violent prorogations and dissolutions of the provincial parliament; of the connivance of the government at the insolvency of the Receiver General, Sir John Caldwell; and of certain acts of the imperial parliament, particularly the Canada trade act, (3 George 4th.) and the Canada tenures act, (6 George 4th). On the other hand, another petition signed by 10,000 inhabitants of the townships, enumerated the grievances of the British portion of the community. Among these, the most prominent were the inconveniences to which they were exposed, by being made subject to French law and procedure; and the inequality of their share in the representation.

Upon the more important of these matters we propose to offer a few remarks, serving to give a general notion of the controversy between this country and the colony. We will begin with the most important of all-the public

revenue.

It may be premised, that throughout the unfortunate differences which we are about to notice, no question ever existed with respect to the imposition of duties, or the levying of money. The claims of either party were limited to the right of appropriating, what must, at all events, be collected, and what, if not disposed of, must accumulate from year to year in the public chest.

In the year 1774, an act passed the Imperial Parliament, (14 Geo. 3.c.88,) on which the financial part of the quarrel mainly rested. After stating that certain duties had been imposed by the French king, and were subsisting at the period of the conquest, it directed that they should be discontinued; substituting others, which were to be

applied, in the first place, to making a more certain and adequate provision for the administration of justice, and of the civil government, the residue to be reserved in the hands of the receiver-general of the province, for the future disposition of Parliament.

This was followed by the act of the 31 Geo. 3. c. 31, already adverted to, and of which the 46th section recites the 18th Geo. 3. c. 12 (1778), which latter act declared, that thenceforward the King and Parliament of Great Britain would not impose any duty or tax in any of the North American colonies, or in the West Indies, except only such as it might be expedient to impose for the "regulation of commerce;" the net produce of such duties being always applied to the use of the colony, in which the same should be levied, in such manner

as other duties collected by the authority of the respective general courts, or general assemblies of such colonies are ordinarily paid and applied."

The act then states, that it is necessary for the general benefit of the empire, that such power of regulating commerce should continue, "subject, nevertheless, to the condition therein before recited, with respect to the application, of the duties." And it therefore provides for the continuance of the powers in question, and debars the provincial legislature from varying, repealing, or obstructing laws made by virtue thereof-provided, that the net produce of all duties to be so imposed should, at all times thereafter, be applied in such manner only as should be directed by the provincial legislature.

Now, according to the construction of the British government,

the effect of these statutes was, to divide the revenues collected under their authority in Canada into two distinct classes; whereof the one consisted of the duties levied anterior to the passing of the act, 18 Geo. 3, and the other of such as had been imposed since and by virtue of that act, or of the 31 Geo. 3. c. 31. The latter of these classes they admitted to be altogether subject to the control of the provincial legislature, which, tho' without the power of prohibiting the collection of the duties, might, at pleasure, regulate, limit, and even refuse, their appropriation. But, with respect to the former, it was contended, on the part of the Imperial Legislature, that the colonial parliament had no such power, and that the duties substituted by the 14 Geo. 3. c 88, for those which were antecedently existing, were already specifically appropriated by the British Parliament to defray the civil expenses of the colony.

The Canadians, on the other hand, insisted, that the last-menmentioned act had been virtually, if not in terms, repealed by the two which succeeded it, and to which they attributed a retroactive operation. And they claimed a further latitude for the construction of the latter statutes, in consideration of the fact, that the act of 1774 was passed at a time when there was no provincial legislation, nor any local authorities, to whom the constitutional appropriation of the duties, then imposed, could be deputed. And they went on to argue, that the local parliament must, as soon as it came into being, by a certain transcendent virtue, essentially inherent in parliaments, attract within its own sphere the management of all public monies

-a privilege implied in its very existence, and inseparable from its functions.

We believe, that though these latter considerations might have afforded a good reason for a timely and graceful concession of their demands to the Canadian Assembly, on fair terms, no lawyer could have denied, that the legal construction of the statutes was that assumed by the British government. Another, and perhaps better ground of dispute, on the part of the Assembly, though equally inoperative with the former, as a legal argument, was the following. It being admitted on all sides, that the duties of 1774 were to be applied exclusively to the support of the civil government, it became the duty, as well as the privilege, of the assembly, whenever the executive government came down to them for an addition to that fund, to ascertain, by a careful examination of the whole expenditure, whether the supplementary aid, which they had the power of withholding, ought to be voted or no. This, it will be perceived, amounted really to a control over the appropriation of the entire revenue, since, by refusing to advance the secondary, until they were quite satisfied with every item of disbursement of the primary fund, they, of course, succeeded in obtaining the regulation of both.

This power, which they possessed in substance, whatever may have been the theory of its attribution, should, we think, have settled the question. But the government still clung to their legal title, shadowy as it was. And, in the ordinary course of such controversies, the misunderstanding and irritation on this question

continued to increase from the year 1809 till 1819. From the latter period, with the exception of one or two years, all the bills of supply sent up by the Assembly were rejected on the part of the Government, and the result was, that the governor was compelled, by necessity, to lay his hands upon money, which he could not, unauthorized by the Assembly, touch without a direct violation of the law.

Another disputed portion of the public revenue consisted of certain sums which, though not originally comprised in the first class of dutics, were nevertheless withdrawn from the periodical control of the provincial legislature.

Besides the duties of 1774, and "the permanent appropriations" under local acts, last noticed, the House of Assembly laid claim to a control over a fund of a very different character, designated as "the casual, territorial, and hereditary, revenue of the crown," and accruing, in respect of seignorial rights, from the proceeds of waste lands, and from certain other detached sources. This, in 1836, seems to have amounted to about 16,000l.*

The Assembly founded their claims to this money mainly on arguments drawn from public policy, and on constitutional analogies; but especially of late years they have further insisted upon

Mr. Neilson, one of the principal witnesses before the committee of 1828,

estimated the total net revenue of Lower Canada at about 90,000/. He says, "in

gross it has amounted to about 150,000% a large proportion of which goes to the expenses of collection. I believe the executive government claims to appropriate between 30,000l. and 40,0007. annually, so that there would remain about 50,000l. to be appropriated by the Legislature."

a message of Lord Dorchester, who, when governor in 1794, formally surrendered them to the public service, and, according to the construction put upon the terms of the message by the Assembly, to the control of the Legislature,

With respect to the questions arising from the state of the law, and from the conflicting nature of French and English tenures, it may be shortly stated, that the lands in Lower Canada are divided into two classes: the one almost exclusively occupied by the French, and subject to the law of France, as it existed prior to 1789, with all its feudal incidents and encumbrances; the other held under the common English tenure. Inconvenient as the French customs and seignorial rights appear to us, they are preferred by the French habitans to our law of real property; and the endeavours of our government, by commutation of tenures, to effect a change in this respect, and to introduce English law into the more recently settled land, have been resented by the French party as an unconstitutional interference with the domestic affairs of the province. Accordingly, the acts of the Imperial Parliament, by which it was sought to introduce these modifications, namely, the 3 Geo. 4, c. 119. s. 31 and 32, (the Canada trade act,) and the 6 Geo. 4. c. 59, the Canada Tenures Act,) are among the chief of the enumerated grievances.

For a very ample collection of information respecting the above and other collateral matters, the reader is referred to the evidence taken before the committee to which we have so often adverted. The report of that committee was characterised by the Canadian mal

contents themselves as "an imperishable monument of justice and profound wisdom," and may therefore be considered, to a great extent, as a standard by which we may measure the reality of the grievances which they allege. The committee fully admitted in their report that many of the complaints of the Canadians were well founded, and on various points they recommended extensive redress. With respect to the money question, they say, that "they have felt, that they should not do wisely, in confining their views to a critical examination of the precise meaning of the words of different statutes. They look rather to the circumstances of Lower Canada, to the spirit of its constitution, to the position and eharacter of its local government, and the powers, privileges, and duties, of the two branches of the legislature. Although, from the opinion given by the law-officers of the crown, they must conclude that the legal right of appropriating the revenues arising from the act of 1774 is vested in the crown, they are prepared to say, that the real interests of the provinces would be best promoted, by placing the receipt and expenditure of the whole public revenue under the superintendence and control of the House of Assembly." But they, at the same time, state, that they are "strongly impressed with the advantage of rendering the governor, the members of the executive council, and the judges, independent of the annual votes of the House of Assembly for their respective salaries."

The committee go on to say, that, they "cannot close their observations on this branch of their enquiry, without calling the attention of the House to the im

portant circumstance, that in the progress of these disputes, the local government has thought it necessary, through a long series of years, to have recourse to a measure, (which nothing but extreme necessity could justify,) of annually appropriating, by its own authority, large sums of money of the province, amounting to no less a sum than 140,000l., without the consent of the representatives of the people, under whose control the appropriation of those sums is placed by the constitution. And they cannot but regret that such a state of things should have been allowed to exist, for so many years, in a British colony, without any communication, or reference having been made to parliament on the subject." With respect to the legislative council, the subject next in importance, they recommended, "that a more independent character should be given to those bodies, (in both provinces) and that the majority of their members should no longer consist of persons holding offices at the pleasure of the crown. And they suggested that, with the exception of the chief justice, the judges should, in future, be neither members of the legislative, nor of the executive councils.

With regard to tenures and the law of property, their opinion seems favorable to further modifications of the French system, by affording increased facilities for commutation of tenure; and they recommended that the declaratory enactment of the tenures act which assigned the law of England to the townships should be retained. Adverting to the representative system, then in force, they described it as entirely founded on a numerical principle; Sir Alured Clarke, who divided the province, having taken for each

county, as much land as was found to contain a given number of inha bitants. On the thickly peopled banks of the St. Lawrence, a small district was found to suffice, while, in the more distant parts, vast territories were comprehended in one county, in order to obtain the required population. At some future time they thought that it might be advantageous to frame a system on the compound basis of territory and population.

It was found that Mr. Caldwell was a defaulter in 1823 for 96,000l. of the public money; and that the fact of his deficiency was known for a considerable time before he was suspended.

The publication of this report was the signal for speedy and serious endeavours on the part of the government to give effect to its main suggestions. Important changes were made in the Legislative council, with a view of removing all existing grounds of complaint on that head, and generally, a very strong disposition was evinced to meet the Canadians with concession. Above all, in 1831, ministers hurrying beyond the cautious, though most liberal, recom

A Bill, for the amendment of the representation, passed the Local Legis

lature in 1829. It made an entire re

division of the province, but increased the representation, by dividing the larger counties, leaving the smaller untouched, and forming forty counties out of twentyone old ones, of which seven, according to the commissioners, either contain a majority, or consist exclusively of a population resident in the townships, that is of British race. According to the census of 1831 the population of Lower Canada was 509,591; of these 210,000 are of British descent. The number of representatives returned to the House of Assembly is eighty-eight. The population of the Upper Province is computed at 375,000, exclusively British.

mendations of the committee, ob tained an Act of Parliament, (1 and 2 William 4th. c. 23.) whereby the entire duties of 1774, amounting to little short of 34,000l. were placed at the absolute disposal of the provincial Legislature; and this, without any stipulation whatever, in favour of the governor, the executive council, or the judges. The crown, it will be observed, still retained a considerable revenue within its control. Neither the "permanent appropriations," amounting to about 10,000l. annually, nor the casual and territorial revenues were affected by this act. Whatever may be thought of the policy of this unconditional abandonment of the duties of 1774, it was not otherwise than characteristic of the government which proposed it, nor is it more matter of surprise to find them, only two years afterwards, in the act of taking measures to recover what, in their improvident generosity, they had lavished to no purpose. With regard to the tenures, also, we may observe, that an Act passed the British Parliament in 1831, (1 William 4th. c. 20.), which empowered the Colonial Legislature to make alterations at their pleasure, in the legal incidents to property held in free and common soof England notwithstanding." cage, any repugnancy to the law

66

The events which followed these concessions are matters of very recent history, and as such are recorded in our annals of the last few years. The Assembly insisted upon a further surrender of whatever public revenue the Crown still retained at its disposal, and, at the same time, refused to bind themselves by any stipulation for securing an adequate civil list; they would not accede to the fairest pro