indisputable right to dismiss his ministers if, from any cause, he feels
it incumbent to do so," but that, in deciding whether the conduct of a
lieutenant-governor merits removal from his office, as in the exercise
of other powers vested in him by the imperial state the governor-general
"must act by and with the advice of his ministers." After further
consideration of the subject, the Canadian government again recommended
the dismissal of Mr. Letellier, and the governor-general had now no
alternative except to act on the advice of his responsible ministers. It
was unfortunate that the constitutional issue was obscured, from the
outset, by the political bitterness that was imported into it, and that
the procedure, followed in two sessions, of proposing an amendment,
condemnatory of the action of the lieutenant-governor, on the motion of
going into committee of supply, prevented the house from coming to a
decision squarely on the true constitutional issue--actually raised in
the senate in 1878--whether it was expedient for the parliament or
government of Canada to interfere in a matter of purely provincial
concern.

In 1891 another case of the dismissal of a ministry, having a majority
in the assembly, occurred in the province of Quebec, but the
intervention of parliament was not asked for the purpose of censuring
the lieutenant-governor for the exercise of his undoubted constitutional
power. It appears that, in 1891, the evidence taken before a committee
of the senate showed that gross irregularities had occurred in
connection with the disbursement of certain government subsidies which
had been voted by parliament for the construction of the Bay des
Chaleurs railway, and that members of the Quebec cabinet were
compromised in what was clearly a misappropriation of public money. In
view of these grave charges, Lieutenant-governor Angers forced his prime
minister, Mr. Honoré Mercier, to agree to the appointment of a royal