TOPICS OF THE DAY.
HOW CANADA HAS BEEN GOVERNED " FOR MANY YEARS."
SIR JOHN COLBORNE is to be Lord Duastam's locum tenens till May next—perhaps for a longer period. How admirtb.y he is q ualified for the supreme government of Louver Canada, may be conjectured from the use he has hitherto made of his time and opportunity of gaining, acquaintance with the people over whom he is to rule. We have his own word for the fact that he knows nothing about them. In a despatch which has just been printed by authority of Parliament, we find the follewing curious passage from the pen of Sir JOHN himself. 5, In advezting to the delusion which has prevailed in respect to tile character of the rural population of Lower Canada, and to the extraordinary l'act that a people enjoying, under a mild government, benefits and advantages which were highly appreciated by them, had been prepared and extensively organized for a general revolt, and to blindly enter into the schemes of the factious indi‘nduals by whom they had been doped, within! the knowledge of the local government, or doubt being entertained as to their loyalty and intentions, I emsider it incumbent on me to obierve, that the Executive Government has beon for many wale totally excluded and cut off from all communication with the habitant; of every district: they being in the hands and smiler the control of arocots, notaries, and persons of the medical profession residing among them, b:we been corrupted by those acting under the direction of Mr. Papineau and his faetiom and an unmstrained and seditious press. I have no hesitation in conveyine thti expression of my opinion to b.r Itioje.ty's Government, lest too tune!: reliance should be placed on the promises and addresses of a most ignorant pea ,a n: iv, that have been for many years under the control of the ambitious and unpr
pled individuals ti whom I have alluded."
Sir JOHN COLBORNE was removed from the government of Upper Canada, where there is no French population, for his un- popular opinions and conduct; and now we have him in the government of Lower Canada finding a new pretext for an expres- sion of similar sentiments. Ile proclaims himself to the world tr as a mere Orange artisan; yet this is the man who is to be intrusted for months with the administration of' a province dis- tracted by Olungemen. If he had been Lad-Lieutenant t,t land, he would have expressed the very same sentiments; the names and designations only of the parties would have dred illii. We should have O'CoNnet.t, instead of PAP1NEAU, and Catholic priests and agitators in lieu of " avoeats, notaries, and persons of the medical profession "—"the finest peasantry in the w " instead of ignorant " babitens." Who are they that, according to Sir JOHN COLBORNE, and the Whig and Tory Orangemen participating in his opinions, have led and " corrupted the peasantry of Canada? Why, the same parties that lead the masses in all societies of any enlightenment—the most active, in- telligent, instructed, and influential of their countrymen " re- siding among them ;. using as their instrument a free press, called by this military Governor "an unrestricted and seditious press."
It is not to be forgotten that the very same language was used during the whole American contest. The American pea- santry were then, as the Canadian peasantry are now,lepresented as lciyal and well-affected to monarchy, being corrupt«1 and led astray only by lawyers and othe4," ambitious and unprincipled individuals." General GAGE, for example, represetited all the people in Massachusets to be lawyers or smatterers law ; and that in Bosten they had been enabled to shatter to atoms nearly an entire penal statute which had been it yelled at American liberty. The majority of the members of the Ameri- can Congress were lae yers : the majority of tlue,e who have since distinguished themselves in the American egislature have been of the same profession- down to this day. The most acute, dextrons, and instructed, tal9 the lead in the net; ral course of things. This may be painful to 'a legislature of la dlords and soldiers, but in the equality of colonial society it is ni avoidable, and it is useful.
Sir JOHN Commaxs thinks proper to tell us that the people of Canada enjoyed " under a mild government benai.ts and ad- vantages which were duly appreciated by them." Haw can he pretend to know that the people " duly appreciatel'. heir posi- tion, when, in the same breath, he admits that " for In fly years" the Executive Government was " totally exeluilt .1 ; nil cut off from all communication " with the inhabitants oh" eu y district" of the country ? The Morning Chronicle calls the Canadian revolt a, d the ig- norance of the Colonial Office and Local Executive " a singular discovery." Now, in our judgment, the matter is In i her "sin- gular" nor " a discovery." If the revolt be a discovet:., it is one of which a very broad hint has been placarded fort ;t least ten years. When the Canadian Commissioners went out. I. any three years ago, they were warned that, under their do nothi g instruc- tions, they would leave matters worse than they foiled tl: in: and so it happened. When the resolution to plunder the Cp: din trea- sury passed the Commons, every liberal and intelligee• man in the kingdom foretold an outbreak ; and if there was an mistake on the subject, it was only in ascribing to the Canndi•ti, population less spirit t he atter was, titan it was found on trial to T St least, far more distinctly predicted than the ie. :• Lee to the Stamp-tax and Tea-lax, which coded iu separai.m. The Morning ri/r,bir/e. g( es to the e f ; 'costal' for an ilins'iatioo the V,o(noinois n 11th p' he Times, a mud' bat;d tor •, in a certaie •.. teen coa- t:MUM:4 depredations on pli..,(.FrtN for ) ears ; one dared complain fur fear of the bowstring ; and all this ae., from the gevern,a1 and governing parties speaking different languages.' At length the matter comes to light by an accident—the attempt of the Thugs to a-saeeinate an indigo-pi:Inter. This is the I pointed illustration. PAPINEAU and his band of lawyers and professiunel gentlemen are the Imlien Thuge; the loyal Cana, , tharis are the meek and peesiae Hiedoos ; teal nothing is wanted: te cempiete the parallel but the strangline Of an Orange farmer, whiele unluckily for the compavieen, never to ,k plate. Ho «I,1 it nmst :weir to the .1brninz Chr micle and its frieads, that tho Giverniatint of the A mericee Uni,ni Ins never had an oppor- t unite ,,f inekine , sinenhir diseevet ie.." sueh as tied at which our arietocratie feelines are at ties present moment so shockedi Freee., .014 1,, .ni,i;ma to Alum ica ie the beeiunieg of this cen- tury : end she has now been in po-eessien for thirty-four years. The inh ihitante were at first elm kst wholly French or Spanish; / tltey are now mixed; lint the bent of a p ipuletion exceeding half a milbin is -till not Saxon. There has been it.) revolt notwith- • tainliee. The country, on the coutrary, is one of the most dein ishine ol the Union., The epiality or Repuldicen iustituti ins hae fe'evek il no reliellien ie Leui•iana, but the inequality of 0!i:ete,:iie eoveramen m
t his in Cael.t. -
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