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Date: 1866-11-12
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “Something like Common Sense” Montreal Herald (12 November 1866).
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SOMETHING LIKE COMMON SENSE.—The Globe, of course, finds itself in an utterly false position. It is, indeed, very nearly in the same case as that illustrious controversialist who, in Moore’s Twopenny Post Bag, is made to lament his hard lot, as follows:—

“Yes, muzzled is the word, Sir John,

“These fools have clapped a muzzle on

“The boldest mouth which e’er ran o’er,

“With slaver of the times of yore.”

Macdonald and Cartier have put on the muzzle with a vengeance. From being the boldest mouths that e’er ran o’er, George Brown and his Globe are reduced to speak with “bated breath and whispering humbleness” on the very points by the loud treatment of which they acquired their popularity. Among these none was more conspicuous than their opposition to Sectarian Schools, except, indeed, their pugnacity at every exhibition of Lower Canada domination. Yet, it is now openly proclaimed that another step in advance is to be made in the direction of separate schools, and that this is to be done, by the mere dictatorial will and authority of Mr. Cartier, whose declared opinion that George Brown and his followers are about on a level with codfish in all manly qualities, has been amply justified by late events. Well, under these circumstances, what do these sons of thunder—these Boanerges of the Senate and the press? The Globe has not so far ventured to write twenty lines of original matter to protest against Mr. Cartier’s assuming the control of Upper Canada—as the Minerve puts it, without relying upon anybody but himself. This erewhile leader is contented with humbly copying articles from some six or eight country papers, and thus letting these journalists do that, which committed as he is to a party and a measure wholly adverse to his past connections and past declarations he ought to do, but is debarred from doing on pain of farther self stultification. It is easy to understand how impossible it is for him to adhere to any of his past principles after swallowing Mr. Cartier, Lower Canada domination, Mr. John A. Macdonald, the other calves which joined to Lower Canada are to suck Upper Canada dry, and the Intercolonial Railway, which as he has repeatedly said, will never earn enough to pay for greasing the wheels. But if any one does not appreciate the fact already, let him read the following extract from the Perth Courier, which it is needless to add is not one of those which is copied into the Globe:

“Resolutions, it is said, are to be embodied in the Imperial Act of Confederation that will amply protect the Protestants of Lower Canada and the Catholics of Upper Canada, and Mr. Galt goes home to look after the one and Mr. McGee to attend to the other, so that when the new Constitution comes to be promulgated, the minorities of each section can snap their fingers at the majorities. Of course one naturally asks under such circumstances, Have the Ministry a right to do this without consulting Parliament? Certainly they have not; but then if they do it Parliament can’t help itself, and must put up with it. So far as the question of right is concerned, the Ministry are just as well entitled to make these additions to the resolutions, as Parliament was to pass the resolutions themselves—neither party asking or obtaining the sanction of the people, in whom the RIGHT to decide such questions properly rests. The dangerous principle of denying the authority of the people was first established by Parliament in voting a NEW CONSTITUTION without their sanction, and ’tis but the natural consequence of this principle for the Ministry now to deny the authority of Parliament, and make an addition to that CONSTITUTION without asking the consent of the House. They are both the expressions of usurped authority—the despotic will of ambitious politicians, who seek personal aggrandizement at the expense of the country’s welfare. For aught we can know to the contrary, these Delegates, who openly avow their intention to make additions to the UNION ACT passed by our own Parliament, may come home to us with an entirely NEW ACT OF UNION altogether—they can do as they please, and who knows what it may please them to do when they get into good company. The society of my lord this, or the duke of that, is quite enough to deprive some of them of the small share of wisdom with which Providence sent them into the world, and we are quite certain that a presentation to Her Majesty would give Mr. McGee several new ideas on Colonial Legislation.”

Nothing can be more true. Mr. Brown, formerly the great champion of constitutional government, was quite contented to set all the rules of constitutional government aside, provided that he became one of the twelve tyrants, and exercised as he expected to do a predominant influence among the twelve. But in his eagerness he overshot the mark, and found that in destroying the rights of the people to control the government he had effectually destroyed his own influence. He succeeded in handing over the government not only for the moment, but for a whole generation, at least a clique, whose policy and whose characters as public men he had always held up to reprobation; and after they had used him to obtain all the measures of the day, which they could not have obtained otherwise; to dissolve the powerful party he had built up; and to secure the power of appointing hereafter a Venetian Senate, with absolute authority to set Queen and people alike at defiance, they have got rid of their tool, and have left him “weary and old with humbug to the mercy of a rough sea which will forever hide him.” There is the knot of all our politics. We are saddled with an absolute government in everything, because our Parliament has resigned its power and authority in the one thing which implicitly includes all the rest.