the proceeds of the said clergy reserves as should prevent further legislation with reference to the disposal of them, but this House is nevertheless of opinion that the claims of existing incumbents should be treated in the most liberal manner.”  Baldwin and other Reformers supported this clause, which passed by a majority of two.  The address was finally adopted on a division of forty-six Yeas and twenty-three Nays—­“the minority containing the names of a few Reformers who would not consent to pledge themselves to grant, for the lives of the existing incumbents, the stipends on which they had accepted their charges—­some perhaps having come from other countries to fill them and having possibly thrown up other preferments."[21] The address was duly forwarded to England by Lord Elgin, with a despatch in which he explained at some length the position of the whole question.  In accordance with the principle which guided him throughout his administration of Canadian affairs—­to give full scope to the right of the province to manage its own local concerns—­he advised Lord Grey to repeal the imperial act of 1840 if he wished “to preserve the colony.”  Lord Grey admitted that the question was one exclusively affecting the people of Canada and should be decided by the provincial legislature.  It was the intention of the government, he informed Lord Elgin, to introduce a bill into parliament for this purpose; but action had to be deferred until another year when, as it happened unfortunately for the province, Lord John Russell’s ministry was forced to resign, and was succeeded by a Conservative administration led by the Earl of Derby.

The Canadian government soon ascertained from Sir John Pakington, the new colonial secretary, that the new advisers of Her Majesty were not “inclined to give their consent and support to any arrangement the result of which would too probably be the diversion to other purposes of the only public fund ... which now exists for the support of divine worship and religious instruction in the colony.”  It was also intimated by the secretary of state that the new government was quite ready to entertain a proposal for reconsidering the mode of distributing the proceeds of the sales of the reserves, while not ready to agree to any proposal that might “divert forever from its sacred object the fund arising from that portion of the public lands of Canada which, almost from the period of the British conquest of that province, has been set apart for the religious instruction of the people.”  Hincks, who was at that time in England, at once wrote to Sir John Pakington, in very emphatic terms, that he viewed “with grave apprehension the prospect of collision between Her Majesty’s government and the parliament of Canada, on a question regarding which such strong feelings prevailed among the great mass of the population.”  The people of Canada were convinced that they were “better judges than any parties in England of what measures would best conduce to the peace and welfare of the province.”  As respects the proposal “for reconsidering the mode of distributing the income of the clergy reserves,” Hincks had no hesitation in saying that “it would be received as one for the violation of the most sacred constitutional rights of the people.”