THE COLONIST. NELSON, FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1858.

Colonist, Issue 73, 2 July 1858, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1858.

" As truth is truth, And, told by halves, may, from a. simple thing By misconstruction to a monster grow, I'll tell the whole truth." .

Sheridan Knowle9,

"The wisdom of our ancestors/Mike estates en-

tailed for tlje good of posterity, is sometimes valuable enough, but more frequently it is either very wild, rough, and unprofitable, or considerably encumbered. The few amongst us who may be able to glory in a known remote ancestry have really little of which to boast respecting the same, unless it be a wisdom consisting., chiefly in the weight of their swords, or the miry ways and byways of the woods and chases which they acquired, mostly by those means that their passions substituted for hongsty and honor. In fact our ancestors happen to be everybody's ancestors; and everybody, happening to come from somebody—we are are all of course proud of the wisdom and valor of somebody—such as doubtless created our charters, laws, and institutions!-,Could ; we learn all the' emendations received by these, in the evolution of time, and unlearn all the notions ascribed to antiquity, but which have been produced amongst the improvements of comparatively recent circumstances, we should smile to see that the sapience of our forefathers, dear reverend old savages as they were, was. something made unnaturally bulky' by stiff armor, or was a shaggy and an halfdraped manliness consisting principally, as seen embellishing our older churches, of such angular and rigid outline as to need some word under it, to intimate that it was neither a satyr nor a monster. If the " wisdom of our ancestors" could rise from the dead, " bearded like a pard," with all its venerable adornments along with it, our pretty girls would neither embrace nor reverence it; and if it took a womanly shape, our most pretty boys would take to their heels lest it should make a supper of them. A nicer examination, however, will quickly convince the curious in such matters^ that the intelligence of our remoter grandsires was in proper verity,-not their own, except by direct appropriation, —like some of their parks and villages, with all they contained,—or, like certain feoffments which modern genius seems to enjoy in ancient writings; it was, in plain reality, the mental property of the worthy monks, priests, Qr clerks, who did in those days the more weighty parts of the thinking, as they did all the wnting, and all the law—saving the heavier part of the fighting connected with "that same.". So that "the wisdom of our ancestors" was that of our bachelor uncles who covered it with cowl, cap, or mitre, as it might enable them. Sooth to say, this marvellous gift of "our ancestors" was tha* which, whilst it built stupendous minsters and monasteries, schools and colleges, and prompted bloody barons to erect almshouses, and asylums of mercy, had to direct, moderate, #nd restrain, as it was able, our barbarous kindred, whom it barely reconciled to that very wisdom which we so often extol, —a wisdom, in most cases, of the poor child-. less clerics whom it is so much the fashipn to forget and despise. *In speaking of "^ancient "wis-" dom, such is the force of education, or rather of the false instruction to which custom has consigned us, we are too prone, in obedience to a short-sighted prejudice, to ascribe it to any but its legitimate owners; —but it seems " possession is nine parts of the-law." Still right is right; and what we have written is now mostly admitted by every candid scholar. Well know, "the wisdom of our ancestors," along with old parish tombs, ruins and ruinous titles, transmitted to us many things that have been amazingly transformed. Take, for instance, the modern Houses of Parliament. The' style thereof is after the taste and skill of our good old sires; but it is lighted and warmed in accordance with present notions of comfort and effect, ease and luxury. These latter are our own; the ideas of magnificence are of older date. Our baronial sires, if any amongst us vaunt of such^ built similar, piles with shaft, arch, aisle, and tower, and a thousand fretted fancies to grace them; and stately unlettered lords and learned prelates, and now and then knightly gentlemen, and by-and-by burgesses, either under the same roof, or in proximity, were collected by invitation, command, or as temporary representatives under especial protection. In such' assemblies there was a free use of precedent and custom, a sprinkling of accident, occasional irregularity, a spice of favoritism, the privilege of patronage, but abundance of quiet, mighty clerical address methodising and guidingthe whole, with as small a display of officialty as might be. Pretty much in v this manner, at the bidding of public necessity, rather than from any legislative prescience, did the "wisdom of our ancestors" influence the realm of Britain. It was no fine and. noble theory, rising from one or two master-spirits, like that in the conceptions of Socrates and Plato, to illumine and lead onward mankind.; but it was the philosophy of contingencies,—"the creature of circumstances." It was the offspring of the various conflicting-interests of J;he king, the, nearly-independentiloyds and. their, greater feudatories, and of such merchants and freed-men as the times afforded. The art of royal rule consisted in forming and maintaining amongst these a balance of power, not much unlike that which now regulates more extensively European affairs; it was government adjusting its movements according to a system of checks, or counterpoising engagements, promotive of general welfare. At length it arose in tw,o distinct corporations, with one legislative aim; the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The former represented the landed interests ; the latter, of a more popular character, .belonged more directly to the people, particularly the larger towns.. • But what we desire more immediately to suggest is that, whilst it was all very well for " the wisdom of our ancestors" tq form two large corporations for legislation, as, for mutual protection in dark, troublous times, Freemasons, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, and the like,' confederated in classes, for given purposes, —it is quite unnecessary now to perpetuate what time has rendered obsolete, as to any. practical utility. When the Lords was constitutedj as one of the great corporations or estates of the realm, the Barons had power of life and death, and bought, sold, or gave away, men and women in parishes or villages, then their interest affected myriads of human beings; slaves or'serfs at their command; but this great interest is now

defunct; and the lords have now no higher interests in the land than the shipowner in. his ships, the manufacturer in his mills, the brewer in his barrels, or the tailor and dressmaker in their respective useful or elegant articles of ;dress. It would be as wise to privilege fishmongers, as such, to represent barrels of oysters that do exist, as to have proud Earls to represent their counties, —men, their bonafide property,—marketable men, —when theee ancient vassals or saleable villains no longer exist. The necessity of a House of Lords was founded in serfdom. This House may be modernized to suit a liberal age; but to create the like or anything in imitation of it in new and free countries is absurd. It is not like "the wisdom of our ancestors;" they, poor fellows, had no liberty like ours, when prelates and lords formed the Lords' Guild. Why should we pretend to their wisdom'in forming institutions to ape theirs, when necessities like theirs, originating as they did in slavery, have no placeamongst us?

. In the United States, that many-hued and mocking phantasm of liberty, there, seems to have been from the first, and ihere'still lingers there, a disposition to mimic aristocracy. But there, as in Greece and Rome of yore,-—to whom classical teaching so insensibly conducts minds under an antiquated process of tuition,—yes, there are vast states with slavery and all. the class feelings and biases to which they give birth. With them, in name or reality, as in all other countries similarly circumstanced, a House of Lords or some substitute for it; may. obtrude^itsjclominancy on the entire confederation ; and long as;slavery?exists, the Upper House of Legislation,'no less -than"- a Central Congress, must it would seem, dictate to the whole Union. But a body of men in imitation of an Tipper Chamber, another term for lords, is an, anomaly amidst equal rights, equal laws, and common institutions., The sooner all the Colonies of Great Britain forswear-the vain absurdity, the safer and the better for both common sense and common fairness. If the Upper House, colonially J speaking, were to consist of a general committee, elected by the several Councils to represent the people through themselves, their provincial organs, then probably the highest merit would be selected to express the views each local body; or were each representative to be sent by the whole of a province, as is a superintendent, and. not by this or that town or district, then more equal chances of fair representation in a General and Central Assembly might result; but appointeeship, and local partialities, or feebleness, as now acting over us, are incongruities, utterly alien to cheap, equitable and satisfactory Government. The plan adopted in Norway of the general constituency selecting from themselves a body of electors, and these again choosing from themselves the flower of the people as representatives, works with admirable wisdom and economy. A similar method of election has prevailed. amongst the Chinese in1 all sorts of literary elections', and' is tlie. paremV of merit and officialty there, and even, of all nobility itseif; for amongst tlie celestials with all their foibles, they know that merit, public worth as they esteem it, has fairly offered itself to their choice, and has been chosen for every post of honor and trust by themselves, or those whom they choose to select for the- most deserving. Were affairs conducted in this way, in our colonies, it would save the public immensely, and give the palm mostly to the most meritorious. If our Legislative Assemblies are, to bear resemblance to the House of Peers, let them be elected, as we elect our Speakers, .or as the peers oM|bland and elect representatives^ by, j^enj#h'o,; being already constituted the guardians;of provincial interests, depute from their own body 1 those who are most likely to expound and enforce the local regulations which have been framed directly under their own eyes. Well do we know most of the hundred arguments to be adduced in favor of two legislative chambers, but we feel more and more confident from long habits of observation, in connection with various associations of an improving tendency, no less than the working of legislative authorities, that carefully-appointed committees of revision to perfect as far as possible state measures, before their final consummation, can answer all the ends of a superior chamber, and are infinitely more simple, inexpensive, and efficient. One properly furnished Hall of convenient general Legislation is. far better than a score of Council rooms, with their petty and costly local factions.