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Untitled Article
from governors' soeeches in general , except that it was some- * what more explicit , and therefore longer . It certainly mentioned the Commission , but in all other 1 esjiects no topic wan touched that might not have found a place in any governor ' a speech .
The writer , whose letters have already been quoted , characterizes the speech as—except on a couple of points *— " a tissue of liberal nothings , very explicit on matters of little or no importance , whilst all matters of primary importance are put off to a future day ! " Reminding the reader that the writer quoted is one of the popular party , there is no difficulty in understanding that the " matter of primary importance , " which is not included in the speech , is the reform which more than ninetenths of the * people of Canada have demanded in the constitu « tion of the legislative council—their mimic " House of Lords . " AH minor reforms the people of the colony consider as
nearly useless . " lhe council , say they '' is the parent of all the evils we have suffered , and if you were to remove all those evils to-morrow , allowing the cause thereof to remain , a very short time would suffice to produce an equally abundant crop . " In fact tlie catalogue of grievances which the Canadians put forward in 1834 , Mas merely intended as evidence of what the system had produced , and never intended for
special und individual red j ess , which the people of Canada were too far advanced in political knowledge to believe to be possible . Yet what is the course pursued bv the liuvernoi ?<—He talks to the Assembly of removing some of the evils of which they had complained , but says not one word ol * the only reform for which the majority of the people appear to care , At the same time that this ixrainl omission is likely to confirm the discontent of the majority of the people of Lower Canada , there is quite enough of reform to raise up an equal , if
not a greater , amount ot discontent in the minds ot the minority ; There seems to be a disposition on the part of the governor to give up to the Assembly the full and complete control of tho 1 > rovincial revenues . This the oHieial party and tin ir friend * lave always resisted . To l > e really responsible to the Assembly will be much less convenient to them , than a mere nominal responsibility to a superior authority located at a distance of * 1 , ( MX ) miles . There is also to be a more equitable distribution
of offices among the different classes of the community . This is extremely obnoxious to the party now enjoying a species of monopoly . No fulure chief justice Sewell—so says the governor—is to be permitted to obtain seven or eight lucrutive oflices [\) V his own children ; no future colonial civil secretary (( uch-* These i » omU mo the grunting of the cQuUngtmcWs , u \\ d tU * { jiviu ^ u ^ i \ n » provincial revenues to the (' onpmou * ' Jlou&e . uf Assembly ,
Untitled Article
114 Receitf QcQurreucex in Canada , 4
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1836, page 114, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2654/page/50/
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