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(8) "The pardoning power, which under the 44th Quebec Resolution was given to the Lieutenant-Governors, was restricted to cases not capital'-and the provisions of the 43rd, respecting education, affecting the rights and privileges of the Protestant or Catholic minorities in the two Canadas, were extended to the minorities in any Province having rights or privileges by law as to denominational schools at the time when the union went into operation. And an additional provision was made that: In any Province where a system of separate or dissentient schools by law obtains, or where the local Legislature may hereafter adopt a system of separate or dissentient schools, an appeal shall be to the GovernorGeneral in Council of the general Government from the acts and decisions of the local authorities, which may affect the rights or privileges of the Protestant or Catholic minority in the matter of education, and the general Parliament shall have power in the last resort to legislate on the subject.'

(9) “An increased subsidy, in addition to the 80 cents per head, of 80,000 dollars, 70,000 dollars, 60,000 dollars and 50,000 dollars was made severally to Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and the capitation subsidy of 80 cents in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia extended until the population reached 400,000. (10) "A distinct provision for an Imperial Guarantee of £3,000,000 sterling for the Inter-Colonial Railway closed the substantial distinctions between the Resolutions agreed upon at Quebec and those submitted to the Imperial Government at London.

"

Upon these resolutions so submitted, certain Bills were prepared by the Conference in conjunction with the Legal Officers of Her Majesty's Government, and at a number of interviews . . . . . their details were again discussed, amended and added to; until at last a Draft Bill was finally agreed upon, which subsequently became the British North America Act of 1867. This Bill, so agreed upon, was submitted to the Imperial Parliament by Her Majesty's Ministers, carried, and finally enacted on the 29th March, 1867; and, on the Proclamation made in accordance with the provisions thereof, became on the 1st July, 1867, the Constitution of Canada.

Apart from those formal details of the Bill which were essential to its proper construction, it is only necessary to observe-firstly, that power was given-not provided for in the Resolutions-to increase the numbers of the Senate and House of Commons under certain circumstances, but with express limitations; while, secondly, no power of pardon was conceded to the Lieutenant-Governors; and, thirdly, the power of legislating upon the subject-matter of laws of the several Provinces, relating to property and civil rights, which had once been legislated upon by the general Parliament, was simply made 'unrestricted' instead of exclusive in the general Parliament."

The Proclamation declaring that the Imperial Act should come into force on Ist July, 1867, and nominating the Senate, was issued on 22nd March, 1867. Prior to the establishment of the Dominion, Acts were passed both in Nova Scotia and in New Brunswick forbidding the same individual being at the same time a member of the local Legislature and the Dominion Parliament. In Canada no such legislation was passed, and, as a matter of fact, during the first three or four years after union, the leading members of the Legislatures of Quebec and Ontario (as Lower and Upper Canada were then called) held seats in the Dominion Parliament. As a result of the Exclusion Acts in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the members of the local Governments and all other members of the local Legislatures who wished to be members of the Dominion Parliament resigned their seats and went to election. In New

Brunswick the members of the Government were re-elected. In Nova Scotia the electorate took its revenge upon the Government for having neglected in 1866 to submit the question of union to the people. Every member of the Ministry except Dr. Tupper was defeated; and Nova Scotia sent to the first Dominion Parliament a solid body of members pledged to agitate for her immediate severance from the Union. This demand for repeal was continued in the Nova Scotian local Legislature, which in 1868 passed a resolution demanding leave to secede from the Union, and sent Howe the Reform leader to London to press that demand upon the Imperial Government. But whilst he was away--receiving, it may be said, small attention from the British Parliament-the failure of the fisheries brought great distress upon Nova Scotia. Her need called out the help of the other Colonies, and the wealth of their assistance did much to soothe the bitterness that her people had felt at being driven into union. The agitation for repeal melted into a demand for "better terms." "Finally the Dominion Government agreed to become responsible for a much larger portion of her debt than had been contemplated in the Act of Union, and also to pay her a subsidy of 82,698 dollars a year for ten years, to compensate for certain losses of revenue.' Howe accepted

these terms and carried the Province in favour of adhesion to the Dominion. He himself took office in the Dominion Cabinet (1869).

Thus the four Colonies-the two Canadas (now known as Quebec Adhesions to and Ontario), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick-became the the Dominion. Dominion of Canada. In 1870 Manitoba and the North-West Territories were added to the Dominion, and in 1871 the Pacific Province of British Columbia; whilst in 1873 Prince Edward Island repented her first refusal and came into the Union. For the site of the capital the Convention of 1864 had selected Ottawa, which had already been chosen by the Queen-at the request of the Parliament of the two Canadas-as the capital of those two Provinces. The foundation-stone of the Houses of Parliament had been laid in 1860 by the Prince of Wales, and when the Conference met the buildings were nearly finished. Situated on the borderline between Quebec and Ontario, with abundant water from two rivers, and built on a lofty table-land rising in an abrupt cliff from the river bank, its position is one of great natural beauty, fit for the home of the romance of the National Unity of British North America.

* Roberts: History of Canada," p. 360.

Imperial
Initiative.

CHAPTER II.

THE GROWTH OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH.

The history of the growth of the Australian Commonwealth extends over a long period; from the year 1847 when Earl Grey, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a despatch detailing his proposals for the creation of a new Colony-Victoria-out of the territory of New South Wales, outlined a project for the union of the scattered settlements of Australia under a central authority for the consideration of "questions which, though local as it respects the British possessions in Australia collectively, are not merely local as it respects any one of those possessions"; to the year 1900 when the "Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act" passed through the Imperial Parliament. It took, therefore, 53 years to form the Union of Australia. But of this long period the earlier and longer part can hardly be said to have much bearing on the formation of the union; and the first steps, originating as they did with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, are of very slight importance. They have, however, an interest of curiosity from the standpoint of the Union of South Africa, in the parallel which they offer to the attempt of Lord Carnarvon to force Union upon the South African States in 1876. It is interesting to notice that the chief motives for Earl Grey's proposals were a desire to avoid discrimination in any one Colony, by means of duties and imposts, against "goods, the growth, produce or manufacture " of any other Colony, and a sense of the desirability of common regulations for all the Australian Colonies upon such subjects as "the conveyance of letters and the formation of roads, railways or other internal communications traversing any two or more of such Colonies." Although, therefore, the despatch in which the Colonial Secretary outlined his proposals was received in Australia with the most outspoken criticism and dissent, and though the draft of the Australian Colonies' Government Bill, which was passed by the Imperial Parliament in 1850 upon the recommendation of a Committee of the Privy Council appointed to consider the proposals made by Earl Grey and the Australian criticisms upon them, was amended by the omission of all the clauses providing for the Union of the Colonies; yet the main difficulties of union-the tariff question, regulation of inter-Colonial communications by land and water, and the representation of States in a Central Parliament-were defined and considered at the very outset of the movement. It is this instinctive insight into the

crucial elements of the problem of unity which justifies a short summary of the provisions of the Act of 1850. In its original form the Bill, after providing for the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, embodied the Committee's recommendation for a "General Assembly" consisting of the Governor-General and a single House, to be called the House of Delegates, and to consist of not more than thirty and not less than twenty members. These members were to be elected by the Legislatures of the different Colonies-the number of delegates sent by each Colony being proportionate to its population. The range of the legislative authority of the House of Delegates was strictly limited to ten subjects, defined as follows:

(1) Imposition of duties upon imports and exports.

(2) Conveyance of letters.

(3) Formation of roads, canals or railways traversing any two or more Colonies.

(4) Erection and maintenance of beacons and lighthouses.

(5) Imposition of dues or other charges on shipping in every port or

harbour.

(6) Establishment of a general Supreme Court, to be a Court of original jurisdiction or a Court of Appeal from any of the inferior Courts of the separate Colonies.

(7) The determining of the extent of the jurisdiction and the forms and manner of proceeding of the Supreme Court.

(8) Regulation of weights and measures.

(9) Enactment of laws affecting all the Colonies represented in the General Assembly, on any subject not specifically mentioned in the preceding list, but on which the House of Delegates might be desired to legislate by addresses presented from the Legislatures of all such Colonies.

(10) The appropriation to any of the preceding objects of such sums as may be necessary, by an equal percentage from the revenue received in all the Australian Colonies, in virtue of any enactments of the General Assembly of Australia.

The Bill, as first introduced, also provided for a uniform tariff applicable to all the Australian Colonies, the details of which were set out in a schedule. The abandonment of the provisions for a General Assembly and a uniform tariff was referred to by Earl Grey in his despatch covering the Bill as finally passed in the following words :

"The Clauses giving power for the establishment, under certain circumstances, of a General Assembly for two or more of the Colonies were omitted from the Bill in its progress through the House of Lords. This omission was not assented to by Her Majesty's Government in consequence of any change of opinion as to the importance of the suggestions on this point which are contained in the report of the Committee of the Privy Council. But it was found on examination that the Clauses in question were liable to practical objections, to obviate which it would have been necessary to introduce amendments entering into details of legislation which there were no means of satisfactorily arranging without further communication with the Colonies. "Her Majesty's Government have been less reluctant to abandon, for the present, this portion of the measure which they proposed, inasmuch as even in New South Wales it appeared, as far as they could collect the opinion which prevails on the subject, not to be regarded as of immediate importance, whilst in the other Colonies objections had been expressed to the creation of any such authority.

Beginnings of the Australian Movement.

"I am not, however, the less persuaded that the want of some such central authority to regulate matters of common importance to the Australian Colonies will be felt, and probably at a very early period; but when this want is so felt, it will of itself suggest the means by which it may be met. The several Legislatures will, it is true, be unable at once to give the necessary authority to a General Assembly, because the legislative power of each is confined of necessity within its territorial limits; but if two or more of the Legislatures should find that there are objects of common interest for which it is expedient to create such an authority, they will have it in their power, if they can settle the terms of an arrangement for the purpose, to pass Acts for giving effect to it, with Clauses suspending their operation till Parliament shall have supplied the authority that is wanting. By such Acts the extent and objects of the powers which they are prepared to delegate to such a body might be defined and limited with precision, and there can be little doubt that Parliament, when applied to to give effect to an arrangement so agreed upon, would readily consent to do so."

Although, therefore, the attempt of Earl Grey to provide for the Australian Colonies a scheme of union ready-made ended in failure, it was not without good results. The terms of the despatch announcing his failure show that he himself had recognised in 1850 that the details of such a scheme would have to be elaborated by the Colonies themselves, and that the province of the Imperial Government and Parliament would be limited to the scrutiny of details, and the setting of the seal of authority upon the scheme. as a whole. This in itself marked a great advance upon the rather dictatorial attitude which Earl Grey had adopted when first advancing his proposals in 1847. But this was not all. Australian criticism upon Earl Grey's suggestions had made it clear that, however advantageous in the abstract a uniform tariff for all the Australian Colonies might be, and however apparent might be the theoretical advantages of a General Assembly for the whole of the Colonies, yet there were local difficulties in the adjustment of tariff rates and in the proportionate representation of each Colony, which made the establishment of a uniform tariff and of a General Assembly very difficult to achieve in the concrete. As far as the immediate future was concerned, the proposal for a General Assembly was hardly regarded by the Australians themselves in 1850 as within the scope of practical politics. This is made clear by the proposals of the Select Committees appointed by the Parliaments of the separate Colonies between 1850 and 1860. The fact that such Committees should have been appointed at all shows that Earl Grey's proposals for a scheme of Australian unity-though they had been received with uncompromising opposition-had awakened in the minds of Australians themselves some consciousness of the advantages of union in the abstract. But at that date the Australian movement towards union amounted to little more than that. The "Constitutional Committee," for instance, appointed by the Legislature of New South Wales in 1853 to prepare a draft for a new Constitution of that Colony, added to its report a paragraph pointing to the advisability of the establishment of a General Assembly for the Australian Colonies and defining the subjects with which such an Assembly should be empowered to deal; but did not attempt to suggest any method of calling the General Assembly together, or to elaborate the details

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