The Local Government of the Province of Quebec has been
compelled to send in its resignation, owing to the discovery of certain "administrative irregularities." A transaction connected with the sale of public lands, locally known as the" Tanneries Swap," in which some members of the Government were proved to be implicated, has probably been the immediate cause of this political &awe-qui-peal. The truth is, that the tone of morality which was found to prevail in Canadian politics when the delinquencies of Sir John A. Macdonald's Administration were exposed is persistent, and gives out a more painfully certain sound in the local legislatures than in the Central Parlia- ment. It is impossible to make such a "large order" upon the political capacity of a young community as is involved in the fact that in the Canadian Dominion alone, besides the Senate and the House of Commons, there are seven local legislatures at work, each with its two Chambers. The passion for federalism has been a good deal damped in Canada by recent events, and we hear even of a plan for uniting the separate mari- time provinces of New Brunsivick; Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's Island under a single Government. The new province would, of course, include Newfoundland, which cannot always hold sulkily aloof from the neighbouring Colonies ; and the name " Aeadia," Originally given by the French to Nova Scotia, and familiar to English people through Longfellow's pleasing idyll, has-been proposed as a suitable official designation.
