cHAP. vii] CABINET SYSTEM IN DOMINIONS 305 
Upper House,! and in Western Australia 2 one of the members 
of the Executive Council must be in the Legislative Council. 
In New Zealand there is no express provision requiring the 
members of the Council to be members of Parliament.? In 
the Cape there was no necessity by law for parliamentary 
tenure of office, but in Natal 4 the period of four months was 
allowed to the ministers to become members of Parliament, 
but not more than two were to be members of the Upper 
House. But there is even then no legal connexion between 
ministers and the Executive Council at all. The same rule 
was adopted in the case of the Transvaal and the Orange 
River Colony constitutions, and there again there was no legal 
connexion between the Executive Council and the Ministry 
other than that provided for in the letters patent constituting 
the office of Governor, which told the Governor that the Execu~ 
tive Council was to consist of ministers and such other persons 
as he thought fit. In the case of the Commonwealth,’ and of 
the Union of South Africa,® the tenure of seats in the Execu- 
tive Council and the Legislature is required of ministers, the 
time to obtain a seat being fixed at three months. 
As a matter of fact, the practice is for members of the 
Executive Council to be members of Parliament : the rule 
is not absolutely rigid, and there have been a good many 
cases of its violation. Mr. Airey, in 1907, was a considerable 
time a minister in Queensland without having a seat; 
Mr. Kent, Minister of Justice in Newfoundland, held office 
for a time in 1908 without a seat; in Western Australia 
a minister who had been defeated at the general election in 
1908, but whose opponent was being attacked for irregularity 
in the election, held office while the election petition was 
being tried, and his action was energetically defended by 
the Premier.” In Canada in 1900 the Lieutenant-Governor 
of British Columbia entrusted to a Ministry of whom one 
t ActNo.1864,s. 9. t 53 & 54 Vict, ¢. 26, Sched. 5. 6; 63 Vict. No. 19,s.43. 
3 New Zealand Act No. 22 of 1908, s. 10, provides that the paid ministers 
are to be Executive Councillors. 4 Act No. 14 of 1893, 5. 9. 
5 63 & 64 Vict. ¢. 12, Const. s. 64. ¢ 9 Edw. VIL c. 9, 8. 14. 
‘ Western Australia Parliamentary Debates, 1908, p. 59. 
1279