CHAP. 11] LEGAL BASIS 61
In the case of Nova Scotia,! Lord Sydenham on his visit
in 1840 suggested that the members of the Executive Council
should normally be chosen from the members of the two
houses of the Legislature, and Mr. Howe was offered and
accepted a seat on an undertaking to modify the extreme
character of his views on the question of responsible govern-
ment. No change was made in the royal instructions to
provide for this system being carried out, and as a matter
of fact, as long as he was administering the Government,
Lord Falkland declined to put the full principles of self-
government into effect : he did not approve of them, and
he insisted on ruling with a coalition Executive Council,
which he thought was the proper mode of procedure. In
this view he had indeed the support of the House of Assembly
for a time, for in March 4, 1844, they adopted a resolution
which showed clearly that they considered that a Governor
was only to be advised generally by his Council, and that
he could not repudiate the obligation of deciding on his
Own responsibility what was best. But this system came to
an end in 1848, totally without any legal change, but by
the insistence by the party which commanded the majority
of the Legislature on the adoption of the new system, and
on the instruction given by dispatch to the Lieutenant-
Governor, that he should act on the principles of responsible
government. Indeed, the strong step was taken of removing,
under the power which all Canadian Governors had, one mem-
ber of the Executive Council from office, as he declined to retire
voluntarily. At the same time steps were taken to secure the
Passing of an Act, 12 Vict. ¢. 1, for granting to the Crown a
Civil List in return for the surrender of the hereditary revenues
of the Crown in the province. The same step of securing a Civil
List wag adopted in the Union Act of 1840, and for a time
stress was laid upon it, not as creating responsible govern-
ment, which it obviously did not, for such lists had been
almed at ever since representative government existed, but
because it was felt that a Provincial Parliament should be com-
pelled to determine to spend a certain sum of money at least
1 Parl. Pap., H. C. 621, 1848, pp. 9 seq.
