It is unfortunate that we have no full report of the deliberations and debates of this great conference.  We have only a fragmentary record from which it is difficult to form any adequate conclusions as to the part taken by the several delegates in the numerous questions which necessarily came under their purview.[4] Under these circumstances, a careful writer hesitates to form any positive opinion based upon these reports of the discussions, but no one can doubt that the directing spirit of the conference was Sir John Macdonald.  Meagre as is the record of what he said, we can yet see that his words were those of a man who rose above the level of the mere politician, and grasped the magnitude of the questions involved.  What he aimed at especially was to follow as closely as possible the fundamental principles of English parliamentary government, and to engraft them upon the general system of federal union.  Mr. George Brown took a prominent part in the deliberations.  His opinions read curiously now.  He was in favour of having the lieutenant-governors appointed by the general government, and he was willing to give them an effective veto over provincial legislation.  He advocated the election of a legislative chamber on a fixed day every third year, not subject to a dissolution during its term—­also an adaptation of the American system.  He went so far as to urge the advisability of having the executive council elected for three years—­by the assembly, we may assume, though the imperfect report before us does not state so—­and also of giving the lieutenant-governor the right of dismissing any of its members when the house was not sitting.  Mr. Brown consequently appears to have been the advocate, so far as the provinces were concerned, of principles that prevail in the federal republic across the border.  He opposed the introduction of responsible government, as it now obtains, in all the provinces of the Dominion, while conceding its necessity for the central government.

[4:  Mr. Joseph Pope, for years the able confidential secretary of Sir John Macdonald, has edited and published all the official documents bearing on the origin and evolution of the British North America Act of 1867; but despite all the ability and fidelity he has devoted to the task the result is most imperfect and unsatisfactory on account of the absence of any full or exact original report of proceedings.]

We gather from the report of discussions that the Prince Edward Island delegates hesitated from the beginning to enter a union where their province would necessarily have so small a numerical representation—­one of the main objections which subsequently operated against the island coming into the confederation.  With respect to education we see that it was Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Galt, who was responsible for the provision in the constitution which gives the general government and parliament a certain control over provincial legislation in case the rights of