should appear "to emanate directly from the Crown, on the advice, if
you will, of the governors and imperial ministers, but not on the
recommendation of the local executive." Secondly, they "should be
conferred, as much as possible, on the eminent persons who are no
longer engaged actively in political life." The first principle has,
generally speaking, guided the action of the Crown in the distribution
of honours to colonists, though the governors may receive suggestions
from and also consult their prime ministers when the necessity arises.
These honours, too, are no longer conferred only on men actively
engaged in public life, but on others eminent in science, education,
literature, and other vocations of life.[28]

In 1870 Sir Francis Hincks returned to Canadian public life as finance
minister in Sir John Macdonald's government, and held the office until
1873, when he retired altogether from politics. Until the last hours
of his life he continued to show that acuteness of intellect, that
aptitude for public business, that knowledge of finance and commerce,
which made him so influential in public affairs. During his public
career in Canada previous to 1855, he was the subject of bitter
attacks for his political acts, but nowadays impartial history can
admit that, despite his tendency to commit the province to heavy
expenditures, his energy, enterprise and financial ability did good
service to the country at large. He was also attacked as having used
his public position to promote his own pecuniary interests, but he
courted and obtained inquiry into the most serious of such
accusations, and although there appears to have been some carelessness
in his connection with various speculations, and at times an absence
of an adequate sense of his responsibility as a public man, there is
no evidence that he was ever personally corrupt or dishonest. He
devoted the close of his life to the writing of his "Reminiscences,"