For this reason the measure of representative government that had been granted each of the remaining British colonies in North America was carefully hedged about. The whole executive power remained in the hands of the Governor or his nominees. No one yet conceived it possible that the Assembly should control the Executive Council. The elective Assembly was compelled to share even the lawmaking power with an upper house, the Legislative Council. Not only were the members of this upper house appointed by the Crown for life, but the King was empowered to bestow hereditary titles upon them with a view to making the Council in the fullness of time a copy of the House of Lords. A blow was struck even at that traditional prerogative of the popular house, the control of the purse. Carleton had urged that in every township a sixth of the land should be reserved to enable His Majesty "to reward such of His provincial Servants as may merit the Royal favour" and "to create and strengthen an Aristocracy, of which the best use may be made on this Continent, where all Governments are feeble and the general condition of things tends to a wild Democracy." Grenville saw further possibilities in this suggestion. It would give the Crown a revenue which would make it independent of the Assembly, "a measure, which, if it had been adopted when the Old Colonies were first settled, would have retained them to this hour in obedience and Loyalty." Nor was this all. From the same source an endowment might be obtained for a state church which would be a bulwark of order and conservatism. The Constitutional Act accordingly provided for setting aside lands equal in value to one-seventh of all lands granted from time to time, for the support of a Protestant clergy. The Executive Council received power to set up rectories in every parish, to endow them liberally, and to name as rectors ministers of the Church of England. Further, the Executive Council was instructed to retain an equal amount of land as crown reserves, distributed judiciously in blocks between the grants made to settlers. Were any radical tendencies to survive these attentions, the veto power of the British Government could be counted on in the last resort. For a time the installment of self-government thus granted satisfied the people. The pioneer years left little leisure for political discussion, nor were there at first any general issues about which men might differ. The Government was carrying on acceptably the essential tasks of surveying, land granting, and road building; and each member of the Assembly played his own hand and was chiefly concerned in obtaining for his constituents the roads and bridges, they needed so badly. The English-speaking settlers of Upper Canada were too widely scattered, and the French-speaking citizens of Lower Canada were too ignorant of representative institutions, to act in groups or parties.