34 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
be provided in accordance with the constitution, has given a judicial 
aspect to this vexed question that it would not possibly assume were it a 
mere matter of political controversy or sectional agitation, and has thrown 
a very serious responsibility upon those whose duty it is to obey the law 
of the constitution and respect the judgment of the courts who, under a 
federal system, can be the only safe interpreters of the written fundamen- 
tal law. 
All these questions show some of the difficulties that:are likely to 
impede the satisfactory operation of the Canadian federal system, and the 
projected Australian federation is fortunate in not having similar intensi- 
fied differences of race and religion to contend with. Its constitution 
wisely leaves all educational and other purely local matters to the exclu- 
sive jurisdiction of the ‘states,’ and does not make provision for the 
exercise of that delicate power of remedial legislation which is given to the 
Canadian parliament to meet conditions of injustice to creed or nationality. 
Throughout the structure of the Canadian federation we see the 
influence of French Canada. The whole tendency of imperial as well as 
colonial legislation for over a hundred years has been to strengthen this 
separate national entity, and give it every possible guarantee for the pre- 
servation of its own laws and religion. The first step in this direction was 
the Quebee Act of 1774, which relieved the Roman Catholics of Canada 
from the political disabilities under which they had suffered since the 
conquest. Seventeen years later what is known as the imperial “Consti- 
tutional Act” of 1791, created two provinces, Upper Canada (Ontario), 
and Lower Canada (Quebec), with the avowed object of separating the 
two races into distinct territorial divisions. From 1792 antil 1840, when 
the Canadas were re-united, there was a “war of races” in French or 
Lower Canada, where the English party, who had all the executive and 
official power in their hands, became eventually embroiled with the popu- 
Jar and French majority in the assembly. When the insurrection led by 
Louis Papineau—an eloquent and impulsive French Canadian—had been 
easily repressed, French Canada was united to the western or English 
section, and an equal representation was given to both provinces in the 
elected assembly, although the French had still the larger population. 
The English language was alone to be used in the legislative records. 
The main object of these constitutional changes was confessedly, as fore- 
shadowed by Lord Durham, “to establish an English population, with 
English laws and language, in the province, and to trust its government 
to none but a decidedly English legislature.” The attempt to denationalize 
the French Canadians signally failed ; the union of 1841 came too late to 
destroy or even minimize the work of the Quebec and Constitutional acts 
for over half a century. French Canada became a powerful factor in the 
affairs of the union that lasted from 1841 to 1867; the French language 
was restored, the elective councils that Papineau fought for were won, 
