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Mr. Papineau also attacked the Ministry and the existing constitutional system with great bitterness. He declared himself in favour of annexation, an elective Legislative Council, and vote by ballot. Beyond all comparison the most able speech from the Conservative side was made by Mr. John A. Macdonald, who expressed his dissatisfaction at the insufficiency of the ministerial explanations, and declared his conviction that there was no principle in common among the members of the Administration, except the desire to hold office.

The Address finally passed on the 31st, most of the paragraphs being unanimously assented to, and the remaïnder being adopted by varying but considerable majorities. For more than two months thereafter the business of the session was carried on with energy and vigour, and some enactments of importance were added to the statute book. Conspicuous among the latter were an Act authorizing the Governor to establish a Bureau and Minister of Agriculture ; an Act for the establishment of a Transatlantic line of steam vessels ; an Act to incorporate the Grand Trunk Railway ; and an Act to establish a Consolidated Municipal Loan Fund for Upper Canada. The first-named measure defined the duties of the Minister of Agriculture, which included the encouragement of immigration, and the establishment of model farms with a view to the promotion of agriculture, and the collecting, disseminating and publishing of statistics relating to agricultural matters generally throughout the Province. By the Act relating to Transatlantic steamers, which had been hinted at in the opening Speech, the sum of £19,000 sterling per annum was appropriated for the purpose of establishing a line of

and consternatica upon the Treasury benches. He has succeeded in making himself the common topic of conversation in this city to-day ; and he bids fair to take the wind out of the sails of his old friend Mr. Hincks. His manner was certainly very far from being c'egant or graceful, and of his language the same remark might be made ; but he had industriously collected a number of telling facts against the Ministry, and he fired them off one after another, incessantly, for two hours, with telling force,”

Hincks—Morin. 265

steam vessels between Canada and Great Britain, to run once every fortnight each way between Liverpool and Quebec and Montreal during such time in each year as navigation should be open in the St. Lawrence, and to run once every month each way between Liverpool and Halifax or Portland during the rest of the year.* The session was very prolific of railway legislation, and the Grand Trunk was only one of many companies which received charters of incorporation. The Municipal Loan Fund Act was a measure enabling municipalities to borrow money on the credit of the Province for local improvements. It assisted materially in the development of the country, but it was taken undue advantage of by some municipalities, and led to a good deal of extravagant outlay.+

À conspicuous incident of the early part of the session was the introduction into the Assembly by Mr. Hincks, on the 14th of September, of a series of resolutions on the subject of the Clergy Reserves. These resolutions, while expressing devoted attachment to Her Majesty’s person and Government, claimed that the question was one “so exclusively affecting the people of Canada that its decision ought not to be withdrawn from the Provincial Legislature.”? The widespread dissatisfaction which must ensue from the refusal of the Imperial Parliament to comply with the just demand of the Canadians was referred to, and a hope was expressed

* The contract for establishing the line was obtained by Messrs. McKean, McLarty & Co., of Liverpool, and the steamers began to run during the following spring. Two years later the contract was annulled, and an arrangement was made with the firm of Messrs,

dmonstone, Allan & Co., of Montreal. The small fleet of the last-named company has since developed into the well-known Allan line of Transatlantic steamships,

+ ‘It will thus be seen that the legislation of the session of 1852 laid the foundation of a large addition to the liabilities of this country, and paved the way for the annual deficit which subsequently existed in the Provincial revenue for so many years.”—MacMullen’s History of Canada, p. 519.

+These are the ipsissima verba of Earl Grey's despatch to Lord Elgin of the 7th of January, 1851. See ante, p.216. The case could not well have been admitted more clearly on behalf of the Imperial Government.