yment. The evils
of poverty and dependence would merely be aggravated in a ten-fold
degree, by a spirit of jealous and resentful nationality, which should
separate the working class of the community from the possessors of
wealth and employers of labour.

"I will not here enter into the question of the effect of the mode of
life and division of property among the French Canadians, on the
happiness of the people. I will admit, for the moment, that it is as
productive of well-being as its admirers assert. But, be it good or
bad, the period in which it is practicable, is past; for there is not
enough unoccupied land left in that portion of the country in which
English are not already settled, to admit of the present French
population possessing farms sufficient to supply them with their present
means of comfort, under their present system of husbandry. No
population has increased by mere births so rapidly as that of the French
Canadians has since the conquest. At that period their number was
estimated at 60,000: it is now supposed to amount to more than seven
times as many. There has been no proportional increase of cultivation,
or of produce from the land already under cultivation; and the increased
population has been in a great measure provided for by mere continued
subdivision of estates. In a Report from a Committee of the Assembly in
1826, of which Mr Andrew Steuart was chairman, it is stated, that since
1784 the population of the seignories had quadrupled, while the number
of cattle had only doubled, and the quantity of land in cultivation had
only increased one-third. Complaints of distress are constant, and the
deterioration of the condition of a great part of the population
admitted on all hands. A people so circumstanced must alter their mode
of life. If they wish to maintain the same kind of rude, but
well-provided agricultural existence, it must be by removing into those
parts of the country in which the English are settled; or if they cling
to their present residence, they can only obtain a livelihood by
deserting their present employment, and working for wages on farms, or
on commercial occupations under English capitalists. But their present
proprietary and inactive condition is one which no political
arrangements can perpetuate. Were the French Canadians to be guarded
from the influx of any other population, their condition in a few years
would be similar to that of the poorest of the Irish peas