INTRODUCTION.

A quarter of a century of patriotic effort to raze the foundations of a hierarchy of which the Clergy Reserves furnished the materials has failed of full and complete success. The last decisive

battle has yet to be fought. Before these lands yielded a product available for the support of any religious denomination, the voice of public opinion, expressed through its constitutional organ the representative branch of the Upper Canada Legislature, had already devoted them to secular objects of general utility. But the influence of the reigning Oligarchy was sufficient to set at defiance that public opinion which no intimidation, no political proscription, no bribery and no available species of corruption could bring to its support. The constitutional right of Parliament to devote the Clergy Reserves to secular purposes never admitted of a doubt. This right was expressly given by the constitutional charter which gave the Provincial Parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada an existence. It was this self-same legal instrument which at once authorized the making of the Reserves and vested in the two branches of the Legislatures which it created the power to annul them. This power the Representative branch of the Upper Canada Parliament frequently essayed to exercise; but its efforts were rendered nugatory by the constant opposition of the nominees of the crown in the Legislative Council. The unfair construction of this branch of the Legislature, from which every popular element was rigidly excluded, was in some sort a necessity of the irresponsible system under which the affairs of the Province were then administered; for it would never have been tolerated that the executive government should be in constant collision with both houses of Parliament. In that case,

there would have existed no other means of sustaining the Provincial Oligarchy than a constant and hazardous exercise of the Imperial veto; a practice that would have induced a dangerous conflict between the Crown and the people. It was found more convenient to combat and thwart the constitutional expressions of the popular will through that branch of the Legislature of which the fancied resemblance to the Imperial House of Lords invested it with a marked characteristic of the British Constitution. The Legislative Council did not represent the Crown by whom its members' were nominally appointed; nor had it any pretensions to represent a people with whose selected representatives it was at perpetual hostility. It was at once the creature and the prop of the Oligarchy by whom its members were nominated for the confirmation of the Crown. To the circumstance of the machinery of state so constructed being an elaborate fraud, was owing the nonsecularization of the Clergy Reserves by the Parliament of Upper Canada a full quarter of a century ago. Parliament with the right, was cheated of the power, which, with tantalizing mockery, it was invited to exercise.

These peculiar obstructions to a successful course of Legislative action on the Clergy Reserves, in accordance with the demands of the. people, have ceased to exist. The Legislative Council, whatever be its general merits, is now required to harmonize in sentiment and action with the elective Chamber, which possesses a sovereign control over the actions and indeed the very existence of the Provincial Ministry.

The last ten years' history of the question possesses a subordinate interest compared with that of the twenty years preceeding. Not that the question itself has diminished in importance; but of late years the action of the Provincial Parlia-

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