overning people by letting them govern themselves.
People sometimes ask why England has been so successful in governing
one-fifth of the habitable globe. She does not govern one-fifth the
habitable globe. She lets much of it govern itself; and it was Lord
Durham, coming out as Governor-General and high commissioner at this
time, who laid the foundations of England's success in colonizing. His
report has been the Magna Charta and Declaration of Independence of the
self-governing colonies of the British Empire.

First of all, government must be entrusted to the house representing the
people. Second, the granting of moneys must be controlled by those
paying the taxes. Third, the Executive must be responsible not only to
the Crown but to the representatives of the people. It is here the
Canadian system differs from the American. The Secretary, or Cabinet
Minister, can not hold office one day under the disapproval of the House,
no matter what his tenure of office.

The Act of 1840 resulted from Durham's report. Upper and Lower Canada
were united under one government--which was really the forerunner of
confederation in '67. The House was given exclusive control of taxation
and expenditure. Nothing awakened Canada so acutely to the necessity of
federating all British North America as the Civil War in the United
States, when the States Right party fought to secede. Red River and
British Columbia had become peopled. The maritime provinces settled by
French from Quebec and New England Loyalists were alien in thought from
Upper and Lower Canada. The cry "54-40 or fight," the setting up of a
provisional government by Oregon, the Riel Rebellion in Manitoba, the
rush of California gold miners to Cariboo--all were straws in a restless
wind blowing Canada's destiny hither and whither. Confederation was not
a pocket theory. It was a result born of necessity, and the main
principles of confederation embodied in the British North America Act had
been foreshadowed in Durham's report. Durham himself suffered the fate
of too many of the world's great. He had come out to Canada to settle a
bitter dispute between the little oligarchy round the royal Governor and
the people. He sided with neither and was abjured by both. The
sentences against the patriots he had set aside or softened. The
royalists he condemned but did not punish. Both sides poured charges
against Durham into the office of the Colonial Secretary in England,