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Date: 1864-06-28
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The New Ministerial Arrangements”, The Montreal Herald (28 June, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

The New Ministerial Arrangements.

—There are two very distinct views of the new Ministerial arrangements. We may consider first that which it is proposed to do; and second, the manner in which it is proposed to do it. As to the first point, we have long been convinced of the necessity of a settlement of the difficulties between Upper and Lower Canada by the frank admission that under a system of government by majorities, the majority must not be subjected to the minority. We shall no doubt find many very earnest converts just now to this doctrine from among those who have long pooh-poohed it, and pushed it off under one pretence or another, till they have come to that pass where it will challenge adoption perhaps in the least desirable form. We believe that if our voice had been heard, and the fair demand of the Upper Canadian population had received that consideration and support to which it was entitled in Lower Canada, we need not now have been casting about for well understood principles of a federation and foreign government; nor have been apprehending that in curing one evil we may be creating a worse. We believe that we might have been going on quietly in our accustomed form of British responsible government everybody satisfied, because everybody would be exercising his just influence, but no one is injured, nor likely to be injured, by the fact that he brought no greater weight than justly belonged to him to the deciding of legislative questions. However, that has not been the case. George Brown has for years been held up as a merely unscrupulous selfish agitator, who was desirous of nothing else than to oust the patriots then kindly taking charge of our affairs, in order to enrich himself by the ruin of the country; and though now and then a word was said those who thus spoke and wrote in favour of the theoretical justice of his demands, those demands were associated with himself in the same condemnation; and thus made use of by controversy throughout all Lower Canada as the equivalent of praise for all who resisted him. Now affairs will be changed. Those who have been calling Mr. Brown rascal; opposing representation by population; and ridiculing checks and balances, will find, with more reason than they have hitherto had, that this vile demagogue is a large-minded, energetic statesman, and we dare say will add that his projects are the very urne of political wisdom. Here is something gained. It is now admitted that wrong must be righted—that justice must be done. We dare say that the new Christians, if we may borrow that term from the well known history of a European country, will like all converts be louder in their demonstrations of the danger of any longer delay, than we who have for years been urging upon attention the danger which was existing and instantly growing more threatening. We take it for granted, therefore, that, at any rate the motto of the new movement will be vestigia nulla retrorsum, and that if such means as are now proposed shall be found impracticable, the object will nevertheless be proved to be too important to be abandoned. For those means we confess that we have at present very little to say. We guard ourselves from condemning them till they are fully [set?] before us, and we acknowledge that those who have undertaken an enterprise of so much difficulty as the one under discussion ought not to have their work judged in advance. Nevertheless there is no harm in looking fairly at the various propositions which have been thrown out, and we confess that at present, we cannot think any scheme of federation, either great or small, will be found congenial with the working of existing British institutions, nor with the wishes of the population of Canada. Of course every such scheme involves, under whatever name, or with whatever qualification, one necessary element, and that is the granting to the population in one part of the country of the same ratio of influence per capitum, per hundred, per thousand, or per ten thousand, which is possessed by any other part of the population elsewhere. Anything short of this will leave things where they were. You may not go so far at first as to repartition the representation in exact arithmetical proportion to the population of each division or subdivision. But you have to admit the principle that if there are 400,000 men more in one part of the country than in the other, that those 400,000 must have extra votes in the Legislature. All qualifications about population and territory, as if acres could vote, are arrant humbug, merely set up as a blind for the hearers, or as a gentle decline by which to let down the speakers. That being so, we fancy it will matter very little to the French Canadian interests whether the object be attained in one way or another, except that if those interests are exposed to any danger, which we do not believe, from the process of swamping, the swamping will be much more complete; the danger therefore much more terrible; and the capacity for resistance hereafter much less, if the French Canadian population is associated with the population of all the Colonies, instead of merely with that of Canada.—Nor is it likely that on reflection the local legislatures will be found to that absolute safeguard which Mr. Turcotte in addressing the House the other night, appeared to suppose. The question as to their influences will resolve itself into the other question—which legislature is to be supreme. Unless Her Majesty is to cease to be the head of the entire country governed by the three estates of the Federal Legislature—unless all our public law, which declares these three estates acting together to be omnipotent, is to be replaced [illegible] must always be at the mercy of the Federal. We say nothing against Federal institutions. We believe those framed for the United States were the highest product of mere human wisdom, of which we have any record, and that those who know them best admire them most, for the country and circumstances for which they were intended. But they are not ours, and until human nature ceases to be what it is, even in countries where they are naturally developed, they will be found to be delusive whenever the strain comes. If the federal government among our neighbors, starting from the very principle of state sovereignty, could not in the nature of things tolerate state rights independent of itself, how is it likely that such toleration would be accorded by a federal government founded on traditions of a directly opposite character—deriving all authority from the whole to the integral parts, instead of holding that authority is conferred by the component parts upon the whole? When these things are fully considered we are strongly of opinion that our French Canadian fellow countrymen, who fear danger from a change will see no reason to expect greater security in a large change than in a smaller one. On the other hand we believe that the mere confederation of Upper and Lower Canada, will be very much like a repeal of the Union. The modifying influence of each race upon the other, which in spite of differences has yet had a most valuable effect, will be greatly reduced in power. Those of us who speak English will be left in a minority for all measures confided to the local governments, so small as to make it hardly worth while to try to exercise it at all. It is quite true that under certain repartitions of the Federal representation, the British vote would even in a purely Canadian Federal Legislature over-balance the French, and on questions which greatly excite men’s minds according to race or opinion. If the time of the religious wars could possibly come again, the fierce enthusiasm out of which they arose, would overpass the bounds of any local divisions, and the power of the majority would no doubt make itself every where felt. But except in such great crisis, we should find ourselves subject to a steady and mortifying isolation in the every day business of life. Upon well understood Federal principles, as to deal with the tariff, [illegible] a bankruptcy law and some large kinds of public works, while on all the regulations of Banks, incorporations, police, and the thousand and one subjects of legislation of daily occurrence to us all, our influence would be nil. In neither of the schemes, we should require to add largely to the present heavy expenses of Government, in favor of a class by no means popular with any other class on this continent—we mean the politicians. But upon this question of expense we have no room to enter at present. We think, however, that the suggestions we have thrown out above will not be found unworthy of that public consideration which will, doubtless, in the end mould and modify the wishes and schemes of any individual politicians.