Another wise measure for which Baldwin deserves no little praise is the
Municipal Corporations Act. The title has a dry, legal look, and will
suggest little or nothing to the general reader except, possibly, red
tape. Moreover, the system by which the subdivisions of the
country--the county, the township, the incorporated village--govern
themselves seems so obvious and works so smoothly in actual practice
that it seems part of the order of nature, and must have existed from
the time beyond which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
But the present extended system of home rule in Canada did not descend
from heaven complete, like the {108} Twelve Tables. It was a gradual
growth, or evolution, from the old system, by which the local justices
of the peace, sitting in quarter sessions, assessed the local taxes,
with the difference that it was not an unconscious growth. The plant
set by Sydenham's hand was tended, cultivated, and brought to maturity
by Baldwin. The measure, as it became law in 1849, has proved to be of
the greatest practical value; it has won the approval of competent
critics; and it has served as a model for the organization of other
provinces. Commonplace and humdrum as this measure may seem to
Canadians in the actual domestic working of it, there are other parts
of the Empire--Ireland, for example--which were to lag long behind.
The lack of such privileges is a grievance elsewhere. Even to-day, the
rural districts of England have not as extensive powers of
self-government as the counties of Ontario. If the farmers of the
Tenth Concession had to go to Ottawa and see a bill through the House
every time they wanted a new school, if they had months of waiting for
proper authorization, not to mention expenses of legislation to meet,
they might appreciate more keenly the advantages they enjoy in virtue
of this {109} forgotten Act of 1849. The lover of the picturesque will
not regret that terms with the historic colour of 'reeve' and 'warden'
were made part and parcel of a democratic system in the New World.

It was a session of constructive statesmanship. The judicial system of
the province needed to be revised, extended, and simplified; and these
things were done. The economic condition of Canada was anything but
satisfactory. For years the country had 'enjoyed a preference' in the
British markets, in accordance with the old, plausible theory that
mother country and colony were best held