Majesty. I believe that while England has no desire to lose her colonies, but wishes to retain them; while I am satisfied that the public mind of England would deeply regret the loss of these Provinces yet, if the people of British North 'America, after full deliberation, had stated that they considered it was for their interest, for the advantage of the future British North America, to sever the tie, such is the generosity of the people of England that, whatever their desire to keep these colonies, they would not seek to compel us to remain unwilling subjects of the British Crown. If, therefore, at the conference, we had arrived at the conclusion that it was for the interest of these Provinces that a severance should take place, I am sure that her Majesty and the imperial Parliament would have sanctioned that severance. We accordingly felt that there was a propriety in giving a distinct declaration of opinion on that point, and that in framing the constitution its first sentence should declare that "The executive authority or government shall be vested in the sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and be administered according to the well-understood principles of the British constitution, by the sovereign personally, or by the representative of the sovereign 'duly authorized." That resolution met with the unanimous assent of the conference. The desire to remain connected with Great Britain and to retain our allegiance to her Majesty was unanimous. Not a single suggestion was made that it could by any possibility be for the interest of the colonies, or of any section or portion of them, that there should be a severance of our connection. Although we knew it to be possible that Canada, from her position, might be exposed to all the horrors of war by reason of causes of hostility arising between Great Britain and the United States, causes over which we had no control and which we had no hand in bringing about, yet there was a unanimous feeling of willingness to run all the hazards of war, if war must come, rather than lose the connection between the mother country and these colonies. We provide that "the executive authority shall be administered by the sovereign personally, or by the representative of the sovereign duly authorized." It is too much to expect that the queen should vouchsafe us her personal governance or presence except to pay us as the heir-apparent to the throne, our future sovereign, has already paid us the graceful compliment of a visit. The executive authority must therefore be administered by her Majesty's representative. We place no restriction on her Majesty's prerogative in the selection of her representative. As it is now, so it will be if this constitution is adopted. The sovereign has unrestricted freedom of choice. Whether in making her selection, she may send us one of her own family, a royal prince, as a viceroy to rule over us, or one of the great statesmen of England to represent her, we know not. We leave that to her Majesty in all confidence. But we may be permitted to hope that when the union takes place, and we become the great country which British North America is certain to be, it will be an object worthy the ambition of the statesmen of England to be charged with presiding over our 'destinies. 7512 FROM SPEECH ON CANADIAN FISHERIES DELIVERED MAY 5, 1872 O come to the various subjects which interest Canada T° more particularly. I will address myself to them in detail, and first I will consider the question of most importance to us, the one on which we are now specially asked to legislate, that which interests Canada as a whole most particularly, and which interests the Maritime Provinces especially, I mean the articles of the treaty with respect to our fishery rights. I would in the first place say that the protocols which accompany the treaty, and which are in the hands of every member, do not give chronologically an every-day account of the transactions of the conference, although as a general rule I believe, the protocols of such conferences are kept from day to day; but it was thought better to depart from the rule on this occasion, and only to record the conclusions arrived Therefore, while the protocols substantially contain the result of the negotiations ended in the treaty, they must not be looked upon as chronological details of facts and incidents as they occurred. at. I say so because the protocol which relates more especially to the fisheries would lead one to suppose that at the first meeting and without previous discussion the British commissioners stated "that they were prepared to discuss the question of the fisheries, either in detail or generally, so as either to enter into an examination of the respective rights of the two countries under the treaty of 1818 and the general law of |