Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a CenturyWellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of
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Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 19th century; Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852
_Importance of reducing the Canadian Rebels_.
I confess, my lords, that I have a feeling for the honour of my country,
and I cannot but believe that if, by any misfortune, we should fail in
restoring peace in Lower Canada, at an early period of time, we shall
receive a blow, with respect to our military character, to our
reputation, and to our honour, of which it will require years to enable
us to remove the effects.
_January_ 18,1838.
* * * * *
_An Elective Legislative Council in Canada deprecated_.
My lords, there is one topic which has been adverted to by the noble and
learned lord (Lord Brougham), upon which I think it necessary to say a
word, although it is not alluded to in the address, and will more
properly form a subject of the discussion on the bill which is to be
brought in upon some future day--and that is the establishment in Lower
Canada of an elective legislative council. The noble and learned lord,
with all his knowledge of Lower Canada, has not, in my opinion,
sufficiently adverted to the fact of the difference of the two races of
inhabitants in that country. My lords, it may be easy to talk, here, of
establishing an elective council, but if the noble and learned lord will
look into the discussions which have taken place upon that subject, and
to the opinions that have been delivered upon it by the different
parties, in that colony, he will find that British inhabitants are to
the full as much opposed to that arrangement as the French are in favour
of it, he will find that in point of fact, they would be in a state of
insurrection against that arrangement, in the same degree as the French
are now supposed to be in a state of insurrection in favour of an
elective legislative council. I will likewise beg the noble and learned
lord, and I would entreat the noble viscount opposite, and every member
of her majesty's government, to attend to this fact, that an elective
legislative council is not the constitution of the British monarchy;
that a legislative council appointed by the monarch is the constitution
of this country; that this was so stated in the discussions upon the
bill passed in the year 1791, by all the great authorities who discussed
that measure, amongst others by Mr. Fox himself. That gentleman said,
"that a legislative council, appointed by the monarch, is an essential
part of the British constitution."
_January_ 18, 1838.
_Concessions to Democracy cannot be rescinded._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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