How the designs of the Fathers have been modified by the course of events is well known. The federal power has been restrained from undue encroachment on provincial rights by the decisions, on various issues, of the highest court, the judicial committee of the Imperial Privy Council. The power to dismiss lieutenant-governors was found to be fraught with danger and has been rarely exercised. The dismissal of Letellier, a strong Liberal, from the lieutenant-governorship of Quebec by the {70} Conservative ministry at Ottawa in 1879, gave rise to some uneasiness and criticism. The reason assigned was that his 'usefulness was gone,' since both houses of parliament had passed resolutions calling for his removal. He was accused of partisanship towards his ministers. The federal prime minister, Sir John Macdonald, assented reluctantly, it is said, to the dismissal. But some of the facts are still obscure. The status of the office and the causes that would warrant removal were thus given by Macdonald at Quebec, according to the imperfect report which has come down to us: The office must necessarily be during pleasure. The person may break down, misbehave, etc.... The lieutenant-governor will be a very high officer. He should be independent of the federal government, except as to removal for cause, and it is necessary that he should not be removable by any new political party. It would destroy his independence. He should only be removable upon an address from the legislature. The power of disallowance, the third expedient for curbing the provinces, was exercised with {71} some freedom down to 1888. In that year a Quebec measure, the Jesuits' Estates Act, with a highly controversial preamble calculated to provoke a war of creeds, was not disallowed, although protests were carried past parliament to the governor-general personally. The incident directed attention to the previous practice at Ottawa under both parties and a new era of non-intervention was inaugurated. Disallowance is now rare, except where Imperial interests are affected, and never occurs on the ground of the policy or impolicy of the measure. The provinces, as a matter of practice, are free within their limits to legislate as they please. But the Dominion as a self-governing state has long passed the stage where the clashing of provincial and federal jurisdictions could shake the constitution. When the conference, however, considered provincial powers it went to the root of a federal system. The maritime delegates as a whole displayed magnanimity and statesmanship. Brown, as the champion of Upper Canada, was concerned to see that the interests of his own province were amply secured. He held radical views. When he spoke, the calm surface of the conference, where a moderate and essentially conservative {72} constitutionalism sat entrenched, may have been ruffled. The following is from the summary which has been preserved of one of his speeches:[2]