NEWS FROM CANADA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 53, 11 March 1843, Page 212

NEWS FROM CANADA.

' [From the Colonial Gazette of Oct. 19.] : Since our last publication, news has arrived from Canada, of a more stirring interest than anything that has occurred in that country since ' the departure- df Lord Durham. The crisis, which the readers of this journal have been forewarned of as approaching for several months past, and which, in particular, was distinctly set ■ forth in our publication of the 31st August, has come to pass according to the very letter of the prediction : what is more important, the alternative for which our correspondent, writing at Montreal on the 12th of August, expressed a decided preference, hae been acted on by Sir Charles Bagot at Kingston : Sir Charles has called to his councils the representatives of the French Canadian and Upper Canadian Reform party ; the principle of " responsible government" is fully recognised; and, for the first time in Canada, the Executive Government, the majority in the House of Assembly, and the mass of the population of both races, are found on the same side. It will be recollected that our last accounts from Kingston, at the opening of the session, left everything in suspense; Mr. Lafontaine and Mr. Baldwin having, it was understood, refused the Governor-General's invitation to join him. It now appears that they did so under a misapprehension, which was soon removed; and ultimately they stepped each into the office of Attorney-General for his own section of the province, with power to select other gentlemen for subordinate places in the Government. The effect of this bold move on the part of Sir Charles Bagot is best illustrated by the fact that the House of Assembly, which had begun to discuss a vote of no confidence in the late Administration, with a tolerably shrewd guess as to the result, ended by voting thanks to Sir Charles Bagot for his conduct ; and that resolution was carried by a majority of eleven to one — 55 to 5. The startling act by which the French Canadians have thus been raised from their abject prostration has totally baffled the local politicians : the Liberals, of course, praise it in the strongest terms ; the organs of the discomfited faction seem at a loss whether to employ terms of unmeasured execration, or to rein in their anger and prepare gradually to follow with the stream. But r* feature of the case so puzzles them as the extraordinary coincidence between the letters in the Colonial Gazette and the acts of the Government. They are struck with the prophetic spirit which animated the writer of the eighth of those letters ; which, they say, in laying down what might and ought to be done, before the event, describes the event itself as closely as if the order of time had been reversed. The question has been asked, whether Sir Charles Bagot will be supported by the Government at home ? The Government at home can have no option. What would they have had the Governor do ? — defy the Assembly, and maintain the Administration which he found in office, despite the vote of no confidence ? Such a procedure would have been eminently silly. The Executive and the Legislature would then have been once more at open war; the Govern* ment paralyzed ; all confidence destroyed ; the Province in anarchy. We cannot afford a rebellion every three or four years, either for un» popular measures or unpopular men. Constitutions are not to be suspended, changed, or tinkered, every time we find their regular working annoying to official incapacity, negligence, or pride. Some would take a " middle course," and commend the principle of the recent change, but condemn the men whom it has brought to power. Now it does not appear that Sir Charles Bagot had any choice : the men are pointed out for selection, not by any peculiar predilection on his part, but by the circumstances of the time. They have been chosen, first by the electors of Canada to sit in their Parliament; and secondly by the parliamentary majority to be the representatives of that majority in the Cabinet : the Governor's function was like that of the Sovereign here — the Parliament presented the candidates for office, and it only lay with him to induct them. Others have a kind of idea that Sir Charles Bagot himself might have resigned. To what good end ? and why ? There was no quarrel with him, any more than the vote of no confidence in the late Whig Ministry was a censure on Queen Victoria. Who could be sent out better qualified to represent the Imperial Government than its present representative ? The behaviour of parties in the Assembly shows that he has so far conciliated the respect and esteem of all, that in the very conflict of faction he wa6 never mentioned with any but the most decorous and respectful expressions, and the goodness of his intentions was never once questioned. Such being the facts, it does not appear that the Government at home have anything to complain of. They found a certain form of constitution in Canada; they set over it a Governor to see that it worked according to rule ; it has worked strictly according to rule ; and we see the results. Sir Charles Bagot only had to administer the constitution as it was, and he has done so. Everything has been quite regular. Indeed, as the coming crisis ought to have been as visible to the Government as it was to - our, correspondent, the fair presumption would be that Sir Charles had received full authority to deal with it in whatever way he might deem beet for maintaining the public tranquillity. The accession of the French Canadians to power is not an empty triumph of faction. The event was needed as a practical and experimental proof to them that, in the peaceful working of die constitutional law, they enjoy equal rights

and advantages with their British brethren. In the grasp at power, the Canadian does not seek mere political advancement: the long depression of his race had produced many social grievances, many petty and vexatious burdens, at once facilitated by hiR degradation and an humiliating badge of it. Fully to appreciate the policy which Sir Charles Bagot appears to be gradually but steadily pursuing, it is necessary to glance back at the state in which the new Governor-General found the French Canadian, as thrown down by the reconquest after the rebellion, and kept down by Lord Sydenhana. Take a reminiscence from the very first of the series of letters by our Montreal correspondent, dated the 26th of January — " Their political condition under the Union is such as to make it absolutely necessary, considering what human nature is, that they should distrust the Government, and dread and hate the men of the other race with whom they live in contact. Under the forms of equal rights, they are denied the benefits of government and subjected to a cruel oppression from their fellow subjects of English origin. I have not time, nor is this the occasion, for explaining in what manner and to what a grievous extent the permanent legislation of the Special Council in Lower Canada has done injustice to the Canadians of French origin as such ; how, while its ordinances may be read without discovering any distinction for the different races, their effect on a people of peculiar habits, attachments, and mode of life, is often to the last degree oppressive; or how, while executive government, the great engine for good or evil under a monarchy, purports to exist for all alike, it practically has no existence for the service of these poor Canadians. But I will tell you two or three facts, by way of a mere sample of the social injustice which these people suffer under the colour of enjoying an equality of rights. I recently met with a case of gross outrage upon an aged Canadian parish priest (and there is not in the world a more exemplary body of clergy than the Roman Catholic priests of Lpwer Canada), by a coarse fellow, a recent immigrant from England. The whole parish was incensed, but no complaint was made to the magistrate — because there was not a magistrate of the French race to complain to. There are scarcely any French magistrates in all French Canada, which contains about half the population of this colony. " In the next place, the road from Montreal to Lachine is the most frequented in Canada, and chiefly by French Canadians. It is managed, and has been very greatly improved, by five trustees, all of whom are appointed by the Government, with power to levy tolls, and all of whom are English. The toll-keepers are also English, and do not understand a word of French. It happens, therefore, that constant disputes take place between these toll-keepers and the Canadian passengers, in consequence of their ignorance of each other's language. I can add, from my own observation of several instances, that when the toll-keeper fails to understand and be understood, he naturally swears and bullies : he is of the dominant race. This goes on all day long on the most frequented road in Canada. But further, while British travellers generally drive two horses and FrenAfr Canadians only one, the British trustees have put a toll of two-pence upon two horses and three-pence upon one horse ; so that the French generally have to pay three times as much per horse as the British. Do not fancy that this is done to save British pence: the object is to compel the French to drive two horses, as being better for the snow-roads during winter. Compulsion, in short, instead of persuasion, has been the principle of recent legislation for the French Canadians. " And now, lastly, iiearn that there is not in or about the Executive Government at Kingston one single Canadian of French origin to act as a medium of communication between his people and the departments of Government : about | half a million of her Majesty's subjects, upon whom the British Legislature bad deemed it just and wise to bestow the right of representation in Parliament, are as much cut off from communication With the Executive as if they had been banished to Labrador. Can you wonder, taking the facts which I have mentioned as only a specimen of the great mass of little things in which these people suffer gross injustice, that their representatives in Parliament should all be opposed to the Executive?" Sir Charles Bagot had done several gracious acts to mitigate this harsh system, before the meeting of the Provincial Parliament : his letter to Mr. Lafontaine, of the 13th September, was a public guarantee that the system itself is repudiated and at an en<fl The French Canadians have the prospect of substantial benefits from the present move; and not they only, but the Government also. By practically placing the Canadians on an equality with the British in the highest posts, by giving them the opportunity of removing their own grievances, and by depriving tbem for ever of the characteristic position of a conquered people, their main sources of discontent are obliterated ; and the naturally amiable and loyal character of the Canadian, with his deference for authority, is brought into full play. He has now learned to employ the Union as a means to his own advantage — to appropriate to himself, as a member of an integral portion of the empire, a share of the power enjoyed by every British citizen; and in place of a struggle to oppress or resist oppression, there must now be a more generous emulation to legislate well for the whole colony. In future, the province will have those statesmen, be they French or English, whom the majority of the United Parliament (in which the British have the absolute majority on the gross) think will best rule for the benefit of the whole; and the

road to office will be the display of the ability to do so. A month ago, repeal of the Union would probably have been a hustings profession throughout Lower Canada: now, none but a very few old fanatics would venture to propose it. The Union has become the charter of the French Canadian; and, thanks to Sir Charles Bagot, he knows it. A corollary to these proceedings is the longwanted amnesty. To admit the leaders of the party to power, and at the same time to prolong the proscription of the private soldiers of the rebellion, would be cruel, impolitic, and absurd. All trace of that epoch should be wiped away and forgotten,