THE CANADIAN CONTROVERSY. AT a moment when general attention is so forcibly called, and by such distressing events, to the quarrel in Lower Canada, it becomes of importance to supply a correct answer to the question which is in every one's mouth, what it is about, and how it has arisen. This is the object of the present publication. It is not proposed to encumber it with long arguments, but merely to let people know what the controversy really is, to guard them against the misconceptions and hasty views which will naturally arise (perhaps be suggested), when new topics of an exciting kind are so suddenly pressed on the public mind, and then leave them with confidence to their own judgment. The facts are not ineloquent, and to give them a voice is all that is necessary. There is no occasion to perplex the statement with questions about this administration and that administration. Party politics have no entrance here; for all parties during many years past have, when in power, shown the utmost spirit of conciliation towards the men who are now in arms. The issue to be tried, there fore, is shortly between the statesmen of Great Britain, without distinction of party, on the one hand, and the agitators of Lower Canada on the other. Another preliminary remark is, that with a view to forming a judgment on the rights of the present struggle, it is needless to discuss each stage of the British Government's past policy. Throughout, until the present crisis, that policy has been yielding. Whatever, therefore, may have been its merits in other respects,-whether the concessions that were successively made ought to have been postponed or qualified, or, as some think, altogether withheld,-it is not the less certain that the fit return for them cannot have been rebellion, and that those who most loudly demanded them cannot now plead these as their reasons for plunging their followers into a deadly contest, their church and institutions into danger, and their country at large into the miseries of a civil war. T Immediately after the cession of Canada to Great Britain, the laws of England were introduced by a royal proclamation dated 7th October, 1763. In 1774 an act of parliament was passed restoring the French law in civil causes, securing the most ample toleration to the Roman Catholic Church and laity, and establishing a council with a power to make laws. Another Act of the same year (the 14 Geo. 3. c. 88., a statute much noted in subsequent disputes) repealed various burdensome duties that had been levied under the French Government, and substituted for them more moderate duties on spirits and molasses, of which the proceeds were declared applicable by the Lords of the Treasury to the civil and judicial expenses of the colony. Both these statutes were intended, and were accepted, as valuable concessions. One proof of the contentment of the people at this time was their successful resistance to an invasion by the Americans in 1774; a resistance which, to their honour be it spoken, they have never failed to offer whenever an enemy to Great Britain has entered their territory. In 1791 was passed the Act, commonly called the Constitutional Act, which continues to regulate the form of government in the Canadas. It divided the former province of Quebec into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and conferred upon each a legislature consisting of a Governor, Legislative Council, and Assembly, designed to bear as near an analogy as circumstances would admit to the King, Lords, and Commons, of the Parent State. For several years after this statute was passed, no collision took place between the Colonial Legislature and the Government at home. Local differences of more or less consequence prevailed from time to time, but the mother-country did not become involved in them. In 1812 the Canadians were amongst the foremost, and for a time almost the only, defenders of their country against the Americans.* In 1818, however, a change took * A circumstance this, by the way, which a recent writer in the "Spectator" astutely observes, shows that they were no place in the system of administration, which, however necessary and proper, gave the first occasion for the dissensions that sprung up soon after that date between the Assembly and the Government. The expenditure of the colony had hitherto been defrayed out of permanent revenues within the control of the Crown, and the deficiency, as they were not equal to the whole demand, was annually supplied by the House of Commons. The Assembly offered to relieve the British Parliament of this charge, but the offer was not at first accepted. In 1818, however, the peace having occurred, and retrenchment being anxiously sought after in all directions that admitted of it, a different course was adopted, and from that time the Assembly was applied to for supplying the deficiencies of the permanent grants which the Government considered to be at its own disposal. better than Frenchmen. Had they been Englishmen, doubtless it would have been a more natural course to turn their arms against England. Perhaps, however, if this writer should be able to bestow his time again on the subject, he may find it not unedifying to inquire what course was pursued by the English Militia of Upper Canada on the same occasion. Or should he cast his eye on the history of Englishmen and Frenchmen in Europe, he may possibly discover that in any part of the world it is no more the exclusive characteristic of one than the other of these two noble races of men, to repel foreign aggression, from whatever quarter it may come. Let us hope that they may be equally proof against the "malice domestic," which in Parliament and elsewhere would now teach them so different a lesson. |