cHAP. viI] CABINET SYSTEM IN DOMINIONS 313 
relations with the United States of America.l This depart- 
ment resembles, moreover, the corresponding department 
in the Commonwealth, for like that department it deals 
with the correspondence passing with the Secretary of 
State for the Colonies as well as with matters of external 
interest properly so called. In 1879 the office of Receiver- 
General was abolished and the duties assigned to the finance 
minister. At the same time the department of public works 
was divided into two separate departments presided over by 
two ministers, one designated Minister of Railways and 
Canals, and the other Minister of Public Works. The 
changes in the department were rendered necessary by the 
constitution of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which threw 
much responsibility upon the departments of the Government. 
In 1884 the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries was divided 
into two subsections of marine and fisheries administered 
by one minister and two deputies, but the arrangement was 
revoked in 1892, to be again restored in a different form in 
1910, when the development of the Canadian navy required 
the redivision of the ministry under two deputy heads, with 
powers extending, the one over marine and fisheries, the other 
over the new navy. Moreover, it was decided in 1909 to create 
a Minister of Labour as an independent branch of the Govern- 
ment.2 The Ministry thus in 1911 consisted of the Prime 
Minister, who was President of the Privy Council, the Minister 
of Trade and Commerce, the Secretary of State, the Minister 
of Militia and Defence, the Minister of Agriculture, the 
Minister of Finance, the Minister of Customs, the Minister 
of Justice, the Minister of Inland Revenue and of Mines, the 
Minister of Railways and Canals, the Minister of Marine and 
Fisheries and of the Naval Service, the Minister of Public 
Works, the Minister of the Interior, the Postmaster-General, 
the Minister of Labour, and the Solicitor-General, a member 
of the Ministrv but not of the Cabinet. 
! See the First Annual Report of the Secretary of State for External 
Affairs, Canada Sess. Pap., 1910, No. 29b. De facto the Prime Minister is 
very much the Minister for External Affairs, 
$8 See Parl. Pap., Cd. 5135, p. 11.