CO885-(11-13) — Page 94

1266.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

MC.O. 885

BE REPRODUCID

11 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERPESSION OF THE

1

No. 792.

(CANADA.).

LAW OFFICHES to WAR OFFICE.

FURTHER CABR.

1. Sinon, the opinion of the Law Offlours was taken the following, address, relating only to Canada, has been presented to the ɑrown by the House of Commons :—

1st. Resolved: that an humble. Address, be presented to Her Majesty that she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, returns of all small: arms, ordnance, projectiles, ammunition, accoutrementa, and all other stores handed over to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, in free gift,, within three years of the date on which the regular forces were withdrawn from the upper provinces of the Dominion, and in- cluding, the year in which the forces were so withdrawn, with an approxi- mate statement of the valus of the different kinds of stores: (2.) Of all other stores transferred on payment to the Government of the Dominion, with an approximate statement of their actual valua, and a statement of the amount paid to the Government for their stores: (3.) Descriptive statement of all forts and of all other military and other publio buildings transferred to the Government of the Dominion without payment: (4.) And statement of the forts and buildings handed over on payment, with an approximate valuation, as near as can be prepared, of all the forts, build- ings, &c., handed over.

House of Commons, Wednesday, May 1, 1872.

2. The return has not been presented to Parliament, but the results (numbering each paragraph for convenience) are as follows :-

1st. The value of the stores handed over to the Government of Canada in free gift

amounts to (say) 79,0001.

2nd. The value of all other stores transferred, on sale, amounts to 89,000%., of which

sum 50,0001. has been paid to the Imperial Exchequer.

3rd. The descriptive statement of the forts transferred to Canada without payment

has been prepared, and their value amounts to (say) 698,8801.

4th. No forts, &c., have been handed over on payment.

3. The general question whether the Crown alone, without the express sanction of the Imperial Legislature, can, and, if so, should dispose of this property in the manner contemplated by these arrangements becomes important. Nor is it less difficult to determine the question rightly from the objections made on the part of the Colonial Office to Imperial legislation on political grounds. (See Memorandum sent here- with.)

4. Up to the time antecedent to the transfer (if such it can be called) the works and stores had been in custody of Imperial officers, and held as Imperial treasure. These legal custodians were, as a consequence, only amenable to the orders of the Crown, as represented by Ministers responsible to Parliament, and financially account- able to the Imperial Treasury.

...

5. It may, therefore, be argued that abandonment of this control by the withdrawal of these custodians is in effect an unconditional surrender of the public treasure to the Colony, because, to cite the authority of the Colonial Office, "the Home Govern- ment has no control over any publio officer except the Governor." Now, as in other periods of constitutional history, the custody of forts and armaments, and the authority over the custodian, involves the whole question of sovereignty.

6. The Imperial Government has, therefore, no equivalent or any security that the Colony will fulfil even that well understood (though) unwritten condition, that all their territory is to be made use of in time of war for the defence of the Empire generally. Far from thinking that the Colony and the Mother country have not distinct interests in these arrangements because both Governments are interested in the defence of the Empire, Earl Grey and Sir George Grey, in their Despatches of 1851 and 1854, initiating the policy which is now to be formulated, deal with definite conditions to be insisted upon by Great Britain and accepted by the Parliament of Canada before the Imperial property

was handed over.

•

16978.--864.

25.-5/86.

1966.