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Date: 1865-08-25
By: The Canadian Gleaner, Alexander Galt
Citation: “Those Guarantees,” The Canadian Gleaner (25 August 1865)
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THOSE GUARANTEES.

On Wednesday week, for the second time this session, the letter of guarantees which Mr. Somerville and other English-speaking L.C. members procured from the Ministry, came up in discussion. What was said during the two debate docs not tend to increase our estimation of the value of those guarantees. The way Mr. Galt and his colleagues tried to conceal all the circumstances connected with the document, does not speak much for their sincerity. If Cartier & Co. honestly intended to carry out the pledges of their letter, they would not try to keep it out of sight on the plea that it is “confidential.” But they did not give the letter with the intention of fulfilling its conditions. They have no intention of doing justice to the Protestants of Lower Canada. The object they wanted to attain by giving the letter was to get the votes of the members for the Eastern Townships and to make the Protestants of Lower Canada believe their rights were to be respected under Confederation. They have gained their point so far as the votes are concerned, but there are very few people indeed in the Townships who are willing to accept a “confidential” letter as sufficient guarantee for their rights.

The guarantees in the letter are not very ample nor very explicit, yet such as they are they have aroused the hostility of the French. The guarantees are as follows:–

“1^st. No change in the constituencies of English-speaking members unless on a vote of two-thirds of the latter.—

2^nd. The limits of the several municipalities within said counties will be changed by executive interference, but only according to law.—

3^rd. These municipalities will be permitted to acquire the crown lands within their limits at a nominal price, provided they re-sell them without distinction to every purchaser.—

4^th. The school system of Lower Canada will be remodelled, so as to give Protestants the control of their own schools, and system of education.”

Nobody would thank Cartier and his friends if they really intended to give those guarantees, for they could not have offered less. Still, unsatisfactory as they are to us, the whole French press protests against granting them. The Montreal Witness says:–

“The French Canadians of all parties are unanimous in protesting against these guarantees, and pledging themselves not to observe a single one of them. Mr. Cauchon has indignantly committed himself to vote against every one of these concessions. Le Canadien looks at them as only a successful trick played on some Protestants members in order to secure their co-operation, and without which, the scheme, not commanding a majority from Lower Canada, would have fallen through. The Courrier and other French papers protest more vigorously still. The Minerve alone keeps silent, because that organ of Mr. Cartier regrets to see the trick prematurely exploded, and deems it imprudent to awake the Protestant spirit of Lower Canada by saying that none of the secret guarantees will ever be allowed to pass in the constitution. As to the French opposition press, they are more violent still in denouncing every one of these concessions to Protestants. They do not see in it only a trick of the Ministry, but a treason. They clamor that their nationality and their religion are ruined if any of these pledges are granted, and they agree to vote down every one of them. Even the provision of Mr. Galt that the lands would be sold indiscriminately to all comers fails to satisfy the Pays, because if the settlers are a Protestant corporation they can adhere to the letter of the law, but evade the spirit by telling all sorts of lies to turn off Catholic applicants for a lot of land.”

Such is the reception of these paltry concessions by the French; they will take everything but give nothing. The old intolerant spirit, which before the Conquest would not allow a native to become a Protestant, is still active. Can the English-speaking people of Lower Canada entrust themselves to a Government of such men? Men who will not now give even the guarantees defined in this “confidential” letter. From the moment the Upper Canada members withdraw from the House, will our desires be listened to or our wants consulted? Let our present Constitution be done away with, and let that of the Confederation scheme take its place, and the Protestants of Lower Canada need no longer say that they live under a representative government. We will be placed exactly in the same position that the Protestants of Ireland were under James the Second. The only measure that will do justice to us and the French alike, is a thorough union with Upper Canada on the basis of Representation by Population. No guarantees whatever can compare with the presence of Upper Canada members in the House and no Union with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia can ever be of as much advantage to the whole of Lower Canada as a through Union with the Western Province.