146 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



the commissioners for trade und plantations in order to be laid before us ; 

 nevei-theless. if it should happen that you should have reasons for suspend- 

 in*; any councillor not fit to be ci)mmiinieated to the council, you may in 

 this case suspend such persons without their consent." But in the latter 

 case, also, the reasons of such suspension must be communicated to the 

 Crown in Eng-land. Provision was always made in the instructions for 

 ensuiMnii- the attendance of meml»ers, and reg-ulations made for freedom 

 of debate and vote in all matters of pulilic concern. 



XII. The Agitation for a Change in the Constitution of 

 THE Council. 



For nearly ninety years this system of government continued in 

 force. Parliamentary government, in the modern sense of the term, 

 never obtained. Init the government of the country was virtually under 

 the control of the council exercising executive, legislative and judicial 

 powers. In the course of time a contest grew up between the irrespon- 

 sible council and the people's house for the management of all the public 

 taxes and finances, for the separation of the executive and legislative 

 functions of the council, and " for the responsibility of the members of 

 government to the assembh'." As a remedy for existing grievances, an 

 address to the Queen, passed by the house of assembly in 1837, prayed 

 that " Her Majesty should grant an elective legislative council," or 

 "should separate the executive from the legislative council ; " provide 

 " for a just representation of all the great intei'ests of the province in 

 both"; introduce into the executive ''some members of the popular 

 branch," and otherwise secure ''responsibility to the Commons, and in 

 that Avay confer upon the people of the province what they value above 

 all other possessions, the bles.sings ol' the British constitution." ' 



XIII. Necessity for a Chancje in the Constitution of the Council. 



"Writing in 1829, Judge Haliliurton - observes : "By making the 

 members of the council independent of the governor for their existence 

 {for at pi'e&ent lie hds not only the poioer of nomination, but of suspension) 

 and investing them with no other ])OAvers than those necessary to a branch 

 of the legislature much weight would be added to administration, on the 

 confidence and extent of interest that it would thereby obtain, a much 

 more perfect and political distribution of power would be given to the 

 legislature, and the strange anomaly avoided of the same persons passing 

 a law and then sitting in judgment on their own acts, and advising the 

 governor to assent to it." 



1 See J. Howe's "Speeches and Letters," I., 139-142. 

 - History of Nova Scotia, IL, 'in. 



