(4) The echo of the great Reform Bill of 1832 was heard in Canada, and the principles of popular representation, enunciated during the political crisis in England, found ready application across the Atlantic. British statesmen were beginning fully to recognise the claims of colonists to full civic enfranchisement. The following extract from Lord John Russell's despatch, October 14, 1839, indicates clearly the views of ministers: 'The Queen's Government have no desire to thwart the representative Assemblies of British North America in their measures of reform and improvement. They have no wish to make those Provinces the resource for patronage at home. They are earnestly intent on giving the talent and character of leading persons in the colonies, advantages similar to those which talent and character employed in the public service of the United Kingdom obtain. Her Majesty has no desire to maintain any system of policy among her North American subjects which opinion condemns.' At the same time Lord Russell counsels mutual toleration and forbearance. In the trying circumstances of the country, the only wise policy was 'a give and take' policy. As Lord Sydenham observed, 'Mutual sacrifices were undoubtedly required, mutual concessions would be demanded; but I entertain no doubt that the terms of the union' (i.e. the union of Lower and Upper Canada) 'would be fairly adjusted by the Imperial Parliament.' How different in spirit and intention this colonial policy from any which had preceded it, either in England or on the Continent! How different from the original colonial policy of France herself! When kings and cardinals dreamed of transatlantic empires, and drew their vague and shadowy boundaries on the maps before them, they never thought of a self-contained nation in political union with themselves, or a generation of colonial administrators. The

only Bureaux they knew were at the imperial headquarters in Paris.

(5) Holland in the seventeenth century entertained similar ideas of the subserviency of a colonial life. The haughty representatives of the Dutch East India Company, ruling at the Castle in Capetown, with a hard and rigid exclusiveness, regarded immigrants, at the beginning of this century, as practically inferiors and dependants. The French Huguenots, who came there as refugees in 1687, were placed upon a lower plane of society at once, in spite of their industry, heroism and zeal for the Protestant faith. The French language was stamped out by Dutch legislation so effectually, that in less than 150 years after the first landing of the refugees not a single descendant of theirs could speak it. It is doubtful whether the Dutch colonial policy has ever undergone much change since the beginning of this century. From the Dutchmen, who had been trained in a totally different school of thought and politics from the French and Spaniards, an enlightened and tolerant colonial policy might have been expected. But the hard and stubborn men who, in the old religious wars with the Roman Catholic powers, were such sticklers for freedom of thought and political action, could not, when it came to colonial life, see the application of freedom and liberty. Colonies were to them so many commercial posts and trade centres to be managed for the sole benefit of the mother-country. Englishmen were to a great extent tainted with the same heresy for a long time, and it was not until Lord. Durham's term of office that they finally abandoned it as a cardinal point in their policy.

(6) The revolt of the New England colonies should have given British statesmen a lesson in colonial constitutional history. They saw that they had made a grievous error, but still they misplaced the source of

error. The New Englanders had, as we know, been allowed to exercise at first a certain amount of local liberty. They revolted because the gift was not carried to its logical conclusion. If it had been final and complete, ending in full civic enfranchisement, with absolute control over their internal affairs, England's first colonial empire might still have been in political union with her. But British statesmen thought the evils of disaffection, rebellion and separation arose from the small local concessions already made, and, to use the words of Lord Norton, they 'impounded freedom altogether.'

This was the second and most critical period of colonial constitutional history, and it ended disastrously.

(7) The Canadian rebellion, with its manifold issues, had attracted wide and universal attention. The colonists had refused to take the surplus convict population, now drafted off into the southern seas, and in more ways than one asserted the equality of colonial life. Matters were looking serious for England. Here was the last remnant of her North American Empire honeycombed with sedition, and disloyal to the core. Emigration had become more popular than ever in England, and the 'best blood and sinew' of the mother-country was crossing the ocean in shoals. The bare mention of a cry for nationality was enough to arouse the fears of England, with the spectacle of the United States Republic before them as the living evidence of what a cry for nationality could mean. The crisis awakened the sympathy as well as the fears of some of England's best men. When Lord Durham went across the Atlantic he went as the

emissary of peace and reconciliation. His report, therefore, on the state of Canadian society and politics is justly regarded as a most important document, and as constituting in itself a landmark in imperial and colonial history.

(8) Henceforth then we have to deal with a new era in Canada. When the union of the two Provinces became an accomplished fact, Kingston was selected as the seat of government. The first Parliament met on June 13th, 1841, and was opened with great ceremony. One of the most important Acts of this first session was the founding of the municipal system, by which each township, county, town, village or city manages its own local affairs, and has power to levy taxes for local improvements and local government. This Act was an additional proof in Canada that, in the domain of local and domestic policy, each part of the Canadian community was expected to carry out its duty unfettered and unhampered. It was a wise Act, as it gave, both to the British element in the Upper Province and to the French Canadians in the Lower, the opportunity of legislating in the way they thought best. Naturally there always existed and there still must exist certain local peculiarities and race distinctions; but a nation's character is illuminated rather than spoilt by these diversities. Moreover, on the ground that a municipal training is the best possible for enfranchised citizens constituting in themselves the repository of all political power, the Act was a wise one.

(9) The era of political enfranchisement became in Canada an era of territorial expansion and prosperity. That wealth which Lord Durham foretold would follow upon the settlement of political difficulties quickly came. Taking increase of population as a sign of material prosperity, we find that, during the three decades which succeed the passing of the Union Bill in 1841, the increase of Canadians was very remarkable. The following is a table of Census returns from 1806 :

This rapid growth is largely owing to the influx of British immigrants. Between 1850-1878, a period of 28 years, 684,542 strangers settled in Canada. Such immigration was the sign of an orderly and progressive government in the country.

(10) At the same time the country was defining its position by measures of foreign policy. In 1842, during the Governorship of Sir Richard Bagot, the famous Ashburton Treaty was made between the United States and England. This treaty removed a long standing grievance, and it concerned 12,000 square miles of territory lying between the State of Maine and New Brunswick. Lord Ashburton negotiated on the part of England, Mr. Daniel Webster on that of the United States. The treaty gave 7000 square miles to the United States and 5000 to England, and it fixed the boundary line along the forty-fifth parallel of latitude as far as the St. Lawrence, and from that point traced the dividing line up the river and through the great lakes as far as the Lake of the Woods. The tenth article of the treaty provides for the extradition of criminals, charged with the crimes of murder, assault with intent to murder, piracy, arson, robbery or forgery, upon sufficient proof of their guilt.

(11) With regard to domestic affairs, the progress of the country was marked by educational and financial reforms. In 1848 the school system of Upper Canada or the