Lord Dufferin, the Governor-General of Canada, has been delivering two
amusing speeches at Toronto, on which we have commented elsewhere. We may mention here, however, that his Lordship evidently considers that the constitutional king of a great colony should not be quite so passive as the Sove- reign is expected to be, but sometimes is not, in Great Britain. He has a distinct function, an all-important if not a very romantic one, and it is that of oiling the machine. "His ordinary duties are very similar to those of the man we see tending some complicated piece of machinery, who goes about clad in fustian, with a little tin can having a long spout to it, and pouring a drop of oil here and another there ; his whole attention being directed to the smooth working of the parts, and -to the keeping out from the wheels and cogs of dust and grit or other foreign bodies." This sentence was received with a storm of laughter, " grits " being Canadian slang for Liberals, but Lord Dufferin good-humouredly explained that he had intended no political satire. He had merely described his office.
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