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/62

 besides the mischiefs which they have to apprehend from its provisions, it would leave them and their posterity without any sufficient guarantee for their remaining right and liberties; all of which might, upon the same precedent, be at any time endangered by secret and partial representations, or placed at the disposal of a Colonial Legislature, unequally constituted, and unacquainted wit the interests, the feelings, and happiness, of the great body of your Majesty's subjects in this Colony.

That the differences which have recently existed between this Province and that of Upper Canada, relative to revenue, and which have been publicly alleged as the principal motive for introducing the said Bill, have not been a natural consequence of the division of the two Provinces, but have arisen solely from temporary causes, which might, at any time, have been removed by Legislative enactments on the part of these Colonies respectively, whereby each Province would have confined itself to the natural course of collecting its own revenue, giving free passage and every facility to the trade of the other; or, finally, by regulations of the Parliament of the United Kingdoms, after hearing both parties, made in conformity to the 46th section of the aforesaid statute 31st Geo. III., chap. 31.

That a just and effectual termination of the said differences cannot be hoped for, from the proposed Union of the Legislatures of the said Provinces, which would leave the contending parties finally to decide upon their own claims, and whatever party might, in the end, prevail, would give rise to injustice and discord, fatal to the interests of both Provinces, and injurious to those of the Mother Country.

That such Union would have the effect of renewing the disputes arising from language, laws, religion, and local interests, by which the said Provinces were distracted whilst united under one government, and which had so happily been set at rest by the division of the said Provinces; and that a Legislature so constituted, would be inadequate to the purposes of enlightened and beneficial legislation, and could only produce enactments