Responsible government in the Dominions: Responsible government in the Dominions

Responsible government in the Dominions (Vol. 1)

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Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896933912

Document type:: Multivolume work

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Press

Year of publication:: 1912-

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1896934455

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236504

Document type:: Volume

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Volume count:: Vol. 1

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Pr.

Year of publication:: 1912

Scope:: LI, 568 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Introductory

Collection:: Economics Books

CHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 19 State, requesting the issue of the usual warrants for the appointments.! The act was a simple one, but it signified for the first time the adoption of ministerial responsibility : a Government which had worked harmoniously with the Governor had for the first time been ejected from office by a vote of the Legislature, and the Governor had made no effort to reverse the popular decision. He was later to show his determination to accept any measure proposed by the Government unless he thought it was disapproved by the Assembly or the people. The question of the losses caused by the suppression of the rebellion of Lower Canada had been the source of unending ill-feeling and trouble, and the new Government in 1849 introduced a measure appro- priating £90,000 for the payment of claims based on wanton damage and destruction, excluding from the benefit of the law persons convicted of treason. This modest measure, which had been preceded by inquiries authorized by a Con- servative Government in Lord Metcalfe’s time, roused the Tories to fury; they sought to embarrass the Governor- General by deluging him with petitions to dissolve Parlia- ment, or at least to reserve the Bill for the royal pleasure. Lord Elgin might easily have evaded responsibility by adopting the second alternative, but he preferred the more courageous and statesmanlike course of assenting to the Bill. He pointed out that a dissolution might have led to 8 rebellion, but certainly would not have led to the reversal of the established policy, and to reserve the Bill would have involved the Government at home in difficulties which it vas not fair to cast upon them.? Lord Elgin was rewarded for his courage by an attack on his person in Montreal and an attempt at home to secure the disallowance of the Bill. But he had the consolation of seeing the satisfactory termination of a vexed question, and in the remaining years of his office he was instrumental in securing one great boon for Canada, in the shape of the reciprocity treaty with the United States in 1854. He wag P, arl. Payp., H. C. 621, 1848, p. 6. * Parl. Pap., May 25, 1849, p. 6, 92

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