At Confederation the destinies of old Canada were virtually in the hands of three men--the Honourable George Brown, Sir George Cartier, and Sir John Macdonald, to give the two latter the titles they received at a later time. Mr. Brown was mainly responsible for the difficulties that had made the conduct of government practically impossible, through his persistent and even rude assertion of the claims of Upper Canada to larger representation and more consideration in the public administration. No one will deny his consummate ability, his inflexibility of purpose, his impetuous oratory, and his financial knowledge, but his earnestness carried him frequently beyond the {407} limits of political prudence, and it was with reason that he was called "a governmental impossibility," as long as French and English Canada continued pitted against each other, previous to the union of 1867. The journal which he conducted with so much force, attacked French Canada and its institutions with great violence, and the result was the increase of racial antagonisms. Opposed to him was Sir George Etienne Cartier, who had found in the Liberal-Conservative party, and in the principles of responsible government, the means of strengthening the French Canadian race and making it a real power in the affairs of the country. Running throughout his character there was a current of sound sense and excellent judgment which came to the surface at national crises. A solution of difficulties, he learned, was to be found not in the violent assertion of national claims, but in the principles of compromise and conciliation. With him was associated Sir John Macdonald, the most successful statesman that Canada has yet produced, on account of his long tenure of office and of the importance of the measures that he was able to carry in his remarkable career. He was premier of the Dominion from 1867 until his death in 1891, with the exception of the four years of the administration of the Liberals (1873-1878), led by the late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who had raised himself from the humble position of stonemason to the highest place in the councils of the country, by dint of his Scotch shrewdness, his tenacity of purpose, his public honesty, and his thorough comprehension of {408} Canadian questions, though he was wanting in breadth of statesmanship. Many generations must pass away before the personal and political merits of Sir John Macdonald can be advantageously and impartially reviewed. A lawyer by profession, but a politician by choice, not remarkable for originality of conception, but possessing an unusual capacity for estimating the exact conditions of public sentiment, and for moulding his policy so as to satisfy that opinion, having a perfect understanding of the ambitions and weaknesses of human nature, believing that party success was often as desirable as the triumph of any great principle, ready to forget his