sap. vir] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 615

the Appropriation Act, which is passed at the end of the
session, specifically appropriates to the various services
the sums granted in Committee of Supply, and by a covering
grant of ways and means provides the money required to
meet the whole of the supplies granted for the year.
In a further dispatch of August 25, 1878! the Secretary of
State expressed regret that it had not been found possible
to arrange for a general reinstatement of the members of
the Civil Service of the Colony. He could not agree that
there was anything unconstitutional in the Governor’s
questioning the course taken with regard to these public
officers ; the removal of so many officers involved a constitutional
 question of great importance as a precedent in
all self-governing Colonies, namely, the position of the
permanent civil servants. There was no intention to carry
out a scheme of reduction of the service, and the officers
had been dismissed solely to economize the funds at the disposal
 of the Government. The Governor was obliged, in so
grave a matter, to satisfy himself that the action proposed
by his ministers was justifiable, and after making every
allowance for the difficulties of his position the Secretary
of State did not think that the emergency was of such a
character as to justify the course which had been adopted.
In a dispatch of July 13, 1878, the Governor communicated
the message with which he had opened the second session
of the ninth Parliament on the 9th of that month. In his
speech, which was of course an expression of ministerial
views, he said that it was proposed to lay before the Houses
a measure of constitutional reform intended to put an end
for all time to the recurrence of those periodical deadlocks
which were so injurious to trade and commerce, and a standing
 disgrace to the constitutional institutions of Victoria.
He remarked that unfortunately the attempt to embody
in comparatively rigid law the elasticity. inherent in the
principles and practice of the British Constitution had not
been completely successful, and differences in the interpretation
 of the Constitution Act had resulted in bringing
: Parl. Pap., C2217, p. 1.

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