[BOURINOT] A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 17 
The history of the old thirteen colonies is full of instances of the 
unpopularity of royal governors, who were constantly in antagonism to 
the people’s representatives on account of their arrogant exercise of execu- 
tive power and interference with strictly colonial affairs, and who did 
much consequently to create that sentiment against the parent state which 
eventually led to separation. In Canada, too, the constant interference of 
really of a few officials in Downing-street—in 

the imperial government 
matters which should have been settled in Canada, the obstinacy and want 
of judgment on the part of some governors, the arrogance and selfishness 
of officials who owed no responsibility to the legislature, the indiscretions 
of the appointed legislative councils, the ignoring of the just claims of the 
people’s representatives to control the public moneys and expenditures, 
led also to a popular outbreak, which has been generally called a rebellion, 
although it never assumed very large proportions, even in the French pro- 
vince of Lower Canada, but was confined to a very limited area and an 
insignificant faction, whilst in the English province of Upper Canada it 
was almost contemptible as respects the standing and number of the people 
immediately engaged in it. 
Ve 
It was the concession of responsible government, in the period from 
1840 to 1854, to the provinces that now compose the Dominion of Canada, 
that relieved the Canadians of the personal rule of governors and officials, 
and removed all reason for the discontent that led to the ill-advised 
insurrections of 1837 and 1838. It was paternal government exercised too 
often without judgment or knowledge of the wishes of the colonial com- 
munities in America, that led to the independence of the old colonies, as 
well as to the Canadian outbreaks of over half a century ago. It is local 
self-government, in the fullest significance of the term, that has been for 
fifty years the source of the content and prosperity of the Canadian 
people. From 1792, when the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada 
were formed out of the old province of Quebec, that extended from the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the western lakes, down to 1841, when these two 
sections were re-united under one government in accordance with the 
recommendation of Lord Durham, the public men of Canada learned 
many valuable political lessons from the very trials and struggles of the 
country for larger political rights. When responsible government was 
at last conceded by England, it had become a necessity of the political 
situation in the provinces ; the public men had been fully educated in its 
principles and were ready to work them out with as much intelligence as 
if they had been taught in the legislative halls of the parent state. Step 
by step the provinces were relieved from all those commercial and political 
restrictions which the imparial government had regarded as necessary to 
Sec. IL. 1895. 2 
