I900-2.] The Beginning of Municipal Government in Ontario. 409 



THE BEGINNING OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN 



ONTARIO. 



By Prof. Adam Shortt, Queen's University. 



(yRead 12th April, igo2.) 



After the conquest of Canada, very satisfactory progress was being 

 made towards the converting of the country into an English colony, by 

 methods very similar to those which had worked so successfully in the 

 colony of New York, originally a Dutch settlement. But, unfortunately 

 for this promising development of a united Canada, difficulties arose 

 between the mother country and the older colonies. The nature of the 

 rights claimed by the colonists, proved to the majority of the ruling 

 party in Britain that full British rights and liberties, even as they were 

 in those days, were quite inconsistent with the retention of the colonies 

 in that condition of submissive dependence, which was called for by the 

 colonial system of the time. The object of this system was to foster the 

 colonies, not with a view to their own good, but with a view to the good 

 of the mother country. Nevertheless, it was honestly believed by many 

 of its advocates, that, in serving the purposes of the mother country, the 

 colonies would share in her prosperity and greatness, and obtain all the 

 benefits that were possible to people who had abandoned the political, 

 social, and other privileges of the home land for the greater material 

 gain, but necessarily inferior life of the colonies. 



As the difficulties with the colonies increased, the conviction grew 

 that the colonists had been permitted to usurp many liberties, which 

 were quite inconsistent with their dependent position. It was freely 

 admitted by many that France and Spain, not England, had dealt wisely 

 with their colonies in keeping them in due subjection. 



Possessed of such convictions, and with a view to employing the 

 joint French-Canadian and Indian forces as a rod of correction to bring 

 the arrogant colonists to a due sense of their inferior status in the 

 empire, every one of the numerous measures, then either in operation or 

 preparation, for the Anglicizing of Canada was abandoned. All the or- 

 dinances passed after the Conquest were repealed by the Quebec Act, 

 which re-established in its purity the French-Canadian civil laws and 



