the compass in search of an expedient, the Ministers were landed at last in a course which they, no doubt, judged rightly in deeming practically the easiest, though it was logically the most untenable of all. On the other hand, the Opposition was not in a condition to take advantage of the perplexities of the Government, which it watched for some time in silence with wistful eyes. It, as well as the Government, had its Roman Catholic supporters, the dread of whose anger ruled its movements, and was visible beneath all rhetorical disguise. The Roman Catholics spoke frankly and sincerely for their separate schools, the New Brunswickers for their local liberties; in all other quarters strategical considerations manifestly prevailed. they are more under the eyes of their constituents, and the means of corruption in their case are not so great. Under institutions such as ours every step away from the constituent is apt to be a step nearer to corruption. One evening the galleries were filled with members of the civil service and their families, who had come to listen to a debate touching the disposal of a surplus fund formed out of the contributions of that body. They must have heard from one of the speakers some harsh sentiments harshly expressed, and which, it may be added, were fallacious as well as unkind. The interests of those by whom the permanent administration is carried on, and on whose character its efficiency and integrity depend, are at least as intimately connected with those of the country as are the interests of the Parlia mentary politicians. Their salaries are fixed, generally, with a pretty strict regard to economy, and are constantly decreasing in real amount with the general rise of wages and the general decline in the purchasing power of gold. To tell an efficient and experienced civil servant, in contumelious and sarcastic terms, to take inadequate wages or to go about his business, is to misconceive the real circumstances of the case and the requirements of the public. Of course the civil servant cannot go; he has committed himself to the service, and, especially if he is at all advanced in years, is incapacitated for other callings; he must perforce keep his place, and take such wages as he can get. But though the civil servant will not go, the civil service will Young men of good character will not enter a calling in which they cannot expect fair treatment and reasonable remuneration: and the faithfulness and efficiency of the service in course of time will cease. In or dinary cases justice is done, and the interest of the community is most surely promoted by leaving each man to make the best terms It will be interesting to see what course will be taken by the New Brunswick LegisThe provincial right is admitted, subject, at least, to a reference to England on a special point; and it is admitted that had the right not been respected and assured, Confederation could not have been carried. Public education, moreover, is in itself a subject on which, as all who have studied the subject dispassionately will allow, it is desirable to grant as much liberty of local experiment as possible. The difficulties of the question, which divides and agitates almost every community, are caused, in a great degree, by forcing all parts of a nation, however different their circumstances, social, economical, or intellectual, to adopt the same system. The remark may be extended to national progress generally, which would go on more smoothly and more rapidly if we were not all forced to advance abreast. In any event it is to be hoped that local liberties will not be sacrificed, nor Dominion party permitted more than is necessary to control Provincial Governments. Without strong local institutions democracy may become the worst of tyrannies. The Provincial Governments are likely always to be sounder than that of the Dominion, because that he can for himself; but a civil service must be dealt with collectively, and to keep it trustworthy Government must give its members what is just. Even great employers of ordinary labour, such as the Cunard Company, find the benefit of acting in some degree on the same principle, and attaching those in their employment to the service by making them feel that it is one of liberality and justice. sovereign, since they have themselves become the sovereign power, require much adaptation to qualify them properly for the work of legislation. In Committee on Mr. Costigan's Dual Representation Bill, Mr. Blake, as the organ of the Opposition, moved as an amendment that " every person who is a shareholder in the Pacific Railway Company, which is to receive on terms to be fixed by the Government of the day $30,000,000 and 50,000,000 acres of land, shall be ineligible to a seat in this House; and any member of this House becoming a shareholder in such Company shall vacate his seat in the House." Mr. Blake's speech is ill reported, the gravity of the subject not having been appreciated by the public at the time, though it is probably one of more serious import to us as a nation than even the Treaty of Washington; an oversight due partly to the error committed, as it would seem, by the Opposition, in bringing forward a question, which might well have been made one of the great questions of the session, merely in the form of amendment in committee on a comparatively unimportant bill. Mr. Blake, however, urg The Government measure for the assimilation of our law relating to unions and strikes to the English law was no doubt in the main right and necessary, though the English law, framed in a period of agitation, would probably admit of considerable improvement on a cool review. But the circumstances under which the measure was brought forward, and the point which had been given to it by supporters of the Government for electioneering purposes, would have warranted some grave words of warning as to the criminality of allowing party motives ever to influence the treatment of a question so fearfully important to the industrial life and the social happiness of our country. The only aim of the Opposition, however, appeared to be to bid a little high-ed in effect that it was the duty of the House er for the working man's vote. The debate on the Pacific Railway seemed to a bystander amply to confirm the saying of a leading authority on Canadian commerce, that the enterprise, however popular and beneficent, was a "leap in the dark." The same debate confirmed the misgivings which are beginning to be felt as to the fitness of numerous assemblies to deal with any but broad political questions. On such subjects as the details of a railway route the discussion is a mere babel; real deliberation is out of the question, weariness decides more than counsel, and only those who have some particular end in view press through the general confusion and indifference to their own mark. Parliaments, originally summoned merely to grant taxes and accept the measures framed by the to guard against a great danger. He referred to the formation of the company for the construction of the Railway, pointing out that the Government would have such a control over the members of the company that their prosperity would depend on its good. will, and its ill will might effect their ruin. He believed that sufficient means had not yet been provided for the railway, and that further application for assistance would yet be made; in addition to which the company was deeply interested in getting the land and money as it wanted them. There had already been rumours of discontent on account of an amendment providing that the subsidy should be payable in proportion to the construction, as calculated to hamper the company. Everything was to be left in the hands of the Government, and under these circum stances he entertained the strongest opinion that it was essential to the independence of the House that they should exclude from it members of a company supported and sustained by the Government, and which would have to obtain its resources for the prosecution of its work from the Government of the day. He found that in the list of provisional directors there were twenty-five members of Parliament; and if these directors remained in the House the virtue of the Minister would not long resist the attack of twenty-five members saying to him: "We support you, but we can no longer do so if you are so niggardly of the public lands and monies; we want the lands and money faster, and a little more of them, or the next vote of want of confidence may find us on the other side." * The debate unfortunately diverged at once into personalities of the most irrelevant kind, and no answer was given on the part of the Government to the very grave question raised by Mr. Blake's motion. The principle of excluding from Parliament, as a necessary security for its independence, government contractors and others pecuniarily dependent upon Government, may be regarded as a fundamental part of British institutions, and it is one which it is still deemed essential, in the case of the British House of Commons, to guard with unabated vigilance. The principle that no man can act as a guardian of the public interest in matters in which his private interest is involved, though, like any other principle, it may be tampered with and obscured by casuistry, is indelibly engraved on the heart of every man of honour. The presence of leading commercial men in the councils of the nation, though most desirable, cannot compensate for the breach of principles so vital to the very existence of a council worthy of being called national. In the present case, however, if the facts are * The best report is that in the Mail, June 4, which we have mainly followed. correctly stated in Mr. Blake's speech, we are presented with the picture of a Parliament actually swarming with members dependent on the favour of the Government, and able, in turn, by their united force, to compel the Government to grant what they desire. The apprehensions which such a prospect creates imply no disparagement to the character of any particular Government, or to the character of the Government more than to that of the leaders of the Opposition, who, as aspirants to power, will be subjected to the same pressure and the same témptation. The exclusion of the members of a particular company from the Legislature is certainly an awkward and invidious expedient, and fair exception might have been taken to that mode of providing a security. But unless some security can be provided a great danger seems to threaten the country. If the Minister has any regard for his fame, he will consider the subject more seriously than he appeared inclined to do in the de bate. More than one motion was made for the reform of the Senate, while that body was pursuing the even and decorous tenor of its way amidst those splendours of upholstery which, according to British tradition, seem to be the appanage and the consolation of legislative weakness. We will not be tempted to launch into the question of Second Chambers, and the mode of appointing them, or to dwell on the curious aberrations into which the framers of the Canadian Constitution, among others, have been led by taking the House of Lords for a Second Chamber, when, in fact, it is an Estate of the Realm; though the First Minister says that these are topics specially suited to magazines. There was, probably, an under-current of gentle irony in his own panegyric on the practical working of the Senate at Ottawa. On the other hand, if his nominations have not been above criticism, a writer in a magazine may put in for him a plea which he could hardly have put in for himself. Under the party system of government, party must engross everything. For every vacancy in the Senate there is a claimant, who has done something, or expended something, for the party, and whose claims cannot be set aside. The Minister may feel as strongly as his critics how much the Senate would be strengthened, and his own reputation enhanced, by the introduction of some of the merit, ability, and experience which do not take the stump. But party demands its pound of flesh. The result, however, will probably be that, after a long course of nominations by the head of one party, the Senate will, upon a change of Government, be brought into collision with the elective assembly, and the end of the "Peers" will arrive. The amount of public time expended during the session in the discussion of the Proton outrage and similar historic themes, was not unreasonably large, nor, upon the whole, did we much miss the moderating and refining influence of the Speaker's wig. Unfortunately, the dark presence of the Proton outrage once or twice clouded the scene when it was particularly desirable that the vision of members should be clear. There is no lack in the Dominion Parliament of the oratory which rules the world in our generation, though future generations will perhaps regard its ascendancy as a singular phenomenon of the past. What may be the amount of those qualities in which the community has a more real interest, is a question on which a bystander cannot presume to form an opinion. Rare in any political assembly are those noble forms whose very bearing bespeaks integrity, truth, and single-hearted devotion to the public good. May the youth of Canada learn to aim high, and to remain, amidst parties struggling for place, loyal to honour and to our common country! It would be ungrateful to close a paper on the session of the Dominion Parliament without noticing that, with that session, Lord Lisgar closed not only his rule in Canada, but a long period of service as the Imperial representative in Colonies and dependencies, in the course of which his discretion, urbanity, and experience in public business have removed difficulties, smoothed asperities, and taught the somewhat heady current of colonial politics to run more calmly, and not to overflow the fields. The weary wind will rest it ; The rain will slumber well, Deep hidden in the rosebud's breast, As sad as sad can be, There is not one in the wide world Not always wave the branches And its dull, monotonous warnings, HUNTLEY, ONT. ENGLISH GRAMMAR. BY PROF. H. CORSON. HERE is a growing suspicion in the But the relations of words in an English sen THE English grammar, as pursued in our schools, matical, stripped as the language is of nearly all inflections, their place being supplied by separate prepositive particles, and by auxiliaries; in other words, English is almost exclusively an analytic language, ideas and their relations in thought being separately expressed. And yet our schoolmaster grammarians treat the language as though it were inflected, and talk about agreement and government; and about voices, moods, and tenses that have no existence, except analytic forms. For example, (I, he, she, we, they, you,) "shall have written," is called the future perfect tense of the verb write, first and third persons, singular, and first, second and third persons plural, and equiva lent to the Latin scripsero, scripserit, scrip serimus, scripseritis, scripserint. That it is |