Montreal (Mr. Kerr, Q.C.) recently that the governors of provinces had not the same constitutional powers as the GovernorGeneral of the Dominion; but, though if a case were brought before the Courts, he (Sir John) did not say that view would not be sustained, he did not intend to take that line of argument. There was a great difference between perogative power and constitutional right. An Act which might be sustained by the Courts as the legal prerogative of the Crown might be exercised in the most unconstitutional way. Constitutional usage was now pretty well defined. Setting aside the legal view with regard to the Quebec difficulty, he contended that the Ministry should have governed, and should have been free to govern, so long as they possessed the confidence of the Legislature. If there was any exception to this doctrine, it was when the Crown had reason to believe that the Parliament did not represent the country. Referring particularly to the Quebec matter, he said the Lieutenant-Governor when appointed found a Government in office sustained by large majorities in both branches of the Legislature. Not a single reason which he gave for their dismissal would hold. Sir John quoted the several cases in England where the Sovereign had exercised the perogative of dismissal, and said the only one referred to by the defenders of the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec which was worth noticing was that of the Melbourne Government; and Greville, whose account had been confirmed by Baron Stockmeyer, showed that the failure of Lord Melbourne to sustain the Whig character of his Government afforded William IV. a reason for the dismissal, which was not generally understood. The excuse bore considerable force, yet by entire concensus of practical statesmen and theoretical writers it had been admitted that the king was wrong. The case which corresponded most closely to that of Quebec was the South African case, where Sir Bartle Frere dismissed his Ministry. But he acted in the face of a great danger, in which the Local Government declined to use the burgher force for the maintenance of Imperial interests, and Sir Bartle Frere took the course which he did take in the support of those interests he was appointed peculiarly to maintain. Moreover, his action was defended by the Pall Mall Gazette and the Saturday Review as being justifiable on grounds similar in principle to those which would justify the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act—that is to say, the imminence of a rebellion or threatened war. The course of Sir George Bowen, Governor of South Australia, who had insisted upon sustaining his Ministry

-in the face of an adverse Upper House, and in the face of circumstances which tended to excite the suspicion that they had in contemplation to disarrange the whole machinery of government-simply because they had a majority in the representative chamber and therefore presumably commanded the confidence of the people, had been ably and properly sustained by the Liberal press in England. The British constitution must be judged of as it is now, and not as it was fifty or seventy-five years ago. Mr. Bagehot, whose papers in the Fortnightly Review Sir John Macdonald had himself spoken of as "the only true picture of the British Constitution as it now exists," had written thus with regard to the prerogative of dismissal:

"Experience shows that the power of dismissing a Government with which Parliament is satisfied, and of dissolving that Parliament upon an appeal to the people, is not a power which a common hereditary monarch will in the long run be able beneficially to exercise. Accordingly this power has almost, if not quite, dropped out of the reality of our Constitution. Nothing, perhaps, would more surprise the English people than if the Queen, by coup d'etat and on a sudden, destroyed a Ministry firm in the allegiance, and secure of a majority in Parliament. That power indisputably, in theory, belongs to her; but it has passed so far away from the minds of men, that it would terrify them if she used it, like a volcanic eruption from Primrose Hill.

The Queen can hardly now refuse a defeated Minister the chance of a dissolution, any more than she can dissolve in the time of an undefeated one, and without his consent."

In the introduction to the French edition of his book, Bagehot added some very important remarks on the same subject, which had never appeared in English until translated by Mr. J. A. Chapleau, M. P. P., in a speech made upon the Quebec crisis. Sir John Macdonald quoted this passage (mentioning the circumstances of its translation), from which we make the following extracts:

"And no monarch should dissolve Parliament against the will and the interest of the Ministry which is in power. No doubt the King can dismiss such a Ministry and replace it by another Administration whose advice to dissolve Parliament he could take; but even with this precaution, to act thus towards a Ministry, which had a strong majority in Parliament, would be to strike a blow which it is almost impossible to suppose. We do not believe that Queen Victoria herself, in spite of the popularity and respect by which she is surrounded, to a greater extent perhaps than any of her predecessors, would ever have recourse to such a measure.

*

In practice, in England the Sovereign considers himself obliged to follow the advice of the Ministry which the House of Commons desires to maintain in power. All prerogatives at variance with this principle have fallen into disuse, but the Sovereign may accord to the people a majority which is denied

it in the House of Commons; but to strike from behind, so to speak, and strangle, by means of an appeal to the country, a Ministry sustained by Parliament, would be an event which no longer enters into the calculation, although, in former times, instances of this occurred in our annals.'

Freeman on the "Growth of the English Constitution," the speech of Lord Dufferin at Halifax in the summer of 1873, and the instructions of Lord Grey (Colonial Secretary) to Lord Elgin in 1847, were also quoted in support of the same view. In the Quebec case every objection taken by the Lieutenant-Governor -to his late Ministry, except one, had reference, not to their administration, but to their legislation. There was a distinct difference between acts of administration and acts of legislation, and while the Crown was nominally a branch of the legislative power, it had really ceased to be so. Any member of the Quebec Legislature could have introduced of his own motion and without consulting anybody, the measure for the introduction of which the Lieutenant-Governor dismissed his advisers; if the House chose to carry it, the Ministry would have been obliged to yield; and it would have been a contempt of the privileges of the Legislature for any one to justify resistance to the will of the majority by quoting or suggesting what were the opinions of the representative of the Crown on the subject. He had been a member of the Administration under five Governor-Generals, and he ventured to assert that the Ministry never submitted a bill to the representative of the Sovereign, and only had his general assent at the commencement of a session to its financial measures. Only recently the Stamp Act of the Minister of Inland Revenue had been so changed that its introducer could not recognize his production when the House got through with it. It could not be said that the Governor-General had any responsibility for that bill, either in its inception or after it had been virtually destroyed. According to Bagehot, "the Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights-the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn; and a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others." "The Queen," says the same authority, "has no veto. She must sign her own death warrant if the Houses unanimously sent it up to her." The Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec allowed legislation to proceed without a suggestion or warning, and at the last hours of the session unceremoniously dismissed his Ministers. His conduct was a coup d'etat. It was unwise and an outrage upon the constitution. It could hardly be doubted, at all events it was

broadly alleged, that the course of the Lieutenant-Governor was dictated by his desire to seize upon power for his friends in view of a general election for the Dominion. No man fully aware of his responsibilities would have taken such a step. It remained to be seen whether the Premier, upon whom the mantle of Baldwin had fallen, would turn his back upon the principles he had so long professed, and which had been the chief credit and the chief honour of his party.

Mr. Mackenzie in replying agreed with a good deal of what Sir John Macdonald had said. Sir John was hardly in a position, however, to lecture the Liberal party on responsible government. While he admitted the right of Parliament to discuss the conduct of a Lieutenant-Governor, it was only an extreme case which justified such a course being taken; where it was simply the removal of one Ministry, and the appointment of another, he denied the right of the House to review his conduct. Whether the action of the Lieutenant-Governor was wise or unwise would be decided by the electors of Quebec. Suppose the House condemned the Lieutenant-Governor, in what position would it be placed if the verdict of the electors should be in his favour? The proposed interference was unwise and unwarranted, and would be destructive of Provincial autonomy. He read from Sir John's report as Minister of Justice, in reference to the Ontario Orange bills, to show that he had upheld the local authority as against any Federal intervention; and pointed out that he had carefully avoided in the resolution now submitted for the consideration of the House, stating in express terms that the action of the Lieutenant Governor had been unconstitutional. The resolution was cunningly drawn, and might, like most of Sir John's productions, be read two or three ways. To interfere now would be to subvert the first principles of Responsible Government. He could not censure Lieutenant-Governor Letellier without censuring his advisers and thus anticipating the free action of the people. Mr. Mackenzie took exception to the character of the legislation of the DeBoucherville administration, and pointed out that Sir Francis Hincks had defended the action of the Lieutenant-Governor on constitutional grounds. The form of Sir John Macdonald's resolution itself showed the hesitancy in the mind of the leader of the Opposition as to the precise nature of the events he characterized, and he (Mr. M.) called upon the House to vote the motion down.

Many very able speeches were made on the subject on both sides of the House, and the debate was continued until Monday,

the 15th April, when a division took place, and Sir John Macdonald's amendment was defeated by 170 votes to 112.

On the same day, the question came up in the Senate, on a motion by Mr. Campbell, seconded by Mr. Bellerose,

"To resolve that the Messages of His Excellency the Governor-General of the 26th March and 8th April be now read, and that it be resolved that the course adopted by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec towards his late Ministry was at variance with the constitutional principles upon which Responsible Government should be conducted."

The debate was on that day adjourned, and was resumed on the 16th, when Mr. Haythorne moved in amendment,

"That all the words after To Resolve' be struck out and the following substituted: That, under the rule of our Constitution, the Federal Government, and the Provincial Governments, each in their own sphere, enjoy responsible government equally, separately and independently; therefore, under existing circumstances, this House deems it inexpedient to offer any opinion on the recent action of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, or of his late Ministers'."

This amendment was defeated by a vote of 37 to 20, and Mr. Campbell's resolution was agreed to on the same division.

The conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor, and the antagonistic character of the verdicts rendered by the Senate and House of Commons respectively with regard to its merits, excited a great amount of animated and not always very moderate discussion in the newspaper and periodical press. Notwithstanding the ability with which the subject was handled on both sides, the greater portion of what was written had in view too much the influencing of public opinion for partisan objects to be of permanent value. About the end of March, Mr. Todd, the Librarian of Parliament, whose treatise on "Parliamentary Government in England” has earned for him a high position as an authority on constitutional questions, published a brochure entitled "A Constitutional Governor," which was evidently suggested by the Quebec affair and the discussions growing out of it. Mr. Todd's pamphlet treated of the position and prerogative of Governors and LieutenantGovernors comprehensively and clearly. After an exhaustive enquiry into and citation of the precedents furnished by colonial history, he deduced from them the following "leading principles:"

1. "That the position of a constitutional Governor towards those over whom he is set, as the representative of the Sovereign, and especially in relation to his Ministers, is one of strict neutrality. He must manifest no bias towards any political party; but, on the contrary, be ready to make himself a mediator and a moderator between the influential of all parties.