Government, and the arrangement made to for cypher despatches at the close of their communication, was of itself conclusive proof that no promise had been made. He (Mr. BLAKE) was a member of the Government at that time. Of course he did not know, and had not the slightest idea that such communications were passing, and he contended that they did not bind the Government as it was constituted. The Quebec members of the Cabinet said they were individually well-disposed, but they could make no promise for the Government. The Archbishop on his return to Manitoba, said to his friends that he had reason to believe that the new Government would fulfil the promises of the old. He proved that Mr. DORION had received from him a mass of testimony upon this question, from which he was of opinion that an amnesty had been promised, but he declined to make any promise himself. The new Government, as far as it was bound, was fulfilling the promises of the old Government, made by its First Minister and its acting First Minister, promises on which these people acted, and by which the transfer of the North-West territory was felicitated and tranquilized. He did not believe that the intelligent people of the East or the West would be dissatisfied with this solution of the difficulty. While he regretted that they were obliged to arrive at such a solution; while he did not believe it was in acts of Parliament or acts of grace on the part of HER MAJESTY to wash out the guilt of that great crime; while he did not believe that anything this House could do or say could make that crime one with less than it was, he did believe that the people of this country would be satisfied that enough was said an I done by the Premier of the late Government and his colleagues to render it entirely impossible that any other course could be taken than that proposed by the hon. gentlemen now in power, and if the country came to that conclusion, as he believed they would, they would be satisfied with this proposition. If they did not come to that conclusion; if they believed with the hon. member for North Hastings that nothing had been done to bind the country, they must pay the penalty of their error of judgment. If they believed with the hon. member for Terrebonne that the offenders should be free from all punishment, they had

Hon. Mr. Blake.

Did.

pay the penalty of that. From beginning to end the Government had the satisfaction of knowing, whatever might be the result of their policy, that they had acted upon consistent principle. The hon. member for North Hastings had been pleased to charge them with having for political purposes and for political effect alone, attacked this act as a crime. the hon. gentleman suppose that political effect could not be secured by designating it by some milder term. Did not the hon. gentleman's organs attack him (Mr. BLAKE) for having used different language in the Ontario Legislature and in this House? He was of opinion that this Blue Book (the report of the North-West Committee),. disclosed facts which rendered it quite impossible to execute that justice which he believed should be executed. It had been asserted that the men who denounced in the Ontario Legislature the murder of Scort had made this a question of creed. If it had been made a question of creed, it was the hon. member for North Hastings and the association to which he belonged that must bear the responsibility. He (Mr. BLAKE) had said this before in this House, and he repeated it now. When he (Mr. BLAKE) expressed his views about it, he put it on grounds which applied to all citizens of this country, whether Catholic or Protestant. He appealed for justice for his countryman. He declined to believe then, and he still declined to believe, that his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen would view that crime with any other sentiments than he viewed it. But the hon. member was not as blameworthy as his chief. He did not know the secret history and was shocked himself with the revelations that were made. What did the hon. member for Kingston say at Peterboro' in referring to the reward offered by the Ontario Government? Referring to the murder of SCOTT and the absence of RIEL, a friend in the crowd asked, "Where is RIEL ?" The hon. gentleman replied, "God knows; I wish we could catch him. He is, I believe, in the United States, where he retreated, as Mr. BLAKE says, in consequence of the reward offered by Mr. BLAKE'S Government. Anxious, says he, to vindicate the sacred cause of justice, he issued the proclamation offering that reward, and this murderer is no longer in the country.

To

He no longer pollutes the soil of Canada | opportunity, if he so desires, to plot and by his presence. Well, I always thought plan, in order to destroy the peace and in my simplicity, until I heard this prosperity of that great and growing declaration, that rewards were usually country.' offered to catch a man, and not to cause him to go away." He (Mr. BLAKE) conHe (Mr. BLAKE) confessed that when he, as First Minister of his Province, took the responsibility of offering a reward for the apprehension of the criminal, he did not know that the Minister of Justice at Ottawa, as First Minister of the Dominion had used the public funds for sending him out of harm's way. Had the hon. gentleman's policy been as open as his (Mr. BLAKE's) he would have pursued a different course. If he (Mr. BLAKE) had known that Canada was offering a reward to RIEL to get him beyond the border, it would have been useless for Ontario to| offer a reward to capture him. But the hon. gentleman went a little further in his Peterboro' speech. He said :

"And that is what Mr. BLAKE not only did, but boasts of having done. His proclamation has made RIEL "lave that," and he is now living in peace prosperity and comfort across the border, and like men of his stamp, ready to stir up another row should opportunity offer."

The House would perceive what an accurate knowledge the hon. member had not only of where RIEL was, but also of the condition in which he was at the time. Of course he (Mr. BLAKE) did not know that RIEL was in peace, prosperity and comfort, but the hon. member for Kingston did, knowing how the secret service money was spent, and could speak with positive assurance on the subject.

He would draw the attention of the House to the style in which the hon. member described the act when it was attributed to him (Mr. BLAKE). He said :—

"RIEL is now living in peace, prosperity and comfort across the border, and like men of his stamp, ready to stir up another row should opportunity offer. You must remember that the country is a smouldering volcano, and that the slighest imprudence may cause a hostile war and this man who is now living in security under the American flag may keep up the agitation for his own purposes, and do it free from danger, because we dare not go there and outrage the soil of the United States in order to capture him. He knows he is safe, thanks to Mr. BLAKE, with full Hon. Mr. Blake.

F

That was what the hon. gentleman said
when he asserted that the Ontario Govern-
ment sent RIEL across the border.
night, when the hon. gentleman forgot
all that, he called the act of sending
RIEL out of the country a master stroke
of policy which he would
be quite
willing to repeat. Under such different
circumstances did they find the act des-
cribed. The one was an act in vindica-
tion of public justice; the other was an
act which, if done with the described
intent of inducing this man to return
some other day in order to hang him, was
an act of the basest perfidy. He (Mr.
BLAKE) did not believe that any amount
of argument from the other side, any
attempt to obtain from an amendment a
union of the scattered forces, would alter
the substantial fate of this resolution.
He believed it would be carried by a
decisive majority and that the vote would
be met by the general approbation of the
country at large. For his part he rejoiced
that it had been given to the present Gov-
ernment and to the great Liberal party of
which he was an humble member, to be
able to propound a reasonable and satis-
factory solution upon reasonable and lib-
eral terms, of a difficulty which ought to
be settled, which the late Government did
not dare to grasp, but which the hon.
Premier did dare and for which he was
about to reap the reward of his daring.

Mr. WALLACE (South Norfolk) moved the adjournment of the debate.-Carried. The House adjourned at 3 a. m.

Governor GenerAL, suhmitting the esti- | pondence and papers connected with the mates of expenditure for the year ending appointment of WILLIAM J. MORDEN as 30th June, 1876.

me to transmit, with the request that | Opposition, he contributed largely to these Your Lordship would be pleased to give it your most earnest consideration.

"The purport of the document is to move Your Lordship and the Imperial Government to undertake the settlement of what is known here as the "Amnesty question."

embarrassments, and the wrongs of the hon. gentlemen who now occupied the Treasury benches were rising before them. They were brought face to face with the difficulties they had themselves created. Their former conduct made it impossible for them to do what they believed in their inmost souls to be right. Otherwise they contended, when in Opposition, that was right which they believed to be wrong. On February 2nd, in the Ontario Legislature, the hon. member for South Bruce moved a resolution expressing regret that the murderers of THOMAS SCOTT were allowed to go unwhipt from justice; but the hon. gentleman did not show how the Ontario or Dominion authorities could act in the matter. It was true that SCOTT was a Canadian, but of his own motion he had gone to the North-West Territory, and was no longer a Canadian subject. He was in a territory under the Imperial Government, or under the government of the Hudson's Bay Company. So that the whole of this question was embarassing just surely and solely because of the agitation and actions of the hon. gentlemen who now occupied the Treasury benches. The hon. member for South Bruce said when speaking in this debate

"The reasons for which my Ministers are desirous of seeking Your Lordship's assistance are founded on the fact of the circumstances out of which the " amnesty question" has grown, having occurred at a time anterior to the assumption by Canada of the Government of the North-West. They are further impelled to adopt this course by the obvious embarrassments attending the settlement of a controversy, whose aspects are alleged to have been already modified by the intervention of Imperial authority, and which are so seriously complicated by the vehement international antagonism which they have excited in this country. Under these circumstances my advisers are of opinion that a dispassionate review of the whole question, emanating from so impartial a source as HER MAJESTY'S Government would tend more to tranquilize the public mind, and secure a loyal acquiescence in whatever decision may be arrived at, than would be the case were they themselves to undertake the settlement of the dispute." The House would see by the words "which my Ministers have desired me to transmit," that the Government were responsible for handing over this question to the Imperial Government and the commutation of LEPINE'S sentence. And what were the Government doing now? Were they content to let that settlement of the question remain. It surely could not be possible that the men who clamored for the blood of the murderers when in Opposition were now of the opinion that the punishment of LEPINE was too great! He (Mr. WALLACE) regretted that HIS EXCELLENCY did not see fit to eliminate the clause of loss of political rights, for as long as that disability remained, the question would be brought up in this House, session after session, on motions to have it set aside. Coming to another member of the party in power, the hon. member for South Bruce, who deservedly occupied a prominent position in the Ministerial ranks had he done nothing to surround this ques-rested with the hon. gentlemen opposite. tion with embarrassments? When in The Government recommended and they Mr. Wallace.

ours will be the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted from principle from the beginning to the end." Pharisee like, the hon. member considered himself better than other men. But this was the position hon. gentlemen opposite had always assumed that they had always acted from the purest motives, while their opponents were impure and dishonest in all they did. His (Mr. WALLACE's) experience of life had been but limited, but it had shown him that those who boasted most of their honesty, were generally the most dishonest, just as the man who boasted most of his courage was almost sure to be a coward. The hon. member for South Bruce was always speaking of his honesty but he (Mr. WALLACE) would not impugn his motives. The hon. member for South Wentworth also made a motion in this House on the subject of the SCOTT murder, and that motion showed that the whole responsibility for the embarrassments which surrounded this question