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your Excellency's resolution was limited by the
condition that "while fully admitting the princi-
ple, you should give immediate effect to it only
so far as you could do so constitutionally: and
that on examination of the Constitution Act and
Royal Instructions your Excellency was led to
believe that that those instructions absolutely pre-
cluded you from establishing Ministerial Respon-
sibility in a complete form, and in particu-
lar by forbidding you to disturb any tenure of
office derived from Her Majesty's Sign Manual,
until you should receive from Her Majesty
express direction or permission to set aside ap-
pointments made by Herself." Your Excellen-
cy further states that such opinion as to the
limits of your power was distinctly made known
to those gentlemen who subsequently became
members of the Government.

We cannot but express our sincere regret that
such your Excellency's resolution and opinion
was not from the first made known to this House
in a more clear and distinct form.

So far as we understand your Excellency as
meaning that the present holders of office could
not be removed, against their will, until pen-
sions should have been secured to them, this
House has throughout assented to your Excel-
lency's views and governed its proceedings accord-
ingly. But we understand your Excellency's
meaning as now conveyed to us, to have a far
wider scope-that your Excellency considers
yourself absolutely precluded from asking or
even accepting the retirement of those officers
without direct permission from Her Majesty,
although the interests of the public service may
imperatively demand their retirement, and though
pensions may be secured to them.

We venture respectfully to express our dissent
from that opinion, one which appears to this
House to be at variance with all usage and
law, inconsistent with the spirit and against the
letter of the Constitution Act-one which has
never before been suggested to this House by your
Excellency, or on your Excellency's behalf-
one alike derogatory to the dignity of the Go-
vernment itself, and subversive in the highest de-
gree of the interests of the public service.

This House certainly never understood such
to be your Excellency's meaning-nor would it
have become a party to a permanent arrangement
founded on that basis. It believed that the one great
difficulty lay in the necessity of first securing pan-
sions to the retiring officers. That difficulty was
fully laid before us by your Excellency's late
advisers in this House, and was fully recognised
by us. Beyond this we do not perceive in the
Constitution Act, or in the Royal Instructions,
or in any of the Documents appended to your
Excellency's Message anything leading us, by
natural inference, to conclude that the question
of establishing Ministerial Responsibility in its
completeness must be referred to England.

Had reference to England been considered as a
condition precedent to the concession of complete
Responsible Government, we cannot but think
that in justice to this House that condition should
have been distinctly stated. It would have af-
fected and probably reversed the whole course of
proceedings of this House and of its general policy,
as the disclosure of it must do even at this late
period of the Session.

As to that partial and provisional arrangement
by which three members of this House accepted
seats in the Executive Council without office for
the purpose of carrying on the business of the Go-
vernment in this House, and as a preparatory
step, we could not regard it as more than tem-
porary or as intended to last longer than the
present Session of the Assembly. Its nature was
so explained to us by those gentlemen in this
House, who were the immediate parties to it,
and we looked forward with certainty to a new
and permanent arrangement before the Session
ended, based on the complete establishment of
Ministerial Responsibility.

It was a matter of high gratification to this
House when in furtherance of what we were led
to believe the arrangement come to with your
Excellency, three gentlemen possessing our confi-
dence were appointed members of the Executive
Council, undertaking to represent the Govern-
ment, and to conduct the Government business
in this House. Those gentlemen proceeded to
carry on the business of the Government in this
House in a manner calculated to retain its confi-
dence, which they have never forfeited. Various
measures were introduced by them, the object
and effect of which was in many particulars to
confer large powers on the Executive Govern-
ment, and in the course of the passage of such
measures this House received assurances from time
to time from those gentlemen, holding as they
then did the position of your Excellency's respon-
sible advisers, that the powers sought to be con-
ferred would, in accordance with the arrangement
come to, be exercised by an Executive Govern-
ment completely responsible to this House, and
enjoying its entire confidence, so that in effect
the full principle of Responsible Government
would be brought into action before or im-
mediately after the termination of the Session.

Relying on such assurances this House agreed
to many of such proposed measures, which
have been forwarded through several stages. In
particular a Bill for regulating the future man-
agement of the public Reserves, has gone through
both Houses of the Legislature. A Bill for regu-
lating the disposal of Waste Lands of the Crown
has gone through all its stages in this House
except the third reading, the principle of that
measure having been affirmed continually by
large majorities. A Bill for settling on a definite
basis the respective powers of the General and
Provincial Governments under existing laws has
passed through all its stages in this House. A
Bill for settling in like manner the principle
of apportionment of public Revenue between the
General and Provincial Governments has passed
through all its stages. A Bill having for its ob-
ject the establishment of the Executive Govern-
ment on the basis of Ministerial responsibility,
by altering the tenure of the principal offices, has
gone through a second reading. That Bill has
only been delayed for want of the financial esti-
mates, the cause of that delay being solely attri-
butable to your Excellency's Executive officers,
who appear in this particular, as in others, to
have made insufficient preparation for the work
of the General Assembly. Other measures of
minor importance are under consideration. This
House cannot but advert to the foregoing state-
ment of business transacted by it, as vindicating
it from the charge seemingly implied by your
Excellency's mesage, that it has legislated only
upon insignificant subjects and in a trifling way.
Even had such been the case, an apology might
have been found in the circumstances that your
Excellency's Executive officers had failed in
preparing materials for Legislation; and those
late members of the Government who hold seats
in this House have not only been obliged to
conduct the ordinary Government business of the
House, but to mature and actually prepare the
legislative measures brought before it, a circum-
stance of which this House may justly complain
in replying to what they cannot but regard as
your Excellency's reproof.

Setting aside this incidental point, the impor