1	          October 1993
     2	
     3	                        King-Byng Affair
     4	          The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
     5	          Defines the Position of the British
     6	          Government on the Rights of the Governor
     7	          General
     8	
     9	                              ...edited by Marijan Salopek
    10	
    11	                  =============================
    12	Letter from Mr. L. S. Amery, The Secretary of State for Dominion
    13	Affairs to Governor General Byng, 3 July 1926
    14	
    15	     I am truly sorry that at the close of your wonderfully
    16	successful term in Canada you should have had to face so
    17	difficult and unpleasant a situation as that which Mackenzie
    18	King's behaviour has created for you.  It is not for me from here
    19	to attempt to judge the weight of all the factors which
    20	determined your decision that the possibilities of Parliamentary
    21	situation were not exhausted and that you ought to give Meighen a
    22	chance of trying his hand.  It was a courageous decision and a
    23	difficult one, and it is enough for me that you took it.  I
    24	imagine that will be enough for the people of Canada too, who
    25	know quite well that no party or personal motive, nothing but
    26	your conviction of the public interest, could have influenced
    27	you.  I can only add that it was no less wise than courageous of
    28	you to refuse flatly Mackenzie King's preposterous suggestion
    29	that you should cable to me for advice or instructions.  He, of
    30	all people, should have been the last to try and invoke, in his
    31	personal interest, that dependence of Canada upon an outside
    32	authority which he has always so strenuously denounced in public. 
    33	He has cut a contemptible figure in the whole business.  His
    34	letter to you, with its threat of an Empire wide agitation, was
    35	scandalous and nothing could have been better than your reply. 
    36	Nor can I imagine that his public denunciation of you, with its
    37	talk of Crown Colony Government etc. will do him anything but
    38	harm in the greater part of the country.....
    39	
    40	Source:
    41	     Public Archives of Canada, Byng Papers, Letter from Mr. L.
    42	S. Amery, The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, to
    43	Governor General Byng, 3 July 1926.
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