the provinces, assembled with all the formalities that are observed at the opening of the Imperial Parliament.1 The rules and orders adopted in each legislature were based, as far as practicable in so new a country, on the rules and usages of its British prototype.2

The Constitutional Act of 1791 was framed with the avowed object of "assimilating the constitution of Canada to that of Great Britain, as nearly as the difference arising from the manners of the people, and from the present situation of the province will admit.”

For some years after the inauguration of the new constitution, political matters proceeded with more or less harmony, but eventually a conflict arose between the governors and the representatives in the assembly, as well as between the latter and the upper house, which

open air. (Scadding's Toronto, p. 29.) The legislature of Upper Canada was removed to York, now Toronto, in 1797-that town having been founded and named by Governor Simcoe in 1794. (Withrow, 292.) The provincial legislature met in a wooden building on what is now known as Parliament street. (Scadding's Toronto, pp. 26-7.)

1 The Duke de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt, who was present at an "opening" in 1795, at Newark, gives a brief account of the ceremonial observed even amid the humble surroundings of the first Parliament. See vol. ii., p. 88.

2 Chap. v., Bourinot's Parliamentary Practice and Procedure. 8 Despatch of Lord Grenville to Lord Dorchester, 20th Oct., 1789, given in App, to Christie, VI., pp. 16-26. Lt.-Governor Simcoe, in closing the first session of the legislature of Upper Canada, said that it was the desire of the imperial government to make the new constitutional system an image and transcript of the British constitution." See Journals of U. C., 1792; E. Commons Papers, 1839, vol. 33, p. 166.

kept the people in the different provinces, especially in Lower Canada, in a state of continual agitation. In Upper and Lower Canada the official class was arrayed, more or less, with the legislative council against the majority in the assembly. In Lower Canada the dispute was at last so aggravated as to prevent the harmonious operation of the constitution. The assembly was constantly fighting for the independence of Parliament, and the exclusive control of the supplies and the civil list. The control of "the casual and territorial revenues" was a subject which provoked constant dispute between the crown officials and the assemblies in all the provinces. These revenues were not administered or appropriated by the legislature, but by the governors and their officers, At length, when the assemblies refused supplies, the executive government availed itself of these funds in order to make itself independent of the legislature, and the people through their representatives could not obtain those reforms which they desired, nor exercise that influence over officials which is essential to good government.' The governor dissolved the Quebec legislature with a frequency unparalleled in political history, and was personally drawn into the conflict. Public officials were harassed by impeachments. The assembly's bills of a financial, as well as of a general character, were frequently rejected by the legislative council, and the disputes between the two branches of the legislature eventually rendered it impossible to pass any useful legislation. In this contest, the two races were found

1 Mr. W, Macdougall: Mercer v. Attorney-General for Ontario, Canada Sup. Court Rep., vol. v., pp. 545-6.

arrayed against each other in the bitterest antagonism.1 Appeals to the home government were very common, but no satisfactory results were attained as long as the constitution of 1791 remained in force. In Upper Canada the financial disputes, which were of so aggravated a character in the lower province, were more easily arranged; but nevertheless a great deal of irritation existed on account of the patronage and political influence being almost exclusively in the hands of the official class, which practically controlled the executive and legislative councils.2

In Nova Scotia the majority of the house of assembly were continually protesting against the composition of the executive and legislative councils, and the preponderance therein of certain interests which they conceived to be unfavourable to reform.3 In New Brunswick, for years, the disputes between the executive and legislative powers were characterized by much acrimony, but eventually all the revenues of the province were conceded to

"I expected to find a contest between a government and a people; I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races." Lord Durham's R., p. 7.

2 Lord Durham's R., pp. 56-58.

3

3 Mr. Young to Lord Durham, R., p. 75, and App. At the time of the border difficulties with Maine, the Nova Scotia legislature voted the necessary supplies. "Yet," said Mr. Howe, those who voted the money, who were responsible to their constituents for its expenditure, and without whose consent (for they formed two-thirds of the Commons) a shilling could not have been drawn, had not a single man in the local cabinet, by whom it was to be spent, and by whom, in that trying emergency, the governor would be advised."

the assembly, and the government became more harmonious from the moment it was confided to those who had the confidence of the majority in the house.1 In Prince Edward Island the political difficulty arose from the land monopoly, which was not to disappear in its entirety until the colony became a part of the confederation of Canada. But when we come to review the political condition of all the provinces, we find, as a rule, "represen tative government coupled with an irresponsible executive, the same abuse of the powers of the representative bodies, owing to the anomaly of their position, aided by the want of good municipal institutions; and the same constant interference of the imperial administration in matters which should be left wholly to the provincial governments." In Lower Canada, the descendants of the people who had never been allowed by France a voice in the administration of public affairs, had, after some years' experience of representative institutions, entered fully into their spirit and meaning, and could not now be satisfied with the workings of a political system which always ignored the wishes of the majority who really represented the people in the legislature. Consequently, the discontent at last assumed so formidable a character, that legislation was completely obstructed. Eventually, this discontent culminated in the rebellion of 1837-38, which inflicted much injury on the province,

1 Lord Durham's R., p. 74.

2 Ibid, p. 75.

3 Lord Durham's R., p. 74.

For various accounts of this ill-advised rebellion in L. C., see Garneau, II. chaps. ii. and iii., Book 16, pp. 418-96; Christie, vols. iv. and v.; Withrow, chap. xxvii.

though happily it was confined to a very small part of the people. An attempt at a rebellion was also made in the upper province, but so unsuccessfully, that the leaders. were obliged to fly almost simultaneously with the rising of their followers; though it was not for many months afterwards that the people ceased to feel the injurious effects of the agitation which the revolutionists and their emissaries endeavoured to keep up in the provinc. In the lower or maritime colonies, no disturbance occurred,2 and the leaders of the popular party were among the first to assist the authorities in their efforts to preserve the public tranquillity, and to express themselves emphatically in favour of British connection.3

The result of these disturbances in the upper provinces was another change in the constitution of the Canadas. The imperial government was called upon to intervene promptly in their affairs. Previous to the outbreak in Canada the government had sent out royal commissioners with instructions to inquire fully into the state of the province of Lower Canada, where the ruling party in the assembly had formulated their grievances in the shape of ninety-two resolutions, in which, among other

1 Life of W. Lyon Mackenzie, C. Lindsey. Withrow, chap. xxviii.

"If in these provinces there is less formidable discontent and less obstruction to the regular course of government, it is because in them there has been recently a considerable departure from the ordinary course of the colonial system, and a nearer approach to sound constitutional practice." Lord Durham's R., p. 74,

* See remarks of Mr. Joseph Howe at a public meeting held at Halifax, N.S., in 1838. Howe's Life and Letters, I. 171.