established church of the province, and that both before and after 1791 it enjoyed privileges such as no other organized religious body possessed. Its endowment in 1791 by means of the clergy land-reserves produced an agitation which culminated in the loss of its peculiarly privileged position. It may be said that religious toleration is one of the corner-stones of the Canadian constitution. Since federation in 1867 there have been signs of further growth. Canada has assumed actual control of her military forces and written out into realities the constitutional powers given her in this sphere of national life. The governor-general is now appointed with the full goodwill of the Canadian government, and he can no longer carry out in Canada functions which in England belong only to the crown acting through responsible ministers. Shading across the thin dividing line between constitutional and economic life, the developments are no less remarkable. Indeed, in trade relations they are almost spectacular. During the French régime trade was kept firmly under the thumb of the minister at Paris. With the advent of British rule, Canada came under the economic system perpetuated by the navigation laws. Canadian trade was controlled entirely by the mother country. England holds her colonies for the sole purpose of extending her commerce the trite summing up of Hugh Finlay, a Canadian deputypostmaster of the period. After 1791 the barriers were gradually lowered. Canada was allowed bit by bit to trade with other countries, until the advent of the free-trade school in England brought colonial politics into touch with the principles of laissez-faire and finally led to the abolition of the last remnant of the navigation laws in 1849. Canada was not slow to take advantage of the new situation. In 1854 Lord Elgin negotiated a reciprocity treaty with the United States on behalf of Canada, and in 1859 a tariff barrier was actually erected against Great Britain which has continued to the present day. Within was recent years Canadian trade autonomy has been conceded. The position of adviser has become one of negotiator. These examples serve to illustrate the beginnings of a wider freedom, until to-day it is recognized, on the one hand, that commercial treaties binding the empire as a whole are hardly possible without consent; and, on the other hand, that a trade treaty can be negotiated by Canada with the cognizance of the imperial government. It is true that grave difficulties have arisen which the Great War prevented from being discussed; but that an advance has been made of considerable importance no one can deny. The growth of Canadian autonomy has been accompanied by the growth of national feeling. This development gives guarantees to the constitutional advances already made and also postulates future problems for solution. That such a development must come was clear to the fathers of federation. The American Civil War without and the tragic political differences within lent special emphasis to the question of Canadian unity in those pregnant autumn days in 1867, when, under the shadow of party deadlock in Canada and of the neighbouring tragedy of disintegration, political faith made a new venture into the unknown. Canada began with a lesson learned. She avoided, as John Macdonald said, 'the great source of weakness in the United States '-the centrifugal force of state rights'. But something more was implicit in the lessons learned from the first great experiment in federal government. They contained the germs of Canadian nationality, national sentiment, national feeling, national loyalty—a fatherland. The citizens of Canada are first of all Canadians and secondly citizens of a particular province. The ideal of national unity to which the constitutional experiment of 1867 gave weight is symbolized in the lines of connecting steel. New provinces have grown up within the federation and have unconsciously accepted a national outlook. Canadians have grasped the significance of Canada, and they went out into the great adventure of war to preserve the inheritance through which their maturity was attained. To-day, Canada is a distinct national group. A federation, it is true, but with a genius for balancing centrifugal and centripetal forces. Canada possesses all the problems peculiar to a nation; but a nation within an empire. To the future belongs the giving of a constitutional form to this new experience in history. In that further development lies Canada's crown of constitutional self-consciousness. The aim of this book is to trace the stream of development. The mere retelling of a well-known story lies more or less outside its purpose. It is rather an attempt to find in the facts the complex characters and divers conditions out of which they grew; to seek the causes which gave energy and purpose to the constitutional evolution; to animate dead documents with something of the vital energy which called them into being. It is an attempt to judge by historical standards the gradual expression of a people's political life in constitutional forms and to estimate them in the light of their constructive contribution to human history. CHAPTER II THE GOVERNMENT OF NEW FRANCE WHEN, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, colonial expansion began to interest the nations of northern Europe, the chartered company seemed a practical and economical method of exploitation and of government. The organization of these companies might differ in detail and their relations to the state might vary, but it is not surprising that many colonizing nations made use of them, considering that the state of European finance did not permit a further drain on the national exchequers. The romance of discovery might have remained a mere romance much longer, had not these colonizing states been prepared to incorporate private companies which would bear the risks of opening up new lands. Of course, the monarchs, in return for royal licences, insisted on a share in the gains where such accrued, but the scheme offered a ready solution to a new problem at the smallest cost to the nation, while at the same time it preserved the national authority. France naturally copied her neighbours, and in the French adventure in Canada there was nothing original except the variety of imitation. The earliest French schemes bore analogies to English companies. Later, the Company of New France and the Company of the West Indies were not unlike the chartered trading companies of Holland. It was only after experiment in this method of administration that New France passed under direct royal control, in imitation perhaps of Spain and Portugal. Before 1627 the student of constitutional history gains little of value from the study of the various charters granted to private individuals and companies. Indeed, from Cartier's taking possession of Canada in 1534 till the advent of Richelieu in French colonial affairs, the period is largely a blank owing to the pressure of religious wars on the French government and people. The emphasis, too, in these early charters obscured constitutional issues. The powers of government which the trading monopolies carried with them were wide and far reaching, but the primary interest was exploitation rather than colonization and constitutional experiment. The concessions granted in 1540-1 to Cartier's associate are typical.1 As the king's lieutenant-general he was given 'full authority and power'. He could make laws, edicts, statutes, ordinancespolitical and otherwise. He could create, constitute, establish, dismiss and remove captains, justiciars, and generally all other officers as shall seem good to him'; and, according to one version, he had powers to punish either by corporal death or any other exemplary punishment'. Roberval's patent became a model, and its influence can be traced in the charters granted to the companies which down to 1627 carried on such government as there was in Canada. It was only after the pacification of France by the Edict of Nantes in 1598 that France resumed her colonizing efforts. The crowding, however, of six trading and administrative monopolies into less than thirty years left little place for constructive government. For the moment the failure, both economic and constitutional, of these early companies need not be considered; but no analysis, however minute, of the charters under which they were incorporated would throw much light on experiments which were so shortlived. The years are too full of insecurity, of inexperience of war, and of mistrust. Their history is rather that of trading posts than of real colonial beginnings. 1 H. Harisse, Notes pour servir à l'histoire pp. 243 ff. (Paris, 1872). ... de la Nouvelle-France, 2 In Harisse this passage is corrupt. See Collection... de Documents relatifs à l'histoire de la Nouvelle-France, vol. i, pp. 30 ff. (Quebec, 1883). 3 The company of Pont-Gravé & Chauvin, 1599; of De Chastes, 1602; of De Monts, 1603; of Rouen, 1613; of De Caën, 1620; of Montmorency, |