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Party Government in British North America

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Colonial Self-Government

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Abstract

Henry George, third Earl Grey, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in Lord John Russell’s first administration, wrote to Sir John Harvey, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, on 3 November 1846, instructing him to allow responsible government in the colony. Shortly afterwards he authorised Lord Elgin, the new governor-general of Canada to allow responsible government there as well. In 1847 he sanctioned it in New Brunswick and in 1851, after much hesitation, in Prince Edward Island. These well known decisions reflected an important change of mind for Grey. In May 1840, while Lord Howick, he had told the Commons that responsible government was impossible in colonies:

If by responsible government it were meant that the Executive Government of the colony should be directly responsible to the Colonial Assembly, … responsible government so defined would be incompatible with the maintenance of Colonial Government. But … if the Government at home, as well as the authorities in the colonies, were to pursue a system of protective government, guided by a conciliatory spirit, and a desire to consult the wishes of the people, then such a form of government would answer the object that those who were loudest in their clamour for a responsible government had in view.2

What produced Grey’s change of mind between 1840, when he thought responsible government impossible in colonies, and 1846, when he ordered its introduction in the extensive form of party government?

Of whatsoever party your Council may be composed, it will be your duty to act strictly upon the principle … of not identifying yourself with any one party, but instead of this, ‘Making yourself both a mediator and a moderator between the influential of all parties’.… you will carefully avoid any acts which can possibly be supposed to imply the slightest personal objection to their opponents.…

Grey to Harvey, 3 November 18461

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© 1976 John Manning Ward

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Ward, J.M. (1976). Party Government in British North America. In: Colonial Self-Government. Cambridge Commonwealth Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02712-5_8

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