460 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [rar rit
documents. But in the session of 1844-5 the Speaker
refused a motion written in French, on the ground that to
receive it would be a violation of the Union Act, and on an
appeal to the House his decision was upheld. In 1848 the
provisions of the Union Act in this regard were repealed :
the measure had been urged by three successive Governors-
General, and when an address from the Legislative Assembly
was sent in 1845 the Imperial Government by a dispatch
from Mr. Gladstone of February 3, 1846, promised repeal,
which was defended by Lord Grey in the House of Lords as
being proper, on the principle of allowing all their local
concerns to be regulated according to the wishes and feelings
of the people of Canada. Lord Elgin had the pleasure of
announcing the decision of the Imperial Parliament in his
speech on opening the Legislature on January 18, 1849, for
it was a measure which he had urged energetically upon the
consideration of the Imperial Government.
S. 133 of the British North America Act provides that
either the English or the French language may be used by
any person in the debates of the Houses of the Parliament of
the Dominion of Canada and of the Houses of the Legislature
of Quebec, and both those languages shall be used in the
respective records and journals of the Houses, and either of
those languages may be used by any person or in any pleading
Or process in or issuing from any Court of Canada established
under the Act and in or from all or any of the Courts of
Quebec. The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the
Legislature of Quebec are to be printed in both these lan-
guages. Under this provision everything in the Canadian
Parliament is duplicated and issued in French as well as in
English : the statutes and the Bills alike are printed in both
languages, and recently steps have been taken to accelerate
the rapidity of the French version of the proceedings, but the
sessions of 1910 and 1911 opened as usual with complaints of
delay by Mr. Landry, and amendment was promised. The
expense is large, and the utility of much of the printing nal.
! Houston, Constitutional Documents of Canada, pp. 162, 175, 183, 213;
cf. Pope, Sir John Macdonald, ii. 249, 250 ; Imperial Act 11 & 12 Vict.
¢. 56.5. 1. For Lord Durham’s policy, sce Report, pp. 110 seq.
