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No. XXI.

FINANCES.

UTRUM Chimera bombinaus in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones. UTRUM, la froidure hybernale des Antipodes, passant en ligne orthogonale par l'homogénée solidité du centre, pourroit par une douce antiperistasie eschauffer la superficielle connexité de nos talons.-RABELAIS.

14th and 18th of the King.

THE SUBJECT RESUMED AND CONCLluded.

I pass over the proceedings had in the Assembly from the delivery of the Message adverted to in the preceding number, for the present, to come to the consideration of the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, in the Session of 1823. The intermediate proceedings will find a more proper place in the following number,—and I shall here confine myself exclusively to that part of the report in question which relates to the statutes at the head of this number.

In the preceding number I have submitted the reasons which induced me to believe that the 14th of the King is a subsisting law, by which all his Majesty's subjects are bound. The report in question is the first official document that I am acquainted with which enunciates a contrary doctrine. This report having been followed by various resolutions of the Assembly, in accordance therewith, and the same continuing to be adhered to by the Assembly, it is material to enquire into the grounds and reasons which have been stated for them, to the end that a right judgment may be come to there

apon, as well here as elsewhere; and it would seem most consistent with fairness and a just investigation of the truth that these grounds and reasons should be given in the words of the propounders thereof; they are thus stated in the report in question :

"The session of 1818 forms a remarkable epoch in the annals of the Provincial Legislature, and more especially of the House of Assembly; in that session the house began to possess, in their full extent, the rights which they might exercise; in that year his Majesty's representative in this province, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, informed this house that it had pleased His Majesty to grant us, with confidence, what we with liberality had asked in 1810-that is to say, to supply the necessary sums for defraying all the civil expenses of the administration of the government of this province."

Your committee deem it proper to give in this place the part of his Excellency's speech which relates to that matter.

"I have received the commands of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, to call upon the Provincial Legislature to vote the sums necessary for the ordinary annual expenditure of the province. These commands will, I am persuaded, receive from you that weighty consideration which their importance deserves."

When addressing the House of Assembly, his Excellency added:

"In pursuance of these directions which I have received from his Majesty's Government, I shall order to be laid before you an estimate of the sums which will be required to defray the expenses of the civil government of the province, during the year 1818. I desire you, in His Majesty's name, to provide, in a constitutional manner, the supplies which will be necessary for this purpose. I shall also order to be laid before you the accounts of the public revenue and expenditure for the last twelve months, by which you will be enabled to ascertain the means of supply that are at your disposal; and I anticipate, with confidence, a continuance of that loyalty and zeal for his Majesty's service, on your part, which I have hitherto experienced, and a ready execution of the offer which you made on a former occasion, to defray the expenses of his Majesty's Provincial Government with a liberality which did you honour."

"Thus your committee perceive that the House of Assembly had offered, in 1810, to charge itself with all the civil expenses of the government, without exception, and without restriction; and they also find, from the speech above cited, that this offer was accepted in its full extent. They perceive also, that in consequence of this new order of things, the House of Assembly was forthwith called upon to provide for all the civil expenses of the Government, without exception and without restriction, and they also find from the speech above cited, that this offer was accepted in its full extent. They perceive also, that in consequence of this new order of things the House of Assembly was forthwith called upon to provide for all the civil expenses of the Government, which in fact they did so far as depended on them.

"The same principles, and a demand altogether similar, are found in the speech of his Grace the Duke of Richmond, at the opening of the session in 1819, as also his message of the 3d March, in the same year; by which his Grace calls upon this house to make sufficient appropriations for defraying the regular and contingent expenses of the province.

"If your committee have entered into these details, it is only on account of the difficulties which, for some time past, have arisen in this province. It has been pretended that the Provincial Legislature, charged with all the expenses of the civil government of this province, had not at its disposal the whole revenue of the province to meet those expences, and especially that the revenue arising from the act of the 14th Geo. III. c. 88, remained at the disposal of his Majesty's Executive Government in this province, as well as the casual and territorial revenues.

"Your Committee will rather examine than refute this opinion, against which argument and facts equally militate. In fact, the act of the 14th Geo. III. c. 88, among other things provided, a fund towards defraying the charges of the administration of justice and support of the civil government within the province of Quebec," at a time when no other means for defraying those necessary expences, were established. But in charging the Provincial Legislature in 1818 with the payment of all the expences of the civil government of the province, without exception, doubtless its entire means must have been placed in the hands of the Legislature. In fact, the Executive Government being, by this new order of things, exonerated from the charge of defraying the expences of the administration of justice, and the support of the Civil Government, has no longer any pretext for levying and disposing of the imposts specially established for defraying the expences

of the administration of justice and the support of the Civil Government.

"It may here further be remarked, that it is only since the year 1818 that the public accounts, annually laid before the Legislature, by order of the several Governors of this province, have invariably mingled his Majesty's casual and territorial revenue, as also the income arising from the 14th Geo. III. c. 88, with the revenue levied under the general acts of the Provincial Legislature, in order to form one mass expressly designated in those accounts, as being at the disposal of the Legislature.

"Your committee think it proper here to dwell upon the message of his Grace the Duke of Richmond, dated the 3d March, 1819, already alluded to. His Grace informs the House that he had directed to be laid before the House of Assembly, estimates of the regular and contingent expences of the province, for the year commencing the 1st November, 1818, and ending the 31st October, 1819, inclusively, in full confidence that the House will provide by sufficient appropriations for the same. His Grace adds that the amount of these estimates may be considered as the sum which will be annually necessary for the support of the civil list; subject, nevertheless, from time to time, to such diminution or augmentation as the circumstances of the times may require, and the wisdom of the Legislature shall deem expedient.

"Your committee do not think it possible to reconcile the pretension of permanent appropriations foreign to the Provincial Legislature, with the tenor and letter of that message. But could any doubt in this respect remain, your committee conceive that it must forever disappear before the solemn judgment of a competent tribunal. There exists an act of the Provincial Parliament which decides the question. This act is the 58th Geo. III. c. 4. It is therein enacted, that Upper Canada shall receive one fifth of the revenue raised by virtue of the act of the 14th Geo. III. c. 88. No one surely will venture to accuse his Excellency Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, ther. Governor of this province, of having on that occasion compromised the rights of the crown, by giving the royal assent to that bill, which acknowledged in the Provincial Legislature the right of disposing of the revenue arising from the act of the 14th Geo. III. c. 88; and the rather, as his Majesty has never signified his disallowance of that Provincial act. It might, at the most, be pretended that the Provincial Legislature can only appropriate the monies levied by virtue of that act, to those purposes for which it was passed, as also the five thousand pounds sterling voted by the

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act of the 35th Geo. III. cap. 9, Sect. 17; but it is not on that account the less true, that the revenue arising from them cannot be applied without their concurrence.

"The act of the 14th Geo. III. c. 88, embraces nearly the whole of the expences of the Civil Government, the details whereof must be superintended by the Provincial Legislature, more particularly since it has been especially charged therewith; otherwise what means the formal offer of the House of Assembly in 1810, to charge itself with the whole expense of the Civil Government, then so violently opposed, and the acknowledgment of that important right in favour of the Provin cial Legislature by his Majesty, after a consideration of eight years? would the unimportant matter of local establishments (a term then unknown in our official relations with the government, and which would in vain be sought for in the speech of Sir John C. Sherbrooke, and in that of his Grace the Duke of Richmond,) have merited the refusal experienced by this House in 1810, after such consideration on the part of his Majesty's Ministers, and the gratifying assurance of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent's satisfaction with what he deigns to call our "Liberality ?"

"Another proof occurs, in support of what your committee have just advanced, demonstrating that all the revenues of the province are at the disposal of the Legislature. It is as positive as it is recent; it is contained in an official document laid before this House on the 7th instant, which signifies to this house the approbation of his Excellency the Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-in-Chief of this Province, respecting a petition presented to this House for the remission of certain dues of Quint. This matter, then, is also within the competence of the Legislature. Thus the opinion, that the Provincial Legislature alone has the right of disposing of all the revenues raised in this province, rests upon public law-upon the unvarying and uniform interpretation of this House-upon the private and public acts of the Governors of this province since 1818, and lastly, upon a final judgment in the last resort, a solemn act of Parliament.

"Having considered the situation of the Provincial Legis. lature since 1818, in consequence of his Majesty's instructions signified to the Provincial Parliament by his Excellency Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, your committee deem it their duty to examine how far that situation appears to have been altered by the message of his Excellency the Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-in-Chief of this Province, bearing date the 6th February, 1822. His Excellency Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, at the opening of the session in 1818, acknowledges no other