From that day, with trivial intervals or incidents of misunderstanding, the British and the French in Canada have played the political game together. It was in the La Fontaine-Baldwin ministry that {216} the joint action, within the Canadian parties, of the two races had its real beginning; and while the traditions and idiosyncrasies of Quebec were too ingrained and fundamental to admit of modification beyond a certain point, Canadian parliamentary life was henceforth based on the free co-operation of French and English, in a party system which tried to forget the distinction of race. From this time, too, Elgin began to discern the conservative genius of the French people, and to prophesy that, when Baldwin's moderate reforming influence should have been withdrawn, the French would naturally incline to unite with the moderate Conservatives--the combination on which, in actual fact, John A. Macdonald based his long control of power in Canada. The nationalist question is so intermingled with the constitutional that it is not always easy to separate the two issues. The same qualities which settled the latter difficulty ended also French grievances--saving common-sense which did not refuse to do the obvious thing; _bonhomie_ which understood that a well-mannered people may be wooed from its isolation by a little humouring; a mind resolute to administer to every British subject equal rights; and an austere refusal to let an {217} arrogant and narrow-minded minority claim to itself a kind of oligarchic glory at the expense of citizens who did not belong to the Anglo-Saxon stock.