LORI) DURHAM'S REPORT ON THE AFFAIRS OF BRITISH NORTII AMERICA

Is, without any exception, the most interesting state-paper that we ever saw ; and vill prove, we venture to predict, scarcely less ins portant in its consequences. The High Commissioner sets out by describing the conteA between the French and English races in Lower Canada, their utter incompatibility of character, and their implacable hatred of each other. All this is told so simply, so forcibly, and with such perfect air of truth, as to leave hardly a doubt of the Reporter's accuracy. He then gives an account of the long struggle between the house of Assembly and the Executive Government. This rat of the Report, inasmuch as it passes over with slight notice the stale points which may be termed the symptoms of a deep-seated disease, and probes the rotten system to the marrow, is as inter- esting as if the subject were wholly new. The complicated dis- tractions of Upper Canada are then fully examined, and ther

causes for the first time made intelligible. The state of the Eastern Provinces is slightly., butt sufficiently noticed. Then collie a relation of " evils mill unreniedied, grievances unredressed, and abuses unreformed at th:s hour," in all the Colonies, which excite at once indignation and shame. The coneludiog portion of the Report is occupied with the con:-.idesation and suggsstien of ream. dial measures. •

It would be a vain attempt, in such space as we can command, to convey to our readers any just impression of the state of aftliirs which is revealed by this Report. Lord DURHAM was perfectly warranted ill saving at Exeter, that he should make " disclosures of which the Parliament and' people of England had no concep- tion." Such excessive, such constant, perscvering, obstinate mis- rule, was never yet brought home to the government of' a free people. The Report is one continued censure of the system aid practice of our Colonial Government : and this occurs without any apparent design; growing, as it vere, naturally out of the circum- stances described, and depending fur less on argument than on the force of an accumulation of naked facts.

The inherent vice of the system, and the shameful practices to which it has given occasion in all the North American Colonies, are equally placed befbre us, and in a light so clear that it may be termed glaring. The English reader will for the first time compre- hend the question of " hostile races" in Lower Canada. lie will learn also, more thoroughly than it has ever been taught by any advocate of the Canadian majority hem, what share the irresponsi- bility of Government huts had in the cudamities of that province and in the miseries of Upper Canada. It is not too much to say that this Report will teach the best-inflamed, and stimulate the most indifferent, and convince all those who are open to conviction.

Lord Dounsm appears to have placed himself front the outset above all parties, fitetions, and cabals—to have inquired of every- body, and been under the itifluence of none. His Report is emi- nently, distinguished by the absence of all petty provincial partiali- ties, and by evidence of a desire and a capacity to learn and tell the whole truth without femur or titvour. He flatters nobody,—neither the French Canadians nor their English antagonists, neither the Tories nor the Refiirmers in Upper Canada, nor the officials nor the populace,—nor even the Americans, of whom, nevertheless, and of their uational characteristics and various institutions, he fro-

ucntly speaks in terms of high admiration, when contrasting their qcondition with that of the disorganized and beggarly British Colonies. His frank avowal of having arrived in these colonies not merely ignorant, but with very erroneous notions of their real condition, is of a piece with the manly candour which pervades the Report, and leaves a strong impression in his favour. One feels that he must have been sustained by a consciousness of integrity, and that opi- nious so expressed must be at least entirely sincere. There is one feature of this Report which will give great offence

in some quarters. People in the Colonial Office, and in all the offices, will complain that it is totally deficient in the proper offi- cial toile—of unmeaning vagueness and disguised lying. And that is very true. Lord DURHAM scorns to know nothing of the rd- tape style : he actually calls all things of which he speaks by their right names ; and he must pay the penalty of being considered no statesman by such mere formalists of the stool and desk as the STEP IIENS ES, TAYLORS, and FREELINGS, whom the Times used to call the " Bumbureaueracy" of England. Just in proportion, however, as the Report is wanting in the heavy humbug which

delights those whose world is " this office," will it be read, under- stood, and prized by the public. It is impossible to please every- body ; and Lord Dueuem must try to console himself with the approbation of millions, thr having incurred the pity of the under- lings in Whitehall and Downing Street.

Speaking of millions, the Report should be as gratifying to the American people, as to the Colonists whom it most concerns. For the first time an etninent English statesman treats colonists with the respect which is due to it free people ; concealing nothing from them, not attempting to delude them with vague generalities, but admitting, and enforcing their just causes of complaint, proving their grievances, and insisting that their interests should be con- sulted by allowing thent to manage their own local affitirs in their own way. For the first time an eminent English statesman officially

avows his respect for the Anglo-Saxon people of the United States, and honestly attributes their wonderftd career of prosperity to the English principle of local self-government, which they inhe- rited from their ancestors and ours. Weemsaerox and Perm seem to long for a war with America, or to imagine that they can avert it by denunciation and threats. Lord DURHAM shows in what utter ignorance they have charged the American Government with bad ihith ; proves that whatever risk there mey be of foreign war on the Canadian frontier, is owing to the lawless and disorganized state of the British dominions ; and declares that it is only by giving a government to our own people, who have had none, that we can hope to avert collision which may end in war. Which is the better statesmanship—which the wiser diplomacy—Peees or Buiteem's ? We need not stop to ask a question about the policy of such a nullity as the MELBOURNE Cabinet.

The remedial suggestions appear to us, so for as we can judge of them on a hasty examination, to be at once bold and moderate—

sufficient for the purpose, but not involving more change than is required by the exigencies of the case. It is proposed to unite the

two Canadas immediately, and all the other Colonies as soon as they may choose to form part of a general union. The French

Canadians will thus, sure enough, be " swamped," but not by a minority, as others have proposed : they will be outnumbered by a great English majority. The case for a general union, and the ne- cessity of placing the French Canadians in a minority, are treated with a masterly grasp of both subjects. But a perffiet equality of rights for this unhappy people is strongly insisted on. All the schemes for cheating them of representative government are dis- posed of in the following sentence—" With respect to every one of those plans which propose to Make the English minority an electoral majority, by means of new and strange modes of voting or unthir divisions of the country, 1 shall only say, that if the Canadians are to be deprived of representative government, it would be better to do it in a straightforward way, than to attempt to establish a permanent system of government on the basis of what all mankind would regard as mere electoral frauds. It is not in North America that men can be cheated by an unreal semblance of representative government, or persuaded that they are outvoted, when, in filet, they are disfranchised." We have no room for details. Passing by also the suggestion of great and comprehensive plans of colonization, it may be said that the whole of Lord Drilliset's suggestions are founded on one twin- elple, which has hitherto been utterly violated in these colonies-

. that of government responsible to the gorerned. Almost from the be- ginning to the end of the Report, the principle of responsible

government is constantly, earnestly, and otien most eloquently as- serted. And yet in the proposal of means fir attaining this end, it is obvious that Lord Dueneet has careffilly observed the greatest moderation—as if he knew how distasteful it would be to many here to bestow good government on any colony. His plans would be adopted by acclamation, if all parties here really desired the

wellbeing of the Colonies. We have but little hope of seeing them carried into effect. Not to mention the utter incapacity of Lord G LEN ELG* for giving effect to such wise and vigorous conceptions— not to dwell on the crotchetiness and obstinacy of Lord Howiee, who has long been Colonial Minister in the Cabinet—not to fore- bode ill from the Premier's swaggering indifference to every subject Saturday Morning—The abOVC was written before the news of Lord GuxErm's retirement readied us. His ineapaeitv is at last acknowledged. What will the sneaking Radicals in the House IX CO1111110119 say no; of Sir WrmaAst MoLeswOnrit's nio;lon, which they all opposed so strenuously last year ?

that does not involve the loss of his place at the Qczates side—we are of opinion that the aristocracy of this country, now all-power- ful in both Houses of Parliament, will never give their consent to measures which, immediately as respects British North America, and before long by the influence of good example in other colonies, would deprive that class of an immense amount of patronage which they ought never to have enjoyed. They will as soon agree to the abolition of their corn-monopoly. It is an ill wind, however, that blows no good. Lord DURHAM'S Report will be a most valuable text-book for Colonial Reformers in

time to come and in various parts of the world. It has laid down in the clearest and most convincing manner the principles of good government for colonies, and has sapped the very foundation of our wretched Colonial system. It has made the misgovernmeut of our Colonies in North America impossible for any length of time. They cannot long endure abuses and grievances, of which the origin and permanent causes have been so unmercifully laid bare. If we will not govern them well, they will surely govern themselves with- out our assistance. Meanwhile it is time that we should begin to reckon the cost of the present system. On this point Lord MR.. 11AM says—" I do not doubt that the British Government can, if it choose to retain these dependencies at any cost, accomplish its purpose. I believe that it has the means of inlisting one part of the population against the other, and of garrisoning the Canadas with regular troops sufficient to awe all internal enemies. But even this will not be clone without great expense and hazard. The experience of the last two years furnishes only a foretaste of the cost to which such a system of government will subject us : on the lowest calculation, the addition of a million a year to our annual Colonial expenditure will barely unable us to attain this end. As the cost of retaining these Colonies increases, their value will rapidly dimi- nish. And if; by such means, the British nation shall be content to retain a barren and injurious sovereignty, it will but tempt the chances of foreign aggression, by keeping constantly exposed to a powerful and ambitious neighbour, a distant dependency in which all invader would find no resistance, but might rather reckon on active cooperation from a portion of the resident population."

We have been led into a panegyric without intending it. We will now, however, say deliberately, that the subject matter of this Report is so transcendently important, and such statesmanship is evinced in the comprehension and treatment of the questions which it embetces, that the points mooted in Parliament on what is called "Lord Dunnem's case" sink into relative insignificance. lle, very properly, avoids all those points in his Report. But, whatever may be the ultimate verdict on his administration as Governor, the ex- traordinary public service which he has rendered as Commissioner, and the rare energy and industry by which, under very adverse cir- cumstances, he was enabled to accumulate the means of performing this great work, are of a nature to outweigh all supposed or sup- posable mistakes of' mere form in the executive part of his mission.