52 JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT ON 
Orleans, Quebec, Richelieu, Surrey, Warwick, and York.! The names of some of these 
divisions recall well-known counties or shires in England. 
The system of government established in 1791 continued in force until the suspen- 
sion of the constitution of Lower Canada, as a consequence of the rebellion of 1837-8, 
under the leadership of Papineau and other men whose names are familiar to all students 
of Canadian political history. During these years, the country was practically governed 
by the governor-general and the executive and legislative councils, both nominated by 
the former. The popular house, however, had little influence or power as long as the 
government was not responsible to the people’s representatives, and was indifferent to 
their approbation or support. The result was an irrepressible conflict between the 
assembly, and the legislative and executive councils supported by the governor-general. 
The fact was, the whole system of government was based on unsound principles. The 
representative system, granted to the people, did not go far enough, since it should have 
given the people full control over the public revenues and the administration of public 
affairs, in accordance with the principles of ministerial responsibility to parliament as 
understood in the parent state. More than that, it failed, because it had not been estab- 
lished at the outset on a basis of local self-government, as was the case in the United 
States, where the institutions of New England and other colonies had gradually prepared 
the people for a free system of government. Turning to the remarkable report on the 
affairs of Canada which bears the name of Lord Durham, who was governor-general and 
high commissioner in 1839, we find the following clear appreciation of the weakness of 
the system in operation for so many years in the old provinces of Canada: “If the wise 
example of those countries in which a free and representative government has alone 
worked well, had been in all respects followed in Lower Canada, care would have been 
taken that, at the same time that a parliamentary system, based on a very extended 
suffrage, was introduced into the country, the people should have been entrusted with a 
complete control over their own local affairs, and been trained for taking their part in 
the concerns of the province by their experience in the management of that local business 
which was most interesting and most easily intelligible to them. But the inhabitants of 
Lower Canada were unhappily initiated into self-government at exactly the wrong end, 
and those who were not trusted with the management of a parish were enabled by 
their votes to influence the destinies of a state.” * 
The following divisions existed in Lower Canada, between 1792 and 1840, none of 
which, however, were constituted with a view to purposes of local government :— 
1. Districts. 
2. Counties. 
3. Parishes. 
4. Townships. 


1 Bouchette’s Topographical Description of Lower Canada, etc., p. 86. It appears that Nova Scotia was the first 
province in British North America to establish the old Norman division of “ County,” which is the equivalent of 
the Saxon “Shire.” 
* This remarkable document, it is now well understood, was written by Mr. Charles Buller, who accompanied 
Lord Durham in the capacity of secretary. “In fact written by Mr. Charles Buller, and embodying the opinions of 
Mr. Gibbon Wakefield and Sir William Molesworth on Colonial policy.” Note by Mr. Reeve to Greville’s Memoirs 
(second part), i. 142. © # Lord Durham’s Report, p. 35. 
