{BoURINOT] A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 37 
republican and military despotism — a period best remembered for 
Cromwell’s genius and his successful assertion of England’s greatness on 
sea and land in her conflict with foreign nations. Professor Freeman, 
in his review of federal government, gives us four famous examples of 
federal commonwealths—the Achaian League, the Swiss Confederation, 
the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the United States of 
America—all of which stand out at different epochs of the world’s pro- 
gress as remarkable illustrations of the republican system. All of us will 
also remember that Dr. James Bryce, in his elaborate criticism of repub- 
lican institutions, could find no more expressive title for his work than 
“The American Commonwealth.” No doubt the word has come to mean 
a pure republic or democracy, when used in a specific and definite sense 
by publicists of these days. Shakspere might use all the license of the 
poet in his dramas; for he was not bound by those rules of correct 
expression which one would expect from Australian statesmen engaged 
in framing a new constitution for countries not yet separated from Eng 
land or governed on a purely republican system of institutions, such as 
elected president, governors, judges and officials generally. 
When we consider the choice of this word of dubious significance, as 
well as the selection of the word “state” instead of “ province” of “ house 
of representatives”! instead of “house of commons,” of “executive coun- 
cil” instead of “privy council,’ we may well wonder why the Austra- 
lians—all English by origin and aspiration—should have shown so steady 
an inclination to deviate from the precedents established by a Dominion 
only partly English with the view of carving ancient historic names on 
the very front of its political structure. 
It is an interesting fact not generally known—but the present writer 
had it from the lips of Sir John Macdonald himself—that the word 
“ Dominion” was only adopted as a compromise in response to the wishes 
of the English ministry of the day, who were not willing to take the sug- 
gestion made by some of the Canadian delegates to the Westminster con- 
ference of 1866 that the new federation should be described in the union 
act as ‘the kingdom of Canada,” simply because English statesmen were 
afraid to wound the susceptibilities of the people of the United States, 
who still retained a feeling of antagonism to England arising out of the 
civil war, and had so recently resented the attempt made by the French 
emperor to interfere in the affairs of Mexico, and establish in America 


1The present popular house of New Zealand is called a ‘ house of represent- 
atives,” and this is not strange when we recall the republican principles of Sir 
George Grey, who is an earnest advocate of elective governors-general and other 
republican practices. But this eccentric colonial statesman does not appear to be 
responsible for the phraseology of the proposed constitution. The debates of the 
convention, of which he was a member, show that the majority desired to make 
their new constitution a copy, as far as practicable, of that of the United States. 
