without stint or limit, till pulled up
    short by a judgment of the Supreme Court.  With us factions in the
    colonies are clamorous and violent, with the hope of producing effect
    on the Imperial Parliament and Government, just in proportion to their
    powerlessness at home.  The history of Canada during the past year
    furnishes ample evidence of this truth.  Why was there so much violence
    on the part of the opposition here last summer, particularly against
    the Governor-General?  Because it felt itself to be weak in the
    province, and looked for success to the effect it could produce in
    England alone.

And how is this tendency to bring the Imperial and Local Parliaments into antagonism, a tendency so dangerous to the permanence of our system, to be counteracted?  By one expedient as it appears to me only; namely, by the Governor’s acting with some assumption of responsibility, so that the shafts of the enemy, which are intended for the Imperial Government, may fall on him.  If a line of demarcation between the questions with which the Local Parliaments can deal and those which are reserved for the Imperial authority could be drawn, (as was recommended last session by the Radicals), it might be different; but, as it is, I see nothing for it but that the Governors should be responsible for the share which the Imperial Government may have in the policy carried out in the responsible-government colonies, with the liability to be recalled and disavowed whenever the Imperial authorities think it expedient to repudiate such policy.

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    To the Duke of Newcastle.

    Quebec:  February 18, 1853.

[Sidenote:  Distribution of honours.]

Now that the bonds formed by commercial protection and the disposal of local offices are severed, it is very desirable that the prerogative of the Crown, as the fountain of honour, should be employed, in so far as this can properly be done, as a means of attaching the outlying parts of the empire to the throne.  Of the soundness of this proposition as a general principle no doubt can, I presume, be entertained.  It is not, indeed, always easy to apply it in these communities, where fortunes are precarious, the social system so much based on equality, and public services so generally mixed up with party conflicts.  But it should never, in my opinion, be lost sight of, and advantage should be taken of all favourable opportunities to act upon it.

There are two principles which ought, I think, as a general rule to be attended to in the distribution of Imperial honours among colonists.  Firstly, they should appear to emanate directly from the Crown, on the advice, if you will, of the Governors and Imperial Ministers, but not on the recommendation of the local executives.  And, secondly, they should be conferred, as much as possible, on the eminent persons who are no longer actively engaged in political life.  If these principles be neglected, such distinctions will, I fear, soon lose their value.

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