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HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

Farpar, 26th April.

| fore instantly withdrew.

EXPIRING LAWS.

Mr. Cranx, chairman of the Committee to report

expiring Laws, reported a3 follows: — |

9 Vict... C. 17. An, Act to prevent the going at large of Swine and Geese at ail Seasons, and of Horses at ce*tain Seasons, in the Streets and Squares of George Pown—will expire at the end of the Session.

10. Viet. C. 8 An Act for the beiter prevention of Smug ling—will expire at the end of the Session.

10 Vict C. 9. An Act for the Eucouragement of Faucation—will expire at the end of the Session.

11 Vict. C.3. An Act to repeal the Laws now in force relating to Emigrants, and te make other provisions in higu thereof-~will expire at the end of the Session.

12 Vict. C. 27. An Act to alter and repeal certain ee of the Emigrant Act—will expire at the end of the

ion. 12 Vict. C. 10, An Act for raising a

eapire Ist, May, 1850.

Revenue—will

COLONIAL REFORM SOCIETY.

Mr. Cours, Chairman of the Committee appointed in tha last Session to correspond with the Society for the Reform of Colonial Government during the Recess, presented Copies of two Letters which have been trans-

mitted,

ANSWER TO iS EXCELLENCY’S SPEECH.

flon. Mr. Pauscca, Chairman of the Committee ap- pointed to prepare the Draft of an Address in answer to His Exceliency’s Speech, reported as follows: To His Evcellency Sir Donald Campbell, Baronel, Lieu- tenant Govern Mar it pLease Your Exce iencr ;

We the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island mm General Assembly convened, respectfully thank Your Excellency for your Speech at the opening of the present Session.

The indispensable necessity of a Revenue and of maintaining unimpaired the Public Credit of the Colony imperatively require us to guard against the present Revenue Act being allowed to expire before a new one ia passed. ’

la proceeding to the consideration of the subject, we fully trust we will have the measure matured by such aa early day as will avert those evils to which Your Excellency has alluded.

We shall be glad to receive at Your Excellency’s earliest convenience such documents a$ relate to the Public Service; and it shall be our duty to co-operate with Your Excellency in all measures tending to pro- mote the welfare of the Colony.”

On the motion of the Mon. Mr. Paxmes, the Address was then referred to a Committee of the whole House.

HOUSE IN COMMITTEE ON THE ADDRESS.

Mr. Cones rose to move an amendment to the re- ported Address. Fle was surprised to think that any gentleman who had heard His Excellency deliver his Speech, and who must have remarked the tone of its delivery, could propose to return thanks to His Excel- lency for such an unfortanate exhibition of his feelings ashe made therein. No man, said the hon. member, ever spoke in 2 more insviting manner to another than His Excellency did to the House of Assembly when he delivered the Speech, to which it was then their duty to teturn an answer, It was true that the language of the Sveech was not, considered in itself, insulting; but the toue of its delivery was most remarkably and decidedly %. Not only the members themselves, but every one present in the Council Chamber, must have been fully seneible of the insult to the Assembly conveyed in His

cellency’s tone and manner, and such 8 were not members of the House must have felt themselves insult- td by the contempt with whieh Lis Excellency took ‘eave to treat the Assembly in their presence. His Ex- sellency should, on all protic occasions, shew himself to be fully impressed with a proper sense of the duty tnd respect which he owes to the People over whom he

been appointed to rule; and, if he were so, he would

Sensible that to insult the Honse of Assembly was ‘0 insult the entire population of the Colony. He (the ton. member) feeling, os he stood before His Excellen- ty, atthe Bar of the Council Chamber, that an insalt

a3 directed arainst him, in his capacity of a member of the House of Assembly, and through him against his tonstituents, instantly became convinced that it wouid Wa voluntary degradation of bimself, in his character

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of a representative of the People, to stand tamely there to be treated with contumely aad scorn ; ani he, there- And, if his exapiple was not followed by nearly the whole House, it was not, he felt coavinced, because they did not fec! as he felt; bat be- cause they had not quite so quickly as himself dcter-

| . . ’ . . > mined in what way to manifest their indignant sense o/

the insult directed against themselves and their const- tuents by His Excellency: TLowever, they’ were now afforded an opportunity to convince His Excellency how justly they appreciated his gratuitous insp't to themselves aud the people at large; ang he (the hon. member) trusted a majority of the House, by declining to thank His Excellency for his Speech, would convince him ofthe value he holds in their estimation, as fixed by the delivery of that Speech, The friends of His Excellency were anxious to excuse his intemperate manner by alleging that sone indulgence was due to him on account of his present ill health; but that he (the hon. member) thought was an insu fiicieut apology ; for, in his opinion, His Excellency’s bodily indisposition ought rather to operate to the calming down of his

angry feelings and to the inclination of all resentment

on account of the past, than otherwise. The hon. member then moved that all after “ May it please Your Excellency,” be strack out, and the following be sub- stituted :

“ We, the House of Assembly, in Parliament conven- ed, tender our acknowledgment of the Speech deliver- ed by Your Excellency at the opening of the present Session.

“Although anxious to proceed with the despatch of the local business, together with the consideration of those important subjects affecting the general interests of the British North American Colonies to which our attention was directed inthe last Session; we regret to have to say that as your Excellency’s Speech con- tains no intimation of your readiness to accede to the ovishes of the House of Assembly in respect to the re- construction of Your xcellency’s Government, as tndi- cated by their vote of want of confidence in the last session, we are reluctantly compelled bya due regard for the responsibility we have incurred to our constitu- ents to adhere to onr resolution of postponing the des- patch of the general business of the Colony and the consideration of the important subjects referred to by Your Exceilercy, until such time as it may be found ex- pedient to comply with the wishes of Her Majesty’s subjects in this Colony in respect to the question of Resposible Government.

‘- The expiry of the Revenue Act on Wednesday nex: is 2 circumstance of which we are fully cognizant. As Your Excellency assented toa Civil List Bill at the close of the last session, we feel it to be our duty to provide for the payment of the salaries end allowance therein mentioned en the Bill conring into operation ; and, with this view, we are disposed to pass a Revenue Bill under certain conditions and restrictions.

“We beg to assure Your Excellency that we shal: cheerfully receive any documents relating to the Public Service which you may be pleased to lay before us; and we desire to add that it would be a source of ex- treme satisfaction to us could we consistently avail our- selves of Your Excellency’s assurance tu co-operate with us in all measures tending to promote the welfare of the Colony.” .

M> Corrs then observed, with respect to the con- cluding expression in His Excellency’s Speech, “I shall be happy to co-operate with you in all measures tend- ing to promote the welfare of the Colony,” that he was afraid His Excellency was more’ realy to express his willingness to co-operate with the Representatives of the people by words, than to manifest it by actions. If his expression of readiness to co-operate with them were real, he would have complied with their wishes in the last Session, and have reconstructed his Council : but that he failed to do, even after he had expressed himself perfectly satisfied with all the arrangements made in anticipation of a change of Government by the gentlemen in communication with nim on behalf of the majority of the House; and not content with ma nifest- ing his disregard for their wishes, touching the estab- lishment of a new Government. he even, afterwards, went so far as to misrepresent facts in the Speech by which he prorocusd the Legisiature. In that Speech His Excellency said that, had the Assembly, instead of prematurely calling upon him to change the whole of the Executive Council. complied with the preliminary conditions —meaning the making of a provision for the Attorney General, the Colonial Secretary and Registrar of Deeds, and the Treasurer, by granting to each of them a retiring allowance of £200 per annum—he would then have been enabled to recommend to Hor

| Majesty’s Government that he should be authorized to

tuke the necessary steps for the introduction of the sys tem of Responsible Government into this Island. Now the fact was that His Excellency had stipulated. for a provision for only two. of these officials—the Colonial Secretary and the Tfeasurer-—and that a provision was made for them by proposing to. appoint each of them to a public office with a salary of £200 a year; and that, moreover, His Excellency expressed his entire satisfac- tion with it. Bat, concluded the honorable member, taking everything into. coasideration, it does not appear tome that His Excellency either intends or wishes to do business with the Hotse by means of any co-opera- tion with them on his part; but that he rather wishes te force them into the adoption of some measure 80 ex- treme, that it may afford him something like a plausible pretext for representing them to the Imperial Govern ment as a body of men with whom it is altogether im- possible to do business in a rational and constitutional way, guslen Hon. Mr. Patmer did not conceive that there was any thing, either in His Excellency’s Speech, or the mode of its delivery which could justly, or with an ur prejudiced spirit, be deemed insulting, The offence which had been taken, causelessly as he thought, wes extracted from one single short sentence, that wherein His Excellency said, “It was evident that withouta Revenue Act this Island must suffer heavy loss and in- jury, and ss it is in your pov er to avert these evils, | hope you will do so.” ‘The sentence was in itself, a plain and simple one, and what it distinctly asserted no one could deny. It was certainly the most important sentence in the Speech, because it directly stated the parpose for which the House had been convened, and the effeet which His Excellency had justly expected to result from it. From the words themeelves, it was impossible for the most twisting ingenuity to derive any thing ‘on which to rest cause of complaint. Being, as he had already said, the most important sentence of the Speech, it was very natural that His Excellency, in his delivery of it, shoufd particularly emphasize it,‘by laying greater stress upon it than upon any other portion of his Speech; but that that stress was of so peculiar a character a3 to convey insult to those to whom it was addressed he coyld not admit. The observations on that head made by that gentleman who had just sat dowa were quite unealied for. ‘There was no ground for accusing His Excellency of having insulted the House; but it wes very clear to him (Hon. Mr. P.) and he should think to a!l who were present in the Council Chamber on the occasion in question, that an insult to His Excellency had proceeded from the House, not certainly from the House as a body, but from one member of it, the gen- t'eman who had just:at down; who, in suddenly turning his back upon flis Excellency winist he was proceeding with the delivery of his Speech, and rudely anc iastily withdrawing from his presence, most grossly and an- warrantably insulted him. No one influenced by the feelings, or at all instructed in tive behaviour, of a gen- tleman would or cou! 1 have acted in so indecorons and boorish a manner as the hon, member put in practice tn withdrawing from the presence of the Representative of Her Majesty. He (Hon. Mr. P.) had, however, been happy to observe that, although the hon. member, in breaking away in the manner described had endeavour- ed to drag others along with him, they had had the good sense to resist his efforts if any thing they fancied ereat- ed internally momentary disrespect towards His Excel- lency, they appeared to know, at least, what was out- wardly due to him on the occasion, and would not consent to degrade themselves by a glaring violation of the de- corum and ceremony which gentlemen, por alf avch occasions, feel themselves bound to observe. The

‘rudeness and want of breeding manifested by the hon.

member towards His Excellency, covid not, be felt cer- tuin, be parallelied by any similar instance in all the records either of ‘he British Parliament or of Colonial Assemblies. [t, in fact. amounted to scarcely airy thing lese than personal outrage ~ His Fxeellency ; for even fad the hon. member taken a paper out of his het, and thrown it inthe face of His Excellency, the amount of nsuit would not have been much greater. "fy con- tinued the hen. and iearned gemlemen wé do not, on public occasions, regulate our conduct ard demeanour towards the Representative of Her Majesty according to the code of ceremonial courtesy and respect, always observed and cartied inte practice by pablie bedies anch as the Assembly, towards those who oecupy the | ighest stations of authority overe people, we shell cer- tainly most deservely think in the estimation not only of the people of Great Britain, but #!so in that of the peo- ple of the neighbouring Provinces, with whom assured-

ly, hovrever far we may, from unavoidable and uneon