cap. vir] CABINET SYSTEM IN DOMINIONS 309
his retirement seems to have been thought generally to have
been unnecessary, as far as constitutional practice went.
Moreover his successor proceeded at once to repudiate the
arrangements made by his predecessor for settling the
eternal question of the finances of the Commonwealth, and
adopted and proposed a new scheme of his own, a proceeding
which could hardly happen in the United Kingdom, where the
Prime Minister would have accepted the responsibility for
the settlement with the states, and would not have allowed
the promise of the Ministry to be violated by the change in
its personnel! In 1910 the Minister for Mines in Victoria
openly stated that he had fought the Cabinet over the sale of
coal from the state mines to the public, and had won his way.
There is undoubtedly in the Colonies a certain lack of
definite coherence and loyalty among ministers, but there are
exceptions; in the Dominion? of Canada, the personality
of Sir John Macdonald and of Sir Wilfrid Laurier won for
them a position of command similar to that attained by
the Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. In New Zealand
and Newfoundland Mr. Seddon and Sir J. Ward and Sir R.
Bond and Sir E. Morris have been able to create Govern-
ments essentially dependent on themselves, but these cases
are exceptional, and the rule of Sir R. Bond was finally over-
thrown by dissension from within, one of his chief lieutenants
having come to the conclusion that it was impossible for Sir
R. Bond and himself to co-operate in one Ministry. The
matter of dispute was curious : it took its origin in regard to
an order to increase the pay of men working on the roads, for
which the Premier claimed that he must obtain the credit,
while Sir E. Morris claimed that it was his act—clearly a
declaration of revolt, since all the acts of the Cabinet must be
regarded as approved and allowed by the Prime Minister
* Cf. reports of the Premiers’ Conference in Brisbane of May 1907, and
of Melbourne in May 1908, and see New South Wales Parliamentary
Debates, 1908, pp. 970 seq., especially at p. 991.
* In Ontario Sir O. Mowat held office as Premier for twenty-four
years. Mr. McBride in British Columbia, Mr. Roblin in Manitoba. and
Mr. Fielding in Nova Scotia are other examples.
