ians would have been tempted
to follow the political model of their great neighbour the United
States; and if their development had been the outcome of friction with
the mother-country, no doubt they would have done so. But they
preferred to follow the British model. The keynote of the American
system is division of power: division between the federal government
and the state governments, which form mutual checks upon one another;
division between the executive and the legislature, which are
independent of one another at once in the states and in the federal
government, both being directly elected by popular vote. The keynote of
the British system is concentration of responsibility by the
subordination of the executive to the legislature. The Canadians
adopted the British principle: what had formerly been distinct colonies
became, not 'states' but 'provinces,' definitely subordinated to the
supreme central government; and whether in the federal or in the
provincial system, the control of government by the representative body
was finally established. This concord with the British system is a fact
of real import. It means that the political usages of the home-country
and the great Dominion are so closely assimilated that political
co-operation between them is far easier than it otherwise might be; it
increases the possibility of a future link more intimate than that of
mere co-operation.

Not less whole-hearted or generous than the treatment of the problems
of Canadian government was the treatment of the same problem in
Australia. Here, as a matter of course, all the colonies had been
endowed, at the earliest possible date, with the familiar system of
representative but not responsible government. No such acute friction
as had occurred in Canada had yet shown itself, though signs of its
development were not lacking. But in 1852 an astonishing step was taken
by the British parliament: the various Australian colonies were
empowered to elect single-chamber constituent assemblies to decide the
forms of government under which they wished to live. They decided in
every case to reproduce as nearly as possible the British system:
legislatures of two chambers, with ministries responsible to them.
Thus, in Australia as in Canada, the daughter-peoples were made to feel
the community of their institutions with those of the mother-country,
and the possibility of intimate and easy co-operation was increased.
Two years later, in 1854,