JHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 25
ybove mentioned, save that for a single-chambered legisla-
ture, were made permanent. Another provision in the
original Act, providing for the appointment of a separate
Executive Council, was not made permanent, and therefore
lapsed. But these measures were only a slight remedy for
the difficulty, and the colonists became more and more
insistent in the demand for responsible government when
they saw it established in the Provinces of Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. On the other
hand, the Imperial Government were hampered in their
desire to meet the wishes of the people by the fact that both
France and America had important treaty rights on the
coast of the Colony, and that therefore there was risk in
abandoning the control of the Imperial Government over the
Colony. Eventually it was determined to give way, and the
grant of responsible government was made on the passing
of Acts by the Legislature for the purpose of providing
retiring allowances for the officers who retired on political
grounds, and for increasing the number of members of the
Legislative Assembly! At the same time, in 1856, a dispatch
from Mr. Labouchere, which has become famous in New-
foundland history, asserted that in future there would
be no question of altering the treaty obligations affecting
the Colony save after full consultation with the Colonial
Government.
§ 4. RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALASIA
It is hardly necessary to enter into the details of the
discussion of the grant of responsible government to the
Colonies of Australia in the period between 1840 and 1850.
It was recognized that a change in the form of government
to responsible government was natural, and indeed inevitable,
once the system had been established firmly in the case of
Canada, and the Constitution Act of 1850 contemplated the
alteration of their existing constitutions by the Colonies of
New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia.
* See Parl. Pap., H. C. 273.1855; Prowse, History of Newfoundland,
Pp. 466 seq.
