520 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [part IL 
The dispatch is an extremely able one, and is a justification 
of the conduct of the Governor which must be definitely 
considered as more than adequately meeting the objections 
raised to his conduct by the Secretary of State. 
On the other hand, the Council sent home a long statement 
in which they criticized seriously the Governor’s action, and 
declared that he had been guilty of illegal conduct. They 
said — 
There are other circumstances in which a deviation from 
the spirit of English precedents has tended to place the 
Council at a disadvantage. Neither from the Governor, nor 
the advisers of the Governor, has the Council hitherto 
received proper consideration. This defect is probably 
a consequence of the aggressive tendencies of the Legislative 
Assembly ; but these tendencies have been stimulated and 
not restrained by the action of the Executive. In England 
the Crown has not hesitated, when occasion required, to 
exert all its influence in order to restore and to maintain 
harmony between the two Houses ;, and it has invariably 
refused to lend its aid to either House to the detriment of the 
other. In this country a different practice has occasionally 
prevailed. Some Governors appear to have understood the 
principles of responsible government to mean that they were 
thereby deprived of all discretion, and were bound to permit 
the Ministry of the day not only to use the whole power of 
the prerogative, but to strain it, for the purpose of giving 
sffect to the wishes of the Assembly against the Council. 
The Assembly naturally retorted, and made savage attacks 
upon the action of the Upper House, which it accused? of 
having thrown out in twenty-two years more than eighty 
Bills, and of amending more than twenty others so that 
the Assembly preferred to drop them. It maintained state 
aid to religion for fifteen years in opposition to the expressed 
will of the country ; it mutilated till they were useless six 
Bills for mining on private property ; it seven times threw 
out Payment of Members ; it rejected an Electoral Bill and 
a Tariff Bill passed by a large majority. It rejected four 
Appropriation Bills and a Temporary Supply Bill. It threw 
out a Bill to provide for the defence when invasion seemed 
imminent. It rejected a Bill for an International Exhibition 
Parl, Pap., LC. 2217, p. 55. # Ibid., p. 65.