Canada was now embarked upon a course of self-government, and was never again to feel the hand or obey the voice of England in her internal politics. So much the union had accomplished. The problems of the succeeding period concerned Canada alone, and she was now free to seek a better way to her national organisation. A responsible legislature had been conceded, yet with defects in constitution bearing hardly upon the character and traditions of the French element. Thus, although the population of the Lower Province numbered two hundred thousand more than that of her partner, the two provinces were allowed an equal number of representatives in the new house; the French language was cast aside; and the united assembly was saddled with the heavy debts previously contracted by the western province. It was not long before an agitation was started to readjust the relations between Upper and Lower Canada, and free the French from conditions which pressed heavily upon their material interests and racial sentiment. The new problem was, to find a way by which the principle of self-government recently conceded to Canada as a whole might be reconciled with the free action and growth of its component provinces; and for twenty-five years this question engaged the politicians of the country. [Illustration: SIR GEORGE CARTIER] Time, however, brought a decided change in the attitude of the two opposing sections of the legislature, as one by one the grievances of the French were removed. In 1848 the restrictions placed upon the use of their language in the Parliament were done away; and by the surprising advance of the West, the hardship of disproportionate representation was taken over by Upper Canada. Twenty years after the Union, the Western Province had already a population greater by three hundred thousand than that of her rival. In the later period of the discussion, therefore, the position of parties was reversed, the French defending the existing order, the Upper Province calling out for reconstruction. But statesmen on both sides now began to aim at larger and more patriotic ends than the exclusive advantage of their own province; and in 1860 a scheme for a federal government was proposed by George Brown, a Liberal statesman, intended to bring the interests of the provinces into line with those of the country at large. The movement was premature; but four years later a convention met at Quebec to discuss the union of all the provinces of British North America, the chairman being Étienne Paschal Taché, who died before the work was consummated. There met the fathers of Confederation, John A. Macdonald, chief of them all--George Brown, George Étienne Cartier, Alexander Galt, Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee, William M'Dougall, Alexander Campbell, Hector Langevin, James Cockburn--together with Charles Tupper and other representatives of the Maritime Provinces. It was agreed that "the system of government