Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant.  These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he was considered the best member who could get the most money for his county.  Commissioners resident in the particular localities were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge, these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing equivalent results.  Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement, which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament, which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not disappointment.  The time and attention of the provincial parliament were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot.

When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and distracted with the contending claims of so many localities.  This consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County) Municipal Councils.  These municipal councils were denounced by the conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism!  Were this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions have been eminently beneficial to Canada.  But municipal councils are necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of Commons in England.  However this may be, the true prosperity of Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the minds of the people.

Possessing many of the external forms of a parliament, they are admirable political schools for a free people.  The most intelligent men in the different townships are freely elected by the inhabitants, and assemble in the county town to deliberate and make by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents.  Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits, it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished prejudices to overcome.  Their daily intercourse with the more educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their minds.  The rapidity with which