PART I. INTRODUCTORY 
CHAPTER 1 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF RESPONSIBLE 
GOVERNMENT 
§ 1. Tee ORIGIN OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
IN 1840, when responsible government may be said to 
commence, there were prevailing two main principles of 
law with regard to the position of the British Colonies. In 
the first place, it was held by the Crown lawyers that it was 
Dot possible to deprive an Englishman of the inestimable 
advantages of English law, and that therefore, if he settled 
in parts abroad which were not under a legitimate foreign 
Sovereignty, he carried with him so much at least of the 
English law as was appropriate to the circumstances in 
which he found himself. But obviously, the mere carrying 
with him of the provisions of such law would not have 
been adequate to meet the circumstances of a new Colony. 
It was impossible to expect the Parliament of England to 
legislate effectively for distant territories concerning which 
tt had, and could have, no information, and it was therefore 
hecessary that there should be passed by some competent 
authority legislation adapted to the needs of the new Colony. 
But if an Englishman carried with him English law, it was 
® fixed principle of that law in the late sixteenth and the 
' 2 P. Will, 75 ; Blankard v. Galdy, 2 Salk, 411; Forbes v. Cochrane; 
2B.&C, 463 ; Kielley v. Carson, 4 Moo. P. C. 84; The Falkland Islands Co. 
v. The Queen, 2 Moo. P. C. (N.8.) 273; Forsyth, Cases and Opinions on 
Constitutional Law, pp. 18 seq. The ground of the distinction between 
settled and conquered and ceded colonies as set out in Freeman v. Fairlie 
(1 Ba, Ind. App. 324) is certainly inaccurate.