Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
2. The next question was that of the union or separation of Upper and
Lower Canada. Here, and from the same underlying motive, the British
minority in Lower Canada were for the Union, partly on commercial
grounds, but mainly as a step in the direction of overcoming French
influence. Upper Canada, wholly British, was, on the whole, neutral.
Pitt, on high principle, again took correct ground. He did not, indeed,
foresee that separation, for geographical reasons, would cause certain
inconveniences; but he did understand--and experience in both Provinces
ultimately proved him right--that it was absolutely hopeless to try and
avert social and racial discord by artificially swamping the French
element. He declared, then, for the separation of the two Canadas into
two distinct Provinces. Note the beginnings of another, though a
distant, analogy with the relations of Ireland and Great Britain,
distant because the French at this time largely outnumbered the British
of both Provinces, and in after-years maintained something very near a
numerical equality. But the same underlying principle was involved.
Pitt, in the Legislative Union of Ireland and Great Britain nine years
later, constructed without geographical necessity, indeed, in defiance
of geography and humanity, the very system which, in a form by
comparison almost innocuous, he had condemned for Canada; but not, we
must in fairness remember, before doing his part at an earlier date to
arrive at a solution which, given a fair chance, would have rendered the
Union of Ireland and England unnecessary.
3. So far, good. But there still remained a further question far
transcending the other in importance--What was to be the relation
between the Home Government and the new Colonies? Here all British
intellects, that of Fox alone excepted, were as much at a loss as ever.
One simple deduction was made from what had happened in America, namely,
that the new Colonies must not be forced to contribute to Imperial funds
by taxes levied from London. That claim had already been abandoned in
1778 by the Colonial Tax Repeal Act, which nevertheless expressly
reserved the King's right to levy "such duties as it may be expedient to
impose for the regulation of commerce," the sum so raised to be retained
for the use of the Colony. No one made the more comprehensive deduction,
even in the case of wholly British Upper Canada, that Colonial affairs
should be controlled by Colonial opinion, constitutionally ascertained,
and that the British Governor should act primarily through advisers
chosen by the majority of the people under his rule. We must bear in
mind that, had Grattan's Parliament been reformed, and the warring races
in Ireland been brought into harmony, it would still have had to pass
through the crucial phase of establishing its right to choose Ministers
by whose advice the Lord-Lieutenant should be guided, that is, if it
were to become a true Home Rule Parliament of the kind we aim at to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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