16 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART I 
alone, but that nevertheless the management of our local 
affairs can only be conducted by him by and with the assis- 
tance, counsel, and information of subordinate officers in the 
Province : (2) That in order to preserve between the different 
branches of the Provincial Parliament that harmony which 
is essential to the peace, welfare, and good government 
of the Province, the chief advisers of the representative of 
the sovereign constituting a provincial administration under 
him ought to be possessed of the confidence of the representa- 
tives of the people, thus affording a guarantee that the well- 
understood wishes and interests of the people which our 
Gracious Sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the 
Provincial Government will on all occasions be faithfully 
represented and advocated : (3) That the people of the 
Province have moreover a right to expect from such 
provincial administration the exertion of their best efforts 
that the Imperial authority within its constitutional limits 
shall be exercised in the manner most consistent with their 
well-understood wishes and interest. 
Mr. Baldwin proposed a further resolution to assert the 
constitutional right of the Assembly to hold the provincial 
administration responsible for using their best efforts to 
procure from the Imperial authorities that their action in 
matters affecting Canadian interests should be exercised 
with a similar regard to the interests and wishes of the 
Canadian people. But this resolution was unanimously 
rejected after debate. It ran, in fact, counter to the dis- 
patch from Lord John Russell of October 14, 1839! in 
which he somewhat vehemently denied the possibility of 
full ministerial responsibility in Canada. He asserted that 
the prerogative in the United Kingdom was now always 
exercised on advice, but that could not be the case in Canada, 
for Canadian ministers could not advise the Crown, for the 
Crown had other advisers for the same functions, and with 
superior authority. This was obvious in the case of foreign 
war and international relations, whether of trade or of 
diplomacy, but it applied also even to internal relations, for 
no Imperial Government could acquiesce in the state of 
affairs which existed in Lower Canada under Mr. Papineau, 
* Parl. Pap., H, C. 621, 1848, p. 2.