166 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



stituted in Nova Scotia since 1838.' It is impossible to suj^pose that he 

 could do otherwise than make a distinction between political officers and 

 members of a legislative body forming a branch of the legislature. Be 

 that as it may, the rule that was applied to public officers appears to 

 have also applied to legislative councillors, so far as I can tind data on 

 the subject. While the Crown controlled the legislative council, it cer- 

 tainly did not ever act with respect to it in a capricious manner but 

 appears to have given it every possible guarantee that it should exercise 

 its legislative powers free from any fear that its members Avould be sum- 

 marily and unjustly dismissed. 



Now wc come to the third period of Nova Scotia's constitutional 

 histor3^ during which the province obtained from the Crown large rights 

 of self-government — when the Crown no longer intei'fered in mattei"s of 

 purely local or internal concern, and the executive councillors became 

 immediately responsible to the assembly and only held office as long as 

 they retained the confidence of the people and their representatives in 

 the legislature. The Crown, it will be seen, never yielded by so many 

 words in any legal instrument its pi*erogative of appointing councillors 

 during pleasure, and its incidental right of suspending or dismissing 

 them. That was a prerogative always in reserve, but limited by usage to 

 cases of positive misconduct. Mills, in his " Colonial Constitution," states,'^ 

 " that the members of the legislative council maybe suspended by the 

 governor foi" misconduct." We find cases of resignation during this 

 period, one for bankruptcy as a disqualifying cause, but none of arbitrary 

 dismissal for political or other insufficient reasons. 



But while this was the case so far as the evidence before us goes, 

 there had grown up a sentiment in the maritime provinces, with the 

 desire for responsible and self-government, that legislative councils 

 should have such guarantees of stability as had been given by statute to 

 the members of the councils in Canada. This sentiment obtained ex- 

 pression in an address of the Nova Scotia council to the imperial 

 government in 1845. of which I have already given the exact terms,' and 

 a short history of all the subsequent proceedings. It does not apjiear 

 that any complaint was made in the debate — and certainly not in the 

 address— that the Crown had abused its powers by dismissals or by the 

 arbitrary exercise of its prerogative right. The address, as I have shown, 

 did not in distinct words ask for life tenure, but for other changes. It is 

 to be regretted that we have not before us the text of Lord Falkland's 

 despatch forwarding the address but we may fairly assume, from the 

 tenure of Lord Stanley's reply to the council, that the governor referred 

 to the system in Canada as a basis for a change in the constitution of 



' See above, paragraph xvi. 



- Citing Clark's •' Colonial Law," p. 3L 



•' See above, paragraph xviii. 



