[BOURINOT ] A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 19 
In every province there is a lieutenant-governor appointed by the 
dominion government, who, in regard to this officer, occupies that rela- 
tion to the provinces which was formerly held by the imperial authorities. 
This officer is advised by an executive council chosen, as for forty years 
previously, from the majority of the house of assembly, and only holding 
office while they retain the confidence of the people’s representatives, 
In the majority of the provinces there is only one house—the elected 
assembly. The legislative councils that assisted before 1867 have been 
abolished in all the legislatures except those of Quebec and Nova Scotia, 
and in the latter the example of the majority will soon be followed. 
The upper houses had become to a great extent expensive and almost 
useless bodies, since they were the creation of the respective governments 
of the day—who too often considered only the claims of party in their 
appointments—with no responsibility to the people, rarely initiated im- 
portant legislation. and had no legislative control over the purse strings 
of the provinces, and, at the best, only revised the legislation of the 
lower house in a perfunctory sort of way. It is questionable, however, 
whether it would not have been wiser, in view of the hasty legislation 
that may be expected from such purely democratic bodies as the lower 
houses are becoming under the influence of an extended franchise—man- 
hood franchise existing in nearly all the provinces, including the great 
English province of Ontario—to have continued the English bicameral 
system, which still exists in the great majority of parliamentary bodies 
throughout the world,’ and which even the republican neighbours of 
Canada have insisted on, in every stage of their constitutional develop- 
ment, as necessary to the legislative machinery of the nation and of every 
state of the union. It would have been much better to have created an 
upper house, which would be partly elected by the people and partly 
appointed by the crown, which would be fairly representative of the 
wealth, industry and culture of the country—the last being insured by 
university representation. Such a house would, in the opinion of those 
who have watched the course and tendency of legislation since the 
abolition of these upper chambers, act more or less as legislative break- 

1“ The bicameral system has met the approval of most of the leading political 
writers [Victor Tiszot, ‘ Unknown Hungary,” I. 134], and is realized in practice by 
the legislatures of the principal countries. Legislative bodies with a single chamber 
are common in cities, in departmental, provincial and county councils. Many of 
the smaller American cities, and some of the larger, have a council of one chamber, 
but every American state legislature has two houses. The unicameral bodies fall 
into three or four main groups: the parliaments of the minor states of southeastern. 
Europe, Servia, Bulgaria and Greece; the congresses of the states of Central 
America, Nicaragua excepted, compose another group ; the landtags of the Austrian 
crown lands are one-chambered, and so are nearly all the diets of the minor German 
states, excepting those of the free cities.” See ‘‘The Representative Assemblies of 
To-Day,” by E. K. Alden; Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1893. 
