h an assumption. The system of
representative government without responsible Ministers, without
responsible powers, has led to endless friction and inconvenience
wherever and whenever it has been employed. It has failed in Canada, it
has failed in Natal and Cape Colony. It has been condemned by almost
every high colonial authority who has studied this question. I do not
think I need quote any more conclusive authority upon that subject than
that of Lord Durham. Lord Durham, in his celebrated Report, says of
this particular system:

"It is difficult to understand how any English statesmen could have
imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be
successfully combined. There seems, indeed, to be an idea that the
character of representative institutions ought to be thus modified in
Colonies; that it is an incident of colonial dependence that the
officers of government should be nominated by the Crown without any
reference to the wishes of the community whose interests are entrusted
to their keeping. It has never been very clearly explained what are
the Imperial interests which require this complete nullification of
representative government. But if there is such a necessity it is
quite clear that a representative Government in a Colony must be a
mockery and a source of confusion, for those who support this system
have never yet been able to devise or exhibit in the practical working
of colonial government any means for making so complete an abrogation
of political influence palatable to the representative body."

I contend that the right hon. gentleman's Constitution would have
broken down in its first session, and that we should have then been
forced to concede grudgingly and in a hurry the full measure of
responsible government which, with all due formality, and without any
precipitancy, the Letters Patent issued last week have now conferred.
But even the right hon. gentleman himself did not intend his
Constitution to be a permanent settlement. He intended it to be a
transition, and a brief transition; and in the correspondence which
passed on this subject two or three years is sometimes named as the
period for which such a Constitution might conveniently have
endured--two or three years, of which, let me point out to the House,
nearly two years have already gone. Seeing how little difference there
is between us upon that question, I dispense with further argument as
to the grant of a Transvaal Cons