Possessing Many Of The External Forms Of A Parliament, They Are
Admirable Political Schools For A Free People.
The most intelligent
men in the different townships are freely elected by the
inhabitants, and assemble in the county
Town to deliberate and make
by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in
their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents.
Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits,
it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be
somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished
prejudices to overcome. Their daily intercourse with the more
educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these
prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their
minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education
is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited
opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express
their views and opinions in appropriate language. These municipal
councillors go home among their constituents, where they have to
explain and defend their proceedings; while so engaged, they have
occasion to communicate facts and opinions, which are fairly
discussed, and thus enlightened views are diffused through the
mass of people.
The councillors, at first, were averse to the imposition or increase
of taxation, however desirable the object might be; but pride and
emulation very soon overcame this natural reluctance; and the
example of some neighbouring county, with that natural desire to do
good, which, more or less, influences the feelings and conduct of
all public men, were not long in producing their beneficial results,
even with the risk of offending their constituents. When the County
Municipal Councils were first established, the warden or president
of the council, and also the treasurer, were appointed by the
governor; but both these offices were afterwards made elective, the
warden being elected by the council from their own body, and the
treasurer being selected by them, without previous election by the
people.
Lately, councils have been also established in each township for
municipal purposes affecting the interest of the township only, the
reeves, or presidents, of which minor councils form the members of
the county council. This general system of municipalities, and a
late act of the provincial parliament, enabling the inhabitants to
form themselves into road companies, have converted the formerly
torpid and inactive townships into busy hives of industry and
progressive improvement.
Our agricultural societies have also played no mean part in
furthering the progress of the colony. In colonies fewer prejudices
are entertained on the subject of agricultural matters than on any
others, and the people are ever ready to try any experiment which
offers any prospect of increased remuneration for labour. Education,
of late, has also made rapid advances in this province; and now, the
yeomanry of the more improved townships, though they may be inferior
to the yeomanry of England in the acquirements derived from common
school education, are certainly far superior to them in general
intelligence. Their minds are better stocked with ideas, and they
are infinitely more progressive. When we consider the relative
periods at which the first settlements were formed in the United
States and in Upper Canada, and the accumulation of capital in the
former, it will not be difficult to show that the progress of Canada
has been much more rapid.
The excavation of the Erie Canal, the parent of all the subsequent
improvements of a similar nature in the United States, opened-up for
settlement a vast country to the westward, which would otherwise for
many years have remained a wilderness, unfit for the habitation of
man. The boundless success of this experiment necessarily led to
all the other similar undertakings. The superior advantages Canada
enjoyed in her river and lake navigation, imperfect as that
navigation was, operated in a manner rather to retard than to
accelerate improvements of this kind; while the construction of
the Erie Canal was a matter of prospective necessity, in order to
provide for a rapidly increasing population and immigration. In the
same manner, the recent completion of the works on the St. Lawrence,
and the enlargement of the Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and
Ontario, will just as necessarily be followed by similar results,
with the additional advantage of the whole colony being greatly
benefitted by the commerce of the United States, in addition to
her own.
We have now, thanks to responsible government, municipal councils,
and common schools, no longer any reason to consider their
institutions better calculated to develope the resources of the
colony, than our own. Our interests are almost identical, and with
our canals and railroads on both sides mutually beneficial, our
former hostility has merged into a friendly rivalry in the march of
intellect, and we may now truly say that, without wishing for any
change in political institutions, which are most congenial to the
feelings of the people where they exist, each country now sincerely
rejoices in the prosperity of its neighbour.
Before concluding this chapter, I shall endeavour to give the reader
a short description of the county of Hastings, in which I have held
the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I
believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over
all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should
premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony
should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative
advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally
intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that
when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give,
what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my
conclusion.
The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to
chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views
and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential
individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course,
involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute
loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country.
The circumstances and situation of the United States were less
productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because
settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the
interior.
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