thirty-five, afterwards to be increased to sixty elective members. The
position of a Minister is one of considerable difficulty. He often has
to defend rather an awkward case. When favourable facts are wanting he
has to depend upon the nimbleness of his wits, and, when these fail
him, he has to fall back upon the loyalty of his supporters. But no
Minister can move very far upon his road with satisfaction or success
if he has not behind him either a nominated majority or an organised
Party majority. Mr. Lyttelton's Ministers had neither. They would have
been alone, hopelessly outnumbered in an Assembly, the greater part of
which was avowedly in favour of responsible and not of representative
government. These Ministers, with one exception, had no previous
Parliamentary experience and no ascertained Parliamentary ability.
They would have been forced to carry their Bills and their Estimates
through an Assembly in the main opposed to them. All this time, while
we should have given to these Ministers this serious duty, we should
ourselves have had to bear the whole responsibility in this country
for everything that was done under their authority; and their
authority could only be exerted through an Assembly which, as things
stood, they could not control.

The Committee can easily imagine the telegrams and the questions which
would have been addressed from Downing Street and the House of Commons
to these Ministers on native matters, on the question of the
administration of the Chinese Ordinance, on all the numerous intricate
questions with which we are at the present moment involved in South
Africa. And what would have been the position of these Ministers,
faced with these embarrassments in a hostile Assembly in which they
had few friends--what possibility would they have had of maintaining
themselves in such an Assembly? Is it not certain that they would have
broken down under the strain to which they would have been exposed,