not even then did any large body of the people threaten to sever the
connection with the parent state. The Act of Confederation was framed
under the direct influence of Sir John Macdonald and Sir George Cartier,
and although one was an English Canadian and the other a French
Canadian, neither yielded to the other in the desire to build up a
Dominion on the basis of English institutions, in the closest possible
connection with the mother country. While the question of union was
under consideration it was English statesmen and writers alone who
predicted that this new federation, with its great extent of territory,
its abundant resources, and ambitious people, would eventually form a
new nation independent of Great Britain. Canadian statesmen never spoke
or wrote of separation, but regarded the constitutional change in their
political condition as giving them greater weight and strength in the
empire. The influence of British example on the Canadian Dominion can be
seen throughout its governmental machinery, in the system of
parliamentary government, in the constitution of the privy council and
the houses of parliament, in an independent judiciary, in appointed
officials of every class--in the provincial as well as Dominion
system--in a permanent and non-political civil service, and in all
elements of sound administration. During the thirty-three years that
have passed since 1867, the attachment to England and her institutions
has gained in strength, and it is clear that those predictions of
Englishmen to which we have referred are completely falsified. On the
contrary, the dominant sentiment is for strengthening the ties that have
in some respects become weak in consequence of the enlargement of the
political rights of the Dominion, which has assumed the position of a
semi-independent power, since England now only retains her imperial
sovereignty by declaring peace or war with foreign nations, by
appointing a governor-general, by controlling colonial legislation
through the Queen in council and the Queen in parliament--but not so as