lO JOHN GBOEGE BOUEINOT 



iu congress, a fact quite intelligible when we consider that the king was, as far as the 

 old colonists saw, the controlling power in the nation, and that parliamentary govern- 

 ment, as we know it in these times, was not understood hy the Americans. The framers 

 of the American constitution knew that among the royal prerogatives was the right of 

 veto, although they forgot it had not been exercised for one hundred and seventy years ; 

 but they gave it to the president chiefly because they thought it would be a valuable 

 check on the otherwise arbitrary power of congress. If I should pursue this subject still 

 further, we would see throughout the political system of our neighbors many other evi- 

 dences of their desire to reproduce British practices and rules when consistent with the 

 system of republican liberty they were attempting to establish. Canada, on the other 

 hand, has remained a dependency, and has necessarily kept pace with the progressive 

 stao-es of parliamentary and responsible government of the parent state. Our govern- 

 ment has always closely followed the important rules and maxims which make xip the 

 British constitution. Our statutory law is drawn in a great measure from that of Eng- 

 land. It is then most advisable for us to consider in what respects, if any, the United 

 States system is an improvement upon our own. "Whilst it is very interesting to note 

 the differences in the working of the two systems of government, it is still more import- 

 ant to observe the operation of their federal system from which that of Canada is taken 

 in essential respects. In short, an elaborate series of lectures fully dealing with the 

 nature and working of the political instittitions of our neighbors should necessarily form 

 a prominent feature of any course of Political Science, if it is to be made of practical and 

 real value to the students of a university. 



I might dwell at considerable length on the many subjects that naturally suggest 

 themselves to my mind in connection with so suggestive a theme. Our own system of 

 government itself, drawn ag it is from the constitutional and political experience of Eng- 

 land and of the United States, is replete with matter for study and reflection. Of Canada 

 and her institutions (particularly her local government, and her federal system), it may 

 be truly said, she " is the heir of all the ages." For instance, the federal idea is one 

 which originated with the leagues that existed in ancient Greece, with those famous 

 Achaean and Lycian federated nations which played so important a part iu the history of 

 the ancient world. We can trace its principles, according to the French historian, Guizot, 

 in the working of the feudal system, and in the relations that existed between the rude 

 communities of Europe and the feudal king or chief to whom they professed to pay a modi- 

 iied homage. AVe can see that it has been the source of security upon which the Swiss Can- 

 tons have relied for centu.ries, though surroirnded by hostile and jealous nations. It is a 

 system which rests on the basis of local self-government and a central authority, and it 

 is interesting to trace its development through all times until at last it has found its most 

 perfect realization in the United States, Canada, and the remodelled Swiss Confederation, 

 as well as in the Empires of Germany and Austria, where the machinery is in a measure 

 more complicated thau in the American example of federation. 



All these siibjects to which 1 have very briefly referred, as immediately associated 

 with, and indeed falling naturally under, the generic term of Political Science, are 

 important to us inasmuch as they bear more or less directly on the development and 

 operation of the elaborate system of federal government which we possess at last as the 

 results of more thau a century of political strviggle and achievenaent. 



