52 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART I 
on the civil government, and that the salary of the Governor 
should be put beyond the necessity of an annual vote. 
In the case of New Brunswick the course of events was 
precisely the same as in Nova Scotia, which formed the model 
for the advocates of responsible government in that province.! 
In Prince Edward Island there was more delay and difficulty. 
Up to March 1849 the Imperial Government had defrayed 
part of the Civil List charges of the island, but on that date 
the payments were stopped, and by a dispatch of December 
27, 1849, the Secretary of State offered to surrender the 
Crown lands, funds, quit-rents and permanent revenues 
belonging to the Crown in exchange for a Civil List, and 
later, in a dispatch of February 18, 1850, he expressed the 
view that the Imperial Government would be prepared to 
concede responsible government in exchange for a Civil 
List. The Legislature then passed a Civil List Act, but 
declined entirely to deal with business for the present until 
the Executive Government should be brought into harmony 
with the legislative body. The Civil List Act contained 
a provision that it was conditional on the surrender of the 
Crown revenues, and on the grant of a system of responsible 
government similar to that which was in force in the Provinces 
of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and it omitted 
to make any provision for the pensions of retiring officers. 
The Secretary of State decided to accept the proposal of 
the Legislature, subject to certain detailed modifications in 
the Civil List, to the omission of the requirement regarding 
responsible government, and to the provision of pensions 
for the officers retiring on political grounds. The reasons 
for his decision were that the grant of responsible govern- 
ment had never been embodied as a condition in similar 
Acts, and there was good reason why it should not be 80, 
for the term, though very well understood for practical 
purposes, had no definite meaning in law, and it was therefore 
impossible to say what would be a fulfilment of the condition, 
within the technical sense, which might be put by legal 
* The process was only complete in 1854 ; see Hannay, New Brunswick. 
ii. 47, 79, 117, 133, 170 seq.