Document Information

Date: 1866-08-04
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “CONFEDERATION INTRIGUING” Montreal Herald (4 August, 1866)
Other formats: TBA

CONFEDERATION INTRIGUING.

From the Journal de Quebec.

Mr. Cauchon writes thus to the Journal, from Ottawa :—

The confidential letter from Mr. Galt to the members from the Eastern Townships will be remembered; and the sentiment of disapprobation with which it was received by the representatives and the people of Lower Canada will be equally well remembered. I have now the sad duty of informing you that all this is becoming a part of the law and the constitution; the Catholic members from Lower Canada having, as I am assured, accepted it in caucus. There are two distinct propositions, equally odious, and yet which have been alike accepted by our representatives. The first respects the schools, the second representation. At the time of the debate on the address it was expressly understood that the schools in Upper Canada should continue on the existing system of separation, and that protective arrangements should be made in favour of the Protestants of Lower Canada. The question turned entirely on the division upon certain basis of the public money appropriated to the schools, and also the amendment of the school law so as to permit isolated groups of Protestants in a county to incorporate themselves with those of an adjoining county for school purposes, carrying their contributions thither. To that no one would object; but we have now a very different proposal. According to the proposed arrangement there is to be one superintendent and two deputy superintendents of Public Instruction. One of the latter is necessarily to be a Protestant, so that he will be the representative of Protestantism in the Bureau. He will either be able to control the acts of the superintendent or he will not be able. If he will be able it will be better to establish two superintendents with distinct organizations. That might be strange and insulting for the mass in Lower Canada; but it would not be odious, like the system of espionnage, distrust, and insupportable antipathy, which must arise from the project which is to be submitted to the Legislature. There is to be no change in Upper Canada, because it is said that the Protestant majority does not wish to give more than already exists. Yet there are but 165,000 Protestants in [Lower Canada?] and there are 257,000 Catholics in Upper Canada We are reduced to these anomalies because Mr. Galt had compromised himself with his friends by imprudent promises. But what chiefly and deeply saddens the hearts of Catholics and French Canadians is, that after incessant proofs of our spirit of justice and extreme liberality towards the Protestant minority, the latter isolates itself from us by trenches and walls of circumvallation. You have read the project of the local constitutions, and will have seen that it will require a three fourths’ vote in the two houses in order to change the representation. This extraordinary enactment had evidently for its object to guard the integrity of the counties peopled by the English speaking inhabitants against any possible encroachments and injustice on the part of the French race. It was accepted because it proceeded on a principle applicable to all the country without distinction ; established neither classes nor principles; and caused no insulting distinctions for any part of the population. Now it is to be replaced in the following manner. While a simple Parliamentary majority will suffice to overturn the electoral divisions in all the rest of the country, twelve counties, without counting the towns, are set apart for the English speaking race, and the Legislature will be unable to touch them, except with the consent of the majority of the representatives of these twelve counties. Here, then, we have a Legislature within a Legislature, and God only knows what will be the end of it. I feel myself crushed under the weight of the national humiliation, and the follies to which our history will be forced to succumb.

I am answered, however: but Mr. Galt would have resigned. It is said, I know not on what authority, that it was Mr. Alleyn who called the caucus of English speaking members to discuss the question of representation.