ent item by item, and making them matters of yearly
vote. In this way every person in the public service would be subject to
the caprice, or ill-feeling, of any single member of the legislature,
and the whole administration of the public departments would probably be
made ineffective. Under the plan suggested by the government in
accordance with English constitutional forms, the assembly would have
every opportunity of criticising all the public expenditures, and even
reducing the gross sum in cases of extravagance. But the same
contumacious spirit, which several times expelled Mr. Christie, member
for Gaspe, on purely vexatious and frivolous charges, and constantly
impeached judges without the least legal justification, simply to
satisfy personal spite or political malice, would probably have been
exhibited towards all officials had the majority in the assembly been
given the right of voting each salary separately. The assembly never
once showed a disposition to meet the wishes of the government even
half-way. Whatever may have been the vacillation or blundering of
officials in Downing Street, it must be admitted that the imperial
government showed a conciliatory spirit throughout the whole financial
controversy. Step by step it yielded to all the demands of the assembly
on this point. In 1831, when Lord Grey was premier, the British
parliament passed an act, making it lawful for the legislatures of Upper
and Lower Canada to appropriate the duties raised by imperial statutes
for the purpose of defraying the charges of the administration of
justice and the support of civil government. The government consequently
retained only the relatively small sum arising from casual and
territorial dues. When Lord Aylmer, the governor-general, communicated
this important concession to the legislature, he also sent a message
setting forth the fact that it was the settled policy of the crown on no
future occasion to nominate a judge either to the executive or the
legislative council, the sole exception being the chief justice of
Quebec. He also gave the consent of the government to the passage of an
act declaring that judges of the supreme court should thereafter hold
office "during good behaviour," on the essential condition that their
salaries were made permanent by the legislature. The position of the
judiciary had long been a source of great and even just complaint, and,
in the time of Sir James Craig, judges were disqualified from