A struggle has commenced between the British Ministry and Canada, which, unless conciliatory measures be adopted, and some rash steps be retraced, can terminate only in one way—the separation of that colony, as well as all the other North American colonies, from this country. After the experience the people of Britain had, sixty yean ago, of the issue of the contest between the old American colonies and the mother country, and the more recent example of the Spanish settlements in South America, we think they ought seriously to consider whether they will waste their treasure and their blood in a dispute, in which Yictory will bring neither advantage nor honour, while defeat will be attended with mortification and disgrace. Nor is that defeat likely to be distant or uncertain. The first Congress in the old colonies, on account of the grievances arising from the British government, was held in New York in 1765 and on the 4th of July 1776 the independence of the United States was declared. When that struggle commenced, the inhabitants of the States did not exceed two millions, and they were supposed to be unfit to become soldiers; yet, in a few years, they defeated, in numerous pitched battles, the best troops of Britain, veterans who had distinguished themselves in the Continental war. The grievances of which the Canadians complain are, at least, as great as those of the old colonists. All that the British government attempted with them was to raise taxes within the colonies by the act of the British legislature, for the purpose of defraying the expense incurred in their own defence and no complaints existed—or, at least, were much felt, or loudly expressed as to the administration of their internal governments. In some of the colonies, such as Connecticut and Rhode Island, indeed, the people enjoyed so uncontrolled an independence in the regulation of their local concerns, that the revolution did not render necessary the slightest alteration in the forms of their administration. One of these colonies retains, even to this day, the charter of Charles II., as its system of state government; and another parted with the Royal charter, for a constitution of its own making, only in 1818. At the beginning of the quarrel, as has now been ascertained beyond doubt, the old colonists had not the slightest Intention of separating from Britain; and it was only in the struggle, when the inferiority of regular troops to bands of freemen, fired with a sense of their wrongs and determined to assert their liberty, became apparent, that the hope of creating an independent state—untrammelled by the base and selfish aristocracy which blunts the energies and weakens the resources of European states—arose, and was so triumphantly realized.

Lower Canada is by far the most important of our North American colonies, both as regards population and trade; and whatever course the ruling oligarchy of this country (for both factions, Whig and Tory, seem to make common cause in oppressing her) force Canada to take, will soon be followed by all the rest. In 1832, the population of these colonies was as follows

Lower Canada, 539,822
Upper Canada, 211,567
New Brunswick, 72,943
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, 142,548
Prince Edward’s Island, 32,292
Newfoundland, 60,088

At present, the population, from its rapid increase in new countries, and the number of emigrants who have arrived from Europe, probably approaches a million and a half; so that, if inclined, the North American colonies, assisted as they would be, openly or secretly, by the United States, have at least men enough to afford a most formidable resistance to any force which might be sent against them. That all the colonies will join In an effort to obtain justice for any one of them which may be attacked, admits of little doubt. In Upper Canada deep discontent prevails. The expression of it is, at this moment, obscured by a majority of the Members of the Legislative Assembly favourable to Government, having been gained; but the means taken to secure this majority—the wholesale grants of public lands by the Governor of the Province to the hangers-on of the officials, to qualify them to outvote the real electors—is one of the grossest abuses and most flagrant violations of the Constitution, which even the history of British colonial tyranny affords. Though the inhabitants of Upper Canada are almost exactly of British origin or descent, the Legislative Assembly of 1835, which really represented the opinions of the population, adopted a report prepared by a committee on grievances, by a majority of 25 to 17 and that report denounced the Legislative Council as the source of the evils which afflicted the colony, in terms not less energetic than those used by their neighbours of the Lower Province. The Upper Canada Land Company is equally obnoxious in the one province, as the British American Land Company is in the other. In April 1835, the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada agreed to a resolution, by a majority of 28 to 14, against the Land Company; lamenting the selling, or rather jobbing away, of the Huron Tract, consisting of upwards of a million of acres of the finest land in the world, while the animal instalments of the price were expended by the Provincial Executive, without the consent of Parliament. The Assembly did not hesitate boldly to maintain that the grant to the Company was an absolute nullity, being in direct violation of the 18 Geo. III. and of their Constitutional Act. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward’s Island, continual complaints have been made of the administration of affairs—the jobbing of the revenues in salaries among the officials, and the mismanagement of the public lands, the sales of which ought, as in the United States, to defray, not only the whole expense of the internal government, but also the cost of their external defence, which has all along been a pyt and yearly-increasing burden on this country. If we Jook to the West Indies, we shall find that, in the day of need, troops will rather be required to keep down revolt in these settlements, than assistance obtained to retain in subjection other colonies that may be driven, by mismanagement and oppression, into rebellion; and we may be sure that, if ever a contest with the Canadas arise, we must fight the battle single-handed.

Our space does not permit us to enumerate the many abuses and acts of oppression, of which the inhabitants of Lower Canada complain. They were set forth in a petition, signed by nearly the whole adult male population—by 87,000 persons—and presented to Parliament in 1828; but not one of them bas yet been removed. The government of the Province is conducted by a Governor named by tbe Crown; an Executive Council, in imitation of our Privy Council; a Legislative Council, in mimicry of out House of Lords—both nominated by the Governor; and a Legislative Assembly, elected by nearly universal suffrage—of which seventy-eight are decidedly opposed to the Government, only seven are supporters of it, and three are neutral; the total number being eighty-eight. The Governors of the Province have almost always been soldiers, ignorant of civil affairs, and despising civil institutions, who regard a nation as they do a camp, and consider every act of the most constitutional resistance to their will, or remonstrance against their dictates^ as nothing less than insubordination and mutiny, which must be instantly put down, be the consequences what they may.

The master grievance however, of Lower as well as of most of the other colonies, and which is the root of all the abuses and heart-burnings which exist, that the Legislative Council, the second branch of the Legislature, instead of being elected by the people, is nominated by the Governor of the colony. This body consists almost entirely of persons holding official situations in the colony, and whose chance of promotion, or of obtaining Government patronage for their relations and friends, depends upon their sycophancy. It is admitted by all parties, that the conduct of the Legislative Council, in rejecting bills for education; for securing the judges appointments for life, and not as at present during pleation; and for other beneficial measures has on many occasions been utterly indefensible; and that persons have been nominated as councillors neither qualified for the office nor respectable in private life. It is needless to smart, as Lord Stanley now does, that the demands of the colonists for an elective Legislative Council are exorbitant and unworthy of attention, because the people of this country have not the power of electing the House of Lords. It has yet to be whether the business of the country can be conducted in Britain as matters stand at present, and whether it may not be necessary not merely render the Second Chamber elective and responsible to the people, but to abolish it altogether. The progress of the dirisions of the House of Commons on the question of expelling the Bishops, shews that the necessity of a change to the constitution of our Second Chamber is now felt by men of all classes. But, even though it should be found possible to conduct public affairs with a hereditary and irresponsible House of Peers, it by no means follows that Legislative Councils, of nominees of the Governor, can be tolerated in our colonies. In the discussion which preceded the Canadian Constitutional Act of 1791, Mr Fox urged Mr Pitt to make the Legislative Council elective, and prophesied that, if he did not, the affairs of the colony could not be properly conducted. Mr Stanley, when in the Whig opposition in 1828 and 1829—and his opinion was held by many of the party to which he then attached himself—repeatedly stated, in his place in Parliament, that the Legislative Council was the source of all the abuses of the colony. The Solicitor General of Nova Scotia did not hesitate, in his place in the House of Assembly of that colony, to declare it, as "the result of his anxious deliberation and inquiry, and of much reflection and research, that no legislative council can be formed with advantage to the public, but upon principles of election." In the late debate in the House of Commons, Mr Labouchere frankly expressed his conviction that it was most unfortunate that the Legislative Councel had not been made elective— He firmly believed that many evils had arisen from that course not having been followed. There were two Councils in Lower Canada, constituted on widely different principles. The popular party entrenched themselves in the one, and what he, for shortness only, would call the British party, or the minority, entrenched themselves in the other. What have been the consequences? These two Councils have always been in a state of violent opposition. He thought it was not possible to find a better recipe to perpetuate those dissensions than to perpetuate the constitution of Lower Canada. What would have been the result if an elective council had been established in 1791? After some stragglings, quarrels, and conflicts, the people would hare mutually made concessions; and we should have seen the French and English living on terms of friendship and cordial intercourse with each other, without respect to religion or descent. Let them look at Louisiana. They would see there a state of things very analogous to that of Lower Canada. There was a very large population of French descent, and a small Anglo population. How were they treated? Whether of English or French descent, they were under the protection of equal laws. No one was asked whence he came, or what was his descent; and, though there was a great deal of local separation between the two races, yet, politically, they lived very well together; and there was no state in the Union where things went on more harmouiously than in Louisiana. He was, therefore, upon abstract grounds, not opposed to an elective legislative council in Lower Canada. How any one could contend that it was contrary to the British constitution, and to our colonial system, that there should he an elective couocil in Canada—how any one who had ever read the bistory of onr colonies, could maintain this proposition fo the teeth of the fact, that, in America, more than one half of our colonies actually were governed by elective legislative councils, he could not conceive. Our colonial system had always gone upon the principle, to give to every colony a proper constitution, without troubling ourselves about any dose analogy with the constitution which might be perfectly good for ourselves, at home, but not at all applicable to a colonial society, where there are no materials for an aristocracy, out of which might be made an aristocratic branch of the legislature. One would have thought that such arguments, supported by such authorities would have had some .influence, on. a Reformed House of Commons. But what was tbs result of the division? Why, that 318 voted against, and only 66 for an elective council; and, among the names in the majority, are to be found those of Mr Labouchere, Master of the Minty and of Lord Stanley, who, though at present in the Opposition, as he was in 1828, no longer professes himself in favour of Liberal opinions^ hut joins the Tories—too efficiently supported, on the present occasion, by the Whigs—in trampling under foot the liberties of the people. The Ministry have obtained, by the division, a strong opinion of the House of Commons against the Canadians; but let the colonists appeal, from the decision of the so-called representatives of the three kingdoms, to the good sense of the people, who have now begun to interest themselves in Canadian affairs; and the appeal, we foretell, will not be made in vain. The history of the Catholic Bill, of the Reform Bill, and of numerous other measures, shews that the decision of Parliament is not always according to the opinion of the country, and that, with a still more defective representation than that which we now possess, the public voice can make itself not only heard, but obeyed by both Peers and Commoners.

Another grievance of which the Canadians complain, is the charter to the British American Land Company, by which immense districts of fertile land are conveyed away at an inadequate price. The bill constituting this Company, was smuggled through the House of Commons, by the agency of an honourable Member who has a direct pecuniary interest in the speculation. The Canadians have repeatedly demanded the recall of the charter, and the repeal of the act constituting the company. Lord John Russells sixth resolution, however, declares that the title of the Company shall be maintained inviolate. It is probable, however, that, as matters stand, emigrants will feel some hesitation in purchasing land from the Company, after the opinions which have been expressed in Canada as to the validity of the grant. To render palpable the gross injustice perpetrated by the North or British American Land Company job—for it is nothing else—it is only necessary to explain, that, under the alarm occasioned by the revolt of the old colonies, and, by soothing the Canadians, to keep them in their allegiance, a statute was passed in the year 1778, guaranteeing to all Colonial Assemblies —firstly That no taxes should be imposed by the Imperial Parliament; and second, that the proceeds of all taxes levied in the colonies should be placed under their control. The revenue of Lower Canada amounts to £120,000 a-year—not, certainly, a heavy burden, when contrasted with the taxation under which we labour; but, in proportion to the population, equal to that of many considerable states. But, independently of the amount of taxation, whether great or small, it is a badge of oppressive mismanagement to be taxed in Canada at all. In the adjoining United States of America, the whole amount of the expenditure of the Government for all objects last year, was raised without any tax whatever—that expenditure being twenty-two millions of dollars, and the proceeds of the Bale of the public lands, twenty-four millions of dollars. Besides the revenues 'of the Canadas, their military and naval defence generously defrayed by the people of Great Britain out of their exuberant wealth, exceeds a quarter of a million of pounds sterling yearly-Now, there cannot be a doubt that, were the Canadas either independent, or part of the American Union, they might and would raise the whole funds necessary for their internal government, apd for their military .and naval defence, solely by the sale of land, without levying a single sixpence by taxation! But, at present, this ample source of revenue is jobbed away in the most shameful and barefaced manner; and the miserable pittances in name of price that are received from tha granters, instead of being placed under the control of the Legislative Assembly, is seized by the Executive Council of the Governor, and expended on unconstitutional purposes. In this manner, a robbery of the people of Canada, and a violation of the constitution of the colony, are at one and the same time committed.

The eighth resolution of Lord John Russell is another plain violation of the constitution of the Canadas. It is the duty and the province of the Legislative Assembly not only to raise, but to appropriate the revenues. They have^ therefore, as much tight as the British House of Commons, or any other assembly on earth, to stop the supplies. Accordingly, finding all their remonstrances, representations, and petitions rejected, they at length, in 1832, exercised their undoubted constitutional privilege of stopping the supplies; a measure which the Whig Mr—now the Tory Lord—Stanley, especially recommended in 1829. How hie Lordship can reconcile his conduct, when Colonial Secretary, in 1834, and his speeches in Parliament now, with his letter in 1829, we leave him to explain. In that letter he says, and says truly, “A constitutional mode is open to the people, of addressing for the removal of the advisers of the Crown, (was he then anxious for office?)“ and refusing supplies, if necessary, to support their wishes.99 Mr Stanley perhaps thought that the remedy of stopping the supplies would prove, in Canada, what it has been of late in this country—a fine thing to talk about, a fine threat, but which would never be carried into effect. But the Canadian representatives being returned, not by the aristocratic classes and their dependants, but by the people, under a system of franchise approaching universal suffrage, have not merely stopped the supplies, but to such good effect, that four and a-half years* salary are now due the judges and other officials; the whole amount being £142,180. There happens, however, to be a sum nearly equal In the Canadian treasury, and Lord John Russell means to seise it and pay the salaries; thus setting at nought the undoubted constitutional right of the Legislative Assembly to stop the supplies. It would have been not one whit more unconstitutional, had he ordered the British troops* m the Province, to seize the money; and we suspect that the Canadians will not be able to distinguish any difference between the one proceeding and the other. They are both nothing else than appeals to force. Matters are now, indeed, brought very closely to the state in which they were in the old colonies at the time of their revolt The British Parliament does not, it is true, assert the right their predecessors did to tax the colonies; but they do what is equivalent; and by an overwhelming majority, too: they take upon them to appropriate—that is, to spend the revenues of the Canadians. If taxation without representation was sixty yean ago ultimately admitted by all parties to be nothing else but tyranny, by what term shall we designate the expenditure of the taxes, when collected, without representation?

Matters have come to that pass, that the only true course to be followed with Lower Canada, is for the British government generously and candidly to free it from restraint, and allow its inhabitants to choose the form of government which best pleases them. If we cannot govern them for good, let us not govern them for evil. Let us separate in friendship and in peace, and We shall be rewarded for the mortification such a course may give the pride of some few among us, by the extension of a beneficial commercial intercourse with a country yet in its infancy, and which, with unrestricted freedom in its institutions, will proceed in its career of prosperity with the most rapid strides. In the sixty years which have elapsed since the declaration of American independence, the United States have made greater advances in wealth, population, and civilisation, than in any period of three times the length, when under British control. Their population has increased sevenfold, and their wealth in a still greater degree. The enterprise and energy of their inhabitants are unequalled in the history of the human race; and the benefits derived by Britain from commercial intercourse with their free citizens, has been infinitely greater than they could have been, had our dominion continued undisturbed to this day.

The cry which will no doubt be raised against the pacific and friendly separation of the two countries will no doubt be "The Dismemberment of the Empire." In the ignorance which prevails in this country, of statistics and political matters, a cry is much more efficacious than an argument. Thousands hear the former, while not one In a hundred will listen to the latter. But the truth is, that the cry of “Dismemberment of the Empire” like the "Church in Danger!” No Popery is raised solely by those who wish to maintain the system of corruption and plunder which has so long existed. The colonies have afforded too valuable a means for providing for the Noodles and Doodles of the aristocracy, who were not presentable at homq and for replenishing those purses which had been emptied by profligacy and debauchery, to be given up without a desperate struggle. If they be driven into rebellion so much the better, in the eyes of aristocrats, whether Tories or Whigs. Troops and ships will be required to coerce the Canadian rebels, or at least to make the attempt; and hence there will be an Increased expenditure of public money, and commissions to bestow among the favoured class. The Lord Charleses and the Lord Johns, whose patrimonies have suffered from foals of Stouter coupe, performed by more expert knaves than themselves, will be provided for; and what jproves beneficial to the ruling classes must, of course, be advantageous to the whole community.

To console those who look at the separation of a colony from the mother country, In a mere pecuniary point of view, we have a few remarks to offer. Many entertain the opinion that a colony is to a state what an estate is to a private individual—a source whence an income or revenue is derived. But—with the exception, we believe, of Jamaica, and one or two others—none of the British colonies pays the expense of lie own internal government. The people of this country are at the sole expense of their naval and military defence. This, for the North American colonies and the West Indies, exceeds a million and a half a-year. Under the statute of 1778, no revenue can, under any circumstances, he raised in these colonies for the service of Britain. But then, it will be said, we have the monopoly of their trade, which ii held out ae of great consequence. The truth is, however, that the total imports into Great Britain from all the North American colonies in 1831, amounted only to £1,460,909, and the exports to £3,074,628 in real value, from which one-third must be deducted, to ascertain the real value. In the above year, we imported into the United Kingdom, from Lower and Upper Canada, to the amount of £902,914, and exported £1,922,088, both In official value. Now, let the profit on the Canadian trade be set down ae high ae any one desires— although there is no reason to suppose that it is more valuable even to the merchants engaged in it, than the trade with the United States or other foreign countries— it will he found exceedingly difficult to make it balance the following itemi on the other ride of the sheet Pint, we have, for the naval and military defence ef these colonies, an annual expense of £280,008 or more than ten per cent on the total amount of the exports and imports. Then we have a million expended within a short period on the fortifications of Quebec; a million and a half on canals and other public works, £893,000 of which has been expended on the Rideau Canal, which will be of service only when we are at war with the Americans; for, during peace, the St Lawrence affords a much superior route for shipping. A new project has lately been set on foot, In which our Government have already employed some of the engineers in making surveys. We allude to the railroad from St Andrew’s in the Bay of Fundy to Quebec, by means of which 1200 miles of dangerous navigation in the St Lawrence, and along the coasts at its month wonld be saved. But where is the money to come from, to make a railroad of 260 miles P Nowhere bat from the overtaxed inhabitants of Britain; and a deputation of the colonists is on its way to this country to solicit funds from our Government for the purpose. The Injury we have sustained from the North American colonies by supporting their timber trade is incalculable. By levying a duty on Baltic timber from five to six times higher than on that from our own colonies, we have seriously injured our trade with the whole Baltic. Instead of 1000 British ships at port yearly, the number has sank to 800 or 300; end the trade with Norway and Sweden has almost disappeared. The landlords present our taking com or cattle from the states surrounding the Baltic—the colonists, from taking timber. The interests of these parties mast of course be protected, while that of the public is too general a matter to be at all attended to. As we will not take com and timber, the only things the nations on the Baltic hare to dispose of, they hare it not in their power to take the cottons and other manufactured goods of Britain; and their governments, being irritated by the selfish and exclusive commercial system of Britain, are organising an equally restrictive system for the exclusion of British goods, to which a great part of Germany has already declared its accession, from one knows the very inferior quality of the North American timber, and how liable it is to the dry rot. Since the Custom House required almost to be rebuilt, on account of American timber having been used in its consumption, it is not permitted to be employed in any public edifice. Some yean ago, several frigates were built, under the direction of Sir Robert Seppings, some of them of Baltie, and the others of Canadian fir; and the result was, that while the former lasted eight yean, the latter did not last four. Yet, to encourage the consumption of this bad and dear timber, and to prevent the Importation of cheap and excellent timber from the Baltic, Die people of the United Kingdom are taxed probably a million a-year; while it is exceedingly doubtful if the trade we footer at so great an expense is not injorious to the colonies, by removing industry and capital from the cultivation of the mil, and engaging them in an employment which, from the manner in which it is earned on, is extremely demoralising, and has completely foiled in one of the chief objects for which it was entangled—clearing the soil of trees; not one in ten of the trees being worth the cutting for timber.