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

166 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [pART II necessary for carrying that system into effect and operation are transferred from the Sovereign, and are vested in the representative of the Sovereign. I am aware that it has been urged by those who have desired to uphold the Govern- ment by the Colonial Office of these Colonies, and who have therefore supported the Governor’s instructions in their present form, that, although responsible government has oeen created in the Australian Colonies by the Imperial statutes, prerogatives and powers are from time to time conferred on the Governor by the Crown, according to its pleasure, by a separate instrument, and not by force of the Act of Parliament. If the policy which the Colonial Office has steadily pursued for the last thirty years has sprung from a real but mistaken belief in this doctrine, and not, as has been more probably conjectured, from the natural but very censurable desire of irresponsible subordinate officers to retain for their department by stratagem a power which they know has been taken away from it by law, it is to be deeply deplored that the Colonial Office has not during that long period sought competent legal advice upon a subject which concerns so nearly its own duties as well as the highest rights and interests of these Australian communities. As a legal proposition, I venture to affirm that the doctrine is wholly untenable and false. If it were true, all the Colonial Constitution Statutes would be a dead letter, and all public rights of these communities would depend not upon the orant of Parliament, but upon the will or caprice, exerted from day to day, of the Imperial Minister. Responsible government cannot exist unless some powers and prerogatives are vested in the representative of the Crown, for the exercise of which Ministers of the Crown, appointed by the Crown, are responsible to Parliament. The representative of the Crown had vested in him by force of the Constitution Statute and by virtue of his appoint- ment as Governor such powers and prerogatives of the Crown, and only such as were necessary in the conduct of the ordinary duties and functions of government, and the administration of the existing laws within the Colony. The Governor in his character of the Queen’s representative, and exercising the powers and prerogatives of the Crown vested in him by statute, was legally independent of all ex- ternal influence and authority, and could be lawfully guided

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