itics; and at the close of the
Parliament, the member who has succeeded in securing the largest portion
of the prize for his constituents, renders an easy account of his
stewardship, with confident assurance of his re-election.

"Not only did the leaders of the Lower Canadian Assembly avail
themselves of the patronage thus afforded, by the large surplus revenue
of the province, but they turned this system to much greater account, by
_using it to obtain influence over the constituencies_.

"The majority of the Assembly of Lower Canada is accused by its
opponents of having, in the most systematic and persevering manner,
employed this means of corrupting the electoral bodies. The adherents
of M. Papineau are said to have been lavish in their promises of the
benefits which they could obtain from the Assembly for the county, whose
suffrages they solicited. By such representations, the return of
members of opposition politics is asserted, in many instances, to have
been secured; and obstinate counties are alleged to have been sometimes
starved into submission, by an entire withdrawal of grants, until they
returned members favourable to the majority. Some of the English
members who voted with M. Papineau, excused themselves to their
countrymen by alleging that they were compelled to do so, in order to
get a road or a bridge, which their constituents desired. Whether it be
true or false, that the abuse was ever carried to such a pitch, it is
obviously one, which might have been easily and safely perpetrated by a
person possessing M. Papineau's influence in the Assembly."

Next for the grants for public education.

"But the most bold and extensive attempt for erecting a system of
patronage, wholly independent of the Government, was that which was, for
some time, carried into effect by the grants for education made by the
Assembly, and regulated by the Act, which the Legislative Council has
been most bitterly reproached with refusing to renew. It has been
stated, as a proof of the deliberate intention of the Legislative
Council to crush every attempt to civilise and elevate the great mass of
the people, that it thus stopped at once the working of about 1,000
schools, and deprived of education no less than 40,000 scholars, who
were actually profiting by the means of instruction thus placed within
their reach. But the reasons which induced, or rather compelled, the
Legislative Council to stop this system, are clearly st