LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN CANADA. 55 
of civil government was singularly defective. A sheriff was appointed only for each of 
the four judicial districts. Neither sheriffs nor constables nor parochial officers could be 
found in the majority of the counties of the province. It is true there were a number of 
justices of the peace who assembled in quarter sessions in accordance with the system so 
long in vogue in England and her colonies, but these men were appointed without much 
regard to their qualifications for the position and even the permanent salaried chairmen, 
appointed by the crown, were in the course of time abolished by the legislature, and 
these inferior courts consequently deprived of the services of men generally of superior 
attainments.' Practically, the affairs of each parish were regulated by the curé, the 
seignior and the captain of militia, as in the days of French government. Thanks to the 
influence of these men, peace and order prevailed. Indeed as we review the history of 
French Canada in all times, we cannot pay too high a tribute to the usefulness of the 
French Canadian clergy in the absence of the settled institutions of local government. 
In fact, it was only in ecclesiastical affairs that the people ever had an opportunity of 
exercising a certain influence. The old institution of the fabrique—which still exists * in 
all its vigour—enabled them to meet together whenever it was necessary to repair a 
church or presbytery. When the religious services were over, the people assembled at 
the church door and discussed their affairs. 
No doubt the influences of the old French Regime prevailed in Lower Canada for a 
long while after the conquest. A people whose ancestors had never learned the advan- 
tages of local self-government, would be naturally slow to awake to the necessity of 
adopting institutions under which the American colonists had flourished. It may be 
true, as Mr. Parkman says, that the French colonists, when first brought to America, 
could not have suddenly adopted the political institutions to which the English-speaking 
colonists at once had recourse as the natural heritage of an English race. It is still more 
true, as the eminent American historian adds, that the mistake of the rulers of New 
France “was not that they exercised authority, but that they exercised too much of it, 
and instead of weaning the child to go alone kept him in perpetual leading strings, mak- 
ing him, if possible, more and more dependent, and less and less fit for freedom.” When 
the French Canadian became subject to the British Crown, he was, literally, a child who 
had never been taught to think for himself in public affairs. He was perfectly unskilled 
in matters appertaining to self-government, and had no comprehension whatever of that 
spirit of self-reliance and free action which characterizes the peoples brought up under 
Teutonic and English institutions. In the course of time, however, the best minds 
among them began to appreciate fully the advantages of free government, and to their 
struggles for the extension of representative government, the people of British North 
America owe a debt of gratitude. . It took a long while, however, to educate the people of 

‘Lord Durham’s Report, p. 39. 
* The law still makes special provision for the erection and division of parishes, the construction and repair of 
churches, parsonages, cemeteries and for the meeting of fabriques. Every decree for the canonical erection of a 
new parish, or for the subdivision, dismemberment or union of any parishes, or with regard to the boundaries 
of parishes, must be publicly read from the pulpit or chapel of the parish, and other formal steps taken to notify 
the inhabitants of the proposed measure, before commissioners appointed by the state can give civil recognition 
to the decree. On the procés verbal of these officers, the lieutenant-governor may issue a proclamation under the 
great seal of the province, erecting such parish for civil purposes. See Consol. Stat. Low. Can., c. 18, and amending 
Statutes. 
