[BOURINOT] A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 43 
perity of the people, but the satisfactory working of the whole system of 
federal government rests more or less on the discretion and integrity of the 
judges. Canadians are satisfied that the peace and security of the whole 
Dominion do no more depend on the ability and patriotism of statesmen 
in the legislative halls than on that principle of the constitution which 
places the judiciary in an exalted position among all the other authorities 
of government, and makes law as far as possible the arbiter of their 
constitutional conflicts. All political systems are very imperfect at the 
best, legislatures are constantly subject to currents of popular prejudice and 
passion, statesmanship is too often weak and fluctuating, incapable of appre- 
ciating the true tendency of events, and too ready to yield to the force of 
present circumstance or dictates of expediency ; but law, as worked out on 
English principles in all the dependencies of the empire and countries of 
English origin, as understood by Marshall, Story, Kent, and other great 
masters of constitutional and legal learning, gives the best possible guar- 
antee for the security of institutions in a country of popular government. 
