LORD DURHAM.

IX common with several other journal:: of the Metropolis, we have re- ceived proof Oen is of it portion of the forthcoming Number of the London a d Tesintinekr Review, containing au article in defence of Lord Del ii tai's administration in Canada. It will be Keen from the foilenving x Nets, that h'e Lordship's v indicator lacks neither zeal nor teeeat for the service he undertakes First he describes the condition of Canada, a :d :h circumstancee with which Lord DI:1111A51 bad to decd-..-

"A trun'ry, tie two divisions of whose inhtbitAits had just been cutting

clan t th es throats, and in which the majority openly sympathized with an in'utrectio t just suppressed, and suppressed only by a military force which thy were l hysicdly unable to resist ; one party still crying loudly for the blood of tit, other, which in its turn was muttering vengeance for the Mood ahead: sh, d. Vi It one of these patties, the more numerous though mouton. tlri!v the weak r, the public (minion of a neighteut big country, while public oe'nian is men p MiF urged by every motive of political sympathy null nat'onal ar rucC `meat to fraternize; the violent en is of the h'yali'te of Upper Caeade, .eid the vielent words of a Lieutenant- Governer, had added to ttts:? i eit;•.!.; nts af munition and syir p zthy the incitements of ese meat ; eel if the •e.tin I.or•t which MI wan:N.01y gathering, a bundled thousand men v',:',1 ai act oss the fiontkr lenge the news ;amid reach Eaghteil ; four-dr:1s of the p gedation of the C aizeles weld,' have risen to join theta; and. in a firm:Ale, the fifteen thou-and troupe that gartisou British Anterica swell Leve hen shut up in the fie tress of (lathe; or driven into the sea. The opposite patty (1SI■ parat vdy weak on the American continent, hut it watt the envtA,tiz party ; and made ample amends for its inferiority' there, by its puree! voice here. It hid the so hole of the aristocratic party enthusiastically in its i:I'cvest. It bed :done the ear of the English public.. It was calla! the British petty. Al! that was known of it by hiaety-nine men out of a hundred was that it was the local' party—the party of British connexion. It had all the Tory and iihnost the whole of the Literal press for its organs. in this dPenima WAS Lord Durham. One step too ninth towards the French side, and he might expect to be rrcalled, awl to have all his projects for the good of Canada defeated, all hi, 'Leasure, reversed. One step too much on the English side, end the empire was involved in the most ruinous, the must dishonor:table, and the most fratricidal of wars."

What was the course to be taken under such circumstances ?

" To heal, therefore, the breach between the two parties ; to avoid, so far as possilie, whatever would either put in evidence the extent of the animosity which already existed, or give fresh occasion to it ; to make it a pphretit that if there ear had been, there no longer W.1., any quarrel between the races, end That representative institutions might be r. setted without giving rise to a per. mama conflict between the English and the French population—was the one condition of success in Lord Durham's enterprise; mired to attain this, we chal- lenge controversy when we assert, that hie whole series of measures was admi- rably calculated."

Then follow a few good "last words" on the Ordinances; which we pass over, to get to the most important part of the article—that which relates to the Proclamation.

" We are not surprised at the cry which has been raised against this noble

and plain.epoken document. We can conceive what gall and WO 9aeI, to a certein c'ass of official men, a state-paper must be, 'remarkable' (it has been well said) ' fir its disre'ard of conventional usages, and its coutaniptuuus treatment of the mysteries of' state-craft.' To speak so much truth to the

governed concerning their government, has been not unnaturally reprobated, as contrary to all rule—as an embarrassment wantonly thrown in the path of his successor—an appeal to the public of the colony from the Government at home —a sacrifice of the tranquillity of the province to childish pique. "We wonder that those who are in so much haste to call the Proclamation. inflammatory, do not ask themselves what there was for it to inflame? Whether all upon whom the topics introduced into it could have any inflammatory effect, were not already roused to such a pitch of indignation, that the calm though feeling manner in which their sentiments were responded to by the Governor- General, was more calculated to temper than to add fuel to the fire ? It can hardly be supposed that those who hanged Lords Brougham and Melbourne in effigy, and who voted the addresses and passed the resolutions of which such multitudes have reached us, waited to form their opinion on the affront to Lord- Durham until he told them that it watt one. His address was no ' appeal' to them ; their sentence was already pronounced. The whole scope and object of. the Proclamation has been carelessly misapprehended. It was not a complaint ; there was no more complaint in it than was unavoidable. Its purpose, its de- clared purpose, was to explain the reasons of his retirement. All the addresses, all the resolutions, were solicitations to him to retain the government : the Proclamation was his answer.

" If the only use of making this explanation had been to gratify personal feel. logs, by guarding his motives from misconstruction, then, as there would have been no public good to be attained, private sentiments, however creditable, might have found a more appropriate expression through private channels. But it was not as a mere matter of individual feeling that it was important for him to retain the confidence of all among the Canadian people who had be- stowed it upon him. Though no longer their Governor, his connexion with them was not to cease; upon him it was to devolve to watch over their interests in England; he was the only man in the kingdom of first-rate poli- tical influence, the only man ever thought of as minister, or as a party leader, who did not at that moment stand convicted, in the minds of those whom he was addressing, of the grossest ignorance of all the circumstances of the colony, and the most presumptuous incapacity in legislating for it. When this last specimen of presumption and incapacity was making the whole British popula- tion of both the Canadaa join with the French Canadians in denouncing the principle of distant colonial government, and the very officials talk familiarly of a separation, ties it nothing to show to Canada that there was one British statesman who could understand her wants and feel for her grievances—that from any councils in the Mother Country in which lie had influence she might expect justice—end that the man, on whose constancy and magnanimity so much depended, was not throwing up his mission from personal disgust, but remitting to England because the manceuvres of his enemies had changed the place where he could serve them from Quebec to the House of Lords? " Viewed in this light, it seems to ns that the Proclamation, with all in it that has been inveighed against—the ungrudging acknowledgment of past mite government and present abuses—the disclosure of his generous schemes for the Improvement of the laws and administration, and fur conferring ' on an united people,' not a restricted, but ' a more extensive enjoyment of free and re- sponsible government '—so far from needing an apology, points out Lord Dusliem, beyond almost any thing else which he has done, as the fit leader for the great Reform patty of the empire. The proclamation was the necessary complement and winding up of his short administration—the explanation which was due to the people of Canada for the past, and the best legacy which he could leave to them for the future. So far from being inflammatory, it was in all probability the only kind of address to the people, which, in the then state of men's mind', could have had any healing effect. "As we have said all along, the main end of hie administration was the lee

conciliatien if the two p trties, by exhibiting to both, embodied in a series of treasures, a !piney width, by satisfying the just claims of both, should convince them that there was no necessity for their being enemies—that both might hope for justice tinder a government knowing no distinction between them. If this, the one thing needful, etas now debarred hint by the Mother Country, was it not the text teat thine, since he,could not leave healing measures, to leave healing priacipks behind him ? Next to doing the noble things spoken of in the Pro- clamation, to rant tham out as fit to be done, was the thing most calculated— was the ore thing calculated—to restore harmony in the colony. If the policy there chalked out is that on which alone it reconciliation of parties and races can he ftunded ; than, since be could not give theta the policy itself, he has done well and wisely in giving them the hope of such a policy ; in giving them the idea of it, as a possible thing, as the thing which they should strive for, instead of separation, or the mere predominance of their own side ; and which, as far as his iiiituence reaches, he will yet help them to obtain."

The Reviewer considers it highly necessary that something should

have been done by Lord Dunitam to counteract the evil effect upon the Freund; Cattediatie of the expression in his despatch, that " Sir John Colbor:le ai,d the British pat ty approved of his amnesty-

" in then, Letti Durham had left matters in this state—if he had departed leaving no explanation to the Cue:diens of his principles and of his ulterior purposes ha would b ..ve gone aw ty without doing a singhr act which could prove to the Treacle population that there existed a Britian statesman willing to redress their grievaeces, and without giving a single lesson to the English party if what tea: due to tie! French. We maintain that, surrounded as be was at the last by the Ellen-It inhabitants—leaving the country amidst the mingled sound of their plaudits end their lamentations, while the bulk of the French Canadians kept etatenly tilted—he had, from all these causes, an nppearance of bring the ratan of a earty, of giving his countenance to the exclusive principles of a class, Which appsarance he was bound to throw off—from which it would neve been et in Lint not to have taken the most direct means of freeing And we foietel that his having done so will vet be fennel to be the greatest thing yet done to facilitate the settlement of Canada on a basis just, and thaefore capahM hying permanent. The whole English population are now cemmitted, as far aa the strongest public demonstrations can commit them, to the policy of a man, who has told them miamhiguously and minutely, and in a manner admittiag of no iiiisundei standing, that his plans involve full justice to the Fieuel: C'ameliatia. They h ire invested with their confidence, they have acknowledged as their virtual representative, the man who is identified with the principle of conei Lubin instead of coercion, of equal justice to all instead of the predominance of the few over the many. The thigliali population has stood up openly as a distinct hotly from the jobbing official clique which has hitherto assumed to he its representative; and it may be hoped that the settle-. meat of Cumuli which they will now exert themselves for, will be conceived under the iaspiratiou of Lord Durham rather than that of the lute Legislative Council."

The summary of Lord DURHAM'S performances-

" 'Aleanwl:Pe, he has been thwarted, but he has not failed. He has shown how Canada ought to be governed ; and if any thing can allay her dissensions, and again attach het to the Mother Cuuutry, this will. He has at the critical moment taken the initiative of a healing policy ; that which seeks popularity, not by courting it, but by deserving it, and conciliation, not by compromise, but by justice—by giving to everybody, not the half of what he asks, but the whole of what lie ought to have. If this example had not been set at that juncture, the colony was lost; having been set, it may be followed, and the colony may be Saved. lie has disposed of the great immediate embarrassment;

the political on: oriels Hr hat4 shown m the well-intentioned of both tddes an

honourable Imo. un e I Wit they may necommotlate their differeccee. He has detached from the um. eunable of one party their chief support, the sympathy of the United Kate.; eiel it is reserved for him to detach from the unreason-

able of the 11111,1. .% inpathy of the peeple of England. He comes home master of the detail of those abuses which he has recognized as the original causes of the alne•ffeeti• it ; prepared to expose these as they have never before been exposed, hi,to monit to Parliament. after the most compts•heneive inquiry which has eve, fel,. e • ace, the to stein on which the North American Colonies may be preseried owl •• ell governed hereafter. ti if this he feline f hoe is but the second degree of success: the first and highest degree may betet to come."