Chapter IV: Part 4

It appears, therefore, that the opposition of the Assembly to the Government was the unavoidable result of a system which stinted the popular branch of the legislature of the necessary privileges of a representative body, and produced thereby a long series of attempts on the part of that body to acquire control over the administration of the Province. I say all this without reference to the ultimate aim of the Assembly, which I have before described as being the maintenance of a Canadian nationality against the progressive intrusion of the English race. Having no responsible ministers to deal with, it entered upon that system of long inquiries by means of its committees, which brought the whole action of the executive immediately under its purview, and transgressed our notions of the proper limits of Parliamentary interference. Having no influence in the choice of any public functionary, no power to procure the removal of such as were obnoxious to it merely on political grounds, and seeing almost every office of the Colony filled by persons in whom it had no confidence, it entered on that vicious course of assailing its prominent opponents individually, and disqualifying them for the public service, by making them the subjects of inquiries and consequent impeachments, not always conducted with even the appearance of a due regard to justice; and when nothing else could attain its end of altering the policy or the composition of the colonial government, it had recourse to that _ultima ratio_ of representative power to which the more prudent forbearance of the Crown has never driven the House of Commons in England, and endeavoured to disable the whole machine of Government by a general refusal of the supplies.

It was an unhappy consequence of the system which I have been describing, that it relieved the popular leaders of all the responsibilities of opposition. A member of opposition in this country acts and speaks with the contingency of becoming a minister constantly before his eyes, and he feels, therefore, the necessity of proposing no course, and of asserting no principles, on which he would not be prepared to conduct the Government, if he were immediately offered it. But the colonial demagogue bids high for popularity without the fear of future exposure. Hopelessly excluded from power, he expresses the wildest opinion, and appeals to the most mischievous passions of the people, without any apprehension of having his sincerity or prudence hereafter tested, by being placed in a position to carry his views into effect; and thus the prominent places in the ranks of opposition are occupied for the most part by men of strong passions, and merely declamatory powers, who think but little of reforming the abuses which serve them as topics for exciting discontent.

35. DURHAM'S RECOMMENDATIONS (1838).

=Source.=--Lord Durham's _Report_. Lucas. Vol. II.

It is not by weakening, but strengthening the influence of the people on its Government; by confining within much narrower bounds than those hitherto allotted to it, and not by extending the interference of the imperial authorities in the details of colonial affairs; that I believe that harmony is to be restored, where dissension has so long prevailed, and a regularity and vigour hitherto unknown, introduced into the administration of these Provinces. It needs no change in the principles of government, no invention of a new constitutional theory, to supply the remedy which would, in my opinion, completely remove the existing political disorders. It needs but to follow out consistently the principles of the British constitution, and introduce into the Government of these great Colonies those wise provisions, by which alone the working of the representative system can in any country be rendered harmonious and efficient. We are not now to consider the policy of establishing representative government in the North American Colonies. That has been irrevocably done; and the experiment of depriving the people of their present constitutional power, is not to be thought of. To conduct their government harmoniously, in accordance with its established principles, is now the business of its rulers; and I know not how it is possible to secure that harmony in any other way than by administering the Government on those principles which have been found perfectly efficacious in Great Britain. I would not impair a single prerogative of the Crown; on the contrary, I believe that the interests of the people of these colonies require the protection of prerogatives, which have not hitherto been exercised. But the Crown must, on the other hand, submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions; and, if it has to carry on the Government in unison with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence....

These general principles apply, however, only to those changes in the system of government which are required in order to rectify disorders common to all the North American Colonies; but they do not in any degree go to remove those evils in the present state of Lower Canada which require the most immediate remedy. The fatal feud of origin, which is the cause of the most extensive mischief, would be aggravated at the present moment by any change, which should give the majority more power than they have hitherto possessed. A plan by which it is proposed to ensure the tranquil government of Lower Canada, must include in itself the means of putting an end to the agitation of national disputes in the legislature, by settling, at once and for ever, the national character of the Province. I entertain no doubts as to the national character which must be given to Lower Canada; it must be that of the British Empire; that of the majority of the population of British America; that of the great race which must, in the lapse of no long period of time, be predominant over the whole North American Continent. Without effecting the change so rapidly or so roughly as to shock the feelings and trample on the welfare of the existing generation, it must henceforth be the first and steady purpose of the British Government to establish an English population, with English laws and language, in this Province, and to trust its government to none but a decidedly English legislature....

It is only ... by a popular government, in which an English majority shall permanently predominate, that Lower Canada, if a remedy for its disorders be not too long delayed, can be tranquilly ruled.

On these grounds, I believe that no permanent or efficient remedy can be devised for the disorders of Lower Canada, except a fusion of the Government in that of one or more of the surrounding Provinces; and, as I am of opinion that the full establishment of responsible government can only be permanently secured by giving these Colonies an increased importance in the politics of the Empire, I find in union the only means of remedying at once and completely the two prominent causes of their present unsatisfactory condition.

36. DURHAM RESIGNS AND APPEALS TO PUBLIC OPINION (1838).

=Source.=--Durham's Proclamation of 9th October, 1838, quoted in _The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham_. London, 1839.

... I have also to notify the disallowance by her Majesty of the Ordinance ... "to provide for the security of the Province of Lower Canada."

I cannot perform these official duties without at the same time informing you, the people of British America, of the course which the measures of the Imperial Government and Legislature make it incumbent on me to pursue....

I did not accept the Government of British North America without duly considering the nature of the task which I imposed on myself, or the sufficiency of my means for performing it. When Parliament concentrated all legislative and executive power in Lower Canada in the same hands, it established an authority, which, in the strictest sense of the word, was despotic. This authority her Majesty was graciously pleased to delegate to me....

To encourage and stimulate me in my arduous task, I had great and worthy objects in view. My aim was to elevate the province of Lower Canada to a thoroughly British character, to link its people to the sovereignty of Britain, by making them all participators in those high privileges, conducive at once to freedom and order, which have long been the glory of Englishmen. I hoped to confer on an united people, a more extensive enjoyment of free and responsible government, and to merge the petty jealousies of a small community, and the odious animosities of origin, in the higher feelings of a nobler and more comprehensive nationality....

I had reason to believe that I was armed with all the power which I thought requisite.... I also trusted that I should enjoy, throughout the course of my administration, all the strength which the cordial and steadfast support of the authorities at home can alone give to their distant officers; and that even party feeling would refrain from molesting me whilst occupied in maintaining the integrity of the British Empire.

In these just expectations I have been painfully disappointed. From the very commencement of my task, the minutest details of my administration have been exposed to incessant criticism, in a spirit which has evinced an entire ignorance of the state of this country, and of the only mode in which the supremacy of the British Crown can here be upheld and exercised. Those who have in the British Legislature systematically depreciated my powers, and the ministers of the Crown by their tacit acquiescence therein, have produced the effect of making it too clear that my authority is inadequate for the emergency which called it into existence. At length an act of my Government, the first and most important which was brought under the notice of the authorities at home, has been annulled; and the entire policy, of which that act was a small though essential part, has thus been defeated....

In these conflicting and painful circumstances, it is far better that I should at once and distinctly announce my intention of desisting from the vain attempt to carry my policy and system of administration into effect with such inadequate and restricted means....

You will easily believe that, after all the exertions which I have made, it is with feelings of deep disappointment that I find myself thus suddenly deprived of the power of conferring great benefit on that province to which I have referred; of reforming the administrative system there, and eradicating the manifold abuses which had been engendered by the negligence and corruption of former times, and so lamentably fostered by civil dissensions. I cannot but regret being obliged to renounce the still more glorious hope of employing unusual legislative powers in the endowment of that province with those free municipal institutions, which are the only sure basis of local improvement and representative liberty, of establishing a system of general education, of revising the defective laws which regulate real property and commerce, and of introducing a pure and competent administration of justice. Above all, I grieve to be thus forced to abandon the realisation of such large and solid schemes of colonisation and internal improvement, as would connect the distant portions of these extensive colonies, and lay open the unwrought treasures of the wilderness to the wants of British industry and the energy of British enterprise.

... Our exertions, however, will not, cannot be thrown away. The information which we have acquired, although not as yet fit for the purposes of immediate legislation, will contribute to the creation of juster views as to the resources, the wants and the interests of these colonies, than ever yet prevailed in the mother country.

37. THE EVILS OF THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM (1839).[4]

=Source.=--The open letters of Joseph Howe of Nova Scotia to the Colonial Secretary, Lord John Russell, 1839, printed in Howe's _Speeches and Public Letters_, Vol. II. Boston, 1858.

The city of Liverpool shall again serve us for the purposes of illustration. Turn back to the passages where I have described a Mayor, ignorant of everything, surrounded by irresponsible but cunning advisers; who, for their own advantage, embroil him with a majority of the citizens, while his countenance, and the patronage created by the taxes levied upon the city, are monopolised by a miserable minority of the whole; and insulted and injured thousands, swelling with indignation, surround him on every side. After your Lordship has dwelt upon this scene of heartburning and discontent--of general dissatisfaction among the citizens--of miserable intrigue and chuckling triumph, indulged by the few who squander the resources and decide on the interests of the many, but laugh at their murmurs and never acknowledge their authority--let me beg of you to reflect whether matters would be made better or worse, if the Mayor of Liverpool was bound, in every important act of his administration, to ask the direction of, and throw the responsibility on, another individual, who never saw the city, who knows less about it than even himself, and who resides, not in London, at the distance of a day's coaching from him, but across the Atlantic, in Halifax, Quebec or Toronto, and with whom it is impossible to communicate about anything within a less period than a couple of months. Suppose that this gentleman in the distance possesses a veto upon every important ordinance by which the city is to be watched, lighted and improved--by which docks are to be formed, trade regulated, and one-third of the city revenues (drawn from sources beyond the control of the popular branch) dispensed. And suppose that nearly all whose talents or ambition lead them to aspire to the higher offices of the place, are compelled to take, once or twice in their lives, a voyage across the Atlantic, to pay their court to him--to solicit his patronage, and intrigue for the preferment, which, under a better system, would naturally result from manly competition and eminent services within the city itself. Your Lordship is too keen sighted, and I trust too frank, not to acknowledge that no form of government could well be devised more ridiculous than this; that under such no British city could be expected to prosper; and that with it no body of her Majesty's subjects, within the British islands themselves, would ever be content. Yet this, my Lord, is an illustration of your own theory; this is the system propounded by Lord Normanby,[5] as the best the present cabinet can devise. And may I not respectfully demand, why British subjects in Nova Scotia any more than their brethren in Liverpool, should be expected to prosper or be contented under it; when experience has convinced them that it is miserably insufficient and deceptive, repugnant to the principles of the Constitution they revere, and but a poor return for the steady loyalty which their forefathers and themselves have maintained on all occasions?

One of the greatest evils of the Colonial Constitution, as interpreted by Your Lordship, is, that it removes from a Province every description of responsibility, and leaves all the higher functionaries at liberty to lay every kind of blame at the door of the Secretary of State. The Governor, if the Colonists complain, shrugs his shoulders, and replies that he will explain the difficulty in his next despatch, but in the meantime his orders must be obeyed.

38. THE BENEFITS OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT (1839).

=Source.=--Howe's _Letters_, as in 37.

You ask me for the remedy. Lord Durham has stated it distinctly: the Colonial Governors must be commanded to govern by the aid of those who possess the confidence of the people, and are supported by a majority of the representative branch. Where is the danger? Of what consequence is it to the people of England, whether half a dozen persons, in whom that majority have confidence, but of whom they know nothing and care less, manage our local affairs; or the same number, selected from the minority, and whose policy the bulk of the population distrust?... Would England be weaker, less prosperous or less respected, because the people of Nova Scotia were satisfied and happy?

But, it is said, a Colony, being part of a great Empire, must be governed by different principles from the Metropolitan State. That, unless it be handed over to the minority, it cannot be governed at all. That the majority, when they have things their own way, will be discontented and disloyal.... Let us fancy that this reasoning were applied to Glasgow or Aberdeen or to any other town in Britain which you allow to govern itself. And what else is a Province like Nova Scotia than a small community, too feeble to interfere with the general commercial and military arrangements of the government; but deeply interested in a number of minor matters, which only the people to be affected by them can wisely manage; which the ministry can never find leisure to attend to, and involve in inextricable confusion when they meddle with them. You allow a million of people to govern themselves in the very capital of the kingdom; and yet her Majesty lives in the midst of them without any apprehension of danger, and feels the more secure, the more satisfaction and tranquillity they exhibit. Of course, if the Lord Mayor were to declare war upon France, or the Board of Aldermen were to resolve that the duties upon brandy should no longer be collected by the general revenue officers of the kingdom, everybody would laugh, but no one would apprehend any great danger. Should we, if Lord Durham's principles be adopted, do anything equally _outré_, check us, for you have the power; but until we do, for your own sakes--for you are as much interested as we are,--for the honour of the British name, too often tarnished by these squabbles, let us manage our own affairs, pay our own officers, and distribute a patronage, altogether beneath your notice, among those who command our esteem.

39. THE UNION ACT (1840).

=Source.=--_Documents Illustrative of the Canadian Constitution_, edited by William Houston. Toronto, 1891.

Whereas it is necessary that provision be made for the good government of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, in such manner as may secure the rights and liberties and promote the interests of all classes of her Majesty's subjects within the same: And whereas to this end it is expedient that the said provinces be reunited to form one province for the purposes of executive government and legislation....

III. ... from and after the reunion of the said two provinces there shall be within the Province of Canada one Legislative Council and one Assembly....

IV. ... for the purpose of composing the Legislative Council ... it shall be lawful for her Majesty ... to authorise the Governor in her Majesty's name, by an instrument under the Great Seal of the said Province, to summon to the said Legislative Council ... such persons, being not fewer than twenty, as her Majesty shall think fit....

V. ... every member of the Legislative Council ... shall hold his seat therein for the term of his life....

XII. ... in the Legislative Assembly ... the parts of the said Province which now constitute the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada respectively, shall ... be represented by an equal number of representatives to be elected for the places and in the manner hereinafter mentioned....

XXXI. ... there shall be a session of the Legislative Council and Assembly ... once at least in every year ... every Legislative Assembly ... shall continue for four years from the day of the return of the writs for choosing the same, and no longer, subject nevertheless to be sooner prorogued or dissolved by the Governor of the said Province.

(_Compare with IV. the Amendment Act of 1854._)

It shall be lawful for the Legislature of Canada ... to alter the manner of composing the Legislative Council ... and to make it consist of such number of members appointed or to be appointed or elected by such persons and in such manner as to the said Legislature may seem fit....

(In accordance with this enabling Act of Parliament, a Canadian Act for making the Council elective was passed in 1856.)

40. EDMONTON IN 1841.

=Source.=--_Narrative of a Journey round the World_, by Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson Bay Company's Territories in North America. London, 1847.

Next morning, being the 22nd of July, we had a sharp frost before sunrise, and afterwards a heavy dew. The whole country was so parched up, that no water could be found for breakfast till eleven o'clock; and again in the afternoon we passed over a perfectly arid plain of about twenty-five miles in length, encamping for the night at the commencement of the Chaine des Lacs, a succession of small lakes stretching over a distance of twenty or thirty miles. During the afternoon we saw our first raspberries; they proved to be of large size and fine flavour. Two days previously we had feasted on the service-berry ... a sort of cross between the cranberry and the black currant; and, before leaving Red River, we had found wild strawberries ripe....

Next afternoon we passed over a space of about four miles in length, where the grass was thoroughly beaten down, apparently the work of hail. Such storms, which are almost always partial in their operation, are often remarkably furious in this country. While travelling from Red River to Canada in the fall of 1837, I was overtaken near Lac la Pluie by a violent tempest of the kind, which, if we had not gained the fort in time, might have proved fatal. As the angular masses of ice rattled on the roof, we entertained fears for the safety of the building; and, in point of fact, the lodges of the Indians were thrown down and their canoes shattered; while their luckless dogs, tumbling about like drunken men, scrambled away howling in quest of shelter. Some of the pieces ... we found to be fully five inches and a half in circumference.

Throughout this country everything is in extremes--unparalleled cold and excessive heat; long droughts, balanced by drenching rain and destructive hail. But it is not in climate only that these contrarieties prevail; at some seasons both whites and natives are living, in wasteful abundance, on venison, buffalo, fish, and game of all kinds; while at other times they are reduced to the last degree of hunger, often passing several days without food.

In the year 1820, when wintering at Athabasca Lake, our provisions fell short at the establishment, and on two or three occasions I went for three whole days and nights without having a single morsel to swallow; but then again I was one of a party of eleven men and one woman, which discussed three ducks and twenty-two geese at a sitting....

The nights were getting chilly; and, whenever the sky was clear, a heavy dew fell from sunset to sunrise on particular spots, so as to look, when morning dawned, like large lakes in the distance. As the power of the sun increased, these mists gradually resolved themselves into streaks of various shapes and sizes, which, rising from the ground in the form of clouds, finally disappeared....

The whole plain was covered with a luxuriant crop of the vetch or wild pea, almost as nutritious a food for cattle and horses as oats. As we drew near to the Saskatchewan, we had to cross as many as five creeks with steep and lofty banks, the last in particular being a stream scarcely twenty feet in span between rugged declivities about two hundred feet in height....

On arriving in front of Edmonton, which was on the opposite bank of the Saskatchewan, we notified our approach by a volley of musketry, which was returned by the cannon of the fort....

Edmonton is a well-built place, something of a hexagon in form. It is surrounded by high pickets and bastions, which, with the battlemented gateways, the flagstaffs, etc., give it a good deal of a martial appearance; and it occupies a commanding situation, crowning an almost perpendicular part of the bank, about two hundred feet in height. The river is nearly as wide as at Carlton, while the immediate banks are well wooded, and the country behind consists of rolling prairies.

This fort, both inside and outside, is decorated with paintings and devices to suit the tastes of the savages that frequent it. Over the gateways are a most fanciful variety of vanes; but the hall, of which both the ceiling and the walls present the gaudiest colours and the most fantastic sculptures, absolutely rivets the astonished natives to the spot with wonder and admiration. The buildings are smeared with a red earth found in the neighbourhood, which, when mixed with oil, produces a durable brown.

The vicinity is rich in mineral productions. A seam of coal, about ten feet in depth, can be traced for a very considerable distance along both sides of the river....

41. THE MOHAWK INDIANS IN ONTARIO (1842).

=Source.=--_Letters from America_, by John Robert Godley. London, 1844.

Within two miles of Brantford (which is called after Brandt the Indian chief) is a village which may be termed the headquarters of the Mohawk tribe of Indians. They lost their possessions in the States by adhering to Great Britain in the revolutionary war, and received in compensation a settlement here of 160,000 acres: since that time they have decreased considerably, and now consist of not more than 2200 souls. I went over to the Indian village on Sunday morning, and attended Divine service in their church; it was performed according to the forms of the English Church, but in the Mohawk language, with the exception of the sermon, which the clergyman delivered in English, and which was translated with wonderful fluency, sentence after sentence, by an Indian interpreter who stood beside him. It was good, practical, and well adapted to the audience, who listened with the most unfailing attention, though the plan of proceeding made it necessarily very long: the Indian language, too, is far more prolix than ours, at least the sentences as translated were at least three times as long as in the original delivery; the singing was particularly good in point of time and harmony, but the airs were somewhat monotonous. Two children were baptised during the service, one of them ensconced in a bark cradle, which fitted it accurately, and was attached in a curious manner to a board so as to be carried easily upon the mother's back. There were about 120 Indians present; the men, with one or two exceptions, dressed like Europeans, but the women wearing their native costume, which is rather becoming: it consists of a calico or linen tunic reaching to the knee, below which appears a petticoat of blue cloth, generally embroidered with red and white bead-work, the legs are covered with a kind of buskin of blue cloth, and the feet with mocassins; over all is a large robe or mantle, of blue cloth also, thrown loosely round the shoulders; completing a dress which, at this time of year, must be dreadfully hot and heavy: the head is without any other covering except very thick black shining hair. Those of the men who have not adopted the European costume wear instead of trousers a tunic and leggings which reach half-way up the thigh.

I had some conversation with the clergyman after service: he is employed by the "New England Society," has been for a long time among the Indians, and knows them well: he has a better opinion of them and of their capacity for acquiring domestic and industrious habits, than most white men to whom I have spoken upon the subject have expressed. The society support a school in the village, where about forty children are boarded, educated, and instructed in trades; and they learn, Mr. N. says, as fast as Europeans: as yet, however, they are not fit to be trusted in making bargains with the whites, nor can they at all compete in matters of business with them: much of their original grant has been trafficked away to settlers, at prices wholly inadequate; and, though such transactions are altogether illegal, they have been overlooked so long that it is now impossible to annul them. A superintendent lives close to the village, who is paid by Government for the express purpose of protecting the Indian interests and managing their affairs; yet encroachments upon their rights are still perpetually made, which, however advantageous they may appear to a political economist, are neither reconcilable with equity nor with the real wishes and intentions of Government. Mr. N. is by no means without hopes that in a generation or two these Indians may become quite civilised: they are giving up their wandering habits, and settling rapidly upon farms throughout their territory; and, in consequence, probably, of this change in their mode of life, the decrease in their numbers, which threatened a complete extinction of the tribe, has ceased of late years: if it turn out as he expects, this will form the sole exception to the general law which affects their people. They are very much attached (as well they may be) to the British Government; and in 1837 turned out under their chiefs to the number of 500, and offered their services to it: they wished to attack Navy Island in their canoes, but those who were in command thought the enterprise too hazardous. The chiefs (whose office is, as among the ancient Gothic nations, partly hereditary and partly elective, _i.e._ ordinarily transmitted from father to son, but liable to be transferred in cases of incapacity) have still a good deal of authority among them, but, as it is of course not recognised by law, they are gradually losing it; in fact, the race is assimilating itself here far more than anywhere else to the habits and manners of the surrounding Europeans, while at the same time there is perhaps hardly any settlement where the red blood is preserved with less mixture.

42. THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNOR (1854).

=Source.=--Lord Elgin to the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Grey, 18th December, 1854: Elgin's _Letters and Journals_. London, 1872.

As the Imperial Government and Parliament gradually withdraw from legislative interference, and from the exercise of patronage in Colonial affairs, the office of Governor tends to become, in the most emphatic sense of the term, the link which connects the Mother-country and the Colony, and his influence the means by which harmony of action between the local and imperial authorities is to be preserved. It is not, however, in my humble judgment, by evincing an anxious desire to stretch to the utmost constitutional principles in his favour, but, on the contrary, by the frank acceptance of the conditions of the Parliamentary system, that this influence can be most surely extended and confirmed. Placed by his position above the strife of parties--holding office by a tenure less precarious than the ministers who surround him--having no political interests to serve but that of the community whose affairs he is appointed to administer--his opinion cannot fail, when all cause for suspicion and jealousy is removed, to have great weight in the Colonial Councils, while he is set at liberty to constitute himself in an especial manner the patron of those larger and higher interests--such interests, for example, as those of education, and of moral and material progress in all its branches--which, unlike the contests of party, unite instead of dividing the members of the body politic.

43. THE CONFEDERATION DEBATES (1865).

(1) _For Confederation_: (a) _J. A. Macdonald_.

=Source.=--_Debates in the Parliament of Canada on the Confederation of British North America, 1865._

The colonies are now in a transition state. Gradually a different colonial system is being developed--and it will become year by year less a case of dependence on our part, and of overruling protection on the part of the Mother-country, and more a case of a healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation--a subordinate but still a powerful people--to stand by her in North America in peace or in war. The people of Australia will be such another subordinate nation. And England will have this advantage, if her colonies progress under the new colonial system, as I believe they will, that, though at war with all the rest of the world, she will be able to look to the subordinate nations in alliance with her, and owning allegiance to the same sovereign, who will assist in enabling her again to meet the whole world in arms, as she has done before. And if, in the great Napoleonic war, with every port in Europe closed against her commerce, she was yet able to hold her own, how much more will that be the case when she has a colonial empire rapidly increasing in power, in wealth, in influence, and in position? It is true that we stand in danger, as we have stood in danger again and again in Canada, of being plunged into war and suffering all its dreadful consequences, as the result of causes over which we have no control, by reason of this connection. This, however, did not intimidate us. At the very mention of the prospect of a war some time ago, how were the feelings of the people aroused from one extremity of British America to the other, and preparations made for meeting its worst consequences! Although the people of this country are fully aware of the horrors of war--should a war arise, unfortunately, between the United States and England, and we all pray it never may--they are still ready to encounter all perils of that kind, for the sake of the connection with England. There is not one adverse voice, not one adverse opinion on that point. We all feel the advantages we derive from our connection with England. So long as that alliance is maintained, we enjoy, under her protection, the privileges of constitutional liberty according to the British system. We will enjoy here that which is the great test of constitutional freedom--we will have the rights of the minority respected. In all countries the rights of the majority take care of themselves, but it is only in countries like England, enjoying constitutional liberty, and safe from the tyranny of a single despot or of an unbridled democracy, that the rights of minorities are regarded. So long, too, as we form a portion of the British Empire, we shall have the example of her free institutions, of the high standard of the character of her statesmen and public men, of the purity of her legislation, and the upright administration of her laws. In this younger country one great advantage of our connection with Great Britain will be, that, under her auspices, inspired by her example, a portion of her empire, our public men will be actuated by principles similar to those which actuate the statesmen at home. These, although not material, physical benefits, of which you can make an arithmetical calculation, are of such overwhelming advantage to our future interests and standing as a nation, that to obtain them is well worthy of any sacrifices we may be called upon to make, and the people of this country are ready to make them.

44. _For Confederation_: (b) _George Brown_.

And well, Mr. Speaker, may the work we have unitedly proposed rouse the ambition and energy of every true man in British America. Look, sir, at the map of the Continent of America, and mark that island (Newfoundland) commanding the mouth of the noble river that almost cuts our Continent in twain. Well, sir, that island is equal in extent to the kingdom of Portugal. Cross the straits of the mainland, and you touch the hospitable shores of Nova Scotia, a country as large as the kingdom of Greece. Then mark the sister province of New Brunswick--equal in extent to Denmark and Switzerland combined. Pass up the river St. Lawrence to Lower Canada--a country as large as France. Pass on to Upper Canada--twenty thousand square miles larger than Great Britain and Ireland put together. Cross over the Continent to the shores of the Pacific, and you are in British Columbia, the land of golden promise,--equal in extent to the Austrian Empire. I speak not now of the vast Indian Territories that lie between--greater in extent than the whole soil of Russia--and that will ere long, I trust, be opened up to civilisation under the auspices of the British American Confederation. Well, sir, the bold scheme in your hands is nothing less than to gather all these countries into one--to organise them all under one government, with the protection of the British flag, and in heartiest sympathy and affection with our fellow-subjects in the land that gave us birth. Our scheme is to establish a government that will seek to turn the tide of European emigration into this northern half of the American Continent--that will strive to develop its great natural resources--and that will endeavour to maintain liberty, and justice, and Christianity throughout the land.

45. (2) _Against Confederation: Christopher Dunkin._

We are going to be called upon to spend money for yet another kindred purpose, and a large amount too--and this, as a part of this scheme. Our star of empire is to wing its way westward; and we are to confederate everything in its track, from Newfoundland to Vancouver's Island, this last included. But, between us and it, there lies the Hudson Bay territory. So, of course, we must acquire that for confederation purposes; and the plan is, that before we get it we shall have to pay for the elephant--though, after we get him, we may find him costly and hard to keep....

Disguise it how you may, the idea that underlies this plan is this, and nothing else--that we are to create here a something--kingdom, viceroyalty or principality--something that will soon stand in the same position towards the British Crown that Scotland and Ireland stood in before they were legislatively united with England; a something having no other tie to the Empire than the one tie of fealty to the British Crown--a tie which in the cases, first, of Scotland, and then of Ireland, was found, when the pinch came, to be no tie at all; which did not restrain either Scotland or Ireland from courses so inconsistent with that of England as to have made it necessary that their relations should be radically changed, and a legislative union formed in place of a merely nominal union. Suppose you do create here a kingdom or a principality, bound to the Empire by this shadow of a tie, the day of trial cannot be far distant, when this common fealty will be found of as little use in our case as it was in theirs, when, in consequence, the question will force itself on the Empire and on us, between entire separation on the one hand, and a legislative union on the other. But a legislative union of British America with the United Kingdom must be, in the opinion of, one may say, everybody at home and here, a sheer utter impossibility; and when the question shall come to be whether we are so to be merged in the United Kingdom or are to separate entirely from it, the answer can only be--"At whatever cost, we separate." Sir, I believe in my conscience that this step now proposed is one directly and inevitably tending to that other step; and for that reason--even if I believed, as I do not, that it bid fair to answer ever so well in the other respects--because I am an Englishman and hold to the connection with England, I must be against this scheme....

The real danger is not of war with the United States. It is from what I may call their pacific hostility--from trouble to be wrought by them within this country--trouble to arise out of refusal of reciprocity--repeal of the bonding system--custom-house annoyances--passport annoyances; from their fomenting difficulties here, and taking advantage of our local jealousies; from the multiplied worries they may cause us by a judicious alternation of bullying and coaxing, the thousand incidents which may easily be made to happen if things are not going on quite well in this country, and the people and government of the States are minded to make us feel the consequences of our not getting on quite so well as we might. Whether the union of the States is restored or not, this kind of thing can go on. The danger is, that either the United States, or those portions of the United States which are near us, and which are really stronger than we are, and enterprising enough and ambitious enough, and not very fond of us, and not at all fond of the Mother-country, not at all unwilling to strike a blow at her and to make us subservient to their own interest and ambition--the danger is, I say, that the United States, or those portions of the United States near us, may avail themselves of every opportunity to perplex us, to embroil us in trouble, to make us come within the disturbing influences of their strong local attraction. Now, to pretend to tell me that the United States or the Northern States, whichever you please, are going to be frightened from a policy of that kind by our taking upon ourselves great airs, and forming ourselves into a grand Confederation, is to tell me that their people are, like the Chinese, a people to be frightened by loud noises and ugly grimaces. I do not believe they are.

46. THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT (1867).

Printed in _Federations and Unions within the British Empire_, by H. E. Egerton. Oxford, 1911.

Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom....

3. ... the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada....

17. There shall be one Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House, styled the Senate, and the House of Commons.

21. The Senate shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, consist of seventy-two members, who shall be styled Senators.

22. ... three divisions shall ... be equally represented in the Senate as follows: Ontario by twenty-four Senators; Quebec by twenty-four Senators; and the Maritime Provinces by twenty-four Senators, twelve thereof representing Nova Scotia, and twelve ... New Brunswick.

24. The Governor-General shall from time to time, in the Queen's name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified persons to the Senate....

29. A Senator shall ... hold his place in the Senate for life.

37. The House of Commons shall ... consist of one hundred and eighty-one Members, of whom eighty-two shall be elected for Ontario, sixty-five for Quebec, nineteen for Nova Scotia, and fifteen for New Brunswick.

50. Every House of Commons shall continue for five years from the day of the return of the Writs for choosing the House (subject to be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General) and no longer.

51. On the completion of the census in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and of each subsequent decennial census, the representation of the four Provinces shall be readjusted by such authority in such manner, and from such time as the Parliament of Canada from time to time provides, subject and according to the following rules:

1. Quebec shall have the fixed number of sixty-five members.

2. There shall be assigned to each of the other Provinces such a number of Members as will bear the same proportion to the number of its population (ascertained at such census) as the number sixty-five bears to the number of the population of Quebec (so ascertained)....

53. Bills for appropriating any part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any tax or impost, shall originate in the House of Commons.

54. It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any purpose, that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of the Governor-General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed.

58. For each Province there shall be an Officer, styled the Lieutenant-Governor, appointed by the Governor-General in Council by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada.

60. The salaries of the Lieutenant-Governors shall be fixed and provided by the Parliament of Canada.

91. ... the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all matters coming within the classes of subjects next hereinafter enumerated, that is to say:

(1) The Public Debt and Property; (2) The regulation of Trade and Commerce; (3) The raising of money by any mode or system of Taxation; (4) The borrowing of money on the Public Credit; (5) Postal Service; (6) The Census and Statistics; (7) Militia, Military and Naval Services, and Defence; (8) The fixing of and providing for the Salaries and Allowances of Civil and other Officers of the Government of Canada; (9) Beacons, Buoys, Lighthouses, and Sable Island; (10) Navigation and Shipping; (11) Quarantine and the establishment and maintenance of Marine Hospitals; (12) Sea Coast and Inland Fisheries; (13) Ferries between a Province and any British or Foreign Country, or between two Provinces; (14) Currency and Coinage; (15) Banking, Incorporation of Banks, and the issue of Paper Money; (16) Savings Banks; (17) Weights and Measures; (18) Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes; (19) Interest; (20) Legal Tender; (21) Bankruptcy and Insolvency; (22) Patents of Invention and Discovery; (23) Copyrights; (24) Indians and Lands reserved for the Indians; (25) Naturalisation and Aliens; (26) Marriage and Divorce; (27) The Criminal Law, except the Constitution of the Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction, but including the Procedure in Criminal Matters; (28) The establishment, maintenance, and management of Penitentiaries; (29) Such Classes of Subjects as are expressly excepted in the numeration of the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces.

92. In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to matters coming within the classes of subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say: (1) The amendment ... of the Constitution of the Province, except as regards the office of Lieutenant-Governor; (2) Direct taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a revenue for Provincial purposes; (3) the borrowing of money on the sole credit of the Province; (4) the establishment and tenure of Provincial offices, and the appointment and payment of Provincial officers; (5) the management and sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province, and of the timber and wood thereon; (6) the establishment, maintenance and management of public and reformatory prisons in and for the Province; (7) the establishment, maintenance and management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for the Provinces, other than Marine Hospitals; (8) Municipal Institutions in the Province; (9) Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other licenses, in order to the raising of a revenue for Provincial, local or municipal purposes; (10) local works and undertakings [except steamships, railways, canals, telegraphs and other works for the general advantage, or for the advantage of more than one Province]; (11) the incorporation of Companies with Provincial objects; (12) the solemnisation of marriage in the Province; (13) Property and civil rights in the Province; (14) the administration of justice in the Province [including the maintenance of Provincial courts, civil and criminal, and procedure in civil matters]; (15) the imposition of punishment by fine, penalty, or imprisonment [in order to enforce a Provincial law on any of the above matters]; (16) generally all matters of a merely local or private nature in the Province.

133. Either the English or the French language may be used by any person in the debates of the Houses of the Parliament of Canada and of the Houses of the Legislature of Quebec; and both those languages shall be used in the respective Records and Journals of those Houses; and either of those languages may be used by any person or in any pleading or process in or issuing from any Court of Canada established under this Act, and in or from all or any of the Courts of Quebec.

The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of Quebec shall be printed and published in both those languages.

145. Inasmuch as the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have joined in a declaration that the construction of the Inter-colonial Railway is essential to the consolidation of the Union of British North America, and to the assent thereto of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and have consequently agreed that provision should be made for its immediate construction by the Government of Canada. Therefore, in order to give effect to that agreement, it shall be the duty of the Government and Parliament of Canada to provide for the commencement, within six months after the Union, of a railway connecting the River St. Lawrence with the City of Halifax in Nova Scotia, and for the construction thereof without intermission, and the completion thereof with all practicable speed.

146. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the advice of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, on Addresses from the Houses of the Parliament of Canada, and from the Houses of the respective Legislatures of the Colonies or Provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, to admit those Colonies or Provinces, or any of them, into the Union, and on Address from the Houses of the Parliament of Canada to admit Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory, or either of them, into the Union, on such terms and conditions in each case as are in the Addresses expressed and as the Queen thinks fit to approve, subject to the provisions of this Act; and the provisions of any Order in Council in that behalf shall have effect as if they had been enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

47. THE WORK OF THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY (to 1869).

=Source.=--A Paper by Sir Donald Smith (now Lord Strathcona), read to the Royal Colonial Institute in April, 1897. The Company's territories were taken over by the Dominion of Canada in 1869.

The principal business of the Hudson's Bay Company was the purchasing of furs from the Indians, in exchange for arms and ammunition, clothes, and other commodities imported from the United Kingdom. Its prosperity depended upon good relations being maintained with the aborigines. Its officers were able to travel everywhere with freedom and safety, and could rely upon the friendliness of the red men. Advances made to the Indians for their hunting outfits or in times of scarcity were nearly always repaid. On the other hand, the Indians knew that any notes they might receive upon the trading posts, from peripatetic officers a thousand miles away from headquarters, would be honoured on presentation. The foundation of these friendly relations was confidence, and the knowledge the Indians acquired of the white man and his ways during the long administration of the Company made the transfer of the territory to Canada comparatively easy when the time for the surrender arrived. Its policy, which has been followed by successive Governments of Canada, has enabled the country to avoid those Indian wars which were of frequent occurrence in the early days of settlement in the western parts of the United States. Even in the half-breed disturbance in 1869 and 1870 already referred to, and in that of 1885, none of the Indians, with a few exceptions, could be induced to take arms against the forces of law and order. The fur trade over such an immense area was necessarily important; but at the same time, from natural reasons, it was bound to diminish in the more accessible parts where settlement in the future was regarded as possible. There was always a tendency on the part of the Indians to kill as many animals as possible, simply for the skins. They held the belief, some people say, that the more they killed the more rapidly would the animals multiply. Their motives therefore may have been conscientious, but I am afraid they were not altogether unconnected with the prospect of immediate profit. There is not much large game now in the regions traversed by the Canadian Pacific Railway, except perhaps in the more inaccessible districts between the Lakes and Hudson's Bay, and in the territory north and north-west of the river Saskatchewan. The buffalo, which used to furnish the Indian with food, shelter, and raiment, is almost extinct, and it is possible to travel over the prairie for hundreds of miles without seeing any wild animals larger than coyotes and gophers. Deer of various kinds are found occasionally, and bears still less frequently, and it may be said with truth that hunting in Canada, whether for pleasure or for trade, now entails a good deal of hard work....