Part 67 (2/2)
I shall rey reserve question--I suppose until thesome hours each day in Paris to so the results of all their researches and reflections on various branches of literature and science, will be of great advantage to s and labours, and this I shall continue until the voice of war on the clergy reserves shall echo across the Atlantic I suppose reat annoyance to the exclusive Church party, and it will perhaps ht otherwise be in their stateland continue fir in Canada to sustain Lord Grey, should an opposition be raised against his proposed bill, the bringing in of whichland
In a letter, dated 11th April, Dr Ryerson said:--
In regard to the clergy reserves, I have been inclined to think the Bishop of Toronto and his friends would not attey reserve question in Canada, but would prepare the strongest statement of their case for the Parliament here, in the mouths of some of their ablest friends in both the Commons and Lords, and thus take the Government here by surprise, and try and defeat the Bill in the Lords, after having, reduced the majority in favour of it in the Commons as much as possible
On the 18th April, 1851, Dr Ryerson wrote again:--
The Scotch Presbytery of Kingston, U C, have sent a petition to the House of Co with the prayer of the address of the Canadian assembly, and sent to me with the request that I would prepare an answer to it I think of preparing my answer in the form of a co the whole subject before the Members of Parliament and the public Should I succeed in this, Lord Grey er stay to be necessary I aet away as soon as possible; the season is advancing, and I have so much to do before the close of it in the autumn
Business and embarrassments have so accumulated in the House of Coy reserve Bill into the Lords by Lord Grey himself, and he expects to do so about the ht into the Lords, of course there would not be so long delay there before deciding the question one way or the other But the chances are so strong against its success if brought into the Lords first, that Lord Grey is unwilling to adopt that course until it is seen that that is the only alternative If it should be lost in the Lords now, he, of course, thinks it would soon be carried by a pressure from Canada, such as the rejection of the Bill by the Lords would probably call forth
On the 25th April, Dr Ryerson wrote:--
The late crisis has ard to the clergy reserve question I send you a copy of the _Times_ of the 23rd instant, the day before yesterday, in which you will see the first of y Reserves of Canada” The second and third will occupy a column and a half or two colu papers thisso for the press, and Mr Hawes, the last time I saw him, seemed to think the Bill would be lost in the House of Lords, but the Govern that the question was not abandoned, but would be brought forward again the next Session I have thought this was a very poor consolation for the loss of the Bill, and that it was best to see what could be done I have written strongly, and with an express view to the House of Lords--confining ht of the people of Canada to judge and decide in the matter
What may be the effect of these papers, I cannot, of course, tell; but if Lord Grey should be of opinion that the publication of theer stay for that purpose, I will leave as soon as possible--by the third week in May
I wrote fully to Dr Ryerson on this subject, pointing out the relation of parties in Canada on this subject, and deprecating his taking any further active part in the discussion which had become so heated in this country On the 2nd May, Dr Ryerson replied:--
What you have coedin some respects; and the second and third articles I prepared for the _Times_ will not appear as first intended; but I will explain by and by I was at the great Exhibition yesterday It was the grandest of all grand affairs I ever witnessed I had a place near the centre, within a few feet of the ”Iron Duke,” until he left to join the procession
On the 9th May, Dr Ryerson wrote his final letter:--
On reflection, and from what I found to be the relations of parties in Canada, and the turn the clergy reserve question was likely to take, I came to the same conclusion you have expressed in your last letter--not to come into collision with any party on the question, beyond what is expressed in the short article in the _Tie for itself on the question I have determined to furnish Lord Grey with a memorandum of facts and principles on the question I have seen Lord Grey and stated er, and not to be further ood terreat facilities for usefulness--that party agitation in Canada was becoainst the Ministerial measure I told him that I would furnish him with a memorandum, with all the chief points of the question on which he was likely to be opposed He seeht er absence, he would not insist uponI told hi for the Great Exhibition, and that I thought a mey reserves, would be as serviceable as y Reserve Question
The following is the mey reserve question, and to which he refers in his letter toin the remark of the Bishop of London, in a late reply to the deputation of the inhabitants of St George's, Hanover Square, that ”there is no kind of intestine division so injurious in its character and tendency as that which is grounded on religious questions;” and fir continuance of Canada as a portion of the British Es of the British Parliay reserves, I desire, as a native and resident of Upper Canada, as a Protestant and lover of British institutions, to sub brief observations on that question, in order to correct erroneous iland, and to induce such a course of parlias as will conduce to the honour of Great Britain, and to the peace and welfare of Canada:--
1 My first reitated forProtestants in Canada, and the agitation of which, at the present time, has not, in any hatever, been promoted by Roman Catholic influence An attempt has been land; but that I am correct infacts:--First, though the question of the clergy reserves nominally relates to Lower as well as Upper Canada (since the union of the two Canadas under one Legislature), it is historically and practically an Upper Canadian question The agitation of it originated in Upper Canada; it never was agitated in Lower Canada before the union of the two provinces; it is discussed chiefly by the Upper Canada press, and pressed islature So strongly is it viewed as an Upper Canadian question, that a considerable portion of the press of Upper Canada has objected to Lower Canadianin its discussion or influencing its decision by their votes Secondly, all the Upper Canadian islative asseislative assembly elected in Upper Canada, not one of them is a Roman Catholic; of the five Upper Canadian members of the Executive Council, all are Protestants, and all were in favour of the late Address of the asse for the repeal of the I to the people of Canada the constitutional right of judging for they reserve lands in that country It ought, therefore, to be reland, that this question relates chiefly to Upper Canada, which is, for the le Roislative assembly
2 I remark, in the next place, that it is not a question of Church and State union, or whether the State shall contribute to the support of religion in one or e for theious worshi+p, as well as to the religious creed they shall adopt This right was clearly secured to thee III, chap 31, but was taken from them by the Imperial Act of 1840, 3 & 4 Vic, chap 78 In what h their representatives, ht, the restoration of which they claiion, I am not prepared to say But whether they shall exercise wisely or not that, or any other right constitutionally vested in the to theland I am not to be the less anxious for the restoration to hts because it may not exercise them wisely, or exercise them in a manner opposed to hts of legislation in Great Britain may not have always been exercised uainst the existence of constitutional freedoland? Is Canada to be made an exception to this rule?
3 I remark, thirdly, that neither is this a question which affects the vested rights of any parties except those of the people of Canada generally When one-seventh of the wild lands of Canada was reserved for the support of a Protestant clergy, by the Act of 1791, 31st George III, chap 31, the Canadian Legislature, created by the same Act, was invested with authority, under certain for to that clergy land reservation That vested right the people of Upper Canada possessed frohts are subordinate to those of a whole people, and are not to be exalted above theislative assehts or interests in the revenue arising fro the lives of the incuuarantee, it claie expedient, the landed reservation in question, and the application of the revenues arising froland being thus separated from other questions hich it has sometimes been erroneously and injuriously confounded, I proceed to remark that the Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic, chap 78, is at variance hat the Imperial Governments without exception and without reservation, for twenty-five years, have adhts of the people of Canada It has at all times been admitted in the first place, that the Act 31st Geo III, ch 31, which created a legislature in Canada, and authorized the clergy land reservation, invested the Canadian Legislature with authority to legislate as to its disposal, and the application of revenues arising froht take place on the subject should be in harmony with the wishes of the Canadian people The Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic, ch
78, deprives the Canadian people of that right of legislation which they had possessed for forty years, and does violence to their wishes and opinions in the disposal which it hts of the people of Canada on this subject were explicitly stated by the late Sir George Murray in 1828, by the Earl of Ripon in 1832, by His late Most Gracious Majesty in a islature of Upper Canada in 1833, and by Lord Glenelg in 1835 and 1836 I give a su, in a despatch to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, dated December 5, 1835, in reply to an atteislation on the subject Lord Glenelg says, in behalf of the Iislation on any subject of exclusively internal concern, in a British colony possessing a representative asseht of which the exercise is reserved for extreme cases, in which necessity at once creates and justifies the exception
After showing that no necessity existed for setting aside the constitutional rights of the Canadian people, Lord Glenelg expresses hihtened political philosophy:--
It is not difficult to perceive the reasons which induced Parliament, in 1791, to connect with a reservation of land for ecclesiastical purposes, the special delegation to the Council and asseht to vary that provision by any Bill which, being reserved for the signification of His Majesty's pleasure, should be communicated to both Houses of Parliament for six weeks before that decision was pronounced Re, it should seem, how fertile a source of controversy ecclesiastical endowe part of the Christian world, and how iht be the prevailing opinions and feelings of the Canadians on this subject at a future period, Parlia a systey, and took full precaution against the eventual inaptitude of that systees of a society then in its infant state, and of which no hu ecclesiastical endowislature, I find no unexpected eleitation, the discovery of which demands a departure from the fixed principles of the constitution, but merely the fulfilment of the anticipations of the Parliament of 1791, in the exhibition of that conflict of opinion for which the statute of that year may be said to havethe subject to the future Canadian Legislature, the authors of the Constitutional Act must be supposed to have contemplated the crisis at which we have now arrived--the era of warovernment, may be said to be a necessary precursor to the settlereat principle of national policy We must not have recourse to an extreme remedy, merely to avoid the eh teislation
I think, therefore, that to withdraw froislature the question respecting the clergy reserves, would be an infringeovernment which forbids parliamentary interference, except in submission to an evident and well-established necessity