252 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II 
Lord Granville appears to consider expenditure without 
parliamentary sanction justifiable on two grounds only— 
Ist, on the ground of necessity, 2nd, on the ground of 
expediency accompanied by a reasonable presumption that 
both branches of the Legislature will subsequently approve 
of the expenditure. 
Nevertheless, in the very case under consideration, Lord 
Granville, even if he does not directly censure, at least 
expressly prohibits for the future the course taken by Lord 
Belmore in having, upon the advice of his ministers under 
sircumstances of great emergency, assented to an expenditure 
which, although not strictly legal, had been sanctioned by 
the Legislative Assembly, both by resolution and by Bill, 
and to which, although the Bill for the purpose had by 
a mere inadvertence failed to pass the Legislative Council, 
there could be no doubt whatever that the sanction of that 
body would have been afterwards obtained. 
Without further dwelling, however, upon this apparent 
discrepancy between principles laid down and the application 
of those principles by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
[ invite the serious attention of my colleagues to the probable 
affect of these instructions, and to the embarrassments in 
which the present or any future Government of this Colony 
might be thereby involved. 
We see that in a case where every constitutional step was 
taken, excepting the final step of obtaining the technical 
consent of the Upper Chamber, in a case of such ‘ emergency ’ 
that delay on the part of the Executive might have been 
dangerous to the public interest, the Secretary of State’s 
disapproval of the course adopted is scarcely withheld, while 
his injunction against its repetition is peremptorily imposed. 
It then becomes a grave question whether by prohibitory 
instructions to the Governor of this kind the free action 
of responsible government in this Colony is not liable to 
be. seriously impeded ; whether our position and functions 
as Responsible Advisers of his Excellency, and ministers 
responsible to Parliament, are not interfered with by the 
Secretary of State so as to affect the principle of Colonial 
independence. Lord Granville seems to have overlooked 
the fact that the action of the Executive Council in cases like 
that referred to is not that of the Governor alone, but the 
joint action of the Governor and his Responsible Advisers. 
The Governor, no doubt, is responsible to the Imperial 
(Government, but his advisers are responsible to the Parlia- 
ment of this Colony, and to bind the Governor by thus