The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-04-15
Over the ROrder.

1t is evident that the British subject in the
New Dominion is getting lose notions about
royalty. His new country is becoming 50
strong and prosperous, lives 50 much "i'n'n
itself and invisibly imDibes so many OF our
Republican notions, that the British tnfohe
is venersted very much as piece Vi 'uin
ture out of date and left only as curiosity
The GREATER part of our Dominion neighbors
would NOT admit it now, but some fine morn
ing. ere long, they will wake up asking each
other what under the sun they want this
yiceroy for all the way from England or
Ireland. After it has come to this pass it
will not be long ere they conclude that the
people of the Dominion can choose their own
Governor General, aud it is not the slightest
consequence so long as the Premier is stone
mason if the Governor General is not adj
dressed as sMe Lord" In the recent con-
test between the two parties when the Cover
nor General dissolved the House of Com
mons and ordered royal commission t o in
quire into the Macdonald ministry, with the
Canadian Pacific Railroad scandal, his acts
were criticised very much like those of any
ather public man, while the more sagacious
of the Dominion people saw that an import
Cd royal representative had used his kingly
resentatives Of the people who only had a
right to deal with it.
OF late, still another matter has come up
that will not help the colonial relations. New
Brunswick has for several years had a school
system of her own, liberal, impartial, free.
1t has been a terror to old fogies and the adj
vocates of sectarian schools. A year ago the
MACEDONIA ministry asked the Home Gov
eminent whether the interference of the Do
minion House with this school law was al
lowable. To this, Mr.. Gladstones cabinet
replied that such interference was unconsti-
tutional, but that this was matter in which
the Governor General must act on his own
individual discretion, and on which he
could not be advised by the responsible
ministers of the Dominion. This reply has
set the Dominion politicians thinking, and
they are asking questions as to how far the
representative OF the throne of Great Britain
can go in the annulment oflaws passed by the
provinces of the Dominion to regulate merely
local affairs; and if the Governor General
may annul one law at discretion, why not any
or all laws?
There is also another indication that the
Dominion people are losing their close at
tachment to royalty. Already it has been
suggested that Queen Victoria, having more
sons on her hands than she knows what to
do with, is looking towards the sub throne in
Canada for her son, the DIXIE of Ednburg, as
the successor of Lord Dnfferin. A few years
ago the loyal subjects of the Queen would
have welcomed the suggestion with extrav-
agent demonstrations of joy. Not so
now. The Toronto Globe says that a Duke
ruler is ''among the category of impractical
Bile things" 1t may be that these royal scions
are bad lot, but the fact that our neighbors
can see it is an encou raging one, and when
the progressive people of the Dominion come
to foel that they bavo 5isIiI,n fay ~ . -r
Queen for their O yn ruler they will not care
to be governed by the monarch of another
country.