Provincial life

“ To these practical difficulties were added local pride, the vested rights of state and village politicians in their provincial dignity, and the scarcity of men with a large outlook upon the common enterprise. ”

“ Under your government, Sir, though a short one, the agriculture, commerce, and fisheries of the province have rapidly increased; religion has been cherished, schools established, extensive roads of communication with the capital opened and improved, the militia organized and disciplined, and under the most salutary regulations rendered efficient. ”

“ Would you, with a falconer’s voice, lure your faithless tassels back again?{33} Apply to the practical remedy of your wrongs; proceed to the reform of your domestic government, and turn your thoughts to that art which, coming into action every day in the year during the longest life, includes within its circles the whole philosophy of economy and order, the preservation of good health, and the tone of good society—and all peculiarly within your province. ”

“ Against these surges of national feeling Professor Royce would erect dikes in the form of provincialism, the resistance of separate sections each with its own traditions, beliefs and aspirations. "Our national unities have grown so vast, our forces of social consolidation so paramount, the resulting problems, conflicts, evils, have become so intensified," he says, that we must seek in the province renewed strength, usefulness and beauty of American life. ”

“ But when we study a State at its centre, its political action, its organization, its spirit, the management of its institutions of learning and of charity, the tendencies, restrictive or liberal, of its legislation, even the tone of social life and the code of manners, we discover distinctions, individualities, almost as many differences as resemblances. And we see—the saving truth in our national life—that each State is a well-nigh indestructible entity, an empire in itself, proud and conscious of its peculiarities, and jealous of its rights. ”

“ The government of a province and its millions of inhabitants is avowedly the ultimate aim and object of each civilian’s official life; but whilst he is serving his apprenticeship for the higher offices of Government, he must be prepared to adapt his mind to the most humble and unintellectual duties. He must learn to obey, so that he may understand how to rule. ”

“ Recently, a new and more liberal settlement has been made, and it is hoped that in future sufficient funds will be available for the proper supply of provincial needs and the due development of provincial resources. ”

“ In this arduous contest I can have no other object but to promote the true interests of all my subjects. No people ever enjoyed more happiness, or lived under a milder government than those now revolted in the provinces: the improvements in every art of which they boast declare it: their numbers, their wealth, their strength by sea and land, which they think sufficient to enable them to make head against the whole power of the mother country, are irrefragable proofs of it. ”

“ We early discovered your vigilance, and energetic zeal for the good of the province,—your acute discernment of its best interests,—your perseverance in the pursuit of every object that could lead to its welfare,—and your unwearied attention to its minutest concerns;—we soon discovered that excellent understanding, which has so well fitted you to govern, and that integrity and independence, which have rendered your government so beloved, and so respectable. ”

“ Nothing in our political system could be wiser than our dispersion into provinces. Sweep from the map the lines that divide the States and we should huddle like sheep suddenly deprived of the protection of known walls and flung upon the open prairie. State lines and local pride are in themselves a pledge of stability. The elasticity of our system makes possible a variety of governmental experiments by which the whole country profits. We should all rejoice that the parochial mind is so open, so eager, so earnest, so tolerant. ”

“ Those among us who are immediately connected with the civil administration know how, in the interior of the country, you have kept the native chiefs and gentry true to their allegiance by strictness tempered with conciliation; how emphatically you have been the friend of the middle and lower classes among the natives, the husbandman, the artisan, and the labourer. They know how, with a large measure of success, you have endeavoured to moderate taxation; to introduce judicial reforms; to produce a real security of life and property; to administer the finances in a prudent and economical spirit ”

“ Local Self-Government.—Such is the way in which local government has come about in the various States of the Union. Rooted in the systems that Englishmen have developed through the centuries, adapted to the new life and the peculiar conditions of the colonial period, it has spread with the population throughout the land. The management of local affairs by the people and their chosen representatives is a sound principle of government which holds a firm place in every part of our country. ”

“ The inhabitants of these provinces, each community within its own borders, went on, from year to year, in their various pursuits of peaceful industry, governed mainly, in their relations to each other, by the natural sense of justice instinctive in man, and by those thousand local institutions and usages which are always springing up in all human communities under the influence of this principle. There were governors stationed over these provinces, whose main duty it was to collect and remit to the king the tribute which the province was required to furnish him. ”

“ The province protects, defends, preserves, all popular rights and liberties; insuring international order by justice and discipline, seeks to bring back a time of well—ordered happiness which should bring new life to a people delivered at last from Government of lies and oppression; her constant aim is to raise the status of her citizens and to increase their prosperity ”

“ It is admitted now on all hands that the provincial is a very useful kind of fellow; and when the metropolis feels itself running short of talent and energy, the provincial is invariably invited to look in. ”

“ How was it possible for sixty millions of provincials to enter the narrow and rigid circle of provincial institutions?" The like holds where, instead of extension of territory, there is only increase of population. The contrast between the simple administrative system which sufficed in old English times for a million people and the complex administrative system at present needed for many millions sufficiently indicates this general truth. ”

“ It is now the fashion to extol everything American, and from submitting to a degree that was almost abject, to the feeling of colonial dependency, the country is filled, to-day, with the most profound provincial self-admiration. ”

“ We must not take too narrow a view of public life. All civilized governments consider themselves bound to perform other duties of an entirely different character from those which pertain to peace and justice. When our fathers framed the constitution of the United States, they gave in the preamble to that instrument an admirable definition of the province of government. ”

“ I am a patriarch, with my flocks and herds, my shepherds and clansmen, the sons of my tribe coming to do me honour, and my heart swelling and glowing with the prospects of national regeneration. I have around me a province to which one of your English counties would be but a sheepfold; a multitude of bold spirits, to whom your populace would be triflers; a new nation, elated by their approaching deliverance, solemnly indignant at their past oppression, and determined to shake the land to its centre, or to recover their freedom. ”

“ Everywhere there is a variety in local sentiment, action, and development. Sit down in the seats of the State governments and study the methods of treatment of essentially the common institutions of government, of charity and discipline, and you will be impressed with the variety of local spirit and performance in the Union. ”

“ Provincial Governors have also a better Chance in a Republick, to escape with their Plunder, by means of Bribery or Interest; and their Fellow-Citizens, who find their own State to be inriched by the Spoils of their Subject-Provinces, will be the more inclined to tolerate such Abuses. ”

“ The popular will is expressed in two ways, which are quite distinct and relate to different provinces: First, collectively, by majority, in regard to blended, mutually involved interests, such as the large economic and political concerns of the community ”

“ THE PROVINCIALS. By Lady Helen Forbes, Author of ‘His Eminence,’ ‘The Outcast Emperor,’ etc.
Lady Helen Forbes gives us in her new book a story of society, though not of ‘smart’ society. ‘The Provincials’ are a wealthy county family whose wealth entitles them to be leaders of society, but they prefer the life of the country. The authoress is well at home among her characters, and her vivacity and sense of humour invest the plot with real interest. Some vivid pictures of hunting help the reader along. ”

“ It is a great Satisfaction to us, that so many of the respectable Towns in the province, and we may add Gentlemen of figure in other Colonies, have expressd, & continue to express themselves much pleasd with the Measure; and we encourage ourselves from the MANIFEST DISCOVERY of an Union of Sentiments in this province, which has been one happy fruit of the Measure, there will be the united Efforts of THE WHOLE in all constitutional & proper Methods to prevent the entire ruin of our Liberties. ”

“ We talk of the provincial, but the provinciality projected by the Confederate dream, and in which it proposed to steep the whole helpless social mass, looks to our present eyes as artlessly perverse, as untouched by any intellectual tradition of beauty or wit, as some exhibited array of the odd utensils or divinities of lone and primitive islanders. ”

“ But every difference between district and district, Province and Province, East and West, however great it seems when we think of our individual interests alone, is small in comparison with the greater interests, the nobler duties, which unite us all. No difference can be allowed to interfere for a moment with the supreme and sacred duty of Union. And every difference can be settled, with difficulty or with ease according as we are careless or enthusiastic in the devotion of thought, study, ingenuity and unselfish good-will, to perfecting ourselves in the essential art of living together. ”

“ The Local Bodies have had no spontaneous evolution; they are the creation of the Central Government, they are supported and controlled by it, and look to it for assistance whenever they are in financial difficulties. ”

“ Though the great mass of the population continued to be rural, town life was becoming an important factor. Members of an aristocracy, of which the governor was usually the central social figure, were inclined to rear their heads above their fellows. ”

“ Here I must bring the sketch of my early life to a conclusion, remarking that what my brother and I did, hundreds of others have done in this province, and thousands more will do if they will practise self-control, labour industriously in whatever station they are placed, and be ready to step into any opening which may present itself, always doing their duty, and praying for strength and guidance above. ”

“ Of the many interesting phases which have presented themselves, none has had so great an attraction for the writer as the development of civil institutions. It is interesting to review the gradual evolution of a locality from primitive conditions of wildness to that perfect form of social life where individuals act under the privileges and restrictions of a civil government, voluntarily imposed and perfectly integrated with the larger scheme of national government. ”

“ I believe that it is a principle of His Excellency's Government, in public appointments, etc., qualifications and character being equal, to give the preference to native and resident inhabitants of the province—those who have suffered in the privations, have grown with the growth, and strengthened with the strength of the country. ”

“ A long experience of public life, whether by daily observation, begun in my early youth, when the Union of the Provinces was finally discussed, carried and established, or, subsequently, during many years of active political life as a journalist and member of the Quebec and Ottawa representative Houses, has taught me to judge the actions of responsible men, whether ministerialists or oppositionists, with great fairness and respectful regard. ”

“ Each possesses a separate and independent province with its own peculiar aims and ways of proceeding. Each contributes to the others only externally and accidentally. All of them together make up the whole of life by just apposition and addition. ”

“ In one country you begin to feel the spirit of the minister in the manoeuvres of his underlings; in another you must see the election of members of parliament to see if the nation is really free; in each and every country, he who has only seen the towns cannot possibly know what the government is like, as its spirit is never the same in town and country. Now it is the agricultural districts which form the country, and the country people who make the nation. ”

“ Oh, yes, the Entoans are very human, and at times differences of opinion relating to commercial, social, scientific or other matters arise, but Governors and Advisory Councils of the various Provinces, being arbitrators of provincial affairs, such trifling difficulties are readily adjusted. ”

“ By local governments popularly constituted, a practical knowledge of public affairs, and a habit of caring for public interests, are diffused from the several localities through the country at large. Under a supreme government popularly constituted, this political training and public spirit are of great immediate importance;—since all or many of those who partake in the government of localities are also partakers in the sovereign power. Under a monarchy or narrow aristocracy, this political training and public spirit are more important still ”