78 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



may be carried into effect ", but he adds: "It does not appear to me 

 that you can subject the Executive Council of Canada to the respon- 

 sibility which is fairly demanded of the Ministers of the executive 

 power in this country"— the difficulties which he points out are, how- 

 ever, Imperial and not local. He repeated that "It was not wise to lay 

 down as a principle that the Canadian constitution or any colonial 

 constitution should be an exact copy of the British Constitution."^ 



In view of the strong opposition to the Resolutions, they were 

 withdrawn and leave was asked and given to bring in a Bill : this was 

 not pressed to a second reading. But the next year the Bill was again 

 introduced and this time it was passed.^ It is true that Lord John 

 Russell says, that the Colonial "Assembly put forward claims incon- 

 sistent with our monarchical form of government" and is "not of opinion 

 that the official servants of the Governor should be subject to exactly 

 the same responsibility as the Ministers in this country" bi;t he thinks 

 "it will be necessary without any positive enactment (for it would 

 be impossible to introduce such a provision into the Bill), but by the 

 rule of administration which will be established by the Union, that 

 the Assembly should exercise a due control over the officers appointed 

 or kept in office by the Governor, and over the distribution and ex- 

 penditure of the public funds" — "that the Colonial administration 

 should be made to act in union with the House of Assembly, as the 

 House of Commons in England did with the Government."^ 



Charles Butler who knew more about Canada and its needs than 

 any other in the House said that: "The Union of Canada carried 

 responsible government with it as a natural consequence."^ William 

 Ewart Gladstone Opposed the Bill because he thought "Responsible 

 government meant nothing more than an independent legislature."^; 

 John Campbell Colquhoun because: "Responsible government would 

 be incompatible with the maintenance of Colonial Government" 

 and that "the people while they called for responsible government 

 were only anxious to throw off all connexion with British Govern- 



1 47 Hansard, 3rd series, pp. 1263, 1268, 1269, 1270, 1287. 



^ The well known Union Act. 



3 52 Hansard, 3rd Series, pp. 1332, 1333, 1345. 



* 54 Hansard, 3rd Series, p. 734. Charles Duller was a Liberal politician, a 

 pupil of Thomas Carlyle, graduated at Trinity College Cambridge, became M.P. in 

 1830, Secretary to Lord Durham when made Governor-General of Canada 1838 

 and credited with being responsible for much of Durham's Report — a man of high 

 standing and a voluminous writer. 



s 54 Hansard 3rd Series, p. 743. Gladstone was then a High Tory: Home Rule 

 had not yet entered into his heart to conceive. 



