34 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [part II 
proposed for appointment before he was actually appointed.! 
Lord Knutsford, in a letter to the Agent-General of Queens- 
land of October 19, 1888, declined to comply with the pro- 
posal on the ground that it was obvious that the officer 
charged with the duty of conducting the foreign relations 
of the Crown, and of advising the Crown when any question 
of Imperial as distinct from Colonial relations arose, must 
be selected by the Secretary of State for the Queen’s approval, 
and must owe his appointment and be responsible to the 
Crown alone. It was not possible, therefore, for the respon- 
sible ministers of the Colony to share the responsibility of 
nominating the Governor, or to have a veto in the selection. 
But the Secretary of State was deeply conscious of the 
necessity of selecting a person of high capacity and character 
for the important post, and hoped that the selection made 
would prove acceptable. The choice fell on Sir H. Blake, 
and evoked a storm of indignation : the Ministry joined with 
the opposition under Sir Samuel Griffith in deprecating 
the appointment, and communicated their views through the 
Agent-General, a course to which Lord Knutsford took 
exception, preferring that the matter should be dealt with 
in the usual formal manner through the officer administering 
the Government, to whom he telegraphed asking the grounds 
of the objection to the appointment proposed. At this 
juncture the Agent-General of South Australia intervened 
with a request from his Government that they might be 
informed who was to succeed Sir W. Robinson. The case 
for the refusal to give the required information was conveyed 
to the Agent-General in a letter from the Colonial Office of 
November 15,1888, in which stress was laid upon the Imperial 
duties of the officer selected, and on the danger of charges of 
favouritism being brought against a Colonial Governor, who 
was approved by a Colonial Government, if he used his 
discretion in the delicate business of granting a dissolution 
in their favour. Moreover, it was intimated that it would 
be difficult to ask a distinguished man to undertake a post 
t Parl. Pap., C. 5828 (1889). Cf. Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain, i. 337, 
338.