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Petition of the Inhabitants of the Townships of Lower Canada in favour of Uniting the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature: Difference between revisions
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Petition of the Inhabitants of the Townships of Lower Canada in favour of Uniting the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature (view source)
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The geographical situation of two provinces, and the relations which nature has established between them, absolutely and indispensably require their union under one Legislature, for they have but one outlet to the sea, and one channel of communication with the mother country. The only key of that communication, the only sea-port, is in the possession of Lower Canada, and with it the only means by which, for a length of time in a new country, a revenue can be raised for the support of Government. To place, or to leave, the only key of communication, the only source of revenue, exclusively in the hands of a people like the French Canadians, anti-commercial in principle, and adverse to assimilation with their British fellow subjects, must be extreme impolicy; nor can the checks upon the imposition and repeal of import duties, provided by the Act of the last session of the Imperial Parliament, be more than a temporary remedy, inasmuch as Upper Canada is thereby only entitled to a species of ''veto'', and no initiative or deliberative voice in the enactments; nor indeed can human wisdom be adequate to devise such a system of revenue upon imports, while the provinces shall remain separate, as will not five unfair and unequal advantages to the one or the other, and of necessity produce irritation and enmity. | The geographical situation of two provinces, and the relations which nature has established between them, absolutely and indispensably require their union under one Legislature, for they have but one outlet to the sea, and one channel of communication with the mother country. The only key of that communication, the only sea-port, is in the possession of Lower Canada, and with it the only means by which, for a length of time in a new country, a revenue can be raised for the support of Government. To place, or to leave, the only key of communication, the only source of revenue, exclusively in the hands of a people like the French Canadians, anti-commercial in principle, and adverse to assimilation with their British fellow subjects, must be extreme impolicy; nor can the checks upon the imposition and repeal of import duties, provided by the Act of the last session of the Imperial Parliament, be more than a temporary remedy, inasmuch as Upper Canada is thereby only entitled to a species of ''veto'', and no initiative or deliberative voice in the enactments; nor indeed can human wisdom be adequate to devise such a system of revenue upon imports, while the provinces shall remain separate, as will not five unfair and unequal advantages to the one or the other, and of necessity produce irritation and enmity. | ||
Your Petitioners | Your Petitioners further humbly state, that the French Canadian have been long admitted to the enjoyment of the freedom and the rights of British subjects, rights far more extensive that the utmost they could have hoped for had they continued colonists of France: but rights and duties are reciprocal; whenever the former exist, the latter are obligatory; and while the freedom and protection of Britain are bestowed upon Canadians, it can neither be unfair nor ungenerous to require in return the existence of such amended Constitution as shall encourage a portion of our brethren from Britain to establish themselves and their posterity upon the Crown lands in Lower Canada. From a union the provinces, no individual could reasonably complain of injury, no right would be taken away, no just pretensions would be set aside, and even no prejudice would be molested, save only such as might be found in those who cherish visionary views of the future existence of a Gallo-Canadian nation, which the union would at once and for ever dispel. | ||
To discover with certainty what are the real | To discover with certainty what are the real feelings which excite opposition to the union, (however diverged the pretexts assigned maybe), it would only be requisite to consider, whether, if the population were all of the same origin in provinces situated as the Canadas are with respect to each other, any objections to the measure would be made? The answer is obvious; there would be none. And if the real motives of opposition on the part of the French Canadian fellow subjects, whether openly avowed or speciously disguised, arise from the intention of continuing or constituting a separate people, which would perpetuate among us the disastrous national distinctions of English and French, they form the strongest possible reasons in favour of the union. Your Petitioners had humbly hoped that the guardian care of the parent state would, under Providence, secure her colonies in this part of the Globe from the ultimate danger of those national animosities and distinctions which have existed for so many ages, and proved such fertile sources of evil to Britons in Europe. And entertaining, as they do, the most perfect confidence that the salutary measure of the union of the Canadas would in the most equitable and beneficial manner secure their posterity from the evil they have mentioned, they humbly conceive that the honour, as well as the humanity of the mother country, require it to be effected while it is yet easily practicable, before the population shall be formidable in numbers, and before continually recurring exasperations shall have rendered animosity bitter and hereditary. | ||
Your Petitioners | Your Petitioners therefore most humbly pray that an Act be passed to authorize the Provincial Executive Government to divide the townships of Lower Canada into counties entitled to elect members, so as equitably to provide for the interests of their future population according to the extent of their territory, and also to unite the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature, in such manner as may allow of representation proportioned in some measure to territorial extent, which thereby will provide for the growing state of the country, and also of necessity be ultimately proportioned to wealth and population. | ||
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. | |||
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''The foregoing Petition was transmitted from the Townships in 1823, and signed almost unanimously by all the heads of families in the Townships: the number of signatures exceeded 10,000. This Petition, together with others, even from the Seignories of Lower Canada, as well as from Upper Canada, in favour of the union of the two provinces, can now be produced, if required.'' | |||
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