Note (XXIV.)—Page [50], line 22.
SHOWING THAT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALISATION OF THE OLD MONARCHY COULD BE BEST JUDGED OF IN CANADA.
The physiognomy of the metropolitan government can be most fully appreciated in the colonies, because at that distance all its characteristic features are exaggerated and become more visible. When we wish to judge of the spirit of the Administration of Louis XIV. and its vices, it is to Canada we must look. There we shall see the deformity of the object of our investigation, as through a microscope.
In Canada a host of obstacles, which anterior circumstances or the ancient state of society opposed either in secret or openly to the spirit of the Government, did not exist. The nobility was scarcely seen there, or, at all events, it had no root in the soil; the Church had lost its dominant position; feudal traditions were lost or obscured; judicial authority was no longer rooted in ancient institutions and manners. There was nothing to hinder the central power from following its natural bent and from fashioning all the laws according to its own spirit. In Canada accordingly we find not a trace of any municipal or provincial institutions; no authorised collective force; no individual initiative allowed. The Intendant occupied a position infinitely more preponderant than that of his fellows in France; the Administration interfered in many more matters than in the metropolis, and chose to direct everything from Paris, spite of the eighteen hundred leagues by which they were divided. It adopted none of the great principles by which a colony is rendered populous and prosperous, but, on the other hand, it had recourse to all kinds of trifling artificial processes and petty tyrannical regulations in order to increase and extend the population; compulsory cultivation, all lawsuits arising out of the grants of land withdrawn from the tribunals and referred to the sole decision of the Administration, obligation to pursue particular methods of cultivation, to settle in certain places rather than others, &c. All these regulations were in force under Louis XIV., and the edicts are countersigned by Colbert. One might imagine oneself in the very thick of modern centralisation and in Algeria. Indeed Canada presents an exact counterpart of all we have seen in Algeria. In both we find ourselves face to face with an administration almost as numerous as the population, preponderant, interfering, regulating, restricting, insisting upon foreseeing everything, controlling everything, and understanding the interests of those under its control better than they do themselves; in short, in a constant state of barren activity.
In the United States, on the other hand, the decentralisation of the English is exaggerated; the townships have become nearly independent municipalities, small democratic republics. The republican element, which forms the basis of the English constitution and manners, shows itself in the United States without disguise or hindrance, and becomes still further developed. The Government, properly so called, does but little in England, and private persons do a great deal; in America, the Government really takes no part in affairs, and individuals unite to do everything. The absence of any higher class, which rendered the inhabitants of Canada more submissive to the Government than even those of France at the same period, makes the population of the English provinces more and more independent of authority.
Both colonies resulted in the formation of a completely democratic state of society; but in one, so long at least as Canada still belonged to France, equality was united with absolutism; in the other it was combined with liberty. As far as the material consequences of the two colonial systems were concerned, we know that in 1763, the period of the Conquest, the population of Canada consisted of 60,000 souls, and that of the English provinces of 3,000,000.