6 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART I
members, and from the first to the last ministerial responsi-
bility has existed merely by custom.
In the case of Natal there is a complete contrast, and
a most determined effort was made to secure the principles
of constitutional government being inserted in the Act
altering the constitution. The reserved Bill, No. 1 of 1892,
contained a clause providing that the Governor should
designate not more than six ministerial offices within a month
from the coming into force of the Act, and thereafter from
time to time as might be necessary. The holders of such
offices were to be appointed by the Crown and were to hold
office during pleasure, and the offices were to be liable to
be vacated on political grounds. Each minister should be
a member of the Legislative Council, or be or become within
four months a member of the Legislative Assembly, but not
more than two ministers should be members of the Council
at once. Each minister could sit and speak in either house,
but vote only in the house of which he was a member. Then
it was laid down by s. 12: ‘ The words Governor in Council
in this Act or in any other law or Act appearing shall be
deemed to mean the Governor acting with the advice of his
ministers, and such ministers shall constitute the Executive
Council” Lord Knutsford’s dispatch of July 5, 1892, criti-
cized this as follows :—
9. I have further to acquaint you that I have discussed
with the Delegates various points of detail in which they
agree with me that the language of the Bill was capable of
improvement without impairing the sense. With one excep-
tion these were questions of language or of arrangement
which explain themselves. I should, however, observe that
the addition to Clause 3 is simply a precaution in case an
unforeseen emergency should make it necessary to obtain
Legislative authority for any purpose, before the arrange-
ments can be completed for inaugurating the new Consti-
tution.
10. The one exception to which I refer is in Clause 12,
which Clause, as passed, declared that the Ministers should
constitute the Executive Council. Such a provision appears
out of place in a Constitution Act, of which the primary
* Parl. Pap., C. 7013, p. 42.
