de the nomination of the Crown, and to make
the Legislative Council elective,[AO] with a property qualification of
1000l., thirty members for each province; these latter to be elected
for six years.

With regard to the proposed change in the Legislative Council, I confess
I look upon its supposed advantages--if carried out--with considerable
doubt, inasmuch as the electors being the same as those for the other
Chamber, it will become merely a lower house, elected for a longer
period, and will lose that prestige which might have been obtained by
exacting a higher qualification from the electors. Then, again, I think
the period for which they are elected decidedly too short, being fully
convinced that an increase in duration will usually produce an increase
in the respectability of the candidates offering themselves for
election; an opinion in which I am fully borne out by many of the wisest
heads who assisted in framing the government of the United States, and
who deplored excessively the shortness of the period for which the
senators were elected.[AP] I cannot believe, either, that the removing
the power of nomination entirely from the Crown will prove beneficial to
the colony. Had the experiment been commenced with the Crown resigning
the nomination of one-half of the members, I think it would have been
more prudent, and would have helped to keep alive those feelings of
association with, and loyalty to, the Crown which I am fully certain the
majority of the Canadians deeply feel; a phalanx of senators, removed
from all the sinister influences of the periodical simoons common to all
countries would thus have been retained, and the Governor-General would
have had the power of calling the highest talent and patriotism to his
councils, in those times of political excitement when the passions of
electors are too likely to be enlisted in favour of voluble agitators,
who have neither cash nor character to lose. However, as these questions
are to be decided, as far as this country is concerned, by those who
probably care but little for my opinions, and as the question is not one
likely to interest the general reader, I shall not dilate further upon
it.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote AO: Since my return to England the proposed increase in the
Legislative Assembly has taken place. The Imperial Government has also
empowered the colony to alter the constitution of the Legislative
Council, and to render it elective if they thought pro