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Feet teers 4 COUNTY OF PERTH HERALD. Hon. Mr. McGee's Speech on the Constitutional Question. Hon. Mr. McGes said: Twomem- bers of the Administration have been heard, Mr. Speaker, on the great con- stitutional question now before us, in reply to the speech made in moving the amendment by tae hon. member for St. Hyacinthe. If 1 rise at this stage of the discussion to offer myself to the notice of the House, it is main- ly with a view to indicate what seems to me to be the true ground, from which--that lasting good may come of it,--the debate ought not to be di- verted. (Hear; hear.) ~ 1 do so, thus early, because thé hon. Finance Min- ister seemed to have 'thought the time opportune after my hon. friend near me, (M. Sicotte,) had spoken on the general question, fo give personal ex- planations, which ought either have been made as it seems.to me when the other personal explanations were made, on Monday last, or at some fu- ture time. The constitutional ques- tion proposed to us by the hon. mover is not to. be confounded with the per- sonal question ; itis only personal, ina very general sense, as the election law, or the eleetive sufliage, or the rules of this House are personal, be- cause they affect personal rights and duties ; but beyond that degree of per- sonality the discussion of the amend- ment ought to be kept entirely apart from the mere details of individual conduct in the last crisis, (Hear. hear.) It cannot indeed be discussed practically and closely without allud- ing to individual Ministers, and espe- cially to the prime moyer in the crisis, the Prime Minister; but these allusi- ons are only the illustrations of the ar- gument; the gravamina lies far deep- er; we have now under our hands, we are now called on to examine, the very soul or spirit of our system, as well as the framework which retains it, and which was formed by our pre- decessors to do its bidding. (Hear, hear.) he Hon. Attorney General East [M. Dorion], in the beginning of his remarks, charged the hon, mem- ber for St. Hyacinthe with attacking the prerogative of the Crown by his motion. As there is no such thing as prerogative in general, | beg to en- quire what prerogative does the At- torney-General mean? Where is the attack in this amendment? Is there one word here, reflecting either on the prerogative of dissolution, or the pre- rogative of first nomination. [Hear, hear.] On the contrary, does not the hon. member most scrupulously lay his premises subsequently to the act ol dissolution, when he founds his amendment on " the essential change of administration, after the yote of the commons, and after the dissolution granted by the Crown." [Hear, hear. ] No one in this House, Mr. Speaker, reflects on the prerogative who votes for such a motion as this, (Hear, hear.) There is in the present contest no question whatever of the preroga- tive, but there certainly is question whether the dissolution itself was pro- perly communicated, and whether the ends for which it was 'granted were not defeatéd by the subsequent con- duct of the Premier and his new as- sociates ; whether that cunduct was constitutional conduct; whether that conduct deserves.the sanction and ap- proval, or the censure and condemna- tion of this House. (Hear, hear.) This is the true question, and the only question, and to these limits I willen- deavor, for my part, to confine the dis- -eussion. Any,man, in or out of Par- liament, may fairly make up his mind on this question, by the simple' pro- eess of reviewing the facts of the late erisis as they arose, and then apply- ing to' these facts the touchstone of vell-known British and Canadian pre- -edents. Now, what are the facts of he case? In May, °62,the Cartier- Mfacdonald Government 'were left, on \eir Militia Bill, in a minority of this fouse, and they accordingly resign- .d. Very much to the surprise of every body, it was known in a day or | two that the member for Comwall-- without a follower in this Hounse-- identified with no party--having the confidence of no party--had been sent for to form a Government. (Hear, hear.) At that time my hon. friend near me (Mr. Foley) was the elected leader of the Upper Canada Opposi- tion, as my hon. friend, the mover of this motion, (M. Sicotte) was the elect- ed leader of the Lower Canada Oppo- sition, in this House. «When Mr. Sandfieid Macdonald was 'sent for, his only chance of forming an Adminis- tration was to secure co-operation of the two hon. members who now, by a strange infelicity for him, find them- selves compelled to propose and sec- ond a vote of censure upon him. for ousting them in May, 1863, out of a Cabinet which he could not have 'ta- ken the first step to form without their concurrence, in May, 1862. (Hear, hear.) 'Well, sir, after a good deal of negotiation, as I understand, for I took very little personal part in the arrange- ments, rather than allow 'the reins of power to revert to the former Coalition, both the gentlemen near me agreed, on a certain specific line of policy be- ing adopted, to enter into a Govern- ment with the present Premier--and accordingly a new Government was ushered 'into existence, under a chief who had not been the Parliamentary leader of any one of its members, up to the day that he became. accident- ally, their oflicialhead. [Hear, hear.] At that time it was known toll sides of the House, that the then Parlia- ment elected under our predecessors in 1861, though dissatisfied with them, were not likely to give usa safe work- ing majority. [It was as well under- stood in May of last year, as in May of this year, that we might at any mo- ment be obliged to ask the Crown for a dissolution and appeal to the coun- try. [Hear, hear.] There was no surprise--nothing unexpected in our dissolution--when the want of confi- dence motion of the hon. member for Kingston was finally passed; and in the expectation of such a vote, I al- ways heard but the one language used, from the beginning, namely, that we could and would goto the coun- try, on the prograratne of 1862, with the personnelof 1862. If this was not the belief of the Premier or his two remaining colleagues of that forma- tion, why did they agree, at first, to the adoption of a programme under which we made all our Ministerial elections, immediately after accepting office? Why did. we agree.to a poli- cy sure to be rejected? Why did we expose ourselves,' and our friends, elected during 1862, to the other House, to certain defeat, by adopting a narrow, restrictive, and unpopular programme? On the night of the 7th of May last, the hon, Premier says he discovered, for the first time, that the programme upon which he had been acting for twelve months was unpop- ular and insufficient to carry the elec- tions in Upper Canada--not in Low- er! -- And how did he discover that fact?_ He discovered that it. was_un- popular in Upper Canada, because his colleague was in a minority of eight: votes in Lower Canada. [Laughter ] The Upper Canada majority was with him, even in a house elected under the auspices of his predecessors--was with him, notwithstanding the so ob- jectionable _ personnel--notwithstand- ing the so. objectionable policy. On the night of the 7th of May, between twelve and two o'clock in the morn- ing--" Know all men by these pres- ents" that the hon. gentleman discoy- ered his "* Double Majority"'--his sole political specific--to be a falacy, im- practicable and obsolete. _ But how did he renounce'it? He had of the Upper Canada members present a majority of three, but of the whole House a minority of five. He held office, therefore, during the crisis, be- cause of the principle he abandoned, and he continued to hold it, under the other principle--the singlé majority-- by which he was condemned. [Hear, hear.] Is notthis the exact state of the case? Onthe 8th of May, the day after the vote, either the hon. gen- tleman was for the single majority or the double majority. He cells us bim- self, and his new colleagues tell us, that it was agreed, that very day, that the Double Majority should be thence- forth abandoned. Ob! but it will be said it was abandoned for the future; not for the past, the abandonment was not to have a retrospective operation. A very timely abandonment of princi- ple, no doubt, which, on yesterday, enables a man to keep office on one fundamental principle, and to-day up- on another. Yet if the Double Ma- jority was finally abandoned on the Sih of May, why force the Lower Ca- nadian leader [M. Sicotte] on the 9th, the 10th and the 11th, to seek for a sine qua non, of continuing 'in the same Administration ? [Hear, hear.] Was not the old colleague, the origi- nal co-partner, entitled to the bene- fit of the new arrangement quite as much as the hon. members for South Ontario, Hochelaga and Chateauguay? [Hear, hear.] Were the new allies alone to have the advantage of thenew principle? Why not the old, if they would adopt it, as it is said, but de- nied by himself, that my hon friend near me [M. Sicotte] did at once adopt it? Butit was not the funda- mental federal principle of -- the Macdonald-Sicotte Cabinet only, which wasabandoned. The princi- ple of incidental protection was also abandoned ; the resolution of exclud- ing sectional agitation on the repre- sentation question was abandoned; the promised adjustment of the repre- sentation was abandoned; and the policy on the Intercolonial Railway was abandoned. All these things the Premier held fast on the evening of the 7th of May, and all these on that night, between midnight and two in the morning, he cast to the winds, in order to qualify himself for the com- panionship of other colleagues and to earn the approval of his Lord Protector the hon. member for South Oxford.-- [Laughter.] Since the days of Saint Paul, a more miraculous conversion is not on record. We know that go- ing down to Damascus-- " Mercy was sought and mercy found, Between the stirrup and the ground ;" {leughter]; but even the ligbt which illuminated the impassioned Hebrew was preceded by an interval of dark- ness, 'The illumination of the hon, gentleman on the contrary was not ac- companied with any such tenebral in- termission: it was instantaneous and all-sufficient. [Laughter.] He rose instantly from his fallen state, as the head of a defeated policy and a cen- sured Cabinet, to walk in the light of anew revelation, and to preach the new Gospel to the Gentiles of the Western Peninsula whom he had pre- viously so often anathematized.-- {Laughter.] But, Mr. Speaker, there ate some other matters of fact con- nected with the immediate vote of want of confidence, The-House will remember that the motion moved by the hon. member for Kingston was the well-known House of Commons mo- tion, moved by Sir John Yarde Buller, in 1840, in these words--" That the Administration, as at present consti- tuted, does not deserve the confidence of this House."" Now, what is the course of the hon. Premier and_ his Privy Councillors after the passage of that vote? They at once acknowledge its justice by making nine changes in the twelve offices of the Administra- tion. [Hear, hear.] . Both the Finan- cial Ministers are changed in the Up- per Canada section; the Postmaster General is driven to resign ; the whole Lower Canada six are obliged, in self- respect, to' resign. The only two 'members of the Cabinet who remain unchanged, in their old offices, are the Premier himself and the Commission- er of Crown Lands. How comes it that amid the general deluge they alone are of the small number of the elect?) How comes it that these hon. gentlemen interpret the phrase ' as at present constituted" to apply to every one but themselves? [Hear, bear ] Upon what modest hypothesis does the hon. Premier--or either of the other hon, gentlemen who remained in with him, during the interregnum, assume that he alone was unobjectionable to the House when it passed that vote on Thursday, the 7th of May? Were those gentlemen unimportant elemeuts in the constitution of the Government so condemned? Were they not as one with all their colleagues in all their official courses? Can you censure a whole Cabinet--without exception-- and yet spare the head, and two or three of the members? The assump- tion is an absurdity); it is an assump- tion as unconstitutional as ever was made either in error or in intention, by Ministers of the Crown, in this or any other country. | [Hear, hear. ]-- Moreover, there is also the question of fact, as to the time when, if ever, the statement of the dissolution being granted by His Excellency, was regu- larly communicated to his colleagues by the then and now Prime Minister. The hon, gentleman says it was an- nounced by him to us, on the same day it was asked. Friday, the 8th; of this, except the hon. Receiver Gener- al, who thinks there was some jocose allusion to it, noone has any recollec- tion, while my hon, friends near me --though members of that Govern- ment--are all under the precisely op- posite impression. But hon. mem- bers of this House--not then of the Goyernment----have declared that they understood from.the Premier, on that Friday, that a dissolution had been | If this" granted by His Excellency. be so, why was it that the response from the Crown to the official advice of the then Ministers was concealed from those who gave that advice, and revealed to others, not then of the Council? I contend that, until so communicated, it ought to have re- mained sub sigillo inthe Premiev's own breast. I contend that the oath of office of an Executive Councillor, by which he solemnly swears that he 'keep close and secret' those things which are of the Council, and reveal them to his colleagues only, impera- tively required of him to communi- cate formally to his colleagues, at least in the first instance, what, ac- cording to our united recollection, he did not, at any time, communicate to us in Council, His Excellency's de-. cision as to the dissolution; but he did, according to the united testimony ofthe hon. Postmaster General, and the hon. members for Hochelaga and Chateauguay, communicate it tothem, on Friday, though they were not of the Council. [Hear, hear,] His of- fence against the Constitution---against his oath of office--is both of omission and commission--is an offence at oncé against the Crown and 'against his colleagues. [Hear, hear.] This disétetionary or rathér indiscretionary use of an official secret which gave the Premier for a whole week an ar-, bitrary. control over the entire sitna-, tion, was, however, quite in keeping with his extraordinary, theory, that during a crisis of dissolution the. only, responsible Minister is the Prime Min-, Now, Mr. Speaker, I am as. ister. little disposed to trench upon the just privileges pertaining to the Premier- ship as I am to trench on the preroga- tive of the Crown. I admit the great responsibility and the great privileges of that office ; but I deny that, while he still has colleagues, unresigned, while he still meets them in Council as colleagues, that the head of the Cabinet is justified in withholding that confidence from them. which he ex- tends to others out of doors. [ Hear, hear.] He cannot have, at the same time, two Cabinets--an inner and an outer one; that would be infringe- ment on the Constitution which even a Governor General could not venture to make, still less one of ourselves.-- We will suppose the case of a Gover- nor General having two sets of advi- sers, a secret and official Council ; we will suppose he gives his entire confi- dence to his confidants, and only tells what he cannot help telling to his re- cognized and responsible advisers.-- Would the bon. member himself stand that? Would he pretend to justify that ?.. Would he ask any one to vote confidence in that? And yet that is precisely what he himself is guilty of throughout the late crisis, and what he claims to have done as of right-- as the sole responsible Minister left from' the 7th to the..12th of May.-- {Hear, hear.] _ In'a formative crisis, when a gentleman is empowered and charged by the Crown to supply the vacant seats at the Council table, great latitude must be allowed to the prime mover and Minister; but in a erisis of disruption, when dissolution) and appeal to the country are 'proposed by the existing Government----- when, as yet no -- resignations have been asked or even tendered --the circumstances are entirely differ- ent, and his paramount responsibility should lead the Premier then to the Council Cham- ber, and not to the chambers of private mem- bers, or to caucuses, or to cabals with out- side parties. We are all interested, Mr. Speaker--every man now in public life in this Province, or who may be hereafter in public is vitally interested--in this wide distinction between a formative crisis and a disruptive crisis. We should not leave, if we can help it, the future public men of this country at the merey of any individual ca- price, if by now settling this point satisfac- torily, we can prevent forever the recurrence of such intrigues and such scandals as have already shocked» and sickened members of this House. Before subjecting the facts themselves to the touchstone of precedent, IT beg the members of this House to dismiss from their minds all idea that to be govern- ed by precedent is in itself incompatible with the largest liberty. By precedent it was, before the Union at least, that Parlia- ment must be asssembled within the twelve months; by precedent His Exellency, as the third branch of the Legislature, without whose sanction no bill becomes law, comes down and opens Parliament; by precedent you, sir, inform us of HisHxcéllency's speech, 'nd his confirmation of the liberties of this House ; we are here in our seats almost as much by virtue of precedent as of election, and wherever else adherence to settled pre- cedent may be disparaged, it certainly ought not to be disparaged by the commons of Canada, (Hear, hear.) The British pre- cedents which bear on the subject of a Min- istry dissolving Parliament, with a view to strengthen themselyes in the country, are all comparatively of recent date. The pres- ence of the King's chief servants in Parlia- ment only became an established usage un- der William III.; the recognized rule that direct want of confidence motions compel Ministerial resignations, only dates from Walpole's fall in 1741; and the English usage of 'simultaneous resignations of the whole Government; on such a vote, dates, I think, no farther back than the fall of Lord North in 1782. The precedents, therefore, applicable to the whole of this.case, must be sought this side of 1782 ; they are the pre- cedents of the fall of the Coalition in 1784 ; the Portland-Perceyal precedent of 1807; the precedent of Lord Grey in 1831; the Peel precedent in 1835 ; the Melbourne precedent of 1841; the Derby precedent of 1852; the Palmerston precedent of 1857; and theDerby 'precédent of 1858: | Now of all these eight precedents occurring in eighty years-- three of them within the last ten years+I assert: that the following 'general 'character- istics are invariably true. 1st. That when the Ministry condemned by the House re- signed. in consequence, they resigned as a whole, always' including the Prime Minister. 2nd. That when the Ministry condemned by the House " went to'the country," with a view to strengthen themselves among the constituencies, ' they went invariably as a whole; on a' public authorative avowal of their whole policy. [Bear, hear. ] It is incontrovertiblethat when Pitt went to the country in '84, he went to the country with his colleagues--the Ministry went as a '| whole. When the Duke of Portland found him- self at the mercy of narrow majorities, in