=Source.=--Lord Durham's _Report_. Lucas. Vol II.
It appears, therefore, that the opposition of the Assembly to the
Government was the unavoidable result of a system which stinted the
popular branch of the legislature of the necessary privileges of a
representative body, and produced thereby a long series of attempts
on the part of that body to acquire control over the administration
of the Province. I say all this without reference to the ultimate
aim of the Assembly, which I have before described as being the
maintenance of a Canadian nationality against the progressive
intrusion of the English race. Having no responsible ministers
to deal with, it entered upon that system of long inquiries by
means of its committees, which brought the whole action of the
executive immediately under its purview, and transgressed our
notions of the proper limits of Parliamentary interference. Having
no influence in the choice of any public functionary, no power
to procure the removal of such as were obnoxious to it merely on
political grounds, and seeing almost every office of the Colony
filled by persons in whom it had no confidence, it entered on that
vicious course of assailing its prominent opponents individually,
and disqualifying them for the public service, by making them the
subjects of inquiries and consequent impeachments, not always
conducted with even the appearance of a due regard to justice; and
when nothing else could attain its end of altering the policy or
the composition of the colonial government, it had recourse to that
_ultima ratio_ of representative power to which the more prudent
forbearance of the Crown has never driven the House of Commons in
England, and endeavoured to disable the whole machine of Government
by a general refusal of the supplies.
It was an unhappy consequence of the system which I have been
describing, that it relieved the popular leaders of all the
responsibilities of opposition. A member of opposition in this
country acts and speaks with the contingency of becoming a minister
constantly before his eyes, and he feels, therefore, the necessity
of proposing no course, and of asserting no principles, on which
he would not be prepared to conduct the Government, if he were
immediately offered it. But the colonial demagogue bids high for
popularity without the fear of future exposure. Hopelessly excluded
from power, he expresses the wildest opinion, and appeals to the
most mischievous passions of the people, without any apprehension
of having his sincerity or prudence hereafter tested, by being
placed in a position to carry his views into effect; and thus the
prominent places in the ranks of opposition are occupied for the
most part by men of strong passions, and merely declamatory powers,
who think but little of reforming the abuses which serve them as
topics for exciting discontent.