Oldal 71 [71]
OCR
“ you represent all the advantages which the Municipal Act is intended and expected to afford, I cannot doubt, and great as these advantages may be, extending as they must the blessings of civil and religious liberty, with peace, confidence and contentment throughout the land. It is only by a faithful performance of your duty in carrying out in their true sense and spirit the provisions of the law that any of these important blessings need be looked for. If the people of this part of the Province have at any time had reason to complain of the manner in which the magistracy disbursed the District revenue, you have now an opportunity of improving the former system and of removing all real cause of dissatisfaction on that head. The extensive scope of the statute which called this Council into existence, and the powers with which you are clothed in promoting education, by another act of the same session, will give you ample opportunity to suggest and mature measures for the amelioration of the condition of your fellow subjects. If, under the authority of these laws, conferring privileges and powers greater than ever were possessed by British colonists before, we fail to realize the expectations of the people and the hopes of a benign government, which has embraced, with parental solicitude, every opportunity to protect and cherish us, the fault must lie with ourselves ; and a remedy for the evils which have of late years afflicted this once happy people, can alone be looked for, under the Divine blessing, in the good example which you and other persons in authority set before them, and in your endeavors to frame such wise and wholesome by-laws as may ensure to all classes of the community the benefits of a sound moral and religious education. . Besides numerous other duties which will devolve on the Council in the cause of your deliberations, the more special power entrusted to you by the Statute will be understood by consulting the 39th Section of it; and this gives me the opportunity of adverting to the groundless fears of many individuals respecting your authority to levy assessments for the various objects specified in that clause. Any alarm that may have been felt that you would impose oppressive burthens on the inhabitants must upon a moments reflection, appear to be needless. For what motive could induce you to injure those whose prosperity and welfare, as well as your own, you are sent here to promote? And, if it is their Present be made than the existing laws direct, no b, rf | some public improvement by. local assessment, you will as readily comply with their request. The corrective, could you be supposed capable of enacting by-laws injurious to the true interests of the county, is possessed by the people themselves, to the fullest extent, for in such circumstances, they would undoubtedly resort with promptitude to their annual constitutional check upon the municipal council. Should it appear to you expedient to continue the ancient method of performing statute labor on the highways, rather than direct a rate of commutation to be paid in money, permitted, as you are, by the Statute to adopt either mode, Iam persuaded you will not think of any important alteration in a matter in which every one has a direct personal interest, without first ascertaining the opinion of your constituents, so that their concern in that respect need no longer exist. It ought not to create wonder that the provisions of the Act in question, as well as those of other Statutes lately passed, should be but imperfectly understood, and that in the discussion of the various requirements and duties which they enjoin, misapprehension has existed. A wise discretion on your part, in carrying those laws into operation will soon quiet the fears of the misinformed, and command the support and approbation of every well-wisher of his country ; and I take this opportunity to assure you that as long as I have the honor to hold the office of Warden of this District, I shall not cease to exert every faculty of my mind in assisting you to discharge those high obligations to your country which devolve upon you, and which, if zealously and prudently performed, will not only redound to your own honor, but will confer lasting happiness on the whole body of the people. The first proceeding to which you are directed by the Statute is the nomination of three fit and proper persons to be submitted to His Excellency the Governor-General, one of whom will be appointed District Clerk. It is therefore important that you name persons who are well qualified by respectability of character, intelligence, industrious habits, and suitable education ; for without the aid of such an individual as Clerk of this Council, the public business cannot be satisfactorily carried on. of the Common School Act, with the view of dividing the several townships into convenient school districts and of taking such steps as you may deem advisable to secure to the inhabitants of the District generally a due proportion of the funds provided by the Legislature for the encouragement of education. This subiect, of all others, is important to the well
