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Untitled Article
the local legislature without the intervention of the British Parliament . The Council , of course , stands in the way , but as a remedy for their obstructivenes 9 we have the old " Constitutional" remedy of a ' creation . ' The Council consists of about thirty-one members , of these some five or six are in favour of the elective principle ; hence it would merely be necessary to provide the Governor with some twenty-five blank mandamuses , when he might call to the Council a batch of mimic peers for the express purpose of passing the Bill .
It is becoming every day more apparent that we cannot maintain our dominion over the Canadians but bv means of a popular form of government . If the people become seriously discontented , Canada , from that moment , is lost to us as a colony . Some people affect to believe , and are at great pains to make others believe , that a change in the constitution of the Council would endanger the connexion between the Colony
and the mother country . Mr . Roebuck , by a chain of luminous reasoning , destroys this fallacy most completely . No one , in fact , can have watched the State of Canada for the last twelvemonths without being convinced that by acceding to the demands of the people we secure a firm and attached ally ; jealous , it is true , of any—the slightest—interference on our parts with their internal affairs ; but willing , nay proud , to form a par * , of the British empire , and therefore to acknowledge our right to legislate on all questions of external policy .
Since Mr . Roebuck's Pamphlet went to press intelligence has reached this country from Upper Canada . Increased difficulties had arisen in the government of that Colony . Sir Francis Head , on assuming the govern men t , had called to the Executive Council some new members in whom the mass of the people had confidence . In his measures , however , he had
rendered this concession a mere nullity by acting uniformly without their advice . Hereupon , the Executive Council remonstrates , arguing that , as an impression is abroad tbut they are the advisers of the King ' s representative , they suffer in their reputation with their fellow-citizens bv every unpopular and obnoxious measure . They , therefore , pray permission to lay a correct statement of their condition before the public , and to withdraw from his Excellency ' s Councils .
Sir Francis Head tells them , in reply , that he alone is responsible , and that they have really no voice in the business . That power and responsibility are indissolubly united , and that , if he give them the latter , they will speedily pretend to the former , which he has no intention that they should possess . Here ia a specimen of what one of the liberal papers calls iiis 4 C Algerine " ideas of government .
" The Lieutenant Governor maintains , that the responsibility to the people ( who are already represented in the House of Assembly ) which
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—Recent Events . S € g
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1836, page 269, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2657/page/5/
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