22 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART 1 
having a majority in the Assembly, and on the other hand 
he urged that, as a rule, public officers should hold as in 
the United Kingdom by a permanent tenure, while a limited 
number of officers should be political officers, viz. the 
Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the Provincial 
Secretary, and possibly two more officers, and he advised 
that salaries be attached to two or three places in the 
Executive Council to secure the services of qualified men. 
Moreover, any political changes which required the surrender 
of offices hitherto deemed to be permanent should be accom- 
panied by the grant of pensions. 
In January 1848 the dispatch from the Secretary of State 
was laid before the Legislature, and at the same time the 
attention of the Houses was called to the proposals of the 
Imperial Government for the surrender of the Crwn revenues 
in return for the grant by Act of a Civil List. The Assembly 
asserted its approval of the principles enumerated in the 
dispatch, and promised to consider the question of a Civil 
List, and then proceeded to defeat the Government by twenty- 
nine to twenty-two votes. The members of the Executive 
Council tendered their resignations, with the exception of 
the Provincial Secretary, and; as the opposition declined to 
take office without being accorded as a political post that 
of Secretary, it was necessary to remove the Secretary from 
office by the exercise of the prerogative. In the case of 
the other two political officers, the Attorney-General and the 
Solicitor-General, trouble was avoided by their voluntary 
resignation, and the new Government, on February 8, 1848, 
asserted formally its concurrence in the views of the Secretary 
of State as to the permanency of ordinary public posts. The 
establishment of responsible government was finally perfected 
by the election of the Attorney-General and the Provincial 
Secretary for the constituencies to which they had submitted 
themselves after accepting office. Matters, however, were 
not yet disposed of, as unhappily the new Government 
insisted on the dismissal of the Treasurer, whose post it 
was intended to divide into two, a Receiver-General and 
a Financial Secretary, without compensation to him for