CHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 13 
the Council is still composed of a majority of official members, 
although unless the matter is declared to be of pressing 
Importance by the Governor, on certain questions the elected 
members are allowed to decide the issue. 
} 3. RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN CANADA 
The introduction of responsible government is inseparably 
connected with the name of Lord Durham and his report?! of 
Jan, 31,1839, on the condition of Canada, whither he went as 
Special commissioner to settle the affairs of the provinces after 
the abortive rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada had 
Proved the bankruptcy of the existing system of govern- 
ment. In neither province had the scheme of representative 
government been in the least successful. The Executive 
Government had some resources apart from parliamentary 
grants, in the shape of the hereditary Crown revenues and 
the casual revenues, but these were small, though the Crown 
OWned vast tracts of land and was potentially in possession of 
the means of future greatness. On the other hand, the Legisla- 
ture had no control at all over the Executive, and one part of 
it, the Legislative Council, was clearly and wholly out of sym- 
pathy with the other branch of it, while from members of the 
Legislative Council the Governor accepted advice as to his 
eXecutive actions. The result was constant friction, amidst 
Which the provinces failed utterly to progress, contrasting 
very Strangely with the states of the American Union to the 
South of the borderline, and inviting invidious comments. 
Every possible device was tried to overcome the friction : 
Governors were conciliatory, Governors were dictatorial, but 
both policies signally failed, and Lord Durham found himself 
the face of complete breakdown of all constitutional 
Bovernment : in Lower Canada, indeed, as the result of the 
rebellion, the constitution had been recalled by an Imperial 
* Reprinted hy Methuen in 1902. Cf. Egerton, Canada, pp. 145-53; 
the report ig being edited and commented on by Sir C. Lucas. For the views 
of his Opponents, and a report of a select committee of the Legislative 
Counc) of Upper Canada, see Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional 
History, Pp. 173 seq.