b85
CHAP. vii] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES
I do not propose to answer the points of your address
serigtim, but shall briefly put before you the position as
[ see it.
The paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of your address deal with the
constitutional position of the Upper House. Co
That is the great constitutional issue with which my late
Premier invited me to deal.
I declined, because I considered the matter too grave for
2 Governor to touch without a mandate from the people.
By the exercise of the prerogative of dissolution the people
are asked to say what they wish done.
I fully recognize the inadvisableness of frequent general
elections, I appreciate the peculiar inconveniences of an
election at this time, but 1 regard it as of paramount
importance that the country should speak its mind on this
question, and therefore I have to decline the praver of your
address,
I recognize to the full the responsibility I have taken on
my shoulders, throughout this disturbed political period.
From time to time, under the constitution, a Governor
has to take responsibility, but I cannot, shirk it when laid
pon me.
The reading of the reply in the House caused a somewhat
violent explosion of wrath, the ex-Prime Minister remark-
ing®: ‘This is a somewhat extraordinary position. His
Excellency has turned down his thumb. The Czar has dis-
missed the Duma. And now this matter is for the people of
Queensland.” He proceeded later on to say that :—
For centuries it has been recognized that the King of
England, and in his self-governing dependencies the repre-
sentative of the King, had no right to govern at all, had
no right to use the people’s money, except to govern and
use the public moneys in accordance with the wishes and
Opinions of the representatives of the people. That is
“onstitutional government, that is self-government, and to
claim anything else for the King or a Governor is to set
10 the claim that cost Charles I his head.
The dissolution proceeded, with the result that Mr.
Philp’s Ministry was crushingly defeated in the country,
having only twenty-five members out of a House of seventy-
two, while Mr. Kidston had twenty-five supporters, and
* Parliamentary Debates, c, 1783.
