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 I. Introductory

Collection:: Economics Books

50 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PARTI a word as to the adoption of responsible government, and in the royal instructions issued together with his commission to Lord Sydenham, and to his successors, Sir C. Bagot, Sir C. Metcalfe, Lord Cathcart, and Lord Elgin, and to their successors, there is not a single word of responsible govern- ment. The commissions provide for the existence of an Executive Council, but they do not say that it is to be composed of responsible ministers, and they expressly seem to contemplate that the Executive Council is a body to advise the Governor, whose advice he may or may not take, ashe will. Indeed, in the case of New Zealand, the wording of the instructions was considered by the Attorney-General in 18541 to show that full responsible government was not contemplated at all. The real authority for the adoption of responsible government is not to be found in the law of the land, not even in the formal royal instructions, which of course were not law but usage, but in the dispatches from Lord John Russell dated October 14 and 16, 1839,2in one of which he adopted in a somewhat curious manner the principle of responsible government for internal affairs only, whiledeny- ing that afull measure of responsible government was possible; the other laid down that officers were not, in the case of those holding the chief positions, to be deemed to hold by a perma- nent tenure, but to be liable to removal as often as sufficient motives of public policy might suggest the expediency of that step. He also intimated that the grant of pensions to displaced officers would be suitable, but he expressed even that view with a certain vagueness. And down to the termi- nation of the independent existence of Canada as a province the position was not varied: the principle of responsible government rested on nothing more than practice, its binding force on the action of the Governor, who was subject, of course, to the possibility of his recall by the Imperial Government on the one hand, and the rendering of his position untenable by the Legislature refusing to work with him, on the other. * Parl. Pap., H. C. 160, 1855, pp. 2 seq. For the Canadian instructions, see Canada Sess. Pap., 1906, No. 18. * Parl. Pap., H. C. 621, 1848, pp. 3 seq.

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