THE TRDE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 



295 



The secession of the North American colonies was followed by 

 a change of policy. While the form of the constitution was 

 retained in the remaining colonies, the power of the Executive, 

 responsible only to the Crown, to control the local legislature 

 ■was extended from matters of external commerce to domestic 

 -concerns. In the colonies acquired after the secession, the form 

 of government adopted was the combination of administrative 

 and legislative power in the Governor, aided by a Council of 

 official advisers. The evolution of the constitutions of these 

 colonies shows well-marked stages of development. We find in 

 the earliest stage a Chief Executive Officer, styled Governor or 

 Administrator or Commissioner, assisted by two or more official 

 a,dvisers, nominated by and responsible to the Crown and 

 entrusted with legislative and administrative functions. Tn the 

 next stage we have the administrative and legislative functions, 

 separated by the creation of an Executive Council and a 

 Legislative Council, all the members of both Councils being 

 nominated by the Crown. In Legislative Councils of this type, 

 usage led to a gradual process of development, marked by an 

 increase of the nominated members to represent a larger area of 

 interests. The next stage was the creation of a Council 

 consisting partly of nominated and partly of elected members. 

 This form of constitution was first set up in 1842 in New South 

 Wales, and by an Act of 1850 was extended to all the Australian 

 colonies, except Western Australia. Lord John Eussell, in 

 introducing the measure, declared its object to be " to train 

 these Colonies into a capacity to govern themselves." The 

 dominant principle of this form of constitution was the com- 

 bination in a single chamber of legislature of the popular element 

 and its required check, the necessity for the check being the 

 tendency of the representatives of the democracy to make 

 concessions to poj)ularity at the expense of the public revenue, 

 and the reasons assigned for the Single Chamber combination 

 being the difficulty of finding in young colonies the elements 

 necessary for a Second Chamber. 



The form of constitution set up by the Acts of 1842 and 1850 

 has served as a model after which, with many important 

 modifications, designed to meet local circumstances, all the 

 Single Chamber constitutions established in British Colonies 

 and in India have been modelled. But the Act of 1850 

 contained provisions enabling the legislatures it set up to 

 reform their own constitutions, subject to the approval of the 

 Imperial Parliament, and under these provisions they were 

 enabled to reveri to the constitutional form of Government 



U 



