16 KOYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



sidered to appertain to their provincial and local interests Avere placed 

 under their immediate legislative jurisdiction. The Canadian legislature, 

 under the new impulse of a relatively unfettered action, went vigorously 

 to work to lay the foundations of a municipal system as indispensable to 

 the operations of local self-government. The troublesome land question, 

 involved in the seigniorial tenure, was settled, after much agitation, on 

 terms favourable to vested interests, while the clergy reserves were also 

 arranged so as no longer to favour one church at the expense of others, 

 or to impede the progress of settlement and cultivation. The union of 

 the Canadas lasted until 186Y, when it had outgrown its usefulness, and 

 the provinces found it necessary to enter into a federation, which had 

 been foreshadowed by Lord Durham and advocated by many eminent 

 men even before his time. 



YI. 



Of all the conspicuous figures of those memorable times of political 

 struggles, which already seem so far away from Canadians, who now 

 possess so many political rights, there are three which stand out more 

 prominently than all others and represent the two distinct types of 

 politicians who influenced the public mind duriug the first part of this 

 century. These are Papineau, Baldwin, and Howe. Around the figure 

 of the first there has always been a sort of glamour which has helped to 

 conceal his vanity, his rashness, and his want of political sagacity, which 

 would have, under any circumstances, prevented his success as a safe 

 statesman, capable of guiding a people through a trying ordeal. His 

 eloquence was fervid and had much influence over his impulsive country- 

 men^ his sincerity was undoubted, and in all likelihood his very indis- 

 cretions made more palpable the defects of the political system against 

 which he so persistently and so often justly declaimed. He lived to see 

 his countrymen enjoy power and influence under the very union which 

 they resented, and find himself no longer a leader among men, but iso- 

 lated from a great majority of his own people, and representing a past 

 whose methods were antagonistic to the new regime that had grown up 

 since 1838. It would have been well for his reputation had he remained 

 in obscurity on return from exile, and never stood on the floor of a 

 united parliament, since he could onl}- prove in those later times that he 

 had never understood the true working of responsible government. The 

 days of reckless agitation had passed, and the time for astute and calm 

 statesmanship had come. Lafontaine and Morin were now safer political 

 guides for his countrymen. He soon disappeared entirely from public 

 view, and in the solitude of his picturesque château amid the groves that 

 overhang the Ottawa Eiver, only visited from time to time by a few 



