e public which
would result from allowing such a discretion to every member of a
committee. Mr. Harvey defended his conduct upon grounds peculiar to
the object of the poor-law committee. He asked, "Who were the parties
composing that committee? On the one hand, there was all the property of
the country, in every variety and form, aggregated to support a measure
peculiarly framed for its interest and protection. Who was the other
party? All that was pitiable and miserable in the land, sunken alike
by ignorance and destitution. How, again, were the respective causes of
these parties conducted? On the one side was one of the most active and
vigilant bodies of men, the poor-law commissioners and their assistants;
but who was there on the other to advocate the rights of the unprotected
and oppressed millions? How was the working man, chained as he was
to the soil upon which he dragged out a miserable being, to become
acquainted with what took place except through the newspapers? Such
publicity was the more necessary, when it was recollected that the
advocates of the law in the committee were as a majority of twenty-two
to four." Mr. Harvey's reasoning would have been sound if the committee
had been compelled to make a daily report--a course which they
subsequently adopted of themselves; but there could be no doubt that
it rested only with the committee or the house to determine that point.
Lord John Russell's motion was simply declaratory of the privileges of
the house in this matter which was carried without a division.

AFFAIRS OF CANADA.

{WILLIAM IV. 1836--1837}

Commissioners had been appointed to inquire into the ground of the
complaints which for some years had been alleged by the prevailing party
in the legislature of Canada, and by their friends and agents in
the British parliament. Early in this session the report of these
commissioners was laid before both houses, and on the 6th of March
the subject was brought before the commons by Lord John Russell. His
lordship declared at the outset that lie did not intend to cast any
censure upon the conduct of the house of assembly in Lower Canada. He
considered their course to be so much the same with that which other
popular assemblies had followed in similar circumstances, that instead
of an act of self-will, or caprice, or presumption, it seemed to be
rather the obligation of a general law which affects all these disputes
between a popular assembly on the one ha