74 JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT ON 
ants duly qualified by law. In New Brunswick a similar municipal system has been for 
years in operation.” 
The little province of Prince Edward Island, however, has never established a 
complete municipal system; the legislature is practically the governing body in all 
matters of local improvement. It passes acts establishing and regulating markets, and 
making provision for the relief of the poor, for court houses, jails, salaries, fire depart- 
ment, ferries, roads and bridges, and various other services which, in the more advanced 
provinces, are under the control of local corporations. Every session the house resolves 
itself into a committee of the whole, to consider all matters relating to the public roads, 
and to pass resolutions appropriating moneys for this purpose, in conformity with a certain 
scale arranged for the different townships.’ Charlottetown and Summerside have special 
acts of incorporation. Provision, however, was made some years ago for the establish- 
ment of certain municipal authorities in towns and villages of the island. Wardens may 
be elected by the ratepayers of a town or village, to perform certain municipal duties of a 
very limited character.* 
In British Columbia, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories very liberal provision 
exists for the establishment of muncipal corporations on the basis of those that exist in 
Ontario.” 
VII. —CoNCLUSION. 
I have attempted in the preceding pages to trace, step by step, the various stages 
in the development of that system of local self-government which lies at the foundation 
of the political institutions of the provinces of the Dominion. We have seen that 
progress in this direction was very slow until the people increased in wealth and political 
knowledge, and were granted a larger measure of liberty in the administration of provin- 
cial affairs. We look in vain during the days of the French Regime for anything 
approaching those free institutions which are the natural heritage of an Anglo-Saxon 
people. Under the invigorating inspiration of those political representative institutions, 
which followed the supremacy of England in Canada, the French Canadians, like all other 
classes of the population, learned, at last, to appreciate the advantages of being permitted 
to manage their own local affairs. It is noteworthy, however, that we do not find 
anything approaching the town system of New England during the early times of British 
North America. Those primary assemblies of Massachusetts, which were so many repre- 
sentatives of the folkmoot of early English times," were never reproduced among the 

! See act incorporating town of Sydney, 48 Vict. c. 87. It is not easy to understand why the municipal heads 
of towns in this province should be called “ wardens.” A distinction should certainly be made between the warden 
of the county and the heads of the other municipalities. It is confusing, to say the least. 
* Revised Statutes of New Brunswick, ec. 99. 5 Assembly Journals, 1884, p. 222. 
*P. E. I. Stat., 33 Vict. c. 20. 
° See Brit. Col. Stat., c. 129; Man. Stat., 46 and 47 Vict. c. 1; Ordinances of N. W. T., No. 2,1885. In the North- 
west Territory, the heads of the councils, outside of cities and towns, are designated “chairmen.” Elsewhere these 
officers are known as ‘‘mayors.” In Manitoba, the old titles of “reeve” and “mayor” are preserved in the 
municipalities. 
° “A New England town meeting is essentially the same thing as the folk-mote.” E. A, Freeman, American 
Institutional History, p. 16. 
