"_With us the Sovereign, or, in this country the representative of the Sovereign, can act only on the advice of His Ministers, those Ministers being responsible to the people through Parliament._" Mr. Bourassa used the foregoing sentence in support of his contention that the King of England could not declare war without the assent of the Canadian Cabinet. It is impossible to understand how such a notion can be seriously held and expressed. His Majesty cannot ask nor accept such an advice, if it was tendered, for the very reason that the Canadian Cabinet has not the constitutional right to advise the King respecting the international relations of the Empire. And why? Precisely because the Canadian Ministers would not be responsible for their advice to the Imperial Parliament and to the electorate of the United Kingdom. The true meaning of the above quoted sentence of Sir John A. Macdonald is very plain. Ministerial responsibility was the fundamental principle of the old Constitution, as it is of the Federal Charter. Sir John A. Macdonald was perfectly right in affirming that "_in Canada, as in England, the Sovereign could act only on the advice of His Ministers," that is to say on the advice of His responsible Ministers within the constitutional powers of our Parliament on all matters respecting which they had the constitutional right to advise His Majesty_. Sir John A. Macdonald never said--he could not possibly say--that as Prime Minister of Canada, under the new Constitution, he would have the right to advise the Sovereign on all matters within the exclusive constitutional jurisdiction of the Imperial Parliament, for instance respecting the exercise of the Royal prerogative of declaring war against, or of making peace with, a foreign independent State. He has never propounded such an utterly false constitutional doctrine. Mr. Bourassa went still further. He quoted the following sentence from Sir John A. Macdonald:--"_We stand with regard to the people of Canada precisely in the same position as the House of Commons in England stands with regard to the people of England_." I was indeed most astonished to read Mr. Bourassa's inference from those words that Sir John A. Macdonald _had affirmed the absolute equality of powers of the Imperial and the Canadian Parliaments_. If the opinion expressed by Sir John A. Macdonald could be so interpreted, he would have affirmed--what was radically wrong--that under the new Constitution, the Canadian Parliament would have, _concurrently with the Imperial Parliament_, absolutely the same powers. What did that mean? It meant that the Canadian Parliament, just as the Imperial Parliament, would have the right to edict laws establishing Home Rule in Ireland, regulating the government of India and the Crown Colonies, granting constitutional charters for the good government of the Australian and South African Dominions, &c., &c.