world have acquired the right of determining who shall govern them—­of insisting, as we phrase it, that the administration of affairs shall be conducted by persons enjoying their confidence.  It is not wonderful that a privilege of this kind should be exercised at first with some degree of recklessness, and that, while no great principles of policy are at stake, methods of a more questionable character for winning and retaining the confidence of these arbiters of destiny should be resorted to.  My course in these circumstances is, I think, clear and plain.  It may be somewhat difficult to follow occasionally, but I feel no doubt as to the direction in which it lies.  I give to my ministers all constitutional support, frankly and without reserve, and the benefit of the best advice that I can afford them in their difficulties.  In return for this I expect that they will, in so far as it is possible for them to do so, carry out my views for the maintenance of the connexion with Great Britain and the advancement of the interests of the province.  On this tacit understanding we have acted together harmoniously up to this time, although I have never concealed from them that I intend to do nothing which may prevent me from working cordially with their opponents, if they are forced upon me.  That ministries and Oppositions should occasionally change places, is of the very essence of our constitutional system, and it is probably the most conservative element which it contains.  By subjecting all sections of politicians in their turn to official responsibilities, it obliges heated partisans to place some restraint on passion, and to confine within the bounds of decency the patriotic zeal with which, when out of place, they are wont to be animated.  In order, however, to secure these advantages, it is indispensable that the head of the Government should show that he has confidence in the loyalty of all the influential parties with which he has to deal, and that he should have no personal antipathies to prevent him from acting with leading men.

I feel very strongly that a Governor-General, by acting upon these views with tact and firmness, may hope to establish a moral influence in the province which will go far to compensate for the loss of power consequent on the surrender of patronage to an executive responsible to the local Parliament.  Until, however, the functions of his office, under our amended colonial constitution, are more clearly defined—­ until that middle term which shall reconcile the faithful discharge of his responsibility to the Imperial Government and the province with the maintenance of the quasi-monarchical relation in which he now stands towards the community over which he presides, be discovered and agreed upon, he must be content to tread along a path which is somewhat narrow and slippery, and to find that incessant watchfulness and some dexterity are requisite to prevent him from falling, on the one side into the neant of mock sovereignty, or