combined with their old enemies' to bring in a measure next session for the purpose of removing existing difficulties by introducing the federal principle into Canada, coupled with such provisions as will permit the Maritime Provinces and the North-West Territory to be incorporated into the same system of government.' So it came about that, when parliament was prorogued on June 30, and a new government was announced including George Brown, Oliver Mowat and William McDougall, the future of Confederation was assured. It is difficult to find a fairer summary of these events than is contained in the words of the Honourable Alexander Morris, to whose good offices was due the first meeting:

I am aware from personal knowledge that the leaders in this great movement, on both sides, were actuated by the highest obligations of patriotism, and that their action was approved by the great majorities of their parties in the House, and I have always held that neither party could claim the sole credit of this movement. . . . But while saying this, it has become a matter of duty to show that there were two divergent lines of policy-the one urged by the Conservative leaders, which eventually prevailed-that of the Union of Canada with the Lower Provinces, and the other, that of Federation of Upper and Lower Canada, urged by Mr Brown and the Reform party in accordance with the policy of 'joint authority,' adopted by them after a convention held some time before.

A UNION OF PARTIES

With the Taché-Macdonald-Brown administration this section may well close. Party politics, as such, really came to an end with the coalition. In the months which intervened between that event and Confederation there were many interesting negotiations, both with Britain and with the Maritime Provinces. A great debate, reflecting immense credit on the colony whose statesmen could rise so well to a serious situation, took place, in which adverse views were stated with great ability, whether by radicals like Dorion, or recalcitrant and faddist tories like Dunkin. But Dorion's

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democratic criticism sounds very hollow to present-day critics, and Dunkin's long and detailed assault does greater credit to his legal acumen than to his statesmanship, although he must receive credit for foreseeing some of the most characteristic difficulties of the federal plan. The battle was over, and Monck could write home in November assuring the British government that the desire for a consolidation of British North America has taken strong hold of the minds of the most earnest and thoughtful men in these provinces.'

Of all the orations which adorned or concealed the statesmanship of these days, two may be singled out for special note-those of the two men, one British, the other French, whose patient co-operation and parliamentary skill had brought their country to the great event, and who together were to give the final justification to Confederation by making it a practical working instrument of government. For Cartier the event was notable, since it marked a union which still allowed his fellow-countrymen all their privileges; and the note of his speech is ' unity in difference.'

The idea of unity was utopian, it was impossible. Distinctions of this kind would always exist. Dissimilarity, in fact, appeared to be the order of the physical world, and of the moral world, as well as in the political world. . . . In our own federation we should have Catholic and Protestant, English, French, Irish and Scotch, and each by his efforts and his success would increase the prosperity and glory of the New Confederacy. He viewed the diversity of races in British North America in this way we were of different races, not for the purpose of warring against each other, but in order to compete and emulate for the general welfare.

For John A. Macdonald, his fellow-in-arms, the event was imperial, and nowhere is it more evident that, beneath moral peccadilloes and assembly jobs and merely party politics, there existed in Macdonald's mind a great and overmastering principle-the love of, and pride in, the British Empire, and an intention to do something which would add to its glory through the creation of a new British nation, Canada.

If we wish to be a great people; if we wish to form

a great nationality commanding the respect of the world, able to hold our own against all opponents, and to defend those institutions we prize; if we wish to have one system of government, and to establish a commercial union, with unrestricted free trade, between people of the five provinces, belonging, as they do, to the same nation, obeying the same Sovereign, owing the same allegiance, and being, for the most part, of the same blood and lineage; if we wish to be able to afford to each other the means of mutual defence and support against aggression and attack-this can only be obtained by a union of some kind between the scattered and weak boundaries comprising the British North American Provinces.

He closed his speech with respectful and manly tributes to Great Britain and its Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria.

The pity of it is that the historian may not conclude with some picture of fervent loyalty and happy unity-for Canada, long in travail, had brought forth men fitted and prepared for her government. But before the final stage was reached, George Brown, whose really heroic sacrifice of feeling had made the new system possible, chose to resign on a minor issue, and so endanger all that his previous actions had accomplished. Two men, indeed, both faithful servants of Canada and their own provinces, Joseph Howe and George Brown, after having done yeomen's work for union, fell from their own traditions and below the standard of true statesmanship. But in such matters the poet's words are false; for men's follies only are written on water, their statesmanlike moments endure; and the errors of neither Howe nor Brown are now permitted to separate those who made them from the company of true Canadians who saw their perfect work accomplished on July 1, 1867.

A RETROSPECT

The course of Canadian politics has now been traced from the advent of Union to Confederation Day, through a period which, unless Canada have still to earn her title to nationhood through blood and iron, must ever rank as the great formative