[riddell] BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT, 1867 77 



Had the unwritten principles of the Constitution of Great Britain 

 been observed in the government of the two Provinces, much of the 

 subsequent trouble would have been avoided; but as we know, they 

 were not. It is not necessary to discuss the conflicts ultimately cul- 

 minating in the Rebellions of 1837-8 — disputes arising in most cases 

 from the Lower House insisting on Responsible Government, the 

 Responsibility to them of the Administration as in the British con- 

 stitutional practice. Lord Durham in his celebrated Report points 

 out that in all the North American Provinces, there was a striking 

 tendency to a struggle between the Government and the majority, 

 "that the natural state of government in all these Colonies is that 

 of collision between the executive and the representative body" — 

 this he considers us "to indicate a deviation from sound constitutional 

 principles or practice" and looks upon the conduct of the assemblies 

 "as a constant warfare with the executive for the purpose of obtaining 

 the powers inherent in a representative body by the very nature of 

 representative government." Dealing with the system in vogue 

 wherein the Governor claimed that he was in no way responsible to 

 the people's representatives in his administration of the government, 

 Lord Durham says: "The real advisers of the Governor have in fact 

 been the Executive Council; and an institution more singularly 

 calculated for preventing the responsibility of the acts of Government 

 resting on anybody can hardly be imagined": and he adds the preg- 

 nant truth "a professedly irresponsible government would be the 

 weakest that could be devised." 



He comes to the conclusion that "It needs but to follow con- 

 sistently the principles of the British constitution and introduce 

 into the Government of these great colonies those wise provisions by 

 which alone the working of the representative system can in any 

 country be rendered harmonious and efficient", and his panacea is 

 "administering the Government on those principles which have been 

 found perfectly efificacious in Great Britain;" he "would not impair a 



single prerogative of the Crown but the Crown must 



submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions. . 



It must carry on the Government by means of those in whom 



that representative body has confidence."^ 



Lord John Russell on introducing Resolutions in part based 

 upon Lord Durham's Report, (June 3, 1839) said it was intended to 

 form a union of the Canadas "by which a representative constitution 



1 I employ the useful edition of Lord Durham's Report published by Methuen 

 & Co., London, 1902— the extracts are from pp. 50, 51, 76, 204, 205, 220; the whole 

 Report well repays reading even now. 



