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Date: 1867-02-23
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The New Plan of Confederation”, The Montreal Herald (23 February, 1867)
Other formats: TBA

THE NEW PLAN OF CONFEDERATION.

—The Globe has a telegram professing to give the particulars of the changes introduced into the draft of the constitution framed at Quebec. They are as follows:—

The name of the Confederation is to be “Canada”; Upper Canada to be changed to “Ontario,” and Lower Canada to “Quebec.” The other Provinces will retain their present names.

Larger grants from the Federal treasury are to be given to New Brunswick.

The Crown is to have the power to enlarge the number of legislative councillors to a limited extent, when necessary to prevent a dead-lock.

The control of the fisheries and penitentiaries will be transferred from the local to the general Government.

Any privileges granted to separate schools in Upper Canada are to be granted to separate schools in Lower Canada.

We suppose it is quite true that New Brunswick has got an additional haul out of the Federal Treasury; because as she is to have advantages of a pecuniary character from the construction of a railway within her territory, almost wholly at other people’s expense, the absurdity of the whole plan would have lost its beautiful consistency, unless she had been farther bribed to take the good things which are so freely offered to her. The getting rid of Mr. Cartier’s despotic piece of pedantry, by which he and his colleagues were to be allowed to set up a permanent body with absolute powers, is a manifest improvement on the first bill; but the change will, of course, be open to all the old abuses, such as that of old gentlemen with more money than brains, lending money to influential ministers, and taking the pay in a seat in the Legislative Council. This, it is well known was said at the time, rightly or wrongly, to have been the mode of elevation of more than one life member of the old Council, and the same suspicions will, in all probability, arise again until an agitation shall once more take place in favour of a change, which in Upper Canada at all events has vastly improved the character and added to the influence of the Legislative Council. Nevertheless, we escape from the folly of an absolutism in the hands of a permanent body of old gentlemen in the last stage of life, such as a nominated Council of a fixed number must become in the course of nature. The last clause evidently conveys to us no accurate information, as the phraseology is too loose to afford any distinct meaning. We do not know by what process the privileges granted to separate schools in Upper Canada are to be extended to Lower Canada. They cannot be so extended ipso facto in such a manner, as that an act of the U. C. Legislature on the subject of schools, shall by the mere fact of its passing, have effect in the Eastern country. Nor can the peculiar form of these privileges, which must be determined by the form of the laws to which they are meant to be exceptions, be made applicable to a part of the country where the general law is based upon a different principle. Nor are we told whether these privileges, or any of them, are specified in the constitution, or if any particular opening is created for them in that document, in such a manner, for example, as to remove [Illegible] [We?] [must?], therefore, still wait to see what the [recommended?] constitution really means. In the meantime, we shall look out for the indignation which Mr. Brown was to launch forth, if any interference with the complete control by the local Upper Canadian Legislature of its own schools was authorized by the amended constitution. In that case he talked about the possibility of getting up a petition against the change in an incredibly short time. He has now the opportunity of trying; but we think he will not try; but will accept the measure as past, no matter what it contains