eV Country.
A meeting was held at Halifax on Monday week, and a petition to Parliament in favour of the Ballot and Universal Suffrage adopted.
Mr. Leighs delivered a public lecture at Guildford on Thursday week, condemnatory of our entire system of colonial policy, and par- ticularly of the conduct of :Ministers towards Canada. The large room of the Vintner's Arms was quite full ; the audience principally consisting of tradesmen and mechanics, who appeared to take a deep interest in this question. Mr. Leighs commenced his discourse by taking a brief review of the history of Canadian government from an early period, detailing the numerous grievances of which the Cana- dians have complained ; and for the existence of which he considered the Tories, the sowers of the bad seed, deeply responsible, although the horrors and atrocities of the recent rebellion lay at the doors of the present Ministers. He thought it undeniable that the odious Russell Resolutions had been the proximate cause of the bloody tra- gedy which had been represented on the other side of the Atlantic, and he could scarcely believe that the merest tyro in state affairs, rauch less her Majesty's Ministers, could have been ignorant of the probable consequences of so wanton a breach of the Canadian Con- stitution. The Whigs had been denounced as "base, brutal, and bloody," at a time when he thought they did not deserve such harsh epithets ; but be considered Canada had now fully confirmed their tide to all three. He was well aware that so puny a power as Canada, unaided and alone, could not hope successfully to resist purse proud, overbearing John Bull ; and therefore be contended, it was more in- cumbent on honest John to be slow to exercise such powers against the feeble and dependent without being first quite satisfied that justice approved his course. In conclusion the lecturer culled on the consti- tuencies of Great Britain to instruct their Representatives to refuse supplies for carrying on a war which, whatever might be the result, Must necessarily inflict an indelible stigma on the Britons of the nineteenth century; and urged his hearers, instead of imitating the prejudices and follies of their ancestors, to look buck on them as beacon-li ghts.
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