The present paper deals with the circumstances under which the right of self-government was acquired by the province of Canada. It is concerned chiefly with the period that elapsed between the presentation of Lord Durham's report, in which “responsible government” was recommended, and the passing of the Rebellion Losses Bill of 1849, whose sanction by Lord Elgin indicates the final and complete adoption of this principle. Special emphasis is laid upon the constitutional crisis that occurred under the administration of Sir Charles Metcalfe with a view to placing in its proper historical perspective the influence exercised by the colonial reform party in the evolution of the imperial system. It is the aim of the paper to show that the interpretation of the principle of responsible government now prevailing was not present in the minds of imperial statesmen at the time of the adoption of the Act of Union of 1840, commonly assigned as the date of the inception of self-government. The essay is based upon the papers of Lord Sydenham and Lord Metcalfe, the collection of Baldwin pamphlets in the Toronto Public Library, certain official documents of the Canadian archives, and other original sources which the writer has had occasion to consult in preparing his biographies of Baldwin, LaFontaine, and Hincks in the Makers of Canada Series.

The Japanese protest of October 23, 1906, against the action of the San Francisco board of education, based on a California statute requiring all children of Mongolian descent to attend the school set apart for orientals, is one of the most puzzling incidents in our recent diplomatic history. It was sufficiently perplexing to the friends and admirers of Japan to learn that her government had created an international issue out of such a trivial matter as the segregation of less than one hundred Japanese pupils in the oriental school of San Francisco. But some of the friends and supporters of the administration were still more surprised to hear that the federal government admitted that the treaty of 1894 with Japan had been violated by this action of the San Francisco board of education, and apparently believed that it had jurisdiction in the premises.

It is true that Secretary Metcalfe's report, which was published on December 19, 1906, also informed us of a considerable number of assaults on Japanese subjects by “hoodlums and roughs,” and of the breaking of windows in Japanese restaurants in San Francisco. These attacks, although subsequent to the earthquake, occurred at a time of great public disorder during which there appears to have been a carnival of crime when the police were powerless to protect life and property; but they seem to have been directed against the Japanese from motives of race prejudice, and not for the purpose of robbery.

Emmanuel Mortensen, residing at Grimsby, on the thirtieth of November, 1905, being master of the trawler Niobe, of Sandefiord, Norway, was charged, contrary to a bye law adopted pursuant to a British statute, with using the method of fishing, known as otter trawling, in a part of the Moray Firth, five miles or thereabouts by east by north from Lossie-Mouth, which lies within a line drawn from Duncansby Head, in Caithness, to Rattray Point, in Aberdeenshire and is within the area specified in the bye law referred to, made by the fishery board for Scotland, under a power conferred by statute, which bye law had been duly confirmed by the secretary for Scotland, and duly published. He was thereby liable to a fine not exceeding 100 pounds, on conviction, and, on failure to pay, to not exceeding sixty days imprisonment and to forfeiture of his nets. At the trial, defendant stated, as a preliminary objection, that his steam trawler was registered in Norway, and the locus of the offense as alleged was not within the jurisdiction of the court and, reserving this plea, pleaded “not guilty.” It was proved said trawler was registered in Sandefiord, Norway, and that defendant was a Dane; that he did the act in the plea alleged, and that this was outside a marine league from low water mark on the adjacent coast, and within ten miles thereof.

The sheriff “repelled” the preliminary objection, found defendant guilty, imposed a fine of fifty pounds, and, in default, sentenced the accused to fifteen days' imprisonment. Defendant paid the fine and appealed, and the questions of law submitted to the high court of justiciary were, whether the sheriff's court had jurisdiction, and whether the conviction and sentence were “legal and competent.”