CHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 41 
action on the matter. The Council assured him of sympathy 
and support, while asking that responsible government 
should be granted, and the House of Representatives, though 
at first less conciliatory, agreed ultimately to pass the 
necessary votes of supply on the understanding that, pending 
the receipt of the decision of the Secretary of State, the 
existing members only should constitute the Executive 
Council, and no attempt should be made to confuse the posi- 
tion of the old members of a Crown Colony Executive with 
the members of an executive which rested on parliamentary 
Support.t 
The decision of the Secretary of State was conveyed in 
a dispatch of December 8, 1854,% in which he informed the 
Administrator that Her Majesty’s Government had no desire 
whatever to offer opposition tothe establishment of thesystem 
known as responsible government in New Zealand, and had 
no reason to doubt that it would prove the best adapted for 
developing the interests as well as satisfying the wishes of 
the community, and the only terms which they had to make 
was the condition accepted by the General Assembly of 
making fair provision for the officers affected by the new 
arrangement, who had had a reasonable right to expect that 
their posts would be permanent, and who under the new 
system would be liable to retire on political grounds. Ac- 
cordingly the principle was to be applied forthwith, and 
steps were taken to appoint a government of ministers, 
pensions being provided for the former members of the 
Executive Council. 
§ 5. RESPONSIBLE (GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 
In the case of the Cape of Good Hope the question 
was inaugurated by Lord Carnarvon in a dispatch to Sir 
P. Wodehouse of January 26, 1867.3 in which he announced 
that the Imperial Government had decided that the burden 
of military expenditure in respect of the Colony must be 
assumed by the Colonial Government. The principle of 
: Parl. Pap., H. C. 160, 1855, pp. 9 seq. * Ibid, p. 39. 
ag H. C. 181. 1870, p. 1. Representative government dated from