eck the federal experiment of Canada's great
neighbor, was like navigating an unknown sea. And what was to be the
attitude of the new Dominion, half nation, half colony, to the mother
country and to the republic to the south, no one could yet foretell.

The first problem which faced the Dominion was the organization of
the new machinery of government. It was necessary to choose a federal
Administration to guide the Parliament which was soon to meet at Ottawa,
the capital of the old Canada since 1858 and now accepted as the capital
of the larger Canada. It was necessary also to establish provincial
Governments in Canada West, henceforth known as Ontario and in Canada
East, or Quebec. The provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were to
retain their existing provincial Governments.

There was no doubt as to whom the Governor General, Lord Monck, should
call to form the first federal Administration. Macdonald had proved
himself easily the greatest leader of men the four provinces had
produced. The entrance of two new provinces into the union, with all
the possibilities of new party groupings and new personal alliances
it involved, created a situation in which he had no rival. His great
antagonist, Brown, passed off the parliamentary stage. When he proposed
a coalition to carry through federation, Brown had recognized that he
was sacrificing his chief political asset, the discontent of Canada
West. But he was too true a patriot to hesitate a moment on that score,
and in any case he was sufficiently confident of his own abilities to
believe that he could hold his own in a fresh field. In this expectation
he was deceived. No man among his contemporaries surpassed him in
sheer ability, in fearless honesty, in vigor of debate, but he lacked
Macdonald's genial and supple art of managing men. And with broad
questions of state policy for the moment out of the way, it was
capacity in managing men that was to count in determining success. Never
afterward did Brown take an active part in parliamentary life, though
still a power in the land through his newspaper, the Toronto "Globe",
which was regarded as the Scotch Presbyterian's second Bible. Of the
other leaders of old Canada, Cartier with failing health was losing his
vigor and losing also the prestige with his party which his solid Canada
East majority had given him; Galt soon retired to private business, with
occasional incursions into diplomacy; and McGee fell a victim in 186