The Times this morning comments upon Canadian affairs, and Lord
Durham's policy, the admitted origin of the late changes, in a leading article, the spirit of which is shown in the following extract- " Lord Durham proceeded, on the supposition of this legislative union, to an- ticipate a clear and rapidly increasing English majority in the United Province; with little doubt that the French, when once placed, by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes, in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality. (P. 227.) To settle the question of races, and to settle it against the French Canadian, was the object of this legislative union; which, in 1840, was effected according to, and we presume in consequence of, Lord Durham's recommendation. This and a responsible Executive—an Executive, that is, imposed upon the Governor by the ma- jority of the House of Assembly—tanned the only adequate measure for the troubles of Canada. What has Leen the result ? Two years after the passing of Lord Durham's Act of Union, the leaders of the French party—the men who were imprisoned or proscribed as the representatives of that French na- tional feeling, those French prejudices, French habits, and French interests, which were to be, we will say, so ruthlessly extinguished, are enabled, by the aid of Lord Durham's Union and Lord Durham's Executive responsibility, by an overwhelming majority in the United House of Assembly, to extort for the first time admission, upon their own terms, into the most influential offices of the Government."
Lord Durham's object was to swamp the distinct nationality of the French by a closer union with the British majority, because it was a vain but mischievous endeavour to maintain that distinct nationality— a decaying imperium in imperio, obstructing the larger interests. The
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distinct French minority has been merged n the British majority : the French leaders of Eastern Canada enjoy the power of a majority solely by union with the majority of purely British Western Canada ; they will enjoy their power solely so long as they identify themselves with the strictly British interests a their allies. They already recognize that fact ; and have made themselves instruments in merging their own nationality, by becoming British subjects in their plans of action, their use of British forms of politics, and that intimate union of races which Lord Durham desired to induce. Their mischievous distinct nationality has been destroyed by their thorough incorporation with "an integral portion of the British empire," and their full acceptance of all the rights and privileges of British subjects, first extended to them by Sir Charles Bagot.
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