JHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 25 
ybove mentioned, save that for a single-chambered legisla- 
ture, were made permanent. Another provision in the 
original Act, providing for the appointment of a separate 
Executive Council, was not made permanent, and therefore 
lapsed. But these measures were only a slight remedy for 
the difficulty, and the colonists became more and more 
insistent in the demand for responsible government when 
they saw it established in the Provinces of Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. On the other 
hand, the Imperial Government were hampered in their 
desire to meet the wishes of the people by the fact that both 
France and America had important treaty rights on the 
coast of the Colony, and that therefore there was risk in 
abandoning the control of the Imperial Government over the 
Colony. Eventually it was determined to give way, and the 
grant of responsible government was made on the passing 
of Acts by the Legislature for the purpose of providing 
retiring allowances for the officers who retired on political 
grounds, and for increasing the number of members of the 
Legislative Assembly! At the same time, in 1856, a dispatch 
from Mr. Labouchere, which has become famous in New- 
foundland history, asserted that in future there would 
be no question of altering the treaty obligations affecting 
the Colony save after full consultation with the Colonial 
Government. 
§ 4. RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALASIA 
It is hardly necessary to enter into the details of the 
discussion of the grant of responsible government to the 
Colonies of Australia in the period between 1840 and 1850. 
It was recognized that a change in the form of government 
to responsible government was natural, and indeed inevitable, 
once the system had been established firmly in the case of 
Canada, and the Constitution Act of 1850 contemplated the 
alteration of their existing constitutions by the Colonies of 
New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia. 
* See Parl. Pap., H. C. 273.1855; Prowse, History of Newfoundland, 
Pp. 466 seq.