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Date: 1865-01-05
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “Mr. Cardwell’s Despatch on Confederation”, The Montreal Herald (5 January, 1865)
Other formats: TBA

MR. CARDWELL’s DESPATCH ON CONFEDERATION.

—That peoples—“prone to servitude”—have, at different times, dazzled by the civil, or more often by the military talents of some great men, permitted them to usurp despotic rule and to replace time-honoured free governments by regimes of absolute one-man power, is a fact with which history has made us all familiar. In general the process has been slow and almost imperceptible, carried on by a dynasty extending through several reigns, occupied by Princes able themselves or served by able ministers. In this way all Europe, except England, gradually lost the free constitutions which the Teutonic races brought with them from the forests of the North, and, with trifling exceptions of territory, established all over the Continent, which had before served the single master enthroned at Rome. Sometimes the change has been brought about by a few well timed and well directed blows, as in the days of our forefathers and ourselves by the first and third Napoleons. We believe that in the history of a Northern nation, which has lately occupied much attention, a Sovereign was requested to accept as a present the liberties of his subjects, and that from that moment, for many generations, the Monarchy became, so far as law was concerned, the most unlimited despotism in Europe. But in all these cases the usurpers of other men’s liberties showed some sort of authority, in the possession of popularity, of power, of ability, or of all three united. It was reserved for the nineteenth century, and an assembly of self-styled British statesmen, to decree that a few, not very extraordinary individuals, should appoint a few score of individuals still less extraordinary, who, in the fact of law making, should as a body be as absolute as the Czar of Russia—at least for preventing any reforms. Some of the aristocratic Italian so-called Republics may have had a Senate possessed of powers equal to that which, by the Confederation scheme, it was intended to confer upon the Legislative Council of British North America; but no other body of men, in any State, ever had such entire control in the way of resistance to change, as would be possessed by the Legislative Council if the original plan had been carried out.—And such men as they were likely to be! Who does not remember the honorable Sam Millses, and the other creations of the early days of the Baldwin-Lafontaine government? Occasionally when an able man like Mr. Draper or Mr. Sullivan failed to obtain a seat in the Lower House, he was, it is true, temporarily pitchforked into the Council, from which he made the speediest possible escape to the Lower House. But in general, if a man had helped an influential minister either to make up his bank book or his polling book, but was too stupid, or too unenterprising, or too destitute of that kind of personal frankness and generosity which make men popular even independently of their opinions, to obtain a seat from a constituency, he became eligible for a seat in the Council. Now a body thus constituted it was intended to make as permanent as any human institution can be; the body being always the same and fresh individuals only being absorbed into it as individuals died off. If it is bad enough to have such a body, even when kept in check by some fear of consequences,—such as by the apprehension of new creations. But to place its authority out of and beyond the reach of any human reach, no matter in what circumstances, is a project utterly unaccountable. We are glad to see that Mr. Cardwell, the new Secretary for the Colonies, in giving the Imperial sanction so far as it has gone to the Confederation scheme, has expressly excepted this clause in it. It is plain that the plan under the guise of Conservatism really attacks one of the prerogatives of the Crown, for a nominative Council would be independent of the Crown, which even the House of Lords is not, if the Crown were absolutely debarred from adding members to the body. We have never attached any great importance to the constitution of the Upper Chamber, though we have always preferred the elective system, and are not disposed to change that opinion now, merely because a number of gentlemen meeting at Quebec have resolved to go back to a method which has been tried and found inconvenient, and the abolition of which was for about seven years one of the acts, for the doing of which a number of them claimed the confidence of the people of the country. There have been some very improper selections of Legislative Councillors; but the body has been immeasurably raised in talent and popular consideration by the accession of the elected members. Still, so long as there is a safety valve to admit of achieving reforms in a legal way, the constitution carries with it its own remedies; and for the rest, the people of Canada are what they were ten years ago, and whatever quacks may think of their own power of making enduring constitutions, in which the popular voice is ignored, the same influences which made the Council elective once will infallibly do so again. All that is effected is to create the opportunity for recommencing an old struggle. There is one other thing which we trust will be considered and amended along with that error indicated by Mr. Cardwell. The framers of the Confederate constitution with some wonderfully inscrutable designs for the future of the Legislative Council, have adopted a designation for the Legislative Assembly which we are sure is unusual, and we think is wholly novel in Colonial history. It is moreover, with deference be it said, nonsense. The Legislative Assembly under the Confederation is throughout the protocol agreed upon at Quebec, called the House of Commons, whereby we gather that the other body is to be a House of Uncommons—in other words of Brumagem Lords. The choice of title may have been a mere foolish affectation; but we suppose we have given above the true reason for it. Now in England the two houses represent not only two classes of functionaries, but two castes of society. Or rather the members of one house belong to it because they belong to a caste. There are no “Commons” in Canada, because there are no Nobles, and until our form of society is wholly changed, there can be none more respectable than those distinguished orders of foreign nobility, mostly “Counts,” of whom Punch usually draws one as a figure, whenever he represents the landscape of Leicester Square. Mr. Cardwell has put his hand on the spot in the scheme of the Legislative Council, which offers the practical difficulty to the working of the Constitution. But if our Legislators want to build their edifice on scientific principles instead of empiric fancies, they will make it in accordance with the actual condition of the people and with those tendencies which experience no less than reason shows to be inherent in that condition.