what the law is upon any given point, and the question whether it may be expedient or not to repeal or amend it, are questions manifestly of different import; and although the right determination of the latter requires a preliminary, full and accurate knowledge of the subject of the former, yet the converse of this proposition is not true. We must know what the law is before we can attempt to alter it; but the knowledge of what the law ought to be, does not in the slightest degree aid us in the enquiry into the fact of its existence. The one is theoretical and tentative; the other is historical, and appertains to the conduct of life and just practice. It might appear hardly necessary to state distinctions so obvious as these. But it is from confounding these two classes of questions that much obscurity has been thrown over the enquiry into the 14th of the King, which has so long been made a stalking horse to agitate the public mind.

The next head of enquiry is, whether the 14th of the King was repealed by the Constitutional Act in whole or in part.

It is not pretended that the 31st of the King contains any express words of repeal. If a repeat then has been effected,

power to levy them must also be held to have been abrogated, and it would follow that all that has been collected since 1778, must, in such case, have been unlawfully taken; but the Legislative Council have uniformly held, that it is legally beyond the power of the Provincial Legislature to alter or apply these duties by any vote of theirs, nor can they be touched but by the same authority that imposed them; they have always proceeded upon that principle!

A further argument in confirmation of this principle is derived from s grant of £5000 sterling a year, having been permanently appropriated by the Provincial Act, 35th Geo. III. c. 9, towards further defraying the er pences of the administration of justice, and of the support of the Civil Gonernment in this Province. The terms of this Provincial Act furnish additional proof of the continued and present existence of the revenue and appropriation under the 14th Geo. III. and of the propriety of the construction for which the Legislative Council contend, since the Provincial Act uses the very words of the appropriation contained in the other and designates the grant as a further appropriation, or in addition to that made by the British Statute, for there was no other Provincial Act at that period for raising and applying revenue for these purposes, to which the further grant could be taken to refer.

Appendix to Journals of Legislative Council of 1827-8-9.

it must have been by necessary implication. In other words, because the provisos of the two statutes are so inconsistent, that they cannot, by any means, be made to stand together. -No such contradiction can be seen to exist between these two statutes, nor indeed any contradiction at all. It is notorious as a matter of fact, that they have stood together, and been acted upon from the time of the passing of the former statute down to this day. But it may be said that the general spirit of the Constitutional Act is contrary to the 14th of the King, and the general appropriation it contains. And this idea seems to be at the bottom of the vague and declamatory observations and resolutions of the individuals who have hazarded the assertion, that there is no subsisting appropriation of those monies. It would be easy to shew how little entitled to weight these notions are; the Constitutional Act has anticipated and determined this point in the 33d clause of that statute in these words :—

"And be it further enacted, That all laws, statutes and ordinances which shall be in force on the day to be fixed in the manner hereinafter directed for the commencement of this Act, within the said Provinces, or either of them, or in any part thereof respectively, shall remain and continue to be of the same force, authority and effect, in each of the said Provinces respectively, as if this act had not been made, and as if the said Province of Quebec had not been divided, except in so far as the same are expressly repealed or varied by this act, or in so far as the same shall or may be hereafter, by virtue of and under the authority of this act, be repealed or varied by his Majesty, his heirs or successors, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Councils and Assemblies of the said Provinces respectively, or in so far as the same may be repealed or varied by such temporary laws or ordinances as may be made in the manner hereinafter specified."

Here then the 14th of the King (being one of those contained in the above general words) forms an integral part of the constitution, as settled by that statute, or a condition accompanying the grant of the constitution. Thus we see that the 14th of the King is a part of the subsisting law of Cana

da, and as such like every other law binding upon the three branches of the Legislature, in common with the rest of the King's subjects, until it shall be by competent authority repealed.

199

No. XX.

FINANCES.

THE SUBJECT RESUMED.

Statutes of the 14th and 18th of the King.

Although much has been spoken and written respecting the conduct of the Finances of this Province, there has been much more of declamation, on the one side and on the other, than of sober reason; yet, in any inquiry into a subject like this, facts are to be ascertained with the most minute accuracy, and there seems little room for the exaggeration of passion or the ebullition of party feeling. The controversies on this head may be considered as having their date from 1818. It is necessary for us, however, to cast a rapid glance over the financial affairs of the colony, from the period of the passing of the 14th of the King, which statute formed the subject of our last paper, down to the year 1818. We shall resume the subject at this last period, and bring our enquiry down to the present day.

It is to be observed, then, that in the whole of this tract of time, this colony has been treated with unexampled liberality by the parent state; and this will be fully seen upon instituting a comparison between the conduct of other European States to their colonies, and of Great Britain herself towards her old colonies, and the conduct which has been pursued by her towards ourselves.

The Spanish and Portuguese settlements, after paying all

their internal expences, afforded a large revenue to the crown. The administration of the French islands was all provided for by taxes in the colonies; which, without falling heavy on the planters, left a considerable free revenue; and the duties levied upon imported produce, (and altogether founded on the colonial monopoly) yielded a great balance, after defraying all the expences of collection. The whole expences of their American colonies in the time of peace did not exceed the revenue; and a great part of the colonial surplus was expended in public works of mere ornament or magnificence. The Exchequer of Great Britain, after paying out of the colonial fund all that part of the civil administration in the West Indies, which the colonies themselves are not obliged to pay directly, derives a considerable clear income; and part of the expences of the army are also defrayed by the islands. Those settlements are, many of them, in their infancy-all of them susceptible of great improvement and likely, without any increase of expence to Great Britain, to afford her an addi tional revenue. They have already raised and paid a large force, from the great bulk of the population, the negroes; and in no part of the empire does the militia fall so generally upon the subjects, at so little expense to Government; every man fit to bear arms is attached to that body; and even in times of actual service, no pay whatever is received. The settlements both of England and Holland, in the East Indies, subject to the government of exclusive companies, cost nothing to the mother country, either for the civil or military supplies. On the contrary, those companies pay a premium from time to time for the renewal of their exclusive charters; this is, strictly speaking, a clear revenue to the state. The same remark extends to the Dutch colonies in the West Indies and South America.

The old colonies of North America, besides defraying the whole expenses of their internal administration, were enabled, from their situation, to render very active assistance to the mother country, upon several occasions not peculiarly inter