TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WING NOTIONS OF INSOLENT PRESUMPTION : A. O. 1839.
TDB daily press throughout the week has teemed with a contro- versy arising out of Mr. POULETT THOMSON'S appointment as GOYeriler• General of British North America. And yet, strange to say, one cannot discover in any of the journals any thing like an apology for this appointment. Nobody defends the appointment, though many earnestly condemn it. The controversy. in fact, is not about the appointment, but about the manner in which certain persons have protested against it. The Ministerial journals avoid he main question—that of the new Governor's fitness for his office—by substituting for it one of mere prerogative. " The ap- pointment tment of Mr. Tuomsos," say the Standard, the Post, the Times, and the Herald, " is very impolitic, and may prove extremely mis- chievous; he is the last person who should have been selected to represent the Crown in Canada." " Never mind about that," an- swers the Chronicle, " but let us condemn the insolence of the North American Colonial Association in presuming to express an opinion on the subject." Instead of defending Mr. Timaisos, the Chronicle attacks '.11r. CARTER. The purpose of this diversion is obvious. All England does not contain the impudence to assert that Mr. THOMSON is fit, or other than very unfit, to enact the part of Dictator in Canada during next winter. The appointment is wholly indefensible. Nobody can defend it ; and therefore those who would defend it if by any possibility they could, seek to divert attention from the subject by another question. They lay aside the demerits of the Governor- General of Canada, to dwell solely on those of Secretary of the North American Colonial Association. Mr. CARTER, and those in whose name he writes, are abused for daring to interfere with a prerogative of the Crown. The consti- tutional doctrine of the Whigs of 1839 is, that all appointments are matter of Royal prerogative, and that to question any appoint- ment by the Queen is a piece of insolent presumption. The Chronicle does not, indeed, contend that the Queen appoints by right divine, and therefore that Mr. C aTnu. is guilty of blasphemy or sacrilege: but short of this, we venture to say, higher preroga- tive doctrines were never preached, than have been recently main- tained by the leading organ of the Whig party. In disputing those doctrines, we feel as if we were at variance rather with the long- deceased New Times than with the Whig Morning Chronicle. Suppose that Parliament were sitting : can it be doubted that in that case protests would have been made against Mr. Tnomsols's appointment, very much more formidable than that of the North American Colonial Association ? No Whig, one should think, could have objected to such interference with the prerogative. But the Government took care not to make this most questionable appointment while Parliament was sitting. Those, theretbre, who believed that Mr. Tnoamsom's mission to Canada would be pro- ductive of great evil, had no resource but to protest against it by address to the Prime Minister, and, that failing, by memorial to the Queen. The prerogative of making appointments is not less sub- ject than any other to Ministerial responsibility for the manner in which it is exercised. Surely, Ministerial responsibility is not suspended during the recess of Parliament ? And if' not, the course pursued by the North American Colonial Association was perfectly legitimate, inasmuch as it was the only one by which ;Ministers could be warned of their folly anal reminded of their responsibility. Parliament is not sitting. This justifies the Association. We have no sympathy with the Association in their principal objection to Mr. TnosmsoN. if he had not sacrificed his free trade principles for place, we should, on account of his holding those principles, have regretted his retirement from the Government. But his having professed those principles, though no objection to himself in our view, is a strong objection to his appointment as Governor-General of Canada at this critical time. It is an objec- tion on the score of policy. If he had been as fitted as he is de- ficient in the qualities requisite for governing, his opinions on the Canada timber-trade should have marked him out as the person who could not be sent to govern Canada without. 't. of disapprobation. exciting a storm pprobation ne miner, by was of amending the mattei tells us that he will encourage the growth of • rn in C• • 1 Lower wheat L i.anac a ;—corn where W heat will scarcely ripen ! corn fOr the English market to be raised in Upper Canada, where the expenses of bringing wheat to market often exceed the English rate, on ac- count of the scarcity of labourers and the dispersion of the people p e over almost trackless wastes ! The lumber-men of Canada, however, have nothing to fear from Mr. Tuomsox's opinions on free trade. Already some cunning Canada merchants at Liverpool invite him to abandon them. He will probably not wait to be burnt in effiew at Montreal, before he assures the rafbanen of the St. Lawrence that behas left behind him in England his opinions on the Canada tim- ,yeern▪ r.sdoe._ has been reported at the Clubs, by some babbling f.nhtm,ththat he intends to avoid Lower Canada, and to throw tTiefflupirpeir _ e. arms o, f the " Responsible Government" party in Province. Those arms will scarcely receive him, at- tended as he is by Mr. MURDOCH, the creature of King STEPHEN, who is the patron of Sir GEORGE ARTHUR, the ame &ming of the f!n- uZ o mpact. Besides, who forgets Lord NORM AN ItY's and Loral JOHN RUSSELL'S recent and emphatic declarations against
responsible government Canada? But we must take another opportunity of dwelling on Mr.
Tuosisoses probable reception in his Transatlantic dominions. His appointment, we repeat, is utterly indefensible; and those who question it by address to Minister or Queen, exercise a right as constitutional and reasonable as any prerogative of the Crown.
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