Document Information
Date: 1866-12-07
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “Foretastes of a Happy Union Under Confederation (From the Morning Telegraph, St. John N. B.)” Montreal Herald (7 December 1866).
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FORETASTES OF A HAPPY UNION UNDER CONFEDERATION.
(From the Morning Telegraph, St. John N. B.)
The Delegates in London will do well if they let the Education question, about which so much talk is being made in Canada, severely alone. We can hardly think, indeed, that changes of any great importance in the Quebec Resolutions on that subject, are really contemplated. As there arranged Education is left to the care of the Local Legislature exclusively, with a single restriction. Section 43 reads:—
Education, saving the rights and privileges which the Protestant or Catholic minority in both Canadas may possess as to their Denominational Schools at the time when the Union goes into operation.
The question was thus excluded from the General Legislature, no restrictions whatsoever being imposed on the Local Legislature by the Constitution, with the single exception above noted. It appears, however, that a Canadian paper has alleged that the Canadian Delegates intend to advocate in London that “the Local Legislatures shall have the right to legislate on the subject of Education, subject, however, to an appeal to the Confederate Parliament.” This statement is but the utterance of an obscure country paper, and no authority whatever is assigned for the announcement. As it stands it possesses little meaning.—But, if we could believe that the announcement is warranted by the views of Canadian Delegates, and if it is intended to mean that Educational questions are to run the guantlet [sic] of both the Local and General Legislatures—that what the Local may decide upon can he reversed by the General—or that a General Legislature, in spite of the remonstrances of the people through the Local Legislature, may be empowered to destroy the Common School system of a Province and establish therein Sectarian Schools, in defiance of the wishes of the majority: if this is the meaning of the statement put forth, then we have no hesitation in telling the Delegates from the Maritime Provinces that they are called upon to set their faces against any such changes. There can be no compromise on a question of this character. No amount of money conceded to us can smooth over the perpetual jarring which must inevitably arise if this plan of “appeal” be adopted. No given number of dollars and cents can compensate these Provinces for the loss of their Common Schools—Schools which, we trust, will before many years be thrown open freely and without price to the children of rich and poor alike. We repeat, that there seems to he no definite authority for the announcement of the Canadian paper.