Responsible government in the Dominions: Responsible government in the Dominions

Responsible government in the Dominions (Vol. 1)

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Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896933912

Document type:: Multivolume work

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Press

Year of publication:: 1912-

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1896934455

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236504

Document type:: Volume

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Volume count:: Vol. 1

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Pr.

Year of publication:: 1912

Scope:: LI, 568 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. The executive Government

Collection:: Economics Books

288 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II little experience of affairs or political prudence. Moreover, on the other hand, there is much less danger of even the appearance of interference from home when the Dominion addressed is not a minor Colony but a great self-governing entity of the extent of a continent in itself. There is, however, one thing clear, that if the principle of full ministerial responsibility is enforced the present con- stitution of the Empire must be abandoned. It is at present still the case that there is one unity, the Imperial Government, which speaks for the Empire as a whole and which, in the last resort, must be obeyed if it seems to it necessary to demand obedience. If it is open to a Dominion Government to reply to a request for redress to a foreign state with the answer that the Ministry will not accord it, but will resign, and that no other Ministry will take office, there is at once an end of the unity of the Empire, for the only alternatives before the Empire in the long run are either to acknowledge some common head or to dissolve into fragments which, however united, must cease to be one nation. Of course, strictly speaking, the Imperial Parliament might revoke the grant of self-government, but this is quite out of the question : in the height of the Boer war, when the petition was strongly supported, even in the Colony, that the constitution of the Cape should be suspended, the Imperial Government would not act, but allowed matters to remain in statu quo,! nor has Newfoundland, even in the financial crisis of 1894, been deprived of its constitutional independence? On the other hand, if it is the duty of a Dominion not to adopt the policy of a California and defy Imperial obligations, it is no less the duty of the Imperial Government to see that no action of its shall, if it can be helped, run counter to the interests of a Dominion; nor in truthcan the Imperial Govern- ment be fairly charged with lack of appreciation of this view. There is therefore every reason to hope that the matter will t See Parl. Pap., Cd. 1162. In New Zealand during the native war of 1862-70 sporadic requests were made by individuals and bodies in the Colony for the revocation of Colonial self-government, but naturally in vain. # Sec Parl. Pap., H. C. 104, 1895 s C7686,

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