380 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [raArT im 
bo discuss with his ministers the desirability of any particular 
course that may be pressed upon him for his adoption. He 
should frankly state the objections, if any, which may occur 
to him, but if, after full discussion, ministers determine 
to press upon him the advice which they have already 
tendered, the Governor should, as a general rule, and when 
Imperial interests are not affected, accept that advice, 
bearing in mind that the responsibility rests with the 
ministers, who are answerable to the Legislature and, in 
the last resort, to the country. 
A Governor would, however, be justified in taking another 
course if he should be satisfied that the policy recommended 
to him is not only, in his view, erroneous in itself, but such 
as he has solid grounds for believing, from his local know- 
ledge, would not be endorsed by the Legislature or by the 
constituencies. 
In so extreme a case as this, he must be prepared to accept 
the grave responsibility of seeking other advisers; and, I 
need hardly add, very strong reasons would be necessary to 
justify so exceptional a course on the part of the Governor. 
A reply was sent to this dispatch on December 3, 1892, by 
Lord Glasgow. He maintained the position that an appeal 
to the Colonial Office was not a natural step to be taken 
by a Ministry with a proper conception of the rights and 
privileges of a self-governing Colony and urged that it 
was their duty to resign or to give way, and not to act as 
they had done in this case. He summed up his opinion 
in the view that the practice of referring to the Colonial 
Office differences between Colonial Governors and ministries 
of the calibre at least of the one in question, was not one to 
be encouraged, in as much as the great Colonies all possessed 
the inestimable boon of self-government as fully and freely 
as did the Mother Country. The Secretary of State 
acknowledged the receipt of this dispatch in a dispatch of 
February 17, 1893. He thought that the objection to a 
reference home had come too late, and should have been 
made earlier, before the reference aetually took place. He 
had not sought the reference, but he would not be justified 
in refusing an expression of his view when it was asked 
for by the Governor of the Colony or by his constitutional 
¥ Parl. Pup., H. C, 198, 1893-4, p. 42.