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/80

 admit of their accepting a situation which, however honourable, is attended with such serious inconvenience and injury to their private concerns, and that consequently the choice if the inhabitants of persons to represent them in Parliament must be thereby greatly abridged, and their interests seriously affected.

That the legislative business of Upper Canada cannot, without great and unavoidable delays, difficulties, and embarrassments, be carried on at the distance of several hundred miles where the Legislature, if united, must probably meet, from the public records, and the sources of information relative to many of the public affairs of the Province, on which they may be called upon to decide.

That to withdraw the public records from Upper Canada, or to remove her executive Government, would be attended with the most injurious consequences to the Province in general, and more particularly to the western part of it, inasmuch as emigrants and settlers would be discourage from proceeding to that part of the Province, and the inhabitants must, should such a change take place, sustain great injury and inconvenience from the very great distance they must necessarily travel to transact their public business.

That not only the extent of territory, but also the differences of language, laws, institutions, and manners, which prevail in Upper and Lower Canada, appear to your Petitioners to render it proper and necessary that each Province should have a distinct Legislature for the management of its internal affairs, by which means all party spirit and animosity arising from difference of political feelings and views will be avoided, and each Province having its due share of revenue secured to it, and its intercourse with foreign countries regulated by the wisdom of the Imperial Parliament, will be at liberty to adopt such measures for its prosperity as many seem proper, without the interference or control of the other.

That your Petitioners are aware that the political differences existing between the different branches of the Legislature of