[Footnote 225: Lord Glenelg's despatch, 1836.]
[Footnote 226: _Sir J. Franklin's Narrative_, p. 77.]
The claims of the churches on the treasury (1838) soon threatened the government with serious difficulties. It was resolved to increase the revenue by prohibiting colonial distillation. This trade had been often interrupted by the ordinances of the governors, but when the crown ceased to purchase wheat at a high fixed price it was deemed unfair to the farmer to restrict the local market for his produce. Duties were imposed, but they discriminated between sugar and cereals, and between colonial and imported grain. This distinction offered ample opportunity for evasion. The distillers employed these various articles at their own pleasure, and paid the lowest duty. Colonial spirits were sold as foreign; and the permits of the police-office covered the transit of quantities greater than they specified. From £5,000 to £7,000 were annually lost. The bill introduced to extinguish the trade was resisted by Mr. W. E. Lawrence and other leaders of the country party. They objected both to the suppression of a lawful trade and the injury inflicted on those who had embarked their capital. The government proposed to include in the bill a provision for the indemnity of the distillers, leaving its amount to be settled by a committee. To this Chief Justice Pedder strongly objected. The government was unwilling to entrust to a jury the claims of the distillers, as proposed by the chief justice; and, not wishing to delay the law, passed it without granting any security beyond admitting the equity of compensation.
The laxity of the distillation laws had enabled the manufacturers to realise double profits, by graduated duties, mostly paid under the lowest denomination. Their gains during the past could not be questioned; but Sir John Franklin was persuaded that it would be ridiculously profuse to pay an indemnity for the loss of profits rated by the success of an illicit trade. A resolution passed the council, "That any applicant having been proved, to the satisfaction of this council, to have been in the habit of distilling contrary to law, has, by such practice, destroyed any claim he might have otherwise had to compensation." To ascertain this fact a "feigned issue bill" was brought into the council. It simply referred the question of illegal distillation to the jury, without assessing their claims. The right of the distillers to compensation was, however, so indisputable, and the retrospective action of the bill so liable to objection, that it was generally opposed; and, by the dissent of the lawyers, the treasurer, with all the non-official members, rejected by the council. The attorney-general, Mr. Macdowell, impressed with its injustice, informed the governor that he could not support the bill; in this resolution he had been fortified by the strongly expressed opinions of his colleague, Mr. H. Jones, the solicitor-general, who denounced its principle as utterly iniquitous and unprecedented: but on the resignation of Mr. Macdowell, Mr. Jones accepted his place, and voted for the bill: defending his conduct by stating that he had expressed his former opinion in ignorance of its details. The public indignation was excited by this apparent perfidy, for which Mr. Jones atoned by a speedy resignation. The financial success of the suppression was mentioned by Sir John Franklin in exulting terms. The law is, however, regularly violated when grain is low. Private stills have supplied spirits more than usually deleterious; and the revenue has shown a decline. The rights of the distillers were recognised by the home government, and their unsettled claims, to the amount of £7,431, were paid in 1843.