288 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II 
little experience of affairs or political prudence. Moreover, 
on the other hand, there is much less danger of even the 
appearance of interference from home when the Dominion 
addressed is not a minor Colony but a great self-governing 
entity of the extent of a continent in itself. 
There is, however, one thing clear, that if the principle of 
full ministerial responsibility is enforced the present con- 
stitution of the Empire must be abandoned. It is at present 
still the case that there is one unity, the Imperial Government, 
which speaks for the Empire as a whole and which, in the 
last resort, must be obeyed if it seems to it necessary to 
demand obedience. If it is open to a Dominion Government 
to reply to a request for redress to a foreign state with the 
answer that the Ministry will not accord it, but will resign, 
and that no other Ministry will take office, there is at once an 
end of the unity of the Empire, for the only alternatives 
before the Empire in the long run are either to acknowledge 
some common head or to dissolve into fragments which, 
however united, must cease to be one nation. Of course, 
strictly speaking, the Imperial Parliament might revoke the 
grant of self-government, but this is quite out of the question : 
in the height of the Boer war, when the petition was strongly 
supported, even in the Colony, that the constitution of the 
Cape should be suspended, the Imperial Government would 
not act, but allowed matters to remain in statu quo,! nor has 
Newfoundland, even in the financial crisis of 1894, been 
deprived of its constitutional independence? 
On the other hand, if it is the duty of a Dominion not to 
adopt the policy of a California and defy Imperial obligations, 
it is no less the duty of the Imperial Government to see that 
no action of its shall, if it can be helped, run counter to the 
interests of a Dominion; nor in truthcan the Imperial Govern- 
ment be fairly charged with lack of appreciation of this view. 
There is therefore every reason to hope that the matter will 
t See Parl. Pap., Cd. 1162. In New Zealand during the native war of 
1862-70 sporadic requests were made by individuals and bodies in the 
Colony for the revocation of Colonial self-government, but naturally in 
vain. # Sec Parl. Pap., H. C. 104, 1895 s C7686,