responsible government, and from its entrance into public life must be
dated a new era in which the relations between the governor and his
advisers were at last placed on a sound constitutional basis, in which
the constant appeals to the imperial government on matters of purely
provincial significance came to an end, in which local self-government
was established in the fullest sense compatible with the continuance
of the connection with the empire. It was a ministry notable not only
for the ability of its members, but for the many great measures which
it was able to pass during its term of office--measures calculated to
promote the material advancement of the province, and above all to
dispel racial prejudices and allay sectional antagonisms by the
adoption of wise methods of compromise, conciliation and justice to
all classes and creeds.

In Lord Elgin's letters of 1848 to Earl Grey, we can clearly see how
many difficulties surrounded the discharge of his administrative
functions at this time, and how fortunate it was for Canada, as well
as for Great Britain, that he should have been able to form a
government which possessed so fully the confidence of both sections of
the province, irrespective of nationality. The revolution of February
in Paris, and the efforts of a large body of Irish in the United
States to evoke sympathy in Canada on behalf of republicanism were
matters of deep anxiety to the governor-general and other friends of
the imperial state. "It is just as well," he wrote at this time to
Lord Grey, "that I should have arranged my ministry, and committed the
flag of Great Britain to the custody of those who are supported by the
large majority of the representatives and constituencies of the
province, before the arrival of the astounding news from Europe which
reached us by the last mail. There are not wanting here persons who
might, under different circumstances, have attempted by seditious
harangues, if not by overt acts, to turn the example of France, and
the sympathies of the United States to account."

Under the circumstances he pressed upon the imperial authorities the
wisdom of repealing that clause of the Union Act which restricted the
use of the French language. "I am for one deeply convinced," and here
he showed he differed from Lord Durham, "of the impolicy of all such
attempts to denationalize the French. Generally speaking, they produce
the opposite effect from that intended, causing the flame