  1851. Personal Episode in the Clergy Reserve Controversy. Dr. Ryerson made another educational tour in Europe in 1850-51. While in London, early in 1851, Earl Grey sought Dr. Ryerson's counsel on the clergy reserve question, which had been lately re-opened in Canada. The proceedings and result of the interviews which he had with Earl Grey, are detailed in several letters which he wrote to me from London during a period of four months. I give such extracts from these letters as will explain the nature of Dr. Ryerson's conferences with Earl Grey on the subject. His first letter was written on the 7th February, in which he said:— You will rejoice to learn that Her Majesty's Government have adopted the prayer of the Canadian Legislature on the question of the clergy reserves, and have determined to bring forward a measure on the subject. Whether Lord Grey will desire me to remain longer on account of the question I have not had time to learn. Mr. [afterwards Sir Benjamin] Hawes says that he will procure me admission to the speaker's gallery to tear Lord John Russell bring forward his measure on the Papal Question. In a letter written by Dr. Ryerson the following week, dated 14th February, he enclosed to me a confidential letter on the clergy reserve question, in which he explained the likelihood of his being detained in England by Lord Grey in connection with it. He said:— I send this to you, so that you may know all the circumstances which are likely to protract my stay for some months in this country; and for the same reason, and that you may co-operate with me, I entrust you with the perusal of my confidential letter—another proof of my unreserved confidence in your prudence and fidelity. I think it would not be well for you to mention anything as to my probable delay in England, and especially as to the reasons of it, until it becomes known to the public. My position is, indeed, a gratifying one, after so long labour and so much abuse in connection with the great clergy reserve question, that I should be desired to aid in its final settlement according to the voice of the people of Canada, and should now be called upon to aid Lord John Russell himself to undo his own measure of 1840, against which I then protested. I am sure you will be prepared to perform any additional labour to enable me to fulfil such a mission. I trust that I will be enabled to confer a benefit upon Canada. It is a gratifying position in which such a concurrence of circumstances In a letter, dated 13th March, Dr. Ryerson said:— I have received a letter from a member of the Government in Canada, expressing a wish that I would remain in England until after the great Exhibition, as the Canadian Parliament would not meet until May. This, in anticipation of what Lord Grey has desired, has quite settled my mind on the subject of remaining until May or June. I shall remain in Paris until I am wanted in London on the clergy reserve question—I suppose until the middle of next month. Listening some hours each day in Paris to some of the most learned men in Europe, giving the results of all their researches and reflections on various branches of literature and science, will be of great advantage to me in my future lectures, writings and labours, and this I shall continue until the voice of war on the clergy reserves shall echo across the Atlantic. I suppose my presence in England at this time will be a great annoyance to the exclusive Church party, and it will perhaps make them more cautious than they might otherwise be in their statements. As the ministry in England continue firm, I hope no effort will be wanting in Canada to sustain Lord Grey, should an opposition be raised against his proposed bill, the bringing in of which may be delayed some time by the late long ministerial crisis in England. 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 attempt to renew the agitation of the clergy 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 Commons against Lord Grey's Bill, or against complying 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 communication or two to the Times newspaper, and thus bring the whole subject before the Members of Parliament and the public. Should I succeed in this, Lord Grey may not think my longer stay to be necessary. I am anxious to get 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 Commons that it is pretty nearly decided to bring the clergy reserve Bill into the Lords by Lord Grey himself, and he expects to do so about the middle of May. Should it be brought 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 On the 25th April, Dr. Ryerson wrote:— The late crisis has made no change in the intentions of the Government in regard 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 my papers on "The Clergy Reserves of Canada." The second and third will occupy a column and a half or two columns, each. I finished and handed in the remaining papers this morning. Lord Grey spoke to me twice on the subject of writing something 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 Government would send out a despatch to Canada saying 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 myself wholly to the question of the right 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 them will supersede the necessity of my longer 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 communicated on the clergy reserve question has changed my mode of proceeding in 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 Times newspaper—namely, that Canada should judge 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 my wish not to remain longer, and not to be further mixed up with the question—that I was now on good terms with all parties—had thus great facilities for usefulness—that party agitation in Canada was becoming violent—two extreme parties, uniting against 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 seemed to be disappointed, but said if I thought my Department would suffer by my longer absence, he would not insist upon my staying. I told him that all parties would approve of my staying for the Great Exhibition, and that I thought a memorandum, such as I would prepare on the question of the clergy reserves, would be as serviceable as my presence, etc. Memorandum on the Clergy Reserve Question. The following is the memorandum which Dr. Ryerson prepared for Lord Grey on the clergy reserve question, and to which he refers in his letter to me of the 9th May, 1851:— Fully concurring in 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 firmly believing, as I do, that the long continuance of Canada as a portion of the British Empire depends upon the proceedings of the British Parliament on the question of the clergy reserves, I desire, as a native and resident of Upper Canada, as a Protestant and lover of British institutions, to submit the following brief observations on that question, in order to correct erroneous impressions in England, and to induce such a course of parliamentary proceedings as will conduce to the honour of Great Britain, and to the peace and welfare of Canada:— 1. My first remark is, that this is a question agitated for more than twenty-five years, almost exclusively among Protestants in Canada, and the agitation of which, at the present time, has not, in any way whatever, been promoted by Roman Catholic influence. An attempt has been made in some quarters to create a contrary impression in England; but that I am correct in my statement will, I think, appear from the following facts:—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 most earnestly by the Upper Canada members of the Legislature. So strongly is it viewed as an Upper Canadian question, that a considerable portion of the press of Upper Canada has objected to Lower Canadian members of the Legislature interfering in its discussion or influencing its decision by their votes. Secondly, all the Upper Canadian members, both of the Executive Council and of the Legislative Assembly, are Protestants. Of the forty-two members of the Legislative 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 Assembly to the Queen, praying for the repeal of the Imperial Act, 4 & 5 Vic., chap. 78. and for restoring to the people of 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 more forms. It is whether the Canadian people shall judge for themselves as to the mode of supporting their religious worship, as well as to the religious creed they shall adopt. This right was clearly secured to them by their constitutional Act of 1791, 31st George III., chap. 31, but was taken from them by the Imperial Act of 1840, 3 & 4 Vic., chap. 78. In what manner the people of Canada, through their representatives, may exercise the constitutional right, the restoration of which they claim, for the support of religion, I am not prepared to say. But whether they shall exercise wisely or not that, or any other right constitutionally vested in them, is a matter appertaining to themselves, and not to parties in England. I am not to be the less anxious for the restoration to my country of its constitutional rights because it may not exercise them wisely, or exercise them in a manner opposed to my personal views and wishes. The constitutional rights of legislation in Great Britain may not have always been exercised most judiciously, but who would adduce that as an argument for the annihilation of those rights, or against the existence of constitutional freedom in England? 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 forms, to "vary or repeal" the several clauses relating to that clergy land reservation. That vested right the people of Upper Canada possessed from 1791 to 1840. All other vested rights are subordinate to those of a whole people, and are not to be exalted above them. The Canadian Legislative Assembly has proposed to secure all parties who have acquired rights or interests in the revenue arising from the sales of the clergy reserve lands during the lives of the incumbents or recipients; but, beyond that guarantee, it claims the right of "varying or repealing," as it shall judge expedient, the landed reservation in question, and the application of the revenues arising from it. 4. The real question for consideration in England being thus separated from other questions with which 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 with what the Imperial Governments without exception and without reservation, for twenty-five years, have admitted and avowed to be the constitutional rights 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 from it; and secondly, that whatever legislation might 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 makes of the revenues of the lands in question. Now the rights 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 message to the Legislature of Upper Canada in 1833, and by Lord Glenelg in 1835 and 1836. I give a summary of the whole in the words of Lord Glenelg, in a despatch to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, dated December 5, 1835, in reply to an attempt on the part of the latter to induce Imperial legislation on the subject. Lord Glenelg says, in behalf of the Imperial Government, that:— Parliamentary legislation on any subject of exclusively internal concern, in a British colony possessing a representative assembly, is as a general rule unconstitutional. It is a right 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 himself in the following language of enlightened 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 Assembly of the right 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. Remembering, it should seem, how fertile a source of controversy ecclesiastical endowments had supplied throughout a large part of the Christian world, and how impossible it was to foretell with precision what might be the prevailing opinions and feelings of the Canadians on this subject at a future period, Parliament at once secured the means of making a systematic provision for a Protestant clergy, and took full precaution against the eventual inaptitude of that In the controversy, therefore, respecting ecclesiastical endowments, which at present divides the Canadian Legislature, I find no unexpected element of agitation, 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 have made a deliberate preparation. In referring the 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 warm and protracted debate, which, in a free government, may be said to be a necessary precursor to the settlement of any great principle of national policy. We must not have recourse to an extreme remedy, merely to avoid the embarrassment which is the present, though temporary, result of our own legislation. I think, therefore, that to withdraw from the Canadian to the Imperial Legislature the question respecting the clergy reserves, would be an infringement of that cardinal principle of colonial government which forbids parliamentary interference, except in submission to an evident and well-established necessity. In January, 1840, the two branches of the Legislature of Upper Canada passed a Bill (the Legislative Assembly by a majority of 28 to 20, and the Legislative Council by a majority of 13 to 4) relative to the clergy reserve—provided for the interests of their existing incumbents, and dividing the proceeds of the sales of said lands among various religious persuasions according to a census taken once in five years, and leaving each religious persuasion free to expend the sum or sums to which it should be entitled according to its pleasure, whether for the support of its clergy, the erection of places of worship, or for purposes of education. Though the great majority of the people of Upper Canada desired the application of the proceeds of these lands for educational purposes only; yet a majority of both branches of the Legislature agreed to a compromise which could be defended as just to all parties, whatever preferences might be entertained on the subject in the abstract. But instead of the Royal assent being advised to be given to that Canadian Bill on a local Canadian question, a new Bill was introduced into the Imperial Parliament, giving about three-fourths of the proceeds of the clergy reserves (including past and future sales) to the clergy of the churches of England and Scotland, giving nothing to any other church, but leaving the remaining one-fourth (or half of future sales) at the discretionary disposal of the Executive for religious purposes. This part of the Imperial Act has proved inoperative to this day; and should any religious persuasion receive any portion of this comparative pittance of the clergy land funds, it would do so not as a matter of right (as do the Churches of Year after year, at least during the last decade, the general sentiment in this colony has been uttered in no unequivocal form, that no church invested with exclusive privileges derived from the State, is adapted to the condition of society among us. It cannot be doubted that this is the conviction of nine-tenths of the Colonists. Except among a few ambitious magnates of the Church of England, we never hear a contrary sentiment breathed. Equal rights upon equal conditions is the general cry. And although several Assemblymen of the present House have chosen to misinterpret the public voice, and to advocate a different principle, we doubt not that on their next appearance before their constituents, they will be taught that this is not the age, nor this the country, in which the grand principle of equal rights can be departed from with impunity. Now, although the Imperial Act of 1840 may have induced "a few magnates" of the Church of Scotland to unite with other "magnates," whom they once considered "ambitious," in denying the "grand principle of equal rights" to their more numerous Methodist brethren, and other religious persuasions, yet the "convictions of nine-tenths" of the Canadian people remain unchanged; nor will they, because of the changed circumstances of a few clergymen of the Church of Scotland, suffer "the grand principle of equal rights to be departed from with impunity." 5. I observe, likewise, that the continuance of the Imperial Act of 1840 is desired by a mere fraction of the Canadian population, while its repeal is demanded by that country at large. The assertions of any interested parties on a matter of this kind are of little weight against the proceedings and statements of the representatives of the people. The Address of the Legislative Assembly to Her Majesty must be regarded as the authoritative and true expression of the opinions and wishes of the Canadian people. It is true, there was diversity of opinion as to the manner in which the incumbents on the clergy reserve fund should be dealt with, and also as to certain other declarations contained in the Address of the Assembly; but no member That in the opinion of this House it is inexpedient to disturb or unsettle, by resolution or enactment, the appropriations or endowments now existing in Upper and Lower Canada for religious purposes; that the well-being of society and the growing wants of the various Christian bodies in Canada demand that the several provisions of the Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic., cap. 78, should be carried out to their fullest extent. In favour of the amendment, that is, in favour of the continuance and operations of the Imperial Act of 1840, voted sixteen; against it voted fifty-two. Who would think of perpetuating a law in England at variance with the sentiments of three-fourths of the members of the House of Commons, and even of a large proportion of the constituency of Great Britain? Could the present constitution of government in England be maintained, could revolution be long prevented, if laws were retained on the statute book condemned by three-fourths of the Commons, and more than three-fourth of all classes of people in the land, and those statutes involving religious questions? And is that to be perpetuated in Canada which would not be retained in England for a month? 6. Into the origin and progress of the controversy connected with the clergy reserves, it is needless for me to enter. They are sufficiently stated in the Address of the Legislative Assembly of Canada to the Queen, a copy of which is herewith annexed, together with the majorities by which each of the thirty-one clauses of the Address was separately voted. It will be seen that the first twenty-three clauses of the Address were carried by a majority of 52 to 18; the 24th clause by 51 to 20; the 26th clause by 48 to 19; the 27th and 28th clauses by 47 to 20; the 29th clause by 36 to 34; the 30th clause by 40 to 28; the 31st clause, containing the prayer of the Address, by 45 to 23. The only clause of the Address, therefore, in favour of which the majority of the Assembly was not large and decided, was the 29th; and in a vote to that clause, I have shown that the smallness of the majority was occasioned by objections to different parts of the clause upon quite opposite grounds, of three classes of members—the sixteen supporters of the present pre-eminence of the Churches of England and Scotland, a section 7. No enlightened and candid person can look at the religious history and social state of Canada and desire the perpetuation of the Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic., ch. 78. It is now quite sixty years since Upper Canada was formed into a province with a representative government. Its population was then 7,000 souls; it is now about 700,000. During the first and most eventful half of that sixty years, the ministrations of the Churches of England and Scotland can scarcely be said to have had an existence there. The present Bishop of Toronto, in a discourse published on the occasion of the death of the first Canadian Bishop of the Church of England, states that down to the close of the war between Great Britain and the United States in 1815, there were but four resident clergymen or missionaries of the Church of England in all Upper Canada—a statement which is confirmed by the annual reports of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and the same reports will show how few were the clergy of the Church of England in that province down to a recent period. We learn from the same authority, that till 1818 there was but one clergyman of the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada, and that in 1827 there were but two. It is, therefore, clear that during the first half of its sixty years' existence as a province, Upper Canada must have been indebted almost entirely to other than clergy of the Churches of England and Scotland for religious instruction; yet during that thirty years, it is admitted that the people of Upper Canada were a religious, an intelligent, and loyal people. To whom the people of that province were mainly indebted for their religious instruction, and for the formation and development of their religious character, appears in a report of a Select Committee of the Upper Canada House of Assembly, appointed in 1828, on the religious The insinuations (says the report) in the letter against the Methodist clergymen, the committee have noticed with peculiar regret. To the disinterested and indefatigable exertions of these pious men this province owes much. At an early period of its history, when it was thinly settled, and destitute of all other means of religious instruction, these ministers of the Gospel, animated by Christian zeal and benevolence, at the sacrifice of health, and interest, and comfort, carried among the people the blessings, and consolations, and sanctions of our holy religion. Their influence and instruction have been conducive in a degree which cannot be easily estimated, to the reformation of the vicious and to the diffusion of correct morals, the foundation of all sound loyalty and social order. This religious body has now 180 regular ministers in Upper Canada, about 1,100 churches and preaching places, and embraces in its congregations one-seventh of the population. 8. But it should also be observed, that down to the passing of the Imperial Act of 1840, the influence of the Church of Scotland itself was adverse to any such act of partiality and injustice, and in favour of applying the proceeds of the clergy reserves even to educational as well as religious purposes. The 9. Resolved,—That it is the opinion of a great proportion of the people of this Province that the clergy lands, in place of being enjoyed by the clergy of an inconsiderable part of the population, ought to be disposed of, and the proceeds of their sale applied to increase the provincial allowance for the support of district and common schools, and the endowment of a provincial seminary for learning, and in aid of erecting places of public worship for all denominations of Christians. [Carried by a majority of 31 to 2.] 10. Resolved, That it is expedient to pass a Bill, authorizing the sale of the clergy lands within this Province, for the purposes set forth in the foregoing resolution; and to address His Majesty, humbly soliciting that he will be graciously pleased to give the royal assent to said Bill. [Carried by a majority of 30 to 3.] On the 28th of the same month, Mr. Morris reported a draft of Bill for the sale of the clergy reserves, pursuant to the foregoing resolutions. The Bill passed the Assembly by a majority of 20 to 3; was sent to the Legislative Council, and was rejected. Similar attempts to legislate having in like manner and from the same cause proved abortive, another address to the King on this subject was adopted by the Assembly in March, 1831, and supported, if not introduced, by Mr. Morris. That address, which was adopted by a majority of 30 to 7, contains the following words:— That a large majority of the inhabitants of this Province are sincerely attached to your Majesty's person and government, but are averse to any exclusive or dominant Church. That this House feels confident that, to promote the prosperity of this portion of your Majesty's dominions, and to satisfy the earnest desire of the people of this Province, your Majesty will be graciously pleased to give the most favourable consideration to the wishes of your faithful subjects. That, to terminate the jealousy and dissension which have hitherto existed on the subject of the said clergy reserves—to remove a barrier to the settlement of the country, and to provide a fund available for the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship for various denominations of Christians: it is extremely desirable that the said land reserved should be sold, and the proceeds arising from the sale of the same placed at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature, to be applied exclusively for those purposes. This address was replied to the January following, 1832, by a formal message from the King, from which I extract the following sentences:— The representations which have at different times been made to His Majesty and his Royal predecessors of the prejudice sustained by his faithful subjects in Upper Canada, from the appropriation of the clergy reserves, It will be seen that the Address to the Crown and reply, above quoted, contemplated the application of no part of the proceeds of the clergy lands for the support of the clergy of any religious persuasion, but the application of the whole to the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship. I do not make these references to advocate this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since assented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation of said reserves. The same parties cannot now object on constitutional and moral grounds to what they heretofore advocated on those same grounds. 9. It has, however, been alleged that the people of Canada have acquiesced in the provisions of the Imperial Act, and are satisfied with it. At the time of passing the Imperial Act, in 1840, and down to within the last two years, the discussion of questions relating to the organization and system of government itself occupied the attention of the public mind in Canada; but no sooner was the public mind set at rest on those paramount and fundamental questions, than the Canadian people demanded the restoration of their rights on the question of the clergy reserves. What they have felt for two years, and often and strongly spoken, through the local press and at the hustings, they now speak in the ears of the Sovereign of the Imperial Parliament. That there must be deep and general dissatisfaction in Canada on this subject, will appear from the following circumstances: (1) The Imperial Act infringes the rights, and contravenes the wishes of the Canadian people; (2) It inflicts an injustice and wrong upon the great majority of the religious persuasions in that country, where the "convictions of nine-tenths" or rather ninety-nine one-hundredths, of the inhabitants are in favour of "equal rights upon equal conditions," among all classes and persuasions; (3) The Legislative Assembly, by On Lord John Russell's Bill becoming a law, the question was changed from a denominational to a Provincial one—from an ecclesiastical to a constitutional one. It was no longer a question between one denomination and another, but a question between Upper Canada and the Imperial Parliament. As Canadians, and acting in behalf of a large section of the Canadian community, the representatives of the Wesleyan Methodist Church expressed their convictions, their feelings, and their apprehensions to Her Majesty's Government while the question was pending before Parliament; but when the execrable Bill became an Imperial Law, it was as much out of place for them as clergymen, or of any religious persuasion to strive to fulfil their own predictions, or set on foot a Colonial civil contest, as it would have been pusillanimous in them not to have remonstrated before the consummation of such an act of wrong against the people of Upper Canada. The question is now being taken up in the right place, and, we trust, in the right spirit. 10. Under such circumstances it is impossible that the question can long remain in its present state, and it is for the Imperial Parliament to say what shall be done. It is admitted upon all hands that the members of the Churches of England and Scotland in Canada are more wealthy in proportion to their numbers, and, therefore, less needful of extraneous aid than the members of any other religious persuasion; and in proportion to their numbers and wealth will be their comparative influence and advantages in the proceedings of their own Legislature. It is a grave question, whether the Imperial Parliament will place itself in an attitude of hostility to the Legislative Assembly and people of Canada for the sake of conferring questionable pecuniary distinctions upon the clergy of the two most wealthy denominations in that country? Should any members of Parliament be disposed to pursue this course, and hazard this experiment, I beg them to pause and consider the following questions:— (1) Can the real interests of the Churches of England and (2) Ought the members of the Churches of England and Scotland, who take a part in public affairs in Canada, and who may be candidates for popular power, to be placed in circumstances in which they must either war against the position and authorities of their own Church, or war against all other religious persuasions, or retire from public life altogether? (3) What will be the natural, or apparently inevitable, result of thus singling out two classes of Canadian people, and distinguishing them from all others by pecuniary endowments, and sustaining them in that position, not by the free Legislature of their own country—not by the original principles of their constitution of government to which Canada may have pledged itself—but by a recent Imperial Act, to the preparing or provisions of which the Canadians were no parties, and against which they protest? Is it likely that the will or predilections of a transatlantic House of Lords, so largely composed of and influenced by one class of ecclesiastical dignitaries, can long determine the mutual relations of religious persuasions in a country constituted as Canada is, and bordering on the northern free Anglo-States of America? What the Canadians ask they ask on grounds originally guaranteed to them by their constitution; and if they are compelled to make a choice between British connection and British constitutional rights, it is natural that they should prefer the latter to the former? It is also to be noted that the Imperial Act in question has to be administered through the local Canadian administration. Such is the machinery of the Act. The revenue that it appropriates is Canadian, and it is worked through Canadian agency—through Canadian heads of departments, responsible to the representatives of the people of Canada. Should the Canadian people, then, find that their respectful and earnest appeal to the Imperial Parliament, through the Sovereign, is in vain, they will naturally look to their own resources and elect representatives at the ensuing general elections who will pledge themselves to oppose the administration of the Imperial Act—representatives who will support no Inspector or Receiver-General that will be responsible for the payment of even any warrant for moneys under such Act. The consequence must soon be, not only That if any exclusive privileges be given to the Church of England, not only will the measure be repugnant to every principle of sound legislation, but contrary to the spirit and intention of the Act of 1791, under which the reserves were made for the Protestant clergy. I will not enter further into it at present, except to express my hope that the House will guard Canada against the evils which religious dissensions have already produced in this country and in Ireland, where we have examples to teach us what to shun. We have seen the evil consequences of this system at home. God forbid we should not profit by experience; and more especially in legislating for a people bordering on a country where religious intolerance and religious exclusions are unknown—a country to which Parliament looked in passing the Act of 1791, as all the great men who argued the question then expressly declared. It is important that His Majesty's Canadian subjects should not have occasion to look across the narrow boundary that separates them from the United States, to see anything there to envy. FOOTNOTES: |
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