That a governor-general can have no ministers who do not
     enjoy the full confidence of the popular House, or, in the
     last resort, of the people.

That the governor-general should not refuse his consent to any measure proposed by the ministry unless it is clear that it is of such an extreme party character that the assembly or people could not approve of it.

     That the governor-general should not identify himself with
     any party but make himself “a mediator and moderator between
     all parties.”

That colonial communities should be encouraged to cultivate “a national and manly tone of political morals,” and should look to their own parliaments for the solution of all problems of provincial government instead of making constant appeals to the colonial office or to opinion in the mother country, “always ill-informed, and therefore credulous, in matters of colonial politics.”

That the governor-general should endeavour to impart to these rising communities the full advantages of British laws, British institutions, and British freedom, and maintain in this way the connection between them and the parent state.

We have seen in previous chapters how industriously, patiently, and discreetly Lord Elgin laboured to carry out these principles in the administration of his government.  In 1849 he risked his own life that he might give full scope to the principles of responsible government with respect to the adjustment of a question which should be settled by the Canadian people themselves without the interference of the parent state, and on the same ground he impressed on the imperial government the necessity of giving to the Canadian legislature full control of the settlement of the clergy reserves.  He had no patience with those who believed that, in allowing the colonists to exercise their right to self-government in matters exclusively affecting themselves, there was any risk whatever so far as imperial interests were concerned.  One of his ablest letters was that which he wrote to Earl Grey as an answer to the unwise utterances of the prime minister, Lord John Russell, in the course of a speech on the colonies in which, “amid the plaudits of a full senate, he declared that he looked forward to the day when the ties which he was endeavouring to render so easy and mutually advantageous would be severed.”  Lord Elgin held it to be “a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British colonies could not attain maturity without separation,” and in this connection he quoted the language of Mr. Baldwin to whom he had read that part of Lord John Russell’s speech to which he took such strong exception.  “For myself,” said the eminent Canadian, “if the anticipations therein expressed prove to be well founded, my interest in public affairs is gone forever.  But is it not hard upon us while we are labouring, through good and evil report, to thwart the designs of those who would dismember the