“Hap. vir] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 619 
instructions from home would not be necessarily wrong, but 
he would necessarily act at his own peril. If the question 
were one in which Imperial interests were concerned, it would 
be for the Home Government to consider whether his excep- 
tional measure had been right and prudent. If the question 
were one in which Colonial interests were alone or principally 
concerned, he would also make himself in a certain sense 
responsible to the Colonists, who might justify the course 
he had taken, and even prove their gratitude to him for 
having taken it, by supporting him against the ministers 
Whose advice he had rejected; but who on the other hand, 
if they perseveringly supported those ministers, might ulti- 
mately succeed in making it impossible for him to carry on 
the government, and thus, perhaps, necessitate his recall. 
The Duke of Newcastle added these very significant 
remarks — 
In granting responsible government to the larger Colonies 
of Great Britain, the Imperial Government were fully aware 
that the power they granted must occasionally be used 
amiss, but they have always trusted that the errors of a free 
government would cure themselves, and that the Colonists 
would be led to exert greater energy and circumspection in 
legislation and government when they were made to feel 
that they would not be rescued from the consequences of any 
imprudence merely affecting themselves by authoritative 
Intervention of the Crown or of the Governor. 
It was absolutely impossible for him to form another 
Ministry in view of the strength of the governmental party, 
and he had carried out in practice the conviction expressed 
by Lord Elgin while Governor-General of Canada, of the 
Supreme importance of keeping the Imperial Government, 
at whatever cost or risk to the Governor personally, aloof 
from and above the strife of Colonial parties. He did not 
Pretend to approve all the measures of his Government, but 
his action had been in harmony with that of Lord Elgin in 
1848-511 and Lord Dufferin in 1873, and the action of the 
Crown in England in removing a Ministry in the confidence 
of the House of Commons in 1834 had been disapproved by 
a0 eminent writer. 
* Cf, Walrond, Letters and Journals of Lord Elgin, pp. 70 seq, 
See above, 1. 223. 1, 2, und of. Maxwell, Century of Empire, ii. 37, 33.