cuAP. viI] CABINET SYSTEM IN DOMINIONS 329 
to turn it out.! In 1903 in the same province the Ministry 
retained office though supported on a motion for a dissolution 
only by the Speaker’s vote.? 
There is no fixed rule in the Colonies, just as there is hardly 
yet one in England, as to whether a Ministry should resign 
when a general election turns against them, or wait to be 
turned out on the meeting of the House. The older custom 
(as, for example, in Canada in 1848 and Ontario in 1871) was 
no doubt to meet the House and be ejected by a vote of no 
confidence, as was usual in England up to 1868, when Mr. 
Disraeli retired on defeat at the polls followed by Mr. Glad- 
stone’s resignation in 1874, and this new precedent was 
followed by Mr. McCulloch’s Ministry in Victoria in 1877, 
and by Mr. Mackenzie’s Ministry in Canada in 1878. So in 
1884 the Atkinson Ministry and in 1887 the Stout Ministry 
in New Zealand resigned on the result of the polls. On the 
other hand, Sir C. Tupper did not resign on the defeat of his 
party at the polls in 1896 until he found that the Governor- 
General was no longer prepared to accept his advice as to 
appointments and so forth.® But he may have intended 
to resign before Parliament met, as he based his retention of 
office in part at least on the fact that all the results of the 
polls were not certain owing to recounts. In British Colum- 
bia in 1900 Mr. Martin’s Ministry clung to office for months, 
though it had no parliamentary support at all. In 1891 
the Atkinson Ministry in New Zealand resigned when the 
t Canada Sess. Pap., 1900, No. 174. On the other hand, in 1874 Mr, 
Molteno wished to resign on a defeat (Wilmot, South Africa, i. 244, 245), and 
Mr. Daglish resigned office in Western Australia in 1905 as he could not 
command a really undivided support in the Lower House for his followers ; 
see Parliamentary Debates, xxvii. 803 ; and in 1909 Sir E. Lewis in Tasmania 
resigned, with the result that after a very brief period of Labour rule the 
party reunited and turned that party out. In the Cape, Sir G. Sprigg 
retired similarly in 1881 and 1890 (Wilmot, South Africa, i. 142; iii. 18), 
and Sir T. Scanlen in 1884. 
* Canadian Annual Review, 1903, p. 218. Cf. ibid., 1902, p. 74; 1901, 
pp. 333, 334. 
3 Canada Sess. Pap., 1896, Sess. 2, No. 7. Cf. a similar case in New 
Brunswick, Canadian Annual Review, 1908, p. 402; and in Ontario, ibid., 
1905, p. 489.