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Date: 1866-11-01
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “Correspondence: Confederation” Montreal Herald (1 November 1866).
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CORRESPONDENCE.

CONFEDERATION.

To the Editor of the MONTREAL HERALD.

Mr. Editor,—The Confederation farce appears to lose spirit in the last act. The English people are getting their eyes opened by degrees. If they only knew, as we know, that it was a sham and a dodge got up to hold Ministers in office for another spell, thus enabling them to draw salary for another quarter or so, “what would they say in England?”

I cannot help thinking that the people of Canada deserve all the ills which may befall them for their supineness in public matters. We recently heard of a petition to Her Majesty, or to the Imperial Parliament, praying for an appeal to the people on the subject. If such a result should take place after all, the one man we have to thank for it, is Mr. Howe of Nova Scotia, whom the Quebec Chronicle describes as “an old, effete, enfeebled and discarded politician,” I think he will show “there’s life in the old dog yet.” (The story of the Chronicle is a very old one, abuse is easier than argument. We know the time honoured instructions to Counsel, brief endorsed “NO CASE, ABUSE THE PLAINTIFF’S ATTORNEY.”

Even conquered Venetia was not annexed to the Italian Kingdom without a “plebiscitum;” shall we be treated worse?

I have some faith in that petition to Her Majesty, and would suggest the following words:—

We, your Majesty’s loyal and dutiful subjects being fully persuaded that the scheme for the Confederation of the B. N. A. Provinces was proposed merely as a subterfuge, we therefore humbly pray that your Majesty may not suffer any Act for the Confederation of the said Provinces to pass into law, without the opinion of your dutiful people having been first obtained through the constitutional means of a general election.

This step would at least have this much to be said in its favour, that it would be honest and true.

I am,

Yours respectfully,

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.

Montreal, Oct. 26, 1866.