happy contentment that furnishes a pleasing contrast to the rush of life on the American Continent Their position within the Empire is altogether unique, and at the same time profoundly interesting. They own a double allegiance: on the one hand to the British Crown, as the Power which guarantees them the free use and enjoyment of their institutions, their language, and their laws, and, on the other hand, to the traditions of their race, the memories of the country from whence they came, but from which they have long been politically separated, and the associations of a literature which they proudly claim as their part heritage. And behind, or even above, these allegiances is then devotion to the soil of Canada—their native land. To the French-Canadian 'Imperialism' has been made a word of fear, implying military aggression, and the forceful overlordship of subject peoples, instead of a 'business proposition' for cooperation in commerce, defence, and other matters. They are being taught by some of their leading spokesmen to regard a closer union with the Empire as incompatible with nationhood. They are exhorted not to forget that their rights and privileges were secured to them by the 'contract' which was made at the time of the conquest, and expanded afterwards in later instruments such as the Quebec Act and the Act of 1791. The separate school question in the new provinces, which is absorbing at present so much of the time and attention of the Canadian Parliament, is only another chapter in the French-Canadian version of the history of 'State rights.' There was a time when they dreamed of dominating the North-West, and encircling British Ontario by a French nation on both flanks. That dream has passed away, and in the light of the conditions which have replaced it we may feel confident that, no matter what it may it be found politically expedient to legislate at Ottawa, the future of the North- West will inevitably assert itself. Twenty years will be a long enough period to show whether the new provinces will reproduce the conditions which grew up in Eastern
