Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/22

 of any private advantage, no person who is not possessed of much more than 500l. real estate would accept of the situation; or if he were so disposed would find electors to appoint him. The clause, if it does not convey an unjust censure on the electors, is indifferent; such details ought however, as in the 31st Geo. III. to be left to the Colonial Legislature.

This clause authorizing the Governor to appoint executive councillors to sit and debate, but not vote in the Assembly, has excited much reclamation from all parties in Upper Canada. In Lower Canada it has been considered only as a singular deviation from the principles and practice of the British Constitution, and as conveying a very unjust opinion of the people, or a censure upon the Colonial Government and its officers. There is nothing to prevent executive councillors from being elected into the Assembly of either province, unless that the measures of the Colonial Administration, or the conduct of its officers, should be such, as to render them peculiarly obnoxious to the Electors.

Some have contended that the seat of the Legislature should be fixed, and that the due and sufficient notice should be better defined. The Governor, seeing the extent of the provinces, and difficulty