The Constitutional Act accordingly provided for
setting aside lands equal in value to one-seventh of all lands
granted from time to time, for the support of a Protestant
clergy. The Executive Council received power to set up rectories
in every parish, to endow them liberally, and to name as rectors
ministers of the Church of England. Further, the Executive
Council was instructed to retain an equal amount of land as crown
reserves, distributed judiciously in blocks between the grants
made to settlers. Were any radical tendencies to survive these
attentions, the veto power of the British Government could be
counted on in the last resort.
For a time the installment of self-government thus granted
satisfied the people. The pioneer years left little leisure for
political discussion, nor were there at first any general issues
about which men might differ. The Government was carrying on
acceptably the essential tasks of surveying, land granting, and
road building; and each member of the Assembly played his own
hand and was chiefly concerned in obtaining for his constituents
the roads and bridges, they needed so badly. The
English-speaking settlers of Upper Canada were too widely
scattered, and the French-speaking citizens of Lower Canada were
too ignorant of representative institutions, to act in groups or
parties.
Much turned in these early years upon the personality of the
Governor.
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