210 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II 
might be able to carry with him part of the following of 
Sir Robert Bond, if the latter insisted, as was probable, 
on resigning in view of the refusal of the Governor to accept 
his advice. Sir Robert resigned and the Governor then sent 
for the leader of the Opposition, Sir Edward Morris, who 
accepted office and proceeded to form a Government. But 
he was unable to detach any of Sir Robert Bond’s following 
from him, or to elect a Speaker on the meeting of the House, 
and he was compelled to advise the Governor to dissolve 
the House. Naturally this action was strongly resented by 
Sir Robert Bond, who pointed out that he had been refused 
a dissolution in similar circumstances, and argued that, if it 
were necessary to dissolve, the Governor should recall him 
to office and permit him to have a dissolution. The Governor, 
however, adhered to the view that the dissolution which 
was clearly inevitable should be granted to Sir Edward 
Morris, and this was done with the result that the Premier 
was successful at the polls and came back at the head of 
a substantial majority. 
It is clear that, though at first sight there seems to have 
been some hardship in the fact that Sir Robert Bond was 
refused a dissolution, the course followed was exactly in 
concordance with the law of the constitution. It was the 
duty of the Governor to exhaust every possible chance of 
forming a Government before he dissolved a House which 
had just met after a general election, in which both sides had 
placed their policy fully before the country, and which, 
therefore, must be deemed to show that neither party had 
a clear majority in the country. To give under these circum- 
stances a dissolution to the Premier would have probably 
meant either a repetition of the first equality of numbers, 
or at best a slight majority for one or the other party, for 
the possession of the Government in the case of dissolution 
in Newfoundland has always been regarded as a great 
advantage in matters of politics. It was therefore fairly 
obvious that a dissolution granted to Sir Edward Morris 
would be likely to result in a substantial majority for his 
party, and thus secure a stable Government. Sir Robert