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Date: 1887-11-07
By: The Globe
Citation: “The Quebec Conference and Resolution 24” , The Globe (7 November 1887).
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THE QUEBEC CONFERENCE AND RESOLUTION 24.

THE GLOBE recently quoted Resolution 24 of the Quebec Conference of 1864, and made the statement that that resolution was not truly embodied in the British North America Act.

Several learned editors have disputed THE GLOBE’S statement and have published the following, which they contend is the only genuine Quebec Resolution No. 24:—“24. The Local Legislature of each Province may, from time to time, alter the electoral districts for the purpose of representation in such Local Legislature and distribute the representatives to which the Province is entitled in such Local Legislature in any manner such Legislature may see fit.”

The Hon. John Hamilton Gray, D.C.L., was one of the delegates to the Quebec Conference of 1864, being then Premier of Prince Edward Island. He is now one of the judges of British Columbia. He had not, like one of the aforesaid editors, the advantage of being appointed a member of a bogus labor commission, but he was umpire between Great Britain and the United States under the Treaty of Washington in 1857 and 1858, Her Majesty’s Commissioner on the tenant question in Prince Edward Island in 1860 and 1861, and Dominion Arbitrator between Ontario and Quebec under the British North America Act. As an offset to the superior wisdom of the editors aforesaid, Mr. Gray had the trifling advantages of being present at the deliberations of the conference of which he writes. Mr. Gray, not having before his eyes the fear of the aforesaid editors, had the temerity to publish a history of Confederation. In that history he sets out the resolutions which the Quebec Conference passed. On page 69, volume I, of Mr. Gray’s history will be found the resolution in dispute. It reads thus:—“24. The Local Legislature of each Province may, from time to time, alter the electoral districts for the purpose of representation in the House of Commons and distribute the representatives to which the Province is entitled in any manner such Legislature may think fit.”

That is the resolution which THE GLOBE published.