1907 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. ' 187 



irresponsibility of the executive in the handling of the casual and territorial 

 revenues did much to intensify the popular irritation which found vent in 

 the outbreak of 1837. The principal causes of complaint in connection 

 with the administration of this fund were set out with considerable fulness 

 of detail in a series of resolutions passed by the Upper Canadian House of 

 Assembly on March, 18th, 1829, some of which are reproduced. 



''Resolved, that the possession of llevenue by the Executive to defray 

 all expenses of the Civil Government, independent of Parliament, is inconsis- 

 tent with public liberty, 



"Resolved, that it appears from the message of His Excellency that 

 the whole of the Estimate for the Civil List can, this year, be defrayed from 

 the Crown Revenue and that the expenditure of about £10,000 per annum, 

 which was defrayed till the year 1827 by grants of the Imperial Parliament, 

 is now also transferred to what is called the Territorial revenue of the Crown, 

 arising from the Canada Company Agreement, over the appropriation of 

 which monies it is denied that the House has any superintendence or con- 

 trol. 



"Resolved, that from the accounts in detail of the appropriation of the 

 sum of £10,825 as furnished this House by His Excellency, a copy whereof 

 is annexed, it appears that by far the greater part of that sum has been 

 improvidently misapplied, because independent of the pretensions to a 

 monopoly of the Clergy Reserves the large sum of £2,800 is allotted to the 

 Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, although that church forms a 

 comparatively small proportion of the Christians in' this Province, and 

 because there are various pensions and allowances to persons who ought not 

 to be burdens on this struggling Province; a salary to a naval officer as a 

 sinecure, a salary to an agent in England, utterly unknown by name, char- 

 acter, duty, service or usefulness to this House or to the country, and other 

 salaries and allowances improvidently paid (with the exception of the 

 Lieutenant-Governor and Judges) to public officers for whom has been pro- 

 vided by this House of Assembly, independent of these extra allowances, 

 such ample salaries and contingencies in years of past extravagance that 

 ihey ought, in justice to the condition of the province, to be greatly reduced. 



"Resolved, that the Provincial Executive have heretofore, in the appro- 

 priation and expenditure of public monies, violated that economy which, is 

 in justice due to the people from whom they are raised, have abused the 

 application of the fund improvidently granted by the 56th Geo. III., chap. 

 26, in aid of the Civil Government; have granted pensions and multiplied 

 offices at the public expense without consent of Parliament, and have incur- 

 red and continued wasteful charges and annually increasing expenses in 

 the administration of Justice and in the other departments, under an inveter- 

 ate system of Executive patronage at the sacrifice of public economy; all 

 which evils have heretofore existed from injuriously infusing into the coun- 

 try and even into the Legislature a spirit of subserviency incompatible 

 with the liberties and interests of the people." 



The law of England exempting the subject from all taxes not imposed 

 with the consent of Parliament and securing Parliamentary control over all 

 expenditures, was declared to be the "ancient, common and fundamental 

 law issuing from the first frame and constitution of the kingdom," and it 

 was claimed that as the Provincial Legislature had adopted the laws of 

 England as the rule for decision in all controversies relative to civil rights, 

 that corresponding powers and duties to those inherent in the British Par- 

 liament appertained to the provincial body. 



This clear and forcible presentation of the case produced little if any 

 Immediate effect. The evils complained of were continued despite all 



