contracted by the western province. It
was not long before an agitation was started to readjust the
relations between Upper and Lower Canada, and free the French from
conditions which pressed heavily upon their material interests and
racial sentiment. The new problem was, to find a way by which the
principle of self-government recently conceded to Canada as a whole
might be reconciled with the free action and growth of its component
provinces; and for twenty-five years this question engaged the
politicians of the country.

[Illustration: SIR GEORGE CARTIER]

Time, however, brought a decided change in the attitude of the two
opposing sections of the legislature, as one by one the grievances of
the French were removed. In 1848 the restrictions placed upon the use
of their language in the Parliament were done away; and by the
surprising advance of the West, the hardship of disproportionate
representation was taken over by Upper Canada. Twenty years after the
Union, the Western Province had already a population greater by three
hundred thousand than that of her rival. In the later period of the
discussion, therefore, the position of parties was reversed, the
French defending the existing order, the Upper Province calling out
for reconstruction. But statesmen on both sides now began to aim at
larger and more patriotic ends than the exclusive advantage of their
own province; and in 1860 a scheme for a federal government was
proposed by George Brown, a Liberal statesman, intended to bring the
interests of the provinces into line with those of the country at
large. The movement was premature; but four years later a convention
met at Quebec to discuss the union of all the provinces of British
North America, the chairman being Etienne Paschal Tache, who
died before the work was consummated. There met the fathers of
Confederation, John A. Macdonald, chief of them all--George Brown,
George Etienne Cartier, Alexander Galt, Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee,
William M'Dougall, Alexander Campbell, Hector Langevin, James
Cockburn--together with Charles Tupper and other representatives of
the Maritime Provinces. It was agreed that "the system of government
best adapted under existing circumstances to protect the diversified
interests of the several provinces, and secure harmony and permanency
in the working of the Union, would be a general government charged
with matters of common interest to the whole country; and local
government for each of the