ION, NATIVE TRIBES--RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED
STATES--MUTUAL COURTESIES--FAREWELL TO CANADA--AT HOME.

[Sidenote: The 'Clergy Reserves']

We have had frequent occasion to observe that the guiding principle of Lord
Elgin's policy was to let the Colony have its own way in everything which
was not contrary either to public morality or to some Imperial interest. It
was in this spirit that he passed the Rebellion Losses Act; and in this
spirit he watched the contest which raged for many years on the memorable
question of the 'Clergy Reserves.'

[Sidenote: History of the question.]

By the Canada Act of 1791 one-seventh of the lands then ungranted had been
set apart for the support of a 'Protestant Clergy.' At first these reserves
were regarded as the exclusive property of the Church of England; but in
1820 an opinion was obtained from the Law Officers of the Crown in England,
that the clergy of the Church of Scotland had a right to a share in them,
but not Dissenting Ministers. In 1840 an Act was passed in which the claims
of other denominations also were distinctly recognised. By it the Governor
was empowered to sell the reserves; a part of the proceeds was to be
applied in payment of the salaries of the existing clergy, to whom the
faith of the Crown had been pledged; one-half of the remainder was to go to
the Churches of England and Scotland, in proportion to their respective
numbers, and the other half was to be at the disposal of the Governor-
General for the benefit of the clergy of any Protestant denomination
willing to receive public aid.

But the old inveterate jealousy of Anglican ascendency, aggravated, it is
said, by the political conduct of Bishop Strachan, who had identified his
Church with the obnoxious rule of the Family Compact, was not content with
these concessions. Allying itself with the voluntary spirit, caught from
the Scottish Free Church movement in 1843, it took the shape of a fanatical
opposition to everything in the nature of a public provision for the
support of religion; and the cry was raised for the 'Secularisation of the
Clergy Reserves.' Eagerly taken up, as was natural, by the Ultra-radicals,
or 'Clear-grits,' the cry was echoed by a considerable section of the old
Tory party, from motives which it is less easy to analyse; and so violent
was the feeling that it threatened to sweep away at one stroke all the
endowments in question, without regard to vested interests, and without
even w