nd, and the executive government
on the other. The course of these controversies, he said, seemed to
impress this general lesson--that popular assemblies are hardly ever
wrong in the beginning, and as seldom right in the conclusion of such
struggles. They began with the assertion of right, and ended with the
establishment of wrong. His lordship proceeded to state what were the
demands of the leading party in the house of assembly. The first was,
that the legislative council, which had hitherto been appointed by the
crown, should for the future be an elective assembly. The second was,
that the executive council should be responsible in the same way that
the cabinet was in this country. By a third, it was exacted that the
law of tenures should be changed, without respect to the rights obtained
under a British act of parliament. Fourthly, it was demanded that the
land company should be abolished, with a similar disregard of the rights
required under the same act. Having stated the difficulties of the case,
Lord John Russell proceeded to propose his remedies. It was now four
years and a half, he said, since the judges had received their salaries,
and it was high time for parliament to interfere on their behalf. He
proposed to apply a certain portion of the revenue of Canada to such
payments as in their rejected supply bill of 1833 the assembly had
under certain conditions agreed to. The total amount of these would
be L148,000, and in so applying them they would simply be applying the
revenue of the colony for its own benefit. His lordship next proposed to
adopt the recommendation of the commissioners which had been sent out
in 1855, and exclude the judges from the legislative council; and to
provide that in future the members of that body should not be chosen so
exclusively from persons of the English race, but that alternately one
of French and one of British extraction should be selected. With respect
to the executive council, it was proposed that there should not be more
than two or three official persons among its members, and that the rest
should be selected by the legislative council, and from the house of
assembly. The privileges of the North American Loan Company were to be
preserved inviolate; a provision might easily be framed to prevent any
abuse of them. As the complaints made against the Canada tenures act
were in some degree well founded, it was proposed to repeal that act,
care being taken that the lights of in