rebellions, we hear sometimes now of hostile tariffs, and it might puzzle the wisest of our statesmen if he were challenged to put his finger on any single item of material advantage resulting to ourselves from our dominions in British North America, which cost us at this moment about a million sterling a-year. But this is the sort of thing that happens to us everywhere, and we are used to it. Retainers who will neither give nor accept notice to quit our service must, it is assumed, be kept on our establishment. There are nevertheless special and exceptional difficulties which beset us in this portion of our vast field of empire. For though Kaffirs and Maories have proved more dangerous neighbours to our colonists and more costly enemies to ourselves than the Red Indians, whose race the threefold agencies of rifles, whiskey, and small-pox seem almost to have exterminated, the permanent occupation of that frontier of three thousand miles which extends from the Bay of Fundy to the Straits of San Juan presents problems more serious than any we have yet had to solve in New Zealand or at the Cape. Although half these difficulties have no place in the estimate of the sanguine prophets who predict the eternity of the American civil war, or (which is much the same thing) its duration until the utter exhaustion of both parties in the conflict, yet, even assuming for the moment that such calculations afford a safe basis of action, they afford no provision against the contingencies of an anarchy more perilous than filibustering expeditions or organised invasions, and they may fail to protect against the ambition or resentment of a powerful neighbour that vast region which, though claimed for England by our maps and guaranteed to us by our treaties, is during a seven months' winter inaccessible to our legions, and therefore indefensible by our arms. When therefore we are told that the battalions of Great Britain are the ægis under which these unapproachable provinces propose to shelter themselves against all comers from all quarters of the compass, and that they may possibly call upon us at any moment in mid-winter, as they did three years ago, for ten or a dozen regiments to protect them from the consequences of some quarrel of our own, and when we reflect how utterly inadequate such a garrison would be, unless supported by a far more efficient local militia than is now in existence, to defend those provinces from the only enemy they fear, it is scarcely surprising that any project which may offer a prospect of escape from a political situation so undignified and unsatisfactory should be hailed with a cordial welcome by all parties concerned.

The movement which culminated last October in the Quebec Conference, and in the Resolutions which have since been reported to the Home Government, novel as it may appear to us on this side of the Atlantic, represents no novel idea to our North American colonists. The scheme of a Federal Union between the Canadas and the maritime provinces was indeed ventilated six years ago, in a correspondence between the Duke of Newcastle and the Canadian Government, but the mainspring of the Federative Movement must be sought not in any past or present impulse from Imperial authorities, but in the political circumstances, necessities, and instincts of the provinces in which it has originated. It has, in fact, grown out of the crisis or (as it has been called in Canada) the dead-lock' by which the advocates of Representation by Population' have for some years past persistently impeded the practical operations of every successive government which has refused to adopt their policy. When the Canadas, which were divided into two provinces by Pitt in 1791, were reunited in 1840, the terms of union, so far as the electoral laws of the colony were concerned, failed to provide for the contingency which has since arisen of a reversal of the relative proportions of population between the two provinces. West Canada, a large portion of which was then an unreclaimed forest, has now a population of more than a million and a half, exceeding by five or six hundred thousand that of the Eastern Province, to which nevertheless an equal voice in the Canadian parliament is still allotted under the Act of 1840. By the leading men of Upper Canada this state of things has been resented as an anomaly and a grievance, and failing to obtain redress for it, they resorted to a policy of obstruction which has proved fatal to many measures of admitted importance to all parties and districts in the colony. The inconvenience of this position of affairs led, not unnaturally, those who were suffering under it to look out for the basis of a compromise which might, at all events, afford a prospect of the Queen's Government being successfully carried on. This required basis has been found in the project of a British American Federation in which Representation by Population' should be accepted as a cardinal principle of union.

It was, therefore, no crude or capricious fancy which brought together the delegates from Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, who assembled last September in Prince Edward's Island. The preliminary gathering at Charlotte Town had for its object to establish the basis of those negotiations which, after a further exchange of compliments between the representatives of the contracting Powers at Halifax and at St.

John's, took the more definite and detailed form in which they are now presented to our notice, in the Resolutions passed six weeks afterwards at the Conference of Quebec. In this last-named conclave, composed of accredited representatives of all political parties in the five provinces of British North America, the various topics arising out of the project they had taken upon themselves to discuss appear to have been handled, if we may judge from the results before us, with earnestness, vigour, and moderation. The hearty and almost unanimous approval with which the Quebec programme has been greeted, both in the colonies and in this country, disinclines us, especially pending those discussions in the Imperial Parliament, which it must of course necessitate, to dwell critically on its details. There are, nevertheless, points directly involving Imperial interests on which, before the Executive Government is empowered by Parliament to take action in the matter, it seems expedient that some expression of public opinion should be invited.

It will shorten and simplify our criticisms if we assume at the outset that these international negotiations have been undertaken with the deliberate and honest purpose of carrying them out to their fullest consequences. Let it be taken for granted that our North American fellow-subjects are as hearty as ourselves in their devotion to our Sovereign and her empire, and that no evidence is needed to prove the preamble of their project. Dismissing, therefore, from our contemplation all the broderies of colonial orations, banquets, balls, déjeûners, and receptions, which have been festooned round the council-chamber of the North American plenipotentiaries, let us examine for a few minutes their scheme as a dry matter of business.

Their first edition only is before us. How far it may have since been amended or revised, we do not profess to know. Any alterations it may have experienced have been probably rather in the details than in the general outlines of the plan. As to its primary objects, let the delegates speak for themselves in their six opening Resolutions, which run as follows:-

That the best interests and present and future prosperity of British North America will be promoted by a Federal Union under the Crown of Great Britain, provided such Union can be effected on principles just to the several provinces.

"That in the Federation of the British North American Provinces the system of Government best adapted under existing circumstances to protect the diversified interests of the several provinces and secure efficiency, harmony, and permanency in the working of the Union would be a general Government charged with matters of common interest to the whole country, and local Governments for

each of the Canadas and for the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island, charged with the control of local matters in their respective sections,-provision being made for the admission into the Union, on equitable terms, of Newfoundland, the North-West Territory, British Columbia, and Vancouver.

That in framing a constitution for the general Government, the Conference, with a view to the perpetuation of our connexion with the mother-country, and to the promotion of the best interests of the people of these provinces, desire to follow the model of the British Constitution so far as our circumstances will permit.

'That the executive authority or government shall be vested in the Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and be administered according to the well-understood principles of the British Constitution by the Sovereign personally or by representative duly authorised.

'That the Sovereign or representative of the Sovereign shall be Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval militia forces.

'That there shall be a General Legislature for the Federated Provinces, composed of a Legislative Council and House of Commons.'

The qualifications, powers, and number of members who are to form the two Houses of the proposed Federal Parliament are then defined. The Legislative Council is to consist of seventy-six members, to be appointed by the Crown for life, in the following proportions for each province, viz. :- Twentyfour for Upper Canada, twenty-four for Lower Canada, ten for Nova Scotia, ten for New Brunswick, four for Newfoundland, and four for Prince Edward's Island. All the members of the Legislative Council to be British subjects by birth or naturalisation, of the full age of thirty years, and possessing a property qualification of four thousand dollars.

The House of Commons' is to consist of 194 members, to be elected for five years, under the laws now in force in the several provinces respectively; the proportion of members to be returned by each province depending on the population as shown by each decennial census. At the first election each province is to be entitled to return members in the following proportions, namely: Upper Canada, eighty-two; Lower Canada, sixty-five; Nova Scotia, nineteen; New Brunswick, fifteen; Newfoundland, eight; and Prince Edward's Island, five. It is further provided that in all re-adjustments rendered necessary by increase of population in any province, the proportion of members to electors now fixed shall be retained.

The Legislative powers proposed to be committed to the Federal Parliament are thus set forth :

"The Federal Government shall have power to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of the Federated Provinces

(saving the sovereignty of England), and especially laws respecting the following subjects:

1. The public debt and property. 2. The regulation of trade and commerce. 3. The imposition or regulation of duties of Customs on imports and exports, except on exports of timber, logs, masts, spars, deals, and sawn lumber, and of coal and other minerals. 4. The imposition or regulation of Excise duties. 5. The raising of money by all or any other modes or systems of taxation. 6. The borrowing of money on the public credit. 7. Postal service. 8. Lines of steam or other ships, railways, canals, and other works, connecting any two or more of the provinces together or extending beyond the limits of any province. 9. Lines of steamships between the Federated Provinces and other countries. 10. Telegraphic communication and the incorporation of telegraph companies. 11. All such works as shall, although lying wholly within any province, be specially declared by the Acts authorising them to be for the general advantage. 12. The Census. 13. Militia, military and naval service, and defence. 14. Beacons, buoys, and lighthouses. 15. Navigation and shipping. 16. Quarantine. 17. Sea fisheries. 18. Ferries between any province and a foreign country, or between any two provinces. 19. Currency and coinage. 20. Banking and the issue of paper money. 21. Savings-banks. 22. Weights and measures. 23. Bills of exchange and promissory notes. 24. Interest. 25. Legal tender. 26. Bankruptcy and insolvency. 27. Patents of invention and discovery. 28. Copyrights. 29. Indians and lands reserved for the Indians. 30. Naturalisation and aliens. 31. Marriage and divorce. 32. The criminal law (except the constitution of courts of criminal jurisdiction), but including the procedure on criminal matters. 33. For rendering uniform all or any of the laws relative to property and civil rights in Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Newfoundland, and for rendering uniform the procedure of all or any of the courts in these provinces; but any statute for this purpose shall have no force or authority in any province until sanctioned by the Legislature thereof. 34. The establishment of a general Court of Appeal for the Federated Provinces. 35. Immigration. 36. Agriculture. 37. And generally respecting all matters of a general character not specially and exclusively reserved for the local Governments and Legislatures.'*

* This last clause is obviously very loosely expressed, for what are 'matters of a general character,' and who is to decide whether a matter which may be in dispute between the Confederation and one of its members is of a general character or not? Mr. Cardwell has wisely pointed out, in his despatch of the 3rd of December, that the success of the scheme depends on giving a preponderating authority to the Federal power: and we should prefer to the foregoing enumeration of the powers of the Federal Parliament, a simple declaration that all powers are given to it except those expressly reserved to the several members of the Confederation. In