t1-10 , 1 k 1 ., .• II E. PLIN I.1- NT 1 TN

his spceelt on the eeth of J inuarv. \Ir. Elm arr»Et.t.tee., M.P. Pii‘u t-encithr of Enelan I and S..i.ii,....ir of 13.Fitobartiois in L os el. ( 'a nada, ro:su rod tin' I I on se or c0000, Is, 0.111w faith of his eereenl exeerietaie, thet " upon all points of tax tt im,l, vat as well as eeneral, the eceple of Cana le werr.‘ ten time: better nff than the two- It, or the,oti.,ioiou. prov;oco, or th, t.i.00 I States." This asserti n NV I rl'el,1 'VV.!, acenr.lintr to the neiee of the Place where it was weir, ph, with a cordial " hear, hear :" and the encouraged Member. Pi ivy Com:6114w, and Seieneer a,1,1,-1—" Many gentle- wen in this House are Neel el tall.e.e it the miming (liveliness (d. ,s R„ „bie.,1,, firm „e eovel nnnent: but the mode of Canada, 'll.l. aitrunt of taxation than ;els of the Briesh Nlenareli‘, were ..nbjected to the people of the II. . - , II s'ales or America." Mr. ELLICE iedeed admits, that " it may happen- that the Governors mat Judges of Canada are " a lit, ky mere highly paid" than those sit' the Uotied States; but this he cousiders proper inel necessary, in order to enable the . Gevernure at Jtvl.,e4 in qiies!ion to live in the .tete of luxury in 1 which they have been breugle up in Enelawl, and which is not / consider( d esseutial eves to the President of the American Union. : An examinatiou el Mr. ELLICh'S sweeping, and on the very ( face of it hyperbolical as-ertion, will show it to be as delusive and 1 baseless as the bundled other mystifications abs ut Cenada, put forth by Ministerial !casters, speakers, and joulnalists. We pro- ceel, then, to its exposure. It will be conceded that the abstraet amount of taxation, or its rate per head, is no test of its relative lielitness or pressure upon a people. This will depend upon their ability to pay,—upen the . rudenese or skill with which the imposts are assessed and col- e !Med, and utem the teamis'r in while!' the produce of the taxes is disposed of—whether frugally or prodieally--whether for the be- milk of the people or of a dominant party. The reopie of Great Britain, for exa M phi, estimating to per bead, are taxed above seven times as nnich as the pimple of Ireland: But as the Bri- tish are wealthy and enterprising, and the Irish the reverse,— as the 13iitish taxes are mire -hilfully imposed aud more mine- inicalty colieeted,—atel as (..ullicient evidenee of the money being better applied) the British are at least sevenfuhl better governed than the Irish,—it is clear that, in effect, they are the mere lighilly taxed of the two. The eell-fiiil English dray-horse, in a goosloare and ng alo a capital road, w ill draw two tons weight without op- pressing him,elf; whereas a ballstarved Irish garron, in an ill-constructed ear and along a bad read, would, with the same burden, be unable to stir an inch. It is not our inteutien at present to inquire into the general

character o d a

f Ca taxtion; but with respect to that portion of the taxes the exclusive inanagement of which is claimed by the Crown, we lutist observe, that the very tiee " eaetial and here.. I ditary" reeve uee, points at their objectionable character, as put- ting forth feud oh ate' ari.etoeratic etc tins, whieh are as uncongenial to the political soil of A ineriea as pine appleswould be to the natural soil of Lapland or Siberia. But we have something to say respecting the collection of the revenue. . in the currency of Canada, (worse than sterling by about 11 per ('ent.,) 228,46)/.; while the net amount was but 174,473/. So then, the charge of collectimeeinounted to 30 per cent. on the entente realized. In other yte rds, nearly a third part of the whole money taken from the people was squandered in the act of collecting it. In this country, the charge does not, including the expensive branch of the Post-ollice, exceed 6 per cent.; in the United States, it does not exceed 9 per cent. Thus the poor Canadians pay five times as much for this s,,rvice as the rich Ei.tedi.-.11, and above three times as much as the pro,perous % ./...toer Cuts. Here is prima ,Aile evidence of waste and pr.eliielity. But this is not all : some few years lerelt, 0 Ree iv.,-(;...(,..eal, or Cana- dian Fir, t 11 ol the T,,,,,,, ::,..1 L',:ul.F._.:..r i,l tbs., Ex- ('11 quer, 1.11> i..t. il to his (.::,...F. Iit- :. F. (FLA ,.. 0 irr...Tmisible p-svor .1,(..•.. nil( -.....r.)--. t!:,.. I, .. FFI, ..F., - ...- .- - i it I 11:1,tool),, of the reveee, aG.T i,. i.,1 ht.,•!. .1::■ .h.-1, —' 1 i 1 lir' .1%,:1,111.Y. W nil intereq the SUFIS ii fur ,. ri,.y.:..,.1/.,- -in .1.,.. t'ete a wleJle year's ee. ver si nce t ie representat se form of government w1 1i ch

we conferred on Canada began to prove a reality, we began to quarrel with our own work; and for twenty years the people of Canada have been discontented, and are now in re- bellion. In the Old Colonies, there never was a rebellion but

the one which we lighted up; and under the Federal Govern- ment, there has not been the shadow of rebellion for fifty-five years, although in the union there are citizens of French, Spanish, German, and Swiss blood, far exceeding in number the .population of all our colonies put together. The explanation il4inua., enough : America is governed by the people themsRves, the Canadians by a necessarily ignorant and irresponsible clique three thousand miles off.

net revenue of the province, deducting the part of it expended New York (both these towns are within the six States) twice as for uses purely municipal. For several years after the act of great a population.

peculation, the Receiver-General was permitted to hold his seat Those who insist on the comparative good government of the in the Canadian House of Peers. The English Government, British Colonies, may probably say that a comparison between which made the appointment, refuses reimbursement ; but there them and the American States of longer standing and of superior is a landed estate of the late Receiver-General which is answer- natural advantages, is not a fair one. Let us, then, make the able. Now this case, in reference to the Canadian people, may be comparison between Upper Canada, which has been nearly eighty brought home by supposing that our Mr. SPRING RICE should years in British occupation-which is in soil, climate, and an make away with one year's income of the United Kingdom, other natural advantages, at least on a parity with the bordering (bating the pay of the Army and Navy,) should continue a Privy American State of Ohio. Ohio became a State in 1802,--ill other Councillor and a Member of the House of Commons for years words, had not until that time a population of 50,000, entilling 4 after his grand peculation, and finally should escape from justice, to be a State. By the census of 1830, its population was 937,0000ds. (leaving the nation nothing to look to in the way of reimburse- Supposing it to have since increased in the ratio of the preceding meta but the confiscation of Mount Trenchard. ten years, it must now be 1,400,000; or greater than that of all Let us now examine the all-important question, how the re- the British Colonies put together, and far more than three times venues are expended ; and what value the people receive for the population of Upper Canada. The British colony has in fact their money-at least of the two thirds of it not wasted in the been creeping, the Republican community galloping. collection. This will embrace the comparative taxation of One of the most loud and long-uttered complaints of the Cam. Canada and A merica ; and the question whether, according to dians is, that their officials are overpaid for their services, aid Mr. EDWARD ELLICE, the people of the latter are ten times often paid for no services at all, or for such as are a nuisance to more heavily taxed than those of the former. It shall be our a society so constituted as theirs. This matter, which cannot business to prove that the Seigneur of Beauharnois either knows easily be denied altogether, is softened down by Mr. ELLICE into nothing at all about the matter, or thinks proper to withhold " it may happen that they are a little more highly paid" than what lie does know from the credulous House of Commons, and their brethren under the American commonwealth. From the substitute a species of false information commonly called " hum- actual facts of the case, we shall see how veraciously the Seigneur

bug," which is unbecoming in a Privy Councillor. of Beauharnois expresses himself. We shall compare the salaries

The territory of the American Union is by nature more of our six Colonial Governors and those of the Governors of the favoured than that of Canada, or of the entire British Colonies in six bordering American States ; and to enable the reader the more North America taken as a whole. It has a better climate, and a easily to form his own judgment on this subject, as well as on more fertile soil-better and more numerous ports, harbours, and some others referred to before, we submit the facts in a tabular navigable rivers. Independent of superior natural advantages, form, assuring him that we have drawn them either from official the territory now constituting the Amerian federation, has or the most authentic accessible sources. always whether as colonies of England or as an independent TIIE SIX BRITISH COLONIES. state, always, far better governed than the present British Colonies, No. of Town Governors' and especially than the Canadas.* The first have had free, represen- Lower Canada 600,000 3 . .... 75,000 ... £4,500 tative, and cheap government, from the first moment of their ex- 6 20,000 3 000 istence. Canada was founded by a despotical government ; and consequently governed despotically for upwards of a century ; and we ourselves governed it for more than thirty years, either by the despotism of martial law or the despotism of the Colonial

Ofli I i • E • The e..itlences of' good government on one side, and of bad or indifferent government on the other, are not difficult to produce. Let the six American States which border on our own six Colonies be compared. First, the land, which in Lower Canada is worth.

but half :a-crown an acre, is worth, across the frontier-across an imaginary line-in the little state of Vermont, los., though of the rery same quality. This is the evidence of a Ministerial witness ; brought forward, indeed, for a very different purpose. The con- joint value of the export and import trade of the six British Colonies, in 1832, was under six millions sterling ; forced up even to this extent by the monopoly price of the articles composing it. The trade of the single port of New York, in the same year, amounted to four or five times as much,-nansely, twenty-five

, millions and a half sterling. But the trade of New York is with 1 all the world ; that of the British Colonies is limited by law, or cir-

cumstances arising out of the law, to England and her West Indian possessions. As the result of the alleged high taxation of America, she is well supplied with roads and bridges ; better sup- plied than any country in the world, except England, with canals ; and better supplied even than England itself with railways, and , with public schools. Now in all these matters, Canada and the other British Colonies exhibit what may with perfect truth be called "a miserable contrast." The roads and bridges are bad and few, the railways are nearly nil; and there are but two considerable canals, which have cost the British treasury (being undel taken chiefly for military purposes) upwards of a million sterling, and width, while the American canal shares are at a large premium in the English market, have never paid, and never will pay, one per cent. of the interest of the outlay. ' 1 The wealth and industry of a people maybe judged by the rela- tive proportions of town and rural population. Iii the six Ameri- can States there are above a hundred towns, none of them with fewer than two thousand inhabitants : in the six Colonies, there are but twenty towns, including some that are little better than fishing-villages. The town of Philadelphia alone contaias a larger population than our whole twenty colonial towns put together, and • The whole charges for the entire civil government of the thirteen Colonies, before the war of the Revolution, did not exceed '74,0001. a year ; and they were computed to contain three millions of inhabitants. The civil charges of Lower Canada, in 1832, exclusive of all expenditure of a municipal character, ex- ceeded 56,0001., for about half a million of inhabitants. ADAM Small said of the first, what, had he been living, he would not have said of the latter, that they afforded " an ever-memorable example at ow small an expense two

millions of people may sot only be governed, h 11 governed."

,

Name. Population. Towns. Population. Salaries.

Upper Canada 400,000 New Brunswick 90,000 Nova Scotia 160,000

Newfoundland 70,000

Prince Edward's Island 30,000 3 17,000 2,760

7 28,000 2,760

2 19,000 2,100 2 7,400 2,100 - Totals 1,350,000 23 166,400 £17,220

THE SIX AMERICAN STATES.

Name.

Population. No. of Towns Tow n Population.

Governors' Salaries.

Maine

512,000 18

87,700 £320 • Vermont

320,000

6 18,500 160 New York 2,456,000 25 . . . 490,000 850 New Hampshire 291,000 6 27,260 212 Pennsylvania 1,764,000 30 316,000

850

Ohio 1,405,000 13 76,000

250

Totals 6,750,000 98 995,400 £2,642

It appears from these statements, that the Governors of the sit, poor British Colonies receive as salaries, not "it may be a littl more," but upwards of six times as much as the Governors of th . six wealthy American States with more than fivefold their popula- tion. The Governor of the poor Colony of Lower Canada, with 600,000 iphabitants, draws the same salary exactly as the President of the American Union, which at this moment probably numbers not less than sixteen millions and a half. Sir FRANCIS BOND HEAD,11 Lieutenant-Governor, draws 358/. more than the six Ameri- can Governors. But this is not all : most of our Governors are, and have long been, military men, and, as Generals, Colonels of Regiments, or Commanders in Chief, often draw from the Mother Country as much as they draw from the Province they govern,- to say nothing of retinues aad retainers in the shape of Seen.- taries, Aides-de-Camp, and Controllers of the Household; an aris- tocratic parade which would be deemed not only unnecessary but intolerable under a republic. How is this economy on one side and profusion on the other to be accounted for ? In this way- the American Governors are rewarded chiefly by the honour and

British Governors must receive the whole in base lucre.

Every other appointment in the Colonies is paid on the sata extravagant scale as the Governors, and some of them even more so. Thus, the stipend of the Bishop of Canada is 3,000/. a year; the Anglo-Episcopal flocks consisting of 34,000 persons out of some 600,000! Any one who thinks that all this can be endured without discontent and heartburning,in a country from the neces-

distinction conferred by the voice of their country ; while glie sary texture of its society Democratic-and with the example of the American Republic, where there is no overpaid officer, and no state-paid priest at all, constantly before its eyes-must base a strong stomach indeed for monarchy, and marvellous ignorance of human nature. After all, it is not for mere pounds, shillings, and pence, that the people of the two Canadas have been for years contending; but for a principle,- the principle of disposing of their own funds for their own benefit, and in their own way-in short, the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it wasde-

principle of' self-government in this and every other matter. H AM PDRN, says Mr. Buana, did not refuse to pay twenty shillings because he could not afford to pay it, but because "the

manded, would have made him a slave."