Document Information

Date: 1855-03-27 – 1855-03-28
By: Province of Canada (Provincial Parliament), Montreal Herald
Citation: Province of Canada, Legislative Assembly, Montreal Herald (April 2nd, 1855), 5th Par, 2nd Sess, 27-28 March 1855

Other formats: TBA

Provincial Parliament.

(Reported for the Montreal Herald.)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY.

March 27th.

THE ELECTIVE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

 [Continued.]

Attorney General McDONALD said the subject had been before the country for many years, and when on a previous occasion it had come under discussion, the hon. member for Lambton had laid his arguments before Parliament in the shape of resolutions, which were negatived by a very large majority. On that occasion it had been solemnly established as the opinion of the representatives of the people, that the Legislative Council should be made elective, notwithstanding quite as strong arguments against it on the part of the member for Lambton as had fallen from him that night. He had evidently spoken in reply to the remarks in which, on the occasion of the first reading of the bill, he had feebly endeavoured to convey to the House the views of the Government on the subject. The member for Haldimand had answered—after his usual fashion, wandering hither and thither to abuse the Government and everybody else—but answered in the main conclusively the arguments of the hon. member against the bill, and he in his turn, had been followed by his own hon. and learned friend the member for Toronto. Both these hon. gentlemen who had opposed the bill had alleged, for reason of objection, that it went to overturn the British Constitution in this Province. Yet he could prove to them, out of their own mouths, that we have not now the British Constitution in Canada. It was argued by the hon. member for Lambton that if the Upper House was of no use, it did no harm; and he went on to show conclusively that it was the mere creature of the Assembly, through its leaders the ministers of the day, liable to be swamped or destroyed by its breath.

Mr. BROWN had said the present Council did the country much good; had merely put the other case hypothetically, to draw deductions from the statements of others in that regard.

Mr. McDONALD—The fact was so, however. We had not the British Constitution nor have we had it. Under the present system, they had but one chamber elected directly by the people and acting directly on the Crown. No man could say that there was any direct or effectual check on the assembly exercised by the Upper House. They altered the phraseology or spelling of a few bills, but with the single exception of the Seigniorial Tenures bill, referred to by the hon. and learned member for Toronto, they had hardly meddled with any measures passed by the Lower House. The charge formerly brought against the Council was that it was obstructive and so did harm; now, it was alike harmless and useless. The gentlemen opposite who had spoken against the bill, were fighting not in favor of the British Constitution but another system, based upon a single Chamber, against a measure which, by giving a real existence to the Upper House, would assimilate our Constitution more closely to the British. In England, besides a hereditary Sovereign head, they had, too, a hereditary House of Lords, gradually yielding to the force of public opinion, yet acting as a check on popular caprice. He had a very strong objection to a single Chamber. He thought a double Legislative body, made up even as suggested by the member for Lambton, by dividing that House in two parts, and giving one an opportunity of discussing and weighing all subjects after the first had decided, and weighing its decision, infinitely preferable to legislation by a single Chamber. Without such revision and check, they would have the single Chamber usurping all executive and judicial as well as legislative functions in the State. This House had already engrossed a large portion of executive authority, and all knew that when this was the case—as Montesquieu had declared—the Constitution was at an end. If hon. gentlemen feared the destruction of the British Constitution in Canada, they should put an end to a system in which there existed the unchecked power of a single Legislative Chamber. We had in fact, but a single feature of that Constitution existing here—viz., the principle of direct responsibility of ministers to the people, and that they would preserve. They were told this could not be done, that with an elective Legislative Council responsible Government must cease. In Australia, the two systems existed together. Elective Councils and responsible Government had been granted to some of those Colonies by the self-same despatch. In the Upper House they had a large property qualification, as here in the Lower little or none. Yet they had heard of no dead lock in the Government there.

Mr. BROWN.—There had not been time.

Mr. McDONALD.—In Belgium they had the same thing these many years, yet that constitution had weathered some rude storms—amid all the shock of revolutions which disturbed the face of all Europe in 1848-9, the Belgian constitution and Government remained unharmed, proving that an elective Upper Chamber was not incompatible with Responsible Government. Why could they not carry out that system here? Oh, they were told the Upper House will declare itself as much the exponent of popular feeling as the Lower, and will usurp all the privileges of the popular branch, adding them to their own peculiar privileges, and engrossing all the power in the State. But the object of legislation on the subject should be to limit their powers and functions, and they had been given a longer time of service purposely to prevent their arrogating to themselves the immediate representation of prevailing popular views. The Lower House would still maintain the power of the purse. Ministers would still look to them for the embodiment of that popular opinion in which they must base their maintenance of power. They would still initiate money votes and control the supplies, and from this latter power it was that had since arised all the importance of the House of Commons in England. In old times the barons held all the power, but exhausting wars made it necessary to coax the burgesses to obtain money from them. At first they only had a right to send representatives to vote benevolences to the Crown, attaching to their subsidies a petition setting forth their grievances. From that small beginning had gradually grown up step by step the present all-engrossing power of the Commons in England—a power the barons could not stay or recover for themselves. And would an elective Upper House manage to do that in Canada which the nobles of England had so signally failed to do. But they will be enabled to usurp it because they too were representatives of the people? Was history then of no use to them? Was the example of Belgium of no value? Did the history of the neighboring Union furnish them with no reliable precedent? There they had a Senate clothed with much greater powers than our Council would be, partaking in fact of ambassadorial as well as legislative authority, representing different sovereign States, and having to some extent the Executive authority also. Yet there, as in the several States, the power of the purse had been given to the more popular branch—the House of Representatives; and much as the Senators were respected, great as was their influence, there had never been any attempt on their part to engross the power of the Representatives. So long then as this attribute was left to the Assembly, so long must the Ministers of the Crown depend on the confidence and support of that House for the power to carry on the Government of the country ; and were not the people of Canada well enough fitted for self-government to resist any effort to destroy the balance of the constitution as that which gentlemen opposite seemed to dread? Let the Upper House do what it would, they could not usurp the power of the Lower House. If indeed Government and the Assembly conspired to waste the public money, they might be checked by the Upper House, and must appeal to the country. By the decision given by that tribunal, both Houses would feel themselves bound. The most conclusive reason, however, he would repeat, which should induce the people and the majority of that House to adopt this reform, was the danger to be apprehended from a single Chamber. No man in that House was perhaps so good a representative of the high chivalrous spirit of the old cavalier as his hon. and learned friend the member for Toronto, and he would remember what was the result when, just previous to the great rebellion, England tried the experiment of a single Chamber while she was ruled by the long Parliament. That body gradually absorbed the authority over the militia, and all the other prerogatives of the Sovereign, and the Lords declaring at last that the latter body was no longer an estate of the realm. The first result of that proceeding was a revolution, which brought the head of the monarch to the block, and lead to a military despotism. It was not now, when the heavens were calm above us, and the surface of our political water unruffled by an angry breath of wind—when no great question powerfully stirred the souls of the masses—that the evils of this system were likely to make itself felt. But let such another agitation as that about the Clergy Reserves was long ago arise, and there was every reason to apprehend a disasterous result. He had made up his mind that, when legislating on this subject, and forming a constitution for themselves and their posterity, it was not wise or safe to leave the Government of the country to a single Chamber and how could they form a second, which would be a check on the haste or rashness of the other? They had here no hereditary institutions—no aristocratic element, no influence based on great names or immense estates—no influence by reason of these, which could be, as in England, exerted by an Upper in a Lower House. In short, they had not have, and could not have, a House of Lords as in Britain. The present House did not furnish that check. For these many years, with a few important exceptions, they had not meddled with any of the legislature of the Lower House, except the Seigniorial tenure Bill. They had contented themselves with quietly registering the decrees of that body. They must seek, then for the desired body in an Elective Chamber. They prosed to have the members of the House elected for eight years, twice the length of the term of the members of the Lower House. In the United States, the term was three times as long. Yet he thought the period itself long enough to do away with the apprehensions of the hon. Member for Lambton about the introduction of the democratic elements of the American constitution.

MR. BROWN— The Hon. And learned gentleman had quite misunderstood him. He had complained of the American system as too conservative — too austocrative.

Mr. McDONALD— Oh! He had taken a look through the other end of the telescope, and thought the American construction too austocratic! Well he should be satisfied then that the proposed term of the Upper House would be but twice as long as that of the Lower, instead of three times as in the United States. The Americans had discussed the question of responsible Government at the time of the formation of their constitution, and it was not held to be incompatible with two elective Houses. On the contrary its introduction had been ably advocated by some of the cleverest men of these days in the Federalist, as required to perfect their institutions. The member for Haldimand thought 92 members too large a body, and so it was. He had advocated 48 members instead of 60 as proposed in the other bill, and he conceived that a still less number might perhaps answer the purpose still better. The first Senate of the United States with a population of 3,000,000 only had 26 members, and a better written or more effective body the world had never seen. But the ho. member should remember that many of the present members never attended, and most of them advanced in years and would be gradually dropping off. They were likely never to have a larger number than 60 or 65 in attendance at a time, which would not be an inconvenient or tumultuous body. With 130 members in that House they were not a tumultuous or inconveniently large House. It was of importance too, to consider that in all great constitutional changes such as this, which amounted to a revolution, though thank God, a bloodless one—the danger was always in the beginning. Now the change would be gradual, so gradual as to produce no immediate violent alteration in the working of the constitution. The new members would find the old ones there possessed of Parliamentary experience and a knowledge of routine which would be of advantage to them, and remove difficulties in the way of adjustment of their actions on the measures laid before them. The hon. member for Toronto had called this combination of nominated and elected members as extraordinary and unheard of. Surely he was aware that just such Houses existed in the Australian Colonies. They had heard much of the danger of a dead lock between the two Houses on account of the conflict, the views on the same measures. The only conflict that could arise between them must necessarily be for popular favor. The hon. member for Lambton apprehended that the Upper House would engross all popular favor, but he was so obstinately wedded to his own convictions, sincerely entertained he doubted not, that he would rather destroy the measure and make it unworkable than endeavor to perfect it. While the Upper House would be withdrawn from the direct action of the fluctuations of popular opinion. Yet it could not prove an obstacle to its steady march because half of it was changed every four years. But they were told the change six members for each section of the Province in every two years would have no perceptible effect on the views of the Upper House. He contended it would have a powerful effect a both Houses, Why a single election now sometimes had a great effect upon public opinion. Had his honorable colleagues the Post Master General been defeated for North Wentworth, when so many gentlemen on that side of the House abandoned their Parliamentary duties to secure that object, would at not have been claimed as an idea to the opinion of the liberal constituencies throughout Upper Canada? And again, when his hon. colleague the Provincial Secretary had been more recently so vigorously opposed at Vercheres, if his defeat had been accomplished would that have had no effect in public opinion as expressed in Parliament, and out of Parliament. Suppose an election for a member of the Upper House for a district made up of Kent and Lambton were to take place to-morrow, and the electors who had supported the hon. member for Lambton were to vote for a person professing opposite views in this or any other important measure, would not the hon. gentleman take the hint. Suppose one for Kingston and Frontence in which the electors condemned the course of himself and his hon. and learned friend the Attorney General on some government question. Would that be without its effect? When it was complained that the Upper House was too Conservative as remaining unchanged by the public voice for 8 years these partial changes every two years were ignored. Under such a system he could not imagine that the case of a dead lock between the two Houses by one of them resisting public opinion, could take place. But supposing the worst for supporting that House resolutely set itself up to overrule the decisions of the popular branch without reference to popular will. Then one plain course out of the difficulty remained. Ministers would dissolve the Lower House, and go to the people with them. If they obtained the popular decision in their favour, all must see that all the Legislative Councils in the world would not dare to disobey the popular command, or prevent the passage of a measure which the people desired. At the time of the passing of the Reform Bill, the existence of the House of Lords was threatened, and feared not as a measure of tyranny on the part of the Crown, but as the demand of the people expressed through the Commons; and that House yielded, as our Upper House must do under similar circumstances. No matter how injudicious or unwise legislation might be, if it appeared that the people desired it after the Conservative chamber had given them time to reflect must be carried out. The present measure should then be considered well in all its details, but it should also be understood that it might be hereafter improved. There could be no finality. His desire was to introduce the elective principle without destroying our present institutions. Other constitutions much more beautifully framed had flourished for a short time, according to Bentham or Sieyes in South America, or on the Continent of Europe, but they had faded away. “A breath might make them as a breath has made;” but the British constitution continued. Let Canadians then hold to the spirit of that constitution. Let them have the sovereign to rule over them; that House elected by the people, and another House, which, though also elected by the people, would be somewhat removed from their immediate action.

Mr. HINCKS could not hear the strong language of the members for Lambton and Toronto—who were both, he believed, sincerely attached to the constitution—on this subject, without doubting his own judgment, though that judgment on this measure was formed after most careful consideration, and in concert with gentlemen as much attached to the British constitution as himself. But he complained of the member for Lambton, that he throughout had shown a determination, if the bill was passed against his judgment, to do his best to prevent it from working,—he made no allowance for the possibility of others being right. The honorable member had made a great point of the fact that gentlemen favorable to elective institutions were supporters of that bill, and the House had been warned against it as against an entering wedge; but all he could say was this, that it was impossible these elective institutions could be established without the consent of the people, and when the people generally should desire American institutions—which he did not fear—nobody could prevent them from being established. He dissented from the opinion of the Attorney General West that the system of British Responsible Government could be worked with American institutions, for there the President was himself elected, and his position would be strangely if his ministers were in the Legislature exposed to continual defeats. We had not the British constitution; but the best representation of it which circumstances would admit, and as the House was nearly unanimous in there should be two chambers, of which the second must be conservative—though not so conservative as seriously to impede the march of Legislation. He thought no better plan than the elective could be adopted. It was easy to remark as the Attorney General West had done upon appointments to the Council; but he had looked over the list of creations in England for the last 15 years, and he found that for a house of between 400 and 500 members, there has been, perhaps with the exception of a few Irish and Scotch peers made peers of Great Britain, &c., only twenty creations, of which only three were not of highly distinguished men. What had happened in Canad? Why in much less time twenty-nine persons had been named to a House of 40 or 50 members, of whom several were aged and infirm. To keep up such a body constant appointments by the ministry of the day were necessary, and these usually gave great dissatisfaction. The member for Toronto had forcibly put the case of the Seigniorial bill; but in almost every instance in which the Council had exercised an independent judgement even on trumping matters—such as the Registry bill—a storm of indignation had been raised against them. This feeling was particularly strong with respect to a Seigniorial Tenure Bill of a former session. That feeling could never be excited against a body elected by the people themselves. Of course every prerogative might be pushed too far—that of the crown for example; but whatever might be said, it would quite impossible to create any second chamber in this country that would possess power equal to that of the House of Lords. Still, it was not necessary that ministers should carry away one of their measures in that Honse. Every one knew that the peers had repeatedly thrown out the bill for the relief of the Jews, and yet the ministry went on. Yet they did not push their power to an absurd extreme, nor did he believe the elected council would here, notwithstanding the representations of the member for Lambton—representations which he regretted—that such gentlemen would be actuated by factious motives. The fact was that ministers were not obliged to resign on account of the defeat of their measures, so long as they retained the confidence of the House. He thought some of the details of the bill admitted of improvement—that eight years was too long a period; that 40 even would be a better number than 48, because the smaller the number the more deliberate and the less partizan would the body be; that the power of dissolution by the crown should have been retained for urgent cases, though of little practical moment, and one that few ministers would dare to exercise; that it would be better not to elect all the new members at once, from fear of too great numbers; lastly, that the electoral districts should be very large, and that each of them should elect four members, so that at each election there should be one member chosen in each district, and thus each return be a reflex of the opinion of the entire country.

The debate was then adjourned, and the House adjourned.

QUEBEC, March 28.

…

THE ELECTIVE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

The debate on the second reading of the bill was resumed :—

Mr. WILSON said he had always supposed they had the British Constitution in this country, and was much surprised to hear the hon. and learned Attorney General for Canada West, assert and agree to maintain the contrary. He thought they had it, and he hoped to see it carried out. They had been told by the hon. and learned gentleman that they had but one chamber, and he had spoke of the Upper House in a manner they did not deserve, that they read or did not read bills sent up to them, sometimes correcting the spelling and phraseology, and contented themselves with doing nothing more. Before the Union and the introduction of Responsible Government, that House had been complained of with some reason as obstructive. A gentleman who then held a seat in the Upper Canada Assembly, and who subsequently became the Knight of Dundurn, once took a bill of his passed in the Assembly, up to the Upper House, presided over at that time by the Chief Justice—and he said the Chief Justice stated the points against the bill and the House bowed assent, and then he stated the arguments in favour of the bill and the Council bowed assent to that too, and then he stated that he was opposed to the bill and they bowed assent to that too, and so his bill was thrown out. He then complained that the Council was too much a one-man-power—but that had been altered since the Union, and the Upper House was no longer an obstacle to the legislation of the Lower. Nor was it wholly useless as had been represented. The hon. and learned member for Toronto had given them an example in the Seigniorial bill how they exercised their legislative functions. What was the reason alleged for the change? Why that the people would have one house to check another. But how was the Council to check the action of that House? Why they had been told by the hon. and learned Attorney General that if they opposed themselves to the wishes of the popular branch, that branch would appeal to the people, and they would rise in their might and make the Upper House cringe before them. But if they carried the elective principle into the Upper House, they would necessarily carry it still further; and if ministers enjoying the confidence of that House once admitted to the people that they were unfit to appoint Legislative Councillors, the people would not believe them any more capable to appoint judges or magistrates but would take the election of these, also, into their own hands. All would be made elective, and then, indeed, no trace of the British Constitution would be left. It was matter of complaint now, that they had not sufficient check upon the Upper House, but, by this bill, members would be able to shift a portion of the responsibility, which properly belonged to them, upon the Upper House elected by the people. With regard to the present Council, he knew it had been said that at a certain time it had been swamped, and had then lost its position in public estimation. But so it was said in the House of Lords at the time of the passage of the Reform bill. Yet the House of Lords had since maintained a high position, and the Council was fast regaining anything it may have lost of public esteem. It was never more respected, he believed, than now. But if the principle of nomination was bad, why not abolish it altogether? Oh! they were told, the old members must be left in to teach the new ones forms and observances. Too many forms, without the position which had in the old country given them meaning, had been one of the things which had done the Upper House an injury. It was complained that the Council took these bills and hurried them through without examination. Many people might think that too often the case in that House too, but they must take into consideration that the bills are printed and read and examined by members before they come to be discussed and voted on, and many of them properly secure an unanimous consent and pass without discussion. So members of the Upper House by watching the proceedings of that House became acquainted with the contents and objects of measures long before they reached them and were all ready with their decision, the result of mature reflection. It was said, too, that in leaving those members in a proper respect for their feelings was evinced. If this bill were passed they would exhibit a proper feeling by all resigning in a body. The fact was, the present Upper House was elected by that House, through the ministers who from time to time enjoyed its confidence, and he believed they were much better fitted to do it than the people would be in the midst of the political turmoil of popular elections. If this measure passed they must hereafter seek for the checks on popular caprice, which they would need, in a written constitution, such as they had in the United States. For his part he believed in the British form of constitution. It had become too much the habit on both sides of the House to sneer at precedents, but he thought they might be proud to follow English precedents even in the appointment of their Upper House. If they ceased to do so, and adopted the proposed change, it would not be ten years ere all their officers of state from the highest to the lowest would be made elective also. He could not regard such a change in our institutions with satisfaction, and would vote against the bill.

Mr. DUFRESNE spoke in favor of the bill. He was a profound admirer of the British constitution and would like a House of Lords here if it were possible, but as we lacked the elements it was impossible. He believed two Chambers necessary, and that an Elective Chamber would be better than that we had at present. He would have liked to see the qualification of electors for members of the Council higher than for the Lower also.

Hon. Mr. CHABOT spoke in favor of the bill, and the Hon. Mr. ROBINSON against it.

Hon. Mr. SPENCE after briefly recapitulating the principal provisions of the bill—he proceeded to say when they reflected, that within a very few years twenty-four new members had been added to the House by the Crown, it became a question of importance whether this infusion of new blood should not be made hereafter by the people instead of the Crown with the advice of its ministers. He believed it was better to give that power directly to the people to create an independent revising Chamber, to check and revise their ofttimes hasty legislation—while it would still possess as now the right to initiate measures also. The change would not in any manner hazard the connection with the mother country. That would rather be perpetuated by this or any measure tending to perfect the constitution, and give increased public confidence to the various legislative bodies. Nor did he believe it would lead to the goal of republicanism which some had appeared to dread Even if it did, however, lead farther than he now anticipated, it would still be their duty to press such a measure as would give them a second House possessed of the confidence of the people—as to the complaint raised that the power of dissolution had been taken away, he thought this necessary. He believed ministers should not have the power of playing by threats of dissolution one House off against the other. Constituted as the Houses would be after the reform, the Lower would represent the minute local interests of the several sections of the Province, the Upper the broad general views of the people gathered from large constituencies. The reform of the Council would add weight to it and strength to the constitution, and therefore to the connection with Great Britain.

Mr. FERRES had been partly induced to speak by the remarks made about the Legislative Council which existed previous to the union. It had been asserted that that body had been obstructive and entirely lacked public confidence. He dissented from those who held that opinion. The Council in Lower Canada at least, was in those times, made up of men of standing, of intelligence and integrity, taken from among the foremost men of the two races which inhabited the province. But the democratic element was then roused against them, and every means were taken to bring them into disrepute and destroy them. He was surprised to hear the hon. member for Haldimand say that that Council had shut up the schools of the province. No school bill properly so called had been sent up to them, but several measures, good and bad, were tacked to a money bill, and to get rid of the evil the Council was obliged in self-defence to reject the good also. The union came, and with it a change of the system of appointment, which had resulted most unfavourably for that House. His convictions in favor of an elective council had been forced upon him. It was not the bent of his mind to go in that direction, but when he saw that House degraded as it was in 1849, he had been convinced a change was necessary. He could have wished the question had never been mooted here; but still more strongly that no cause had been given for the agitation. Had the appointments remained in the hands of the Governor General irrespective of his Canadian advisers; but under responsibility to the Imperial Government, the Legislative Council might have continued to be an independent body and possessed of public confidence. But under Responsible. Government, the appointments were placed at the disposal of party administrations, and used for partizan purposes. Thus it had now come to be a settled conviction, that if the selection of these people were to be made a matter of party it would be more safely entrusted to the hands of the people themselves. The hon. and learned member for Toronto had said the appointments of 1849 had only a temporary effect upon the character of the House. He forgot they were named for life, and some of the very ministers—the leaders of the very party that then degraded that House so lost confidence in it, that they were the first to bring in a bill to make it elective.— He did not desire to say anything disrespectful of that House; there are many members in it whom he personally much respected, but he had taken occasion to examine their journals, and he found that on the last day of the last session they had acted on 34 bills, giving 8 of them, including two money bills and three readings at that one sitting, two bills were passed while the guard was in waiting outside the door for the reception of the Governor General to prorogue the House. On the day previous, they acted on 42 bills, 20 of which they read three times. Now, it was physically impossible that the Upper House could have given these measures proper attention— Many of them were of a very important nature, and a reform of that House should no longer be looked on as a democratic change but a matter of necessary self-defence, after it had been guilty of such flagrant dereliction of duty, and so abdicated their legislative and deliberative functions. Two principal objections had been urged against the measure, the one that by altering our institutions in a democratic direction we endangered the connection with Britain, the second that the change must destroy Responsible Government. He thought neither of them well founded. The improvement of our institutions would not make the people less loyal to the power that permitted such an act of self government. As for Responsible Government, he had never been any great admirer of it, and he cared less what the result was regarding that. But he did believe a check was needed as well on the Crown on one hand, as on popular caprice on the other. We could not have a House of Lords, though an imitation had been attempted, because we had none of these historic memories connected with great families, without which the British House of Lords could not exist. They must seek for the reality of the revising or checking power in an elective chamber. As for Government by a single House, he dismissed it as an absurdity.— The Government of the country could not go on five years under such a system. Vermont, with a sparse, intelligent and orderly population, where all were more nearly upon an equality than anywhere else, had tried the experiment of a single Chamber, but was glad, like all other states, to go back to two Chambers. He hoped Ministers were not so wedded to their bill as to be unwilling to see the details amended. They should remember they were legislating for all time to come, and endeavor to make the measure perfect. He preferred the six years term proposed by the former bill to the eight proposed by this, and with a third of the members to go out every two years. But a more important feature that might be improved was this: by the bill each section of the province was divided into twenty-four electoral divisions. He did not see the object of this; but thought as only six members would go out for each section at one time, if they would divide each section into six arrondissements, they would have almost a province for each constituency, certainly ten times larger than many German principalities. For each of these constituencies one man would be elected each two years; and thus while only men of high standing could hope to get elected—only men of provincial make, indeed; and the opinion thus elicited would be free from local feelings and local prejudices.—There would also be secured an expression of opinion from the whole province at each election, not from a few isolated localities. He hoped the Government would give this matter their serious consideration. He should feel it his duty to urge it as an amendment in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. FERRIS would vote for the second reading of the bill, because he believed the second branch of the Legislature had not the confidence of the country, and because he did not believe, with the member for Lambton, that there was any danger in giving the power of election to the people.— No doubt there might be difficulties about working the new system, such as the hon. member for Lambton had described, but any one with the acuteness of that gentleman might, he had no doubt, find out some similar cases of incongruity between different parts either of the American or British constitution. He was not in favor of one Chamber, for notwithstanding what had been said about the speed of legislation in the other House, that House sometimes passed bills quite as quickly, and certainly required some second body to review it, even if for that purpose the Assembly itself were divided into two bodies.— The Ministry were wrong, in his opinion, in appointing new members to the House when they intended to change the constitution; nor did he like to hear certain members of the Government say that they brought forward such a measure without approving it themselves. He should, of course, vote for the second reading; but he had many objections to the details. 1st The eight years were too long for the Upper House to last; he would have preferred six, or less, reducing the term for which the Lower House would be elected in a proportionate manner; 2nd. He wished to see the principles of representation by population introduced, believing that before many years elapsed Upper Canada would require that in both branches; 3rd. The Speaker of the Legislative Council should be elected by its members.— Much had been said about this measure leading to a union with the United States. He had no wish for that in any case, least of all while slavery was maintained by laws on their statute book; but if any severance of the connection between Great Britain and Canada took place, he hoped it would be with good will on both sides.

Dr. ROLPH regretted to hear the Post Master General support the bill because it would make the Upper House more independent by removing them from the fear of dissolution. Had that gentleman so soon learned the language of the Treasury Benches that he had already understood the word dissolution as a threat? That he already fancied he would say to members you have now committed yourselves to us and unless you go a little farther we will throw you again on the tender mercies of the people? Did he believe that any member in that House could be influenced by such a threat, and if they could not be in that the Lower House, how much less in that which was intended to represent the independence of the House of Lords who were said so to live as to be ready always to die, and he would recommend members of both Houses to conduct themselves in such a manner as to be ready always to appear before the tribunal of the people, in the meantime he would presume that if we had an Elective Council, its members would be high minded enough to spurn the threats of power, and pure enough to have no fear of appearing before their constituents. The Post Master General seemed to him to blow hot and cold. First that gentleman declared that the present Council did not possess the confidence of the people, and he no doubt finding that was the popular opinion was determined to adhere to it; but then no doubt the premier in the Cabinet deliberations would turn round and say to him, it is very well to talk in that popular strain; but they are noblemen, representing the English Lords, and you must let them remain; and then no doubt the Postmaster General was at once ready to allow them to remain. That was blowing cold. He thought consistency would have required the hon. gentleman to say that as they had lost public confidence, they must stay no longer. But he was probably as much afraid of the dissolution of the Cabinet, as he thought members of Parliament were of a Parliamentary dissolution. These members too, were not only to remain, but to remain for their lives. The hon. member said that the people would elect this Upper House, quite as well as the Administration. He was right, that was good reform doctrine, he blew hot, but then he turned round and blew cold again, by letting the members of this very House remain for life. It was easy to imagine the gentleman enunciating his principles to his colleagues, and equally easy to imagine them turning round, and telling him none of that buncombe here, upon which, no doubt, the Postmaster would be happy to compromise, and let them remain, considering these things—the facts mentioned by the member for Missisquoi—the circumstances that in the beginning of the session, no quorum could be obtained in the Legislative Council, till the Government was forced to beseech members to come, and pay them for their trouble—that even again since the recess, there had for a long time been no quorum even to swear in the new members—considering these things he thought the present Council ought not to remain, and he even hoped the Postmaster General would at last be consistent, and if he could not succeed in carrying in the Ministry that which he knew to be right, would come out and advocate his own views on the floor of the House.

Messrs. AIKINS and BELLINGHAM supported the second reading of the bill, but would endeavor to amend some of its details.

Mr. DORION, Montreal, in reply to Mr. Brown’s statement that public opinion was not in favor of the bill, said the best proof that public opinion was thus in favor of it was to be found in the fact that it was brought down by gentlemen opposite, who had always been opposed to the elective principle, and was even moved by Mr. CAUCHON, who had been opposed to it even at the beginning of the session. He regarded the measure, no doubt, as a conservative one, in the sense in which all second chambers were conservative; but it was certainly in the present case a democratic measure to change from a nominated to an elected House. Approving therefore of the bill, he nevertheless objected to some of its details. He desired the period within which the House should be renewed reduced from eight years to six at the most. He thought the present members of the Council should go out, and believed that members of that House themselves would desire that arrangement. He thought the number made up between the existing house and the elected members, 92 or 93, inconveniently large, and he would try to get the qualification made like that in the Senate of the United States.

Mr. McDONALD, Glengarry, said—As we had repeatedly asked for the right to make this change, we should cut a very foolish appearance if we did not make use of the right, now it was obtained. Besides, the measure had been demanded by the people since 1824. It was said that it would lead us towards the United States; but the conservative party who professed such horror of the United States could, on occasion, threaten quite as loudly as any other, in proof of which he read a very violent remonstrance addressed to the Crown, in 1824, by the Upper Canada Conservative Assembly, Mr. McLean being Speaker, upon the occasion of the rejection of the two Bank bills by the Imperial Government. The truth was, they had to-day heard this cry about the United States on every occasion of change; but the Province was no nearer the United States than it was thirty years ago, and would be no nearer for passing this bill.

The House then divided. The nays were but four, Messrs, Brown, Cameron, Wilson and Larwill.

The House then adjourned.