260 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



our own representatives. The members at Ottawa who exercise the 

 power of vetoing provincial legislation, are themselves elected to 

 office by the men of the Province.?, aud though they cannot directly 

 be called to account, an attack upon any one Province is an attack 

 upon all. To that general reason I would assign another perhaps as 

 forcible, and that is that the line of demarcation between the 

 powers of central and local governments ought to be better known to 

 the men of Canada than to the ministers of the Crown in Great 

 Bi'itain. That may be some reason for handing over this power to 

 Judges of the Supreme Court, but whatever may be the defects of 

 the judgment of the Cabinet it has the advantage of coming to the 

 public as the decision of one person. The Supreme Court as every 

 other Court gives the individual opinion of each member, and if a 

 Provincial Act were to be upheld because three Judges were in favor 

 of it while three were against it, that would not diminish the dis- 

 satisfaction. The Act of Union is largely taken up with Ontario 

 and Quebec — indeed nearly one-half is devoted to these Pi'ovinces. 

 The other two came in with their legislatures unimpaired, and the 

 executive power altered only so far as thereafter the Lieutenant 

 Governor was sent from Ottaw* and not from England. The care- 

 fulness to provide for the Canadas gives rise to the suspicion that 

 those who piloted the Act in 1867, were doubtful if the simple pi-o- 

 visions given to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would suffice for 

 the other provinces. With the United States constitution as a 

 model worthy of being followed, it is rather remarkable that it was 

 altogether departed from in this respct. The United States consti- 

 tution guarantees a republican form of government to each of th^ 

 States, and there practically the matter rests. 



