The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, John Charles Dent [read a book TXT] 📗

this plan. Much of the Niagara peninsula had been granted to Butler's Rangers before the passing of the Constitutional Act. In like manner, certain townships along the north bank of the St. Lawrence, as well as several portions of the Western District, had been granted to other United Empire Loyalists. In none of these cases had any reservations been made, and the lands had already become vested in the grantees. The appropriators accordingly set apart large tracts of aggregated reservations in contiguous townships which were yet unsettled. The prejudicial results soon began to appear. Huge tracts of reserves interposed themselves between one settler and another, enhancing the difficulties of communication and transportation, and hindering or altogether preventing that cooeperation of labour which is essential to the prosperity of pioneer settlements. The inhabitants, instead of being drawn together, were isolated from one another, and combination for municipal or other public purposes was rendered all but impracticable. They were kept remote from a market for the sale of their produce, cut off from the privileges of public worship and public education for their children; deprived, in a word, of the blessings of civilization. Settlement was seriously obstructed, and the industrious immigrant was to a great extent paralyzed by his surroundings.
The evils arising out of these Clergy Reserves were intensified by the unfair and illegal manner in which the appropriations were made. It has been seen that by the Act of 1791 the land reserved for the clergy was to be equal to one-seventh of all grants made by the Crown. One-seventh of all grants would obviously be one-eighth of the whole. Yet, instead of acting on this self-evident proposition, it was the practice of those to whom the duty of reservation was entrusted to set apart for the clergy one-seventh of _all_ the land, which was equal to a sixth of the land granted. The surplus thus unjustly appropriated on behalf of the clergy had in 1838 footed up to a total of three hundred thousand acres. The excess was confined to about two-thirds of the surveyed townships, from which circumstance, as well as from the obvious construction of the statute, it is to be inferred that the excessive reservations were made deliberately, and not from mere oversight or inadvertence.[41]
As the Province increased in population, and as land advanced in value, the grievance became more and more manifest. The growl of discontent began to be heard, and the people began to combine against the intolerable evil. This, at first, was chiefly due to the purely secular reasons above indicated. By degrees, however, the sectarian element was developed, and the growl of discontent became a roar of opposition. A dominant church was not acceptable to the Dissenters[42] who composed the bulk of the population; yet it was contended by those in authority--all of whom were Episcopalians--that the Clergy Reserves were the exclusive domain of the Church of England. It must be conceded that there was some ground for this contention, and that the question was not quite free from doubt. The Act authorizing the setting apart of the Reserves had appropriated them for the maintenance and support of "a Protestant Clergy." The word "clergy" was not commonly applied in those days to dissenting ministers of religion. It had never been used in any English statute to designate any ministers except those of the Church of Rome and the Church of England. The Church of Rome being excluded by the term "Protestant," it was contended that the provision had been for the exclusive benefit of the Church of England, more especially as the creation and endowment of parsonages and rectories--which are institutions peculiar to the Church of England--had been expressly provided for by the same Act. Such was the plea put forward on behalf of the Church of England. Dissenters took a different view. They argued that the term "Protestant Clergy" had been used in the Act in mere contradistinction to the clergy of the Church of Rome. They further urged that the limited construction sought to be put upon the term by the Anglicans was plainly negatived by the thirty-ninth section of the Act, wherein the words "incumbent or minister of the Church of England" were expressly employed. Such terms, it was said, would not have been used by the framers of the Act if they had regarded them as synonymous with "Protestant Clergy," as used in other clauses. "The manifest intention of the Act," said the Dissenters, "was to provide for a _Protestant_--as distinguished from a _Roman Catholic_--clergy. The provision for the establishment of parsonages and rectories is a mere matter of detail, which cannot be allowed to override the larger intention so plainly evidenced by other sections." The Presbyterian body took higher ground than their non-Anglican brethren. The Church of Scotland had been expressly recognized as a Protestant Church by the Act of Union of England and Scotland in 1707. It was therefore contended that the ministers of that church were entitled to be considered as "Protestant Clergy;" and this contention was sustained by the English law officers of the Crown in 1819. The opinion expressed by those learned officials was acted upon, and the Presbyterians of Upper Canada put forward claims to a share of the Reserves. Their claims were allowed; whereupon other Protestant denominations followed their example, and demanded, as "Protestant Clergy," to participate in the provision made for them. The private and public quarrels which ensued between leaders of the different sects kept the country in a state of chronic disturbance; while the greed displayed by professed ministers of religion furnished a striking practical commentary upon the doctrines taught by the Founder of all Christian faiths. Opinions were obtained from eminent lawyers as to the respective rights of the various sects, and as to the true meaning of the Constitutional Act. The most opposite conclusions were arrived at by different lawyers, and it became manifest that no apportionment satisfactory to all the claimants could be made by any tribunal. The Church of England meanwhile contrived to secure the great bulk of the spoils. According to a return to the House of Assembly of lands set apart as glebes in Upper Canada during the forty-six years from 1787 to 1833, it appears that 22,345 acres were so set apart for the Clergy of the Church of England, 1160 acres for Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland, 400 for Roman Catholics, and "none for any other denomination of Christians."[43]
But there was a broader and stronger argument than any of these purely technical contentions: an argument founded on experience and practical utility. No matter what had been the intent of the original framers of the Constitutional Act, the fact had become patent to all Dissenters, and even to many liberal-minded lay members of the Anglican Church, that the Clergy Reserves were a curse to the Province--a mill-stone about her neck, which dragged her down in spite of all exertions to raise her to the surface. Not long after this fact had become generally recognized, an agitation arose in favour of the total abolition of State aid to religious bodies. The plan advocated by Reformers was the sale of the Reserves, and the application of the proceeds to public education and municipal improvements. The agitation was kept up until long after the period covered by this work, and the object sought to be attained by it was not fully accomplished until the year 1854. Meanwhile, however, it was the most important question before the country, and it occupied the attention of the Legislature during a large part of almost every session. Here was where the conflict between the two Houses was felt with most pernicious effect. The advocates of abolition and secularization clearly had the country with them, and the Assembly passed Bill after Bill to effect those objects. Their efforts were utterly nullified by the Upper House, which would not listen to any such proposals, and which threw out as many Bills relating to this important subject as the Assembly thought proper to send up for its consideration. Such were the merits of the long and fiercely-contested question of the Clergy Reserves.
Another serious obstacle to Upper Canadian prosperity was the continual interference of the Colonial Office in our domestic concerns. Bills passed by the Provincial Legislature for the regulation of our own internal affairs were disallowed with vexatious frequency, and sometimes, apparently, from mere caprice. Sometimes the irresponsible Executive, unwilling that their obedient servants in the Upper House should incur popular odium by opposing the will of the Assembly, permitted Bills to pass both Houses, and then, through their tool the Lieutenant-Governor, had these identical measures disallowed. Advice, the compliance with which could not fail to be prejudicial to the interests of the colony, was also sent across the Atlantic through the Lieutenant-Governor, to whom it came back by return post in the shape of Imperial instructions to be acted upon. The Colonial Minister, whoever he might for the time happen to be, knew little and cared little about the British North American colonies, and did not generally concern himself with despatches to colonial Governors any further than to sign his name to them. He was thus the unconscious means of furthering Executive tyranny, and to some extent of alienating the loyalty of the colonists.
Among other drawbacks, sufficiently serious in themselves and in their ulterior consequences, but of minor importance when compared with the all-permeating grievances already referred to, may be mentioned the quartering of military men upon the colony in the capacity of Lieutenant-Governors; the unequal representation of the people in the Assembly; the exorbitant salaries of certain public officials; the union of judicial and legislative functions in the same persons; the appointment of judges, sheriffs, magistrates, and other officials during the pleasure of the Executive, and not during good behaviour.
The evils attendant upon placing the local administration of the colonies in the hands of military officers, who were inexperienced in constitutional government, and unfitted by training for such duties as were demanded of them, have already been glanced at.[44] Such persons naturally enough found themselves altogether out of their proper element upon their arrival in the colony, and looked to the Executive Councillors for advice and instruction. That they should follow the instruction received, and that they should surrender themselves to the judgment of those enemies of the public weal, followed almost as a matter of course. In this way the strength of the oligarchy was consolidated and enlarged, and its members rendered more and more independent of public opinion. All that can be urged on behalf of the Home Ministry, by way of excuse for committing the direction of our affairs to such persons, is that the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was not a sufficient inducement to make it sought after by really capable men. The office, in at least one instance to be hereafter recorded, went a-begging.
Unequal representation was a fruitful source of discontent, though Upper Canada was no worse off in that respect than the mother-country prior to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. For years before the Rebellion, the little district towns of Niagara, Brockville and Cornwall each enjoyed the privilege of sending a representative to the Assembly. All three of them were notoriously rotten boroughs--as rotten as Gatton, Grampound or Old Sarum--and always returned Tory members prepared to do the bidding of the Executive. By such means was the Assembly corrupted, and the elective franchise turned into an instrument of oppression. Some of the salaries of public officials were altogether out of proportion to the state of the revenue, and to the nature and extent of the duties performed. Certain highly-paid offices were the merest sinecures, and had been created for no other purpose than to provide for serviceable tools of the Administration. The practice of permitting judges to sit and vote in the Legislature needs no comment. Whatever justification there might have