the States have done. Climate, or size, or geographical position
might stand in their way. But I fear that it does follow, if not
as a logical conclusion, at least as a natural result, that they
never will do so well unless some day they shall so fight their
battle. It may be argued that Canada has in fact the power of
self-governance; that she rules herself and makes her own laws as
England does; that the Sovereign of England has but a veto on those
laws, and stands in regard to Canada exactly as she does in regard
to England. This is so, I believe, by the letter of the
Constitution, but is not so in reality, and cannot in truth be so
in any colony even of Great Britain. In England the political
power of the Crown is nothing. The Crown has no such power, and
now-a-days makes no attempt at having any. But the political power
of the Crown as it is felt in Canada is everything. The Crown has
no such power in England, because it must change its ministers
whenever called upon to do so by the House of Commons. But the
Colonial Minister in Downing Street is the Crown's Prime Minister
as regards the colonies, and he is changed not as any colonial
House of Assembly may wish, but in accordance with the will of the
British Commons. Both the houses in Canada--that, namely, of the
Representatives, or Lower Houses and of the Legislative Council, or
Upper House--are now elective, and are filled without direct
influence from the Crown. The power of self-government is as
thoroughly developed as perhaps may be possible in a colony. But,
after all, it is a dependent form of government, and as such may
perhaps not conduce to so thorough a development of the resources
of the country as might be achieve under a ruling power of its own,
to which the welfare of Canada itself would be the chief if not the
only object.