L176 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PARTI 
expressed in strong but courteous terms at the action of 
the Governor in declining to accept the advice of the leader 
of the then Government to take steps to secure that the 
Upper House should yield to the wishes of the Lower House 
as regards legislation. The Governor refused, and on the 
resignation of the Ministry as a result of his action sent for 
Mr. Philp, the leader of the Opposition in the House, who 
book upon himself the formation of the Ministry, though 
the Lower House refused him its confidence and protested 
against being dissolved. The general elections went hope- 
lessly against the new Government, which did not obtain 
more than a third of the House, and it had to resign, where- 
upon the new Government addressed a remonstrance to the 
Governor especially on the ground that his action had taken 
place without the grant of supply, and had hindered the 
progress of important public works which were needed for 
the development of the state. The Governor’s action was 
very freely criticized in the House in the debate, as it had 
been in the country during the campaign, where some 
members turned the election into an onslaught upon His 
Excellency, but the Government had no desire to go further 
with the matter, and the Governor, in acknowledging the 
address, merely promised to send it on to the Secretary of 
State. This action terminated the matter, as no reply from 
the Secretary of State was ever published! Similarly in 
1908 an attempt was made to disapprove the action of the 
Governor of Victoria, Sir Thomas Carmichael, because of his 
decision in giving a dissolution in the previous year to Sir 
Thomas Bent. The Governor, at the request of the House, 
submitted to the Parliament a statement of the reasons for 
his action, and the matter then terminated. In none of 
these cases did the Governor seriously suffer in reputation 
from the attempted censure, but it is of course clear that had 
his action in any case been seriously at fault the Imperial 
Government would have terminated the employment of an 
officer whose utility would have been gone. 
There are two cases in the Dominion of Canada where 
* Queensland Parliamentary Debates, ci. 38 seq., 60seq., 88 seq., 122 seq.