[BoURINOT] A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 35 
and responsible government—the principles of which that popular chief 
never understood—was established largely through the discretion and 
ability of Lafontaine and other French Canadian public men who saw that 
their great advantage lay in the operation of such a system. If Sir John 
Macdonald was able to exercise so much influence in the politics of Canada 
before and after confederation, it was largely —sometimes entirely—through 
the aid of men like Cartier and his compatriots, who recognized in that 
eminent statesman that liberality as well as pliability which would enable 
their race to hold their own against the aggressive assaults of the extreme 
reformers or “Clear Grits,” led by Mr. George Brown, a very able but 
impracticable politician, who did not give sufficient importance to the fact 
that Canada could be governed only by principles of compromise and 
conciliation in the presence of a large and closely welded French Cana- 
dian people, jealous of their institutions and their nationality. Eventually 
government got to a deadlock in consequence of the difficulties between 
the two political parties ; a majority of French Canadian and a minority 
of English representatives, comprising the conservatives led by Macdonald 
and Cartier, and a majority of western or English and a small minority 
of French members, comprising the liberals and grits, led by Brown and 
Dorion. These political difficulties, arising from the antagonism of 
nationalities, led to the federation of all the provinces and to the giving of 
additional guarantees for the protection of French Canadian interests. 
In the senate of the Dominion, Quebec has a representation equal to that 
of English Ontario, with nearly double the population, with the condition 
that each of its twenty-four members shall be chosen from each of the 
districts of the province—a condition intended to ensure French Cana- 
dian representation to the fullest extent possible. 
In the adjustment of representation in the house of commons, from 
time to time, the proportion of sixty-five members, given by the union act 
to Quebec, cannot be disturbed. The jurisdiction given to the provinces 
over civil rights and property, and the administration of justice except in 
criminal matters, was chiefly the work of French Canada, whose people 
have since 1774 accepted the criminal law of England, but have not been 
willing to surrender their civil code, based on the Coutume de Paris, which 
they have derived from their French ancestors. Both the French and 
English languages are used in the debates, records and journals of the par- 
liament of the Dominion and the legislature of Quebec. It would be dif- 
ficult to conceive a constitution more clearly framed with the view of 
protecting the special institutions of one race, and perpetuating its separate 
existence in the Dominion. Of course, the industrial energy of the English 
people, and the necessity of speaking the language of the English majority, 
have to a certain extent broken down the barriers that language imposes 
between nationalities, and it is only in the isolated and distant parishes of 
Quebec that we find persôns who are ignorant of English. The political 
