Franchise in Canada is practically universal suffrage. At least it amounts to that. Voters must be registered. They must be British subjects. They must be twenty-one years of age. They must not be insane, idiots or convicts. They must own real property to the value of three hundred dollars in cities, two hundred dollars in towns, one hundred and fifty dollars in the country; or they must have a yearly income of three hundred dollars. A farmer's son has the right to vote without these qualifications, evidently on the ancient Saxon presumption that a free-holder represents more vitally the interests of a country than the penniless floater, who neither works nor earns. In other words, the carpet-bag voter does not yet play any part in Canadian politics. Bad as the corruption is in some cases among the foreigners, when votes are bought at two dollars to five dollars, the point has not yet been reached when a carpet-bag gang of boarding-house floaters and saloon heelers can be transferred from a secure ward to a doubtful ward and so submerge the political rights of permanent residents. Judges can not vote in Canada. In fact, they can take no part, direct or indirect, by influence or speech, in politics. This was one of the things fought out in the '37 Rebellion and forever settled. Canada could not conceive of a man who had been a judge being nominated for the premiership or as Governor. Of course, when Liberals are in power, as advisers of the Governor-General, they recommend more Liberals for judgeships than Conservatives; and when Conservatives are in power, they recommend for judgeships more Conservatives than Liberals. I think of attorneys who were penniless strugglers in the Liberal ranks of my childhood days in Winnipeg who are to-day dignified judges; and I think of other attorneys, who were penniless strugglers in Conservative ranks who have been advanced under the Borden regime to judgeships; but the point is, having been so advanced, they pass a chasm which they can never retrace without impeachment--the chasm is party politics. They are independent of popular favor. They can be impeached and displaced. They are forever disgraced by defalcation in office. By observing the duties of office, they are secure for life and held in an esteem second only to that of the Governor-General. You will notice that it is all more a matter of public sentiment than a law; of custom than of court. That is what I mean when I say that Canada's constitution is a vital, living, growing thing, not a dead formula by which the Past binds and impedes the Present and the Future. There must be a session of the Dominion Parliament once every year. Five years is the limit of any tenure of office by the Commons. Every five years the Commoners must go to the country for reelection. Usually the government in power goes to the country for reendorsement before the term of Parliament expires.