and we have only to look back to the state some forty years ago of Canada, New Zealand, and the various colonies of Australia, and compare that state with their condition to-day, to come to the conclusion that the fullest power of local government is perfectly consistent with the unity of the Empire and the supremacy of the British Parliament.  Under the old colonial Constitutions the Executive of those colonies was under the control of the Crown; and Mr. Merivale says “that the political existence consisted of a series of quarrels and reconciliations between the two opposing authorities—­the colonial legislative body and the Executive nominated by the Crown.”  England resolved to give up the control of the Executive, and to grant complete responsible government—­that is to say, the Governor of each colony was instructed that his Executive Council (or Ministry, as we should call it) must resign whenever they were out-voted by the legislative body.  The effect of this change, this relaxing, as would be supposed, of the Imperial tie, was magical, and is thus described by Mr. Merivale:[11]

“The magnitude of that change—­the extraordinary rapidity of its beneficial effects—­it is scarcely possible to exaggerate.  None but those who have traced it can realize the sudden spring made by a young community under its first release from the old tie of subjection, moderate as that tie really was.  The cessation, as if by magic, of the old irritant sores between colony and mother country is the first result.  Not only are they at concord, but they seem to leave hardly any traces in the public mind behind them.  Confidence and affection towards the home, still fondly so termed by the colonist as well as the emigrant, seem to supersede at once distrust and hostility.  Loyalty, which was before the badge of a class suspected by the rest of the community, became the common watchword of all, and, with some extravagance in the sentiment, there arises no small share of its nobleness and devotion.  Communities, which but a few years ago would have wrangled over the smallest item of public expenditure to which they were invited by the Executive to contribute, have vied with each other in their subscriptions to purposes of British interests in response to calls of humanity, or munificence for objects but indistinctly heard of at the distance of half the world.”

The Dominion of Canada has been so much talked about that it may be well to give a summary of its Constitution, though, in so far as regards its relations to the mother country, it differs in no material respect from any other self-governing colony.  The Dominion consists of seven provinces, each of which has a Legislature of its own, but is at the same time subject to the Legislature of the Dominion, in the same manner as each State in the American Union has a Legislature of its own, and is at the same time subject to the control of Congress.  The distinguishing feature between the system of the American States and the associated