LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN CANADA. 53 
The four districts were Quebec, Three Rivers, Montreal, and St. Francis, which were 
established for purely judicial purposes. The courts therein had unlimited and supreme 
original jurisdiction. In addition to these superior districts there was the inferior division 
of Gaspé with a limited jurisdiction. 
The counties were, as I have already intimated, established for parliamentary objects ; 
for Lord Durham observed that he knew “of no purpose for which they were constituted, 
except for the election of members for the house of assembly. The parishes, into which 
the seigniories were divided, were the old divisions established in the days of the French 
regime. The limits of the parishes, as set forth in the ordinance of 1721, were not strictly 
1 
adhered to as the population spread, and settlements became more numerous. It was 
consequently found necessary from time to time to build many new churches, that the 
means and accommodation for religious worship might keep pace with the numerical 
increase of the congregations. For the support of these churches, portions of ancient 
parishes were, as the occasion arose, constituted into new ones? The townships were 
established a few years after the Conquest, principally for surveying purposes, in order to 
meet the requirements of the considerable English population that in the course of time 
flowed into Upper and Lower Canada.’ 
The people that dwelt in the local divisions had no power to assess themselves for 
local improvements, but whenever a road or bridge was wanted it was necessary to apply 
to the legislature. In consequence of this, the time of that body was constantly occupied 
with the consideration of measures, which should have been the work of such local 
councils as existed in different parts of the United States. The little schemes and intrigues 
into which the representatives of different localities entered in order to promote and carry 
some local work and make themselves popular with their constituents gave rise to a 
great deal of what is known, in American parlance, as “log-rolling.” “When we want 
a bridge, we take a judge to build it” was the forcible way, according to Lord Durham’s 
Report,‘ in which a member of the provincial legislature described the tendency in those 
days to retrench on the most important departments of the public service in order to satisfy 
the pressing demands for local works. 
It would be supposed that the British-speaking people of the townships, whose early 
lives had been passed in the midst of the liberal local institutions of the old British 
Colonies, would have been desirous of introducing into their respective districts at least a 
semblance of municipal government. We look in vain, however, for such an effort on 
their part. They appear to have quietly acquiesced in a state of things calculated to 
repress a spirit of local enterprise and diminish the influence of the people in the admin- 
istration of public affairs. Indeed, we have some evidence that the government itself 
was prepared for many years to discourage every attempt to introduce into Canada any- 
thing like the local system that had so long existed in New England. British statesmen 
probably gemembered the strong influence that the town-meetings of Boston had in 
encouraging a spirit of rebellion, and thought it advisable to stifle at the outset any 
aspirations that the Canadian colonists might have in the direction of such doubtful insti- 
tutions. “TI understand,” wrote Mr. Richards in a report to the secretary of state for the 

1 Report, p. 35. * Bouchette, p. 86. 
* Bouchette, p. 87; Lord Durham’s Report, p. 36. * Report, p. 29. 
