§ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTHsaid, in putting to the right hon. Secretary of State for the Colonies the question of which he had given notice, he must first ask whether the right hon. Gentleman had received an Address to the Crown to which the House of Assembly of Canada agreed on the 17th of September last, by a majority of fifty-four to twenty-two, and in which they assured Her Majesty that they deeply regretted to learn the contents of a despatch, in which the right hon. Baronet had stated that it was not the intention of Her Majesty's present Government to fulfil a promise which had been made to the Canadian Legislature by the late Government. That promise was, that Her Majesty's Government would recommend to Parliament that an Act should be passed to enable the Canadian Legislature to dispose of the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves, subject to the condition that the vested interests of persons should be secured during their lives. He wished to ask what were the present intentions of Her Majesty's Government, and whether they intended after Christmas to recommend to Parliament the measure which he had just described?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONbegged to say, in answer to the first question of the hon. Baronet, which had not, however, been mentioned in the notice-paper, that he had received from Canada the Address to which the hon. Baronet had referred, and which was founded upon certain Resolutions which had been adopted by the 836 House of Assembly. He had no objection to proceed to answer the second and more important question of which the hon. Baronet had been kind enough to give him ample notice; and he begged to state to the House that he felt very great regret that the forms of the House precluded him from accompanying his answer to that question with the explanation which it would be strongly his desire to give on this subject. Bound, however, as he was by those forms, he would only state to the hon. Baronet that Her Majesty's Government had given the fullest and most anxious consideration to this difficult and important subject, and to the whole of the circumstances under which the question had been forced upon their attention; and his answer was, that, considering that this was essentially an Upper Canadian question, and that the Representatives of Upper Canada were as nearly as possible equally divided upon the subject; considering that the majority who had carried the Resolutions to which the hon. Baronet had referred consisted in a large proportion of Roman Catholic members of the lower province, whose religion had been amply and munificently endowed; considering that the Act of 1840 was proposed and accepted by all parties as a final settlement of this long-discnssed and most difficult question; considering, above all, that that Act of 1840 was part of the arrangements which attended the Act of Union, and was intended to guard against those dangers to Protestant endowments which were dreaded at the time of the Act of Union;—considering all these circumstances, it was not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce any Bill for the purpose of repealing the provisions of that Act.
§ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTHsaid, he should then give notice that, immediately after the Christmas recess, he should move for leave to bring in a Bill to enable the Legislature of Canada to dispose of the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves, subject to the condition which he had just mentioned.