Document Information

Date: 1864-07-08
By: True Witness
Citation: “No title”, True Witness (8 July, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

It is one thing to criticise, and pass unfavorable judgment upon a measure affecting the interests of the community; another, and very different thing to impugn the motives, and to condemn the moral conduct, of its authors. The one is a right which every citizen of a free country, which every British subject is entitled to exercise; the other belongs of right to God alone, Who alone can judge of motives, and read the hearts of man. We make these preliminary remarks in order that, however decidedly we may in the TRUE WITNESS express our opposition to the measure proposed for arranging a new basis for the Canadian Constitution, we be not accused of personal attacks upon the members of the Government by which that measure has been adopted. The question of Federation is a question in which every Canadian is interested: one which it is the right of every Canadian subject of Her Majesty to discuss; one which every Canadian and Catholic journalist is in duty bound to discuss; and which therefore we would desire to discuss, calmly, dispassionately, and in the same spirit as that in which the seaman, anxious to ascertain his longitude at sea, would address himself to the calculation of a lunar distance. Above all would we desire to discard all thoughts of the result of the discussion upon parties, or office-holders; and to keep our attention intent only upon one consideration—how will the solution of this question affect the interests of Lower Canada, and of the Church? for these two are in a great measure inseparable. In this spirit let us approach the question of Federation, the question par excellence of the day.

We, of Canada, are a people of about Three millions. Already we enjoy the blessings of two Governments—The Imperial Government, and the Provincial Government. As if this were not enough, it is proposed to endow us with a third, or Federal Government; and the problem to be resolved is this:—

Given an Imperial Government, to which of right belongs the control of our Foreign Affairs in the most extended sense—and a Provincial Government to which belongs control over all our domestic or internal affairs—to interpolate betwixt these two, a third or Federal Government, which shall not interfere with, or curtail the functions of either. This is the problem—neither more nor less.

To assist us in solving it, let us consider, first what are the legitimate functions of a Federal Government. They are these:—

To manage all the external affairs of the Federation, and its relations with foreign countries. To declare war, and to conclude peace: to make Treaties, and alliances; to provide for the material defence of the country, of the lives and properties of all its subjects, against foreign aggression; to maintain an Army and a Navy for this purpose; and to have such financial control as shall enable it efficiently to fulfil these its legitimate functions. A Federal Government is, and should be, simply an Agent for the management of all Foreign Affairs. Anything more than this confided to the Federal Government is de trop, and incompatible with the autonomy of the several States of which the Federation is composed. Let us next consider what are the legitimate functions and attributes of a State Government—if its liberties and its autonomy are to be maintained, and if it is not to be degraded to the level of a mere municipality. The functions of a State Government comprise the management of, and control over, all its internal or domestic affairs, in the most extended sense of the word. Every thing in short, not expressly given over to the Federal Government, not absolutely necessary to the latter to enable it to provide for the defence of the Federation against foreign enemies, and to fulfil its sole legitimate functions as Agent of the Federation with Foreign Powers, and its Representative to the outer world—belongs necessarily and essentially to the several States of which the Federation is composed. And to this we will add one remark. That—as the good and learned Montalembert in his discourse at the Congress of Malines pointed out—the greatest dangers to which liberty is exposed at the present day, that the two cancers of political and social life are “centralisaiton,” and “bureaucracy”; and that therefore the lovers of liberty and of morality should always be on their guard against every tendency towards centralisation, or towards increasing the numbers of salaried officials under the Government. This premised—and these our premises we are prepared to maintain against the world—we conclude that a Federation of Colonies or Provinces, holding from, and under, the Imperial Government is impossible, without encroaching either upon the legitimate functions of the Imperial Government, or upon those of the State or Provincial Government. Any encroachment upon the functions of the first, we oppose as loyal British subjects, anxious to maintain, and to strengthen the ties which bind us to the British Empire. Any encroachment upon the functions of the latter, we oppose as Catholics, and as Lower Canadians; because we are naturally averse to giving to a people so hostile to us as are the Protestants of Upper Canada any control however slight, direct or indirect, over any domestic affairs—that is to say, affairs which are not properly and actually the subject of Imperial Legislation. The functions actually exercised by the United Legislature of the Two Canadas, do not exceed the functions which the Government of every State, member of the proposed Federation, should exercise: the powers of our actual Provincial Government are but the powers which every Government above a mere municipality must necessarily exercise; and to limit in the slightest degree those functions, to curtail in the least those powers in the case of the several local or State Governments which it is proposed to establish under the Federal Government, would be to deprive the former of all the essential attributes of a Government, and to degrade them to mere municipalities. And if there be, as some pretend, affairs and interests common to the several States or Provinces, but upon which none is competent to adjudicate separately, for which the local Legislatures are incompetent to legislate—then in the name of common sense, and in the interests of Lower Canada in particular, let us leave those affairs to be adjudicated upon by our common Imperial Government, and to be legislated for by the Parliament at Westminster. That there are such matters we do not admit. We believe that on every question, on every matter, not already the legitimate subject of Imperial Legislation, the several Provinces should legislate, each for itself, and God for them all ; and that every question upon which any particular State or Provincial Government has not the right to legislate for itself, is ipso facto, the legitimate subject of Imperial Legislation, so long as we remain British dependencies.

Of the Imperial Government we have no fears, no jealousy; but we have great dread, great jealousy of Upper Canada, and of all interference by Upper Canada with the affairs of the Lower and Catholic Province. Rather would we entrust our liberties, civil and religious, to Westminster than to Toronto; to the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, than to the Clear-Grits, to the Protestant Reformers and the Yankees of Upper Canada. If we must sacrifice our autonomy in whole or in part, rather would we make the sacrifice in behalf of Queen Victoria, than in behalf of President George Brown.

For stripped of all verbiage, and in its last analysis, to what does the scheme for legislating upon all matters common ! to the two Provinces, by a Legislature in which, according to the conditions of its construction, Protestant Upper Canada would have a constant majority, amount? To this: That, henceforth, all such matters shall be settled in a manner repugnant to the feelings, and opposed to the interests, of Catholic Lower Canada. Such in its naked deformity is the proposal to which our assent is coolly asked. And more than this; we are virtually requested to accede to this hostile Legislature the right of determining what matters shall form the subject of its legislation ; in other words, we are requested to entrust ourselves, and our dearest interests to the tender mercies of our avowed foes.

Rather than do this, we repeat, would we commit ourselves and those interests to the Imperial Government, to the British Legislature, as to a more impartial judge and a less hostile tribunal. If we must part with any of our rights of self-government —and we see not the necessity if we be but true to ourselves, our country, and our Church—but if we must part with them, it would be more prudent, and more honorable, to transfer those rights to the custody of our common Sovereign, than to the hands of such men as those who will be all powerful, in case the proposed scheme of Federation be carried out.

We have said enough for to-day. Our objections to a Federation, in so far as we have urged them in this number, are these: That, so long as the Canadas remain British Dependencies it is impossible to interpose betwixt our Imperial Government, and a Provincial Government, a third or Federal Government which shall not interfere with the existing functions of either. That such a third Government must encroach upon the legitimate functions either of the Imperial, or of the Provincial Government; that such encroachment would, in the one case be injurious to the monarchical principle and British connection; in the other case to State autonomy, and to Lower Canada especially, which it would degrade to the level of a mere municipality. That if there be matters common both to Upper and Lower Canada as separate States, but upon which neither is competent to legislate separately, it would be safer for Lower Canadian interests to transfer all such matters to the Imperial Government, than to a Federal Parliament with Representation by Population; as the Catholics of Lower Canada are more likely to obtain justice and fair play from a British Parliament, than from one in which the Clear-Grits, the Protestant Reformers, and the Yankees of Upper Canada would have a constant majority.

We object also to Federation, because it tends to Centralisation; because it necessarily implies or carries with it a great increase in the number of Government officials, and thus tends to promote the growth of the two curses and cancers of modern society “Centralisation and Bureaucracy.” We object to it as freemen, as Catholics and as British subjects, because it is a move towards Yankeeefying our institutions; because it is most menacing to the autonomy of Lower Canada; and because Federation is, and can be, but the pedagogue to bring us ultimately unto Washington, even as according to St. Paul the Law was our pedagogue to bring us unto Christ.