CHAP, 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 11
the power conditional on the existence of a Civil List, which
is enacted in the Order in Council itself. There remain as
full members of the class of representative government in the
British Empire only the Bahamas, Barbados, and Bermuda,
all of them islands. In the case of the Bahamas it still
remains open for any member of the Lower House to propose
Money votes; in Bermuda the practice has been some-
what restricted by the resolution of the House of Assembly
to deal with the estimates in one body annually, but the
Power could be resumed at any time; while in Barbados
an Act? was passed in 1892 in order to secure greater
regulation of financial administration, under which a body
18 created called the Executive Committee, which consists
of the Governor as chairman, the members of the Executive
Council, one member of the Legislative Council and four
embers of the House of Assembly who are nominated by
the Governor. This body introduces all money votes, pre-
pares the estimates, and initiates all Government measures.
Representative government has thus proved essentially
Unstable in character, tending on the one hand to develop
nto full self-government, and on the other hand to fall
back into a form of government under which the Legislature
3s well as the Executive is controlled by the Crown. It would
be premature to pronounce that the system of representative
government is fundamentally unsound as a permanent solu-
tion of the relations of the Executive and the Legislature ;
1t has existed and still exists in certain parts of the world,
and has worked with some success. But it is fair to say
that in the British Empire it has never been a fortunate
®Xperiment. It has been found impossible to reconcile the
telations of the Executive officers appointed in many cases
from outside with the Legislature of the day. The Legis-
lature, on the one hand, has been helpless in the face of its
total inability to secure the adoption of a policy in general
harmony with its desires and aims, while on the other hand
the Executive Government, forced to rely upon the Legis-
Cffiolonial Oce List, 1911, pp. 98, 99.
See Parl. Pap., C. 2645. Barbados Acts. No. 55 of 1891 and No. 9 of 1892.
