onal schools, dissolved
the board of education, and appointed as inspector the son of the
illustrious Arnold.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 225: Lord Glenelg's despatch, 1836.]

[Footnote 226: _Sir J. Franklin's Narrative_, p. 77.]

[Footnote 227: Address of Committee.]

SECTION IV.

The claims of the churches on the treasury (1838) soon threatened the
government with serious difficulties. It was resolved to increase the
revenue by prohibiting colonial distillation. This trade had been often
interrupted by the ordinances of the governors, but when the crown
ceased to purchase wheat at a high fixed price it was deemed unfair to
the farmer to restrict the local market for his produce. Duties were
imposed, but they discriminated between sugar and cereals, and between
colonial and imported grain. This distinction offered ample opportunity
for evasion. The distillers employed these various articles at their own
pleasure, and paid the lowest duty. Colonial spirits were sold as
foreign; and the permits of the police-office covered the transit of
quantities greater than they specified. From L5,000 to L7,000 were
annually lost. The bill introduced to extinguish the trade was resisted
by Mr. W. E. Lawrence and other leaders of the country party. They
objected both to the suppression of a lawful trade and the injury
inflicted on those who had embarked their capital. The government
proposed to include in the bill a provision for the indemnity of the
distillers, leaving its amount to be settled by a committee. To this
Chief Justice Pedder strongly objected. The government was unwilling to
entrust to a jury the claims of the distillers, as proposed by the chief
justice; and, not wishing to delay the law, passed it without granting
any security beyond admitting the equity of compensation.

The laxity of the distillation laws had enabled the manufacturers to
realise double profits, by graduated duties, mostly paid under the
lowest denomination. Their gains during the past could not be
questioned; but Sir John Franklin was persuaded that it would be
ridiculously profuse to pay an indemnity for the loss of profits rated
by the success of an illicit trade. A resolution passed the council,
"That any applicant having been proved, to the satisfaction of this
council, to have been in the habit of distilling contrary to law, has,
by such practice, destroyed any claim he might have otherwise had to
compensation." To ascertain this fac