486 HISTORY 



making them independent of the Executive. These commissioners held in their 

 control the expenditure of certain public funds. Kesponsible to no authority, 

 they attended to matters hastily, expended money in a loose manner for works 

 that were but indifferently done, for which none could call them to account."' 

 Expenditures were specified in the appropriation bill, and the names of the com- 

 missioners were placed in the statutes constituting commissions, and authoriz- 

 ing them to act. Likewise the House governed the salary list. In this small 

 Colony, where almost every man was involved in political collisions, private 

 feelings of the legislators were not guarded against in deciding upon, and 

 altering the amounts of, the incomes of the officials.'^ By its use of these 

 powers the House had acquired an influence over the people of all classes, and 

 men looked to it as the source from which the favors in the power of the state 

 were dispensed. The proper influence of the executive was materially weak- 

 ened.™ The House had a right to control funds applied to the public service, 

 to see that they were not diverted from their proper uses, and to curtail them 

 if found too large, but after that was done it was not in their province to vote 

 that they were too large, unless they were forced to such a course by the pressure 

 of public necessity.^" The House had also been able to control the officials 

 or at least to bring pressure to bear on them, and to make their conduct con- 

 form to the state of feeling in the Colony. The use of these powers by the 

 House had acted as a checkmate to the influence of the Crown representative. 

 Sir James Smyth had effected a temporary emancipation of the civil list, and 

 certain executive functions, from its grasp. His successor now looked on this 

 as the most favorable time to wrest these powers from the House altogether. 

 He determined to veto bills, by which the commissions were created, unless 



'"H. v., 1833, p. 46, and Balfour to Stanley, No. 61. 



""H. v., 1833, pp. 147-8, address of Lieut-Gov. to the House. It was not 

 difficult for an official to make himself obnoxious at this time by an Impartial 

 execution of the duties of his office, and the House of Assembly was known to be a 

 body that would use the effective weapon it had, in the control of the salary list, 

 to keep officials dependent upon it. 



'"'Balfour to Stanley, No. 61. Balfour characterized this dependence upon 

 the legislature as an American feeling, which was due, in his view, to the great 

 distance from the King's person, together with the proximity to, and the constant 

 communication with, the States. And just at this time the feeling was the 

 stronger, owing to the obnoxious measures that were being thrust upon their atten- 

 tion by the home government. The Assembly had been encouraged in its holding 

 these executive powers by the virtual concession of them to it by the executive. 



»"H. v., 1833, pp. 147-8. 



