CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION,

ON the 1st day of July in the present year (1888) the
Canadian federation attained its majority ; twenty-one years
having elapsed since by an Order in Council the Provinces
of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were
formed into the Dominion. Twenty-one years is not a long
period in the life of a State, and it is not to be expected
that the Constitution of Canada will prove as instructive
a subject of study as that of the United States with its
hundred years of growth and development. But in many
respects the Canadian Constitution offers a special field for
the inquirer. It is a successful effort to solve the problem
of uniting distinct states or provinces under a central government.
 A similar task had already presented itself to an
English speaking people, but the conditions of the problem
solved in Canada differed in many respects from the conditions
 that faced Washington and his associates. While the
American States had to create not merely a central government
 but a government which, within the limits laid down,
should be supreme, the Canadian Provinces had to organize
& Union subject to a supreme Executive, Legislature and
Judicature all of which already existed. The executive su-Premacy
 of the Queen, the legislative power of the Imperial
Parliament, and the Judicial functions of the Privy Council
nw