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/30

 of the people, independently of the votes of the Electors, executive officers, contrary to all precedent within the British dominions.

6th. They destroy an acknowledged privilege of all the Colonial Assemblies, without which they could have no existence, independent of the other authorities.

7th. They proscribe the language of the great majority of the people in the Assembly of their own Representatives, and question a privilege connected with religion, uninterruptedly, peaceably, and usefully, exercised under His Majesty's Government for more than half a century.

8th. They finally countenance an appropriation of the money levied on the subjects in the Colonies, without the consent of their Local Representatives.

On referring to the debates during the progress of this Bill and Canada Trade Act in the House of Commons, we find no motives alleged for the introduction of the present Bill, after the passing of the latter, which contains the arrangements relating to the misunderstandings which had subsisted between the Upper and the Lower Province. The existence of the present Constitutions of the two Provinces for nearly thirty years without any misunderstanding with regard to trade and revenue, is the best proof that these differences were not a necessary consequence of the division of the late Province of Quebec. It is neither