Canada Has Been Greatly Retarded In Its
Progress By Such Causes, And This Will In A Great Measure Account
For
Its backwardness when compared with the United States, without
attributing the difference to the different forms of government.
It was
Manifestly the intention of the British government, in
conferring representative institutions on Canada, that the people
should enjoy all the privileges of their fellow-subjects in the
mother-country. The more to assimilate our government to that of its
great original, the idea was for some time entertained of creating a
titled and hereditary aristocracy, but it was soon found that though
"The King can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that,"
it was not in his power to give permanency to an institution which,
in its origin, was as independent as royalty itself, arising
naturally out of the feudal system: but which was utterly
inconsistent with the genius and circumstances of a modern colony.
The sovereign might endow the members of such an aristocracy with
grants of the lands of the crown to support their dignity, but what
benefit could such grants be, even to the recipients, in a country
covered with boundless forests and nearly destitute of inhabitants?
It is obvious that no tenants could be found to pay rents for such
lands, or indeed even to occupy them, while lands could be purchased
on easy terms in the United States, or in Canada itself. Had this
plan been carried out, Canada would have been a doomed country for
centuries.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 601 of 670
Words from 162884 to 163138
of 181664
