Exeelleney having fully concurred in the U^solulinns of tliis House, of the, Ird .September, iS41, whereby it is amongstother things, declared that, in order " (o " preserve between llie difr.Trnt Hranchcs of the " Provincial Parliament, that harmony which is es- " sential to the peace, welfare and good Govern- " iiiciit of 'he Province, the Chief Advisers of llie , V APPENDIX. 23 " Representative of ihc Sovereign constituting a " Provincial Administration under him, ought to be " men possessed of the confidence of the Represen- " lativcs of the People," and that " ihe manage- " ment of our local affairs can only be conducted by " the Head of the Executive Government, by and " with the assistance, counsel, and information of '' such Provincial Admiiiislralion.^' This House, in full reliance upon the oft expressed intentions of His Lxcellency to carry on the Government upon these sound constitutional principles so clearly enun- ciated by this House and concurred in by His Ex- cellency^ with an eurnesl desire not to offer any unnecessary cbstruction to the progress of pub- lic affairs during a piriod whicli might reason- ahty have been rt'iiarded at sufficient for the forma- tion of a new Administration, has passed several important measures eargerly looked for by the peo- ple of this Province, in the absence of any one to represent the viowb of Government within the walls of Parliament. But feeling the increasing difficul- ties which every day's experience has warned us of in thus proceeding, under the suspended operation of those principles to which the people of this great country look, for the maintenance and preservation of their Rights and I^ibertics, Ihi* House has come to the determination, humbly to tender to His Ex- cellency their advice, that His Excellency will lie graciously pleased to take such measure?, as are best calculated for the formation of a strong and ifficicnt administration, and thus " affording a guarantee " that the well understood wishes of tlic people, " which our Gracious Sovereign has declared shall " be the rule of the Provincial Government, will on " all occasions be faithfully represented and advo- " cated." Mr. Morris's Resolution moved in amendment to the above on the 7lh Dec, 1843, and carried by a unanimous vote : — That this House, in full reliance upon the oft ex- pressed intentions of His Excellency the Governor General, to carry on the Government upon the sound Constitutional principles so cleaily enunciated by this House in the Resolutions of the 3rd Sept. 1841, have, with a strong desire to pass several important measures which were anxiously looked for by the people of this Province, been iiidyced to proceed for the last ten days with Ihe business of the country, in the absence of a Provincial Administration rep- resenting the Government within the walls of Farli- aineut. Prorogation Speech of His Excellency, the Govern- or General, delivered to the Houses on the 9th Dec., 1843:— Honourable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council, and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly : In consequence of tne interruption which our joint labours have undergone, entirely against my inclination, and from causes over which 1 have had no control, I now meet you for the purpose of reliev- ing you from further attendance in Parliament. I am sensible of your unremitting application to your arduous duties during the Session which has been so unexpectedly shortened, and I trust that the measures which you have passed, and to which I have given the Royal Assent in Her Majesty's name, will prove beneficial to the Country. Some Bills I have been under the necessity of reserving for Ihe consideration of Her Majesty's Government, cither from the impracticability of their being carried into execution, owing to their depending on other measures which have not passed into Laws, or from their affecting the Prerogative of the Crown, or being of a character that, under the Royal Instruc- tions, renders that proceeding imperative. Genilenien of Ihe House of Assembly : 1 thank you for the readiness with which you have voted the necessary Supplies. It will he my duty to take care that they be disbursed with the utmost economy consistent with the efficiency of the Public Service. Honourable Gentlemen and Gentlemen : I trust that on your return to your homes you will, by precept and example, endeavour to secure the blessings of harmony and brotherly |Ove among all classes of the community. Peace and Happiness will render our country a desirable place of refuge for the superfluous population of the Parent State, whose settling hero is fraught with benefit to them- selves and the Colony ; while discord and strife must have the opposite effect of deterring them from connecting their destinies with those of a country unceasingly troubled ; I humbly hope that the Bles- sing of the Almighty will render this a prosperous and happy Lund, reaping the fruits of its own in- dustry, and enjoying the powerful protection of our Gracious Sovereign as an integral portion of the British Empire. I will now, Gentlemen, say Fare- well ; and I trust that we shall meet again to renew our efforts for the public good with greater suc- cess. ERRATA. Page 2, Column 1, Line 10— for or none, read or more. li, 1, 46-for 1842, read 1843. 13, 1, 64— for he had read he evtr had, 13, 2, 40— for (IS to make, read as to he able to make 14, 1, 21— (or and hovj. TcnA end as to how. ■ 16, 1, 4— for approved it, read apjiroved of it. 16, 2, 22— for or rather, read or oti.er. 16, 2, 36 — for introduced, read introduce. 16, 1, 25— for less glariup, read 7nore glaring. 16, 1, 50— for could all the better be, read could be all the betltr. Ha". '