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adequate pension for its occupant, will be a salutary check on any disposition to carry party government beyond its just limits.

This condition must be applied to the removal of those public officers who now have seats in your Executive Council, unless where they have clearly accepted office on an understanding to the contrary effect. I cannot suppose that the necessity of providing the requisite pensions will be deemed by the Assembly an unreasonable accompaniment of the establishment of parliamentary government. And hereafter I think it would be proper to recognise as an invariable rule, that no person should without such provision be deprived of any office (except upon the ground of unfitness or misconduct), unless he had accepted it on the distinct understanding that it was to be held virtually, as well as nominally, during pleasure.

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I entertain a strong conviction that the adoption of such a rule will be found conducive not only to the interests of the holders of offices, but also to those of the public, and to a true economy of the public money. I have already observed, it is impossible to expect that men of superior capacity will devote themselves to the public service unless they are assured that their employment will be permanent, or are offered emoluments so large as to make up for the uncertainty of the tenure by which they are enjoyed. If the emoluments of public employment are small, and its tenure at the same time uncertain, a strong temptation is given to the holders to endeavour to make up for these disadvantages by irregular gains, and thus to give rise to practices equally injurious to the community in a pecuniary and in amoral point of view.

You will observe that, in the preceding observations, I have assumed that those only of the public servants, who are to be regarded as removable on losing the confidence of the Legislature, are to be members of the Executive Council. This I consider to follow from the principles I have laid down. Those public servants, who hold their offices permanently, must upon that very ground be regarded as subordinate, and ought not to be members of either house of the Legislature, by which they would necessarily be more or less mixed up in party struggles; and, on the other hand, those who are to have the general direction of affairs exercise that function by

virtue of their responsibility to the Legislature, which implies their being removable from office, and also that they should be members either of the Assembly or of the Legislative Council. But this general direction of affairs, and the control of all subordinate officers, it is the duty of the Governor to exercise through the Executive Council; hence the seats in that Council must be considered as in the nature of political offices, and if held in connexion with other offices must give to these also a political character. This, however, leads me to observe, that if only two or three of the principal offices are to be regarded as political, it may very probably be advisable to assign salaries to two or three of the Executive Councillors as such. The Executive Council has duties of a very important character to perform; those duties, and the defects in the manner in which they had then generally been discharged I find thus described in a confidential despatch which the late Lord Sydenham, then Mr. P. Thomson, addressed to Lord J. Russell, from Halifax, in the year 18401:"The functions of the Executive Council, on the other hand are, it is perfectly clear, of a totally different "character. They are a body upon whom the Governor must be able to call at any or at all times for advice; with whom he can consult upon the measures to be submitted to the Legislature, and in whom he may find instruments, within its walls, to introduce such amendments in the laws as he may think necessary, or to defend his acts and his policy. It is obvious, therefore, that those who compose this body must be persons whose constant attendance on the Governor can be secured; principally, therefore, officers of the Government itself; but, when it may be expedient to introduce others, men "holding seats in one or other House, taking a leading part "in political life, and, above all, exercising influence over "the Assembly."

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The last, and, in my opinion, by far the most serious "defect in the Government is the utter absence of power "in the Executive, and its total want of energy to attempt to occupy the attention of the country upon real improvements, or to lead the Legislature in the prepara

1 In July, 1840, Sydenham had found time to visit Halifax, and to allay, though not to settle, the political agitation.

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"tion and adoption of measures for the benefit of the colony. It does not appear to have occurred to any 66 one that it is one of the first duties of the Government "to suggest improvements where they are wanted. That "the constitution having placed the power of legislation "in the hands of an Assembly and a Council, it is only by acting through these bodies that this duty can be performed, and that if these proper and legitimate "functions of Government are neglected, the necessary "result must be, not only that the improvements which the people have a right to expect will be neglected, "and the prosperity of the country checked, but that the popular branch of the Legislature will misuse its power, "and the popular mind be easily led into excitement, upon mere abstract theories of government, to which "their attention is directed as the remedy for the uneasiness they feel."

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In this view of the proper functions of the Executive Council I entirely concur; but I greatly doubt whether they could be adequately discharged by a Council composed of only two or three persons holding offices in the public service, and of gentlemen serving gratuitously. It is hardly possible to expect that those so serving should devote any large portion of their time to their public duties, and it therefore appears to me highly desirable that salaries should be assigned to at least one or two seats in the Executive Council.

On such terms as these, which I have thus detailed, it appears to me that the peculiar circumstances of Nova Scotia present no insuperable obstacle to the immediate adoption of that system of parliamentary government which has long prevailed in the mother country, and which seems to be a necessary part of representative institutions in a certain stage of their progress.

I have thought it due to you to enter thus fully into the practical difficulties to be encountered in giving effect to those general principles which, in my despatch of the 3d of November, I laid down for your guidance in the selection of your responsible advisers. I am in hopes that the present despatch will leave you in no doubt as to the course to be pursued by you in the event of any changes of which you may anticipate the contingency. I owed it to you to make myself clearly understood on this point; and I trust that what I have now said, will be regarded by

your Council as amounting to such a declaration of my views as was requested by them in their letter of the 30th January. I have, &c.,

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(Signed) GREY.

Lord Elgin, sent as Governor-General to Canada in 1847, had received similar instructions, and was fully determined to execute them. His ideals, and the difficulties which he met with in carrying them out, are shown in his correspondence, taken partly from his Letters and Journals, edited by Theodore Walrond in 1873, and partly from Parliamentary Papers and Reports, 1849, vol. xxxv.

TO EARL GREY.

1847.

Several causes co-operate together to give to personal and party interests the overweening importance which attaches to them in the estimation of local politicians. There are no real grievances here to stir the depths of the popular mind. We are a comfortable people, with plenty to eat and drink, no privileged classes to excite envy, or taxes to produce irritation. It were ungrateful to view these blessings with regret, and yet I believe that they account in some measure for the selfishness of public men and their indifference to the higher aims of statesmanship.

The comparatively small number of members of which the popular bodies who determine the fate of provincial administrations consist, is also, I am inclined to think, unfavourable to the existence of a high order of principle and feeling among official personages. A majority of ten in an assembly of seventy may probably be, according to Cocker, equivalent to a majority of 100 in an assembly of 700. In practice, however, it is far otherwise. The defection of two or three individuals from the majority of ten puts the administration in peril. Thence the perpetual patchwork and trafficking to secure this vote and

1 It is not the least of Earl Grey's services to his country that he selected Lord Elgin-at the time a political opponent for the Government of Canada.

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that, which (not to mention other evils) so engrosses the time and thoughts of ministers, that they have not leisure for matters of greater moment. It must also be remembered that it is only of late that the popular assemblies in this part of the world have acquired the right of determining who shall govern them-of insisting, as we phrase it, that the administration of affairs shall be conducted by persons enjoying their confidence. It is not wonderful that a privilege of this kind should be exercised at first with some degree of recklessness, and that, while no great principles of policy are at stake, methods of a more questionable character for winning and retaining the confidence of these arbiters of destiny should be resorted to. My course in these circumstances, is, I think, clear and plain. It may be somewhat difficult to follow occasionally, but I feel no doubt as to the direction in which it lies. I give to my ministers all constitutional support, frankly and without reserve, and the benefit of the best advice that I can afford them in their difficulties. In return for this, I expect that they will, in so far as it is possible for them to do so, carry out my views for the maintenance of the connexion with Great Britain and the advancement of the interests of the province. On this tacit understanding we have acted together harmoniously up to this time, although I have never concealed from them that I intended to do nothing which may prevent me from working cordially with their opponents, if they are forced upon me. That ministries and oppositions should occasionally change places, is of the very essence of our constitutional system, and it is probably the most conservative element which it contains. By subjecting all sections of politicians in their turn to official responsibilities, it obliges heated partisans to place some restraint on passion, and to confine within the bounds of decency the patriotic zeal with which, when out of place, they are wont to be animated. In order, however, to secure these advantages, it is indispensable that the head of the Government should show that he has confidence in the loyalty of all the influential parties with which he has to deal, and that he should have no personal antipathies to prevent him from acting with leading men.

I feel very strongly that a Governor-General, by acting upon these views with tact and firmness, may hope to establish a moral influence in the province which will go