incial
legislature--setting forth that "the union or confederation of the
British provinces, while calculated to perpetuate their connection with
the parent state, will promote their advancement and prosperity,
increase their strength, and influence and elevate their position." Mr.
Howe, on that occasion, expressed himself in favour of a federation of
the empire, of which he was always an earnest advocate until his death.

In the legislature of Canada Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Tilloch Galt
was an able exponent of union, and when he became a member of the
Cartier-Macdonald government in 1858 the question was made a part of the
ministerial policy, and received special mention in the speech of Sir
Edmund Head, the governor-general, at the end of the session. The matter
was brought to the attention of the imperial government on more than one
occasion during these years by delegates from Canada and Nova Scotia,
but no definite conclusion could be reached in view of the fact that the
question had not been taken up generally in the provinces.

The political condition of the Canadas brought about a union much sooner
than was anticipated by its most sanguine promoters. In a despatch
written to the colonial minister by the Canadian delegates,--members of
the Cartier-Macdonald ministry--who visited England in 1858 and laid the
question of union before the government, they represented that "very
grave difficulties now present themselves in conducting the government
of Canada"; that "the progress of population has been more rapid in the
western province, and claims are now made on behalf of its inhabitants
for giving them representation in the legislature in proportion to their
numbers"; that "the result is shown by agitation fraught with great
danger to the peaceful and harmonious working of our constitutional
system, and, consequently, detrimental to the progress of the province"
that "this state of things is yearly becoming worse"; and that "the
Canadian government are impressed with the necessity for seeking such a
mode of dealing with these difficulties as may for ever remove them." In
addition to this expression of opinion on the part of the
representatives of the Conservative government of 1858, the Reformers of
Upper Canada held a large and influential convention at Toronto in
1859, and adopted a resolution in which it was emphatically set forth,
"that the best practicable remedy for the evils now encountered in the
go