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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. The executive Government

Collection:: Economics Books

JHAP. 1V] THE GOVERNOR AS HEAD 181 reluctantly, to be a partisan in a political struggle. In the case of a Governor this does not matter very seriously : he is only a temporary tenant of office, and his personality and popularity are not things of the highest moment ; he may discredit the post of Governor and weaken the Imperial connexion, but these things can be put right by a tactful successor, and, truth to tell, both Governors and ministers, as self-government develops, seem to grow more used to work together ; the Governor exercises more influence if less power than his predecessors in the sixties and seventies, and there are fewer of those claims, preposterous on both sides to an unimpassioned view, than then were rife. But the popularity of the Crown is only borne out by absolute ministerial responsibility; the loyalty of the country to the Crown must depend in political matters on the feeling that whatever is done is done not as a royal whim but at the will of a Ministry commanding influence in the country. Any other theory, however specious, is sure in the long run to lead bo the degradation of the Crown, which owes its absolute security, as Lord John Russell pointed out in 1839, to its standing apart from all political strife. The question of dissolution always, from the nature of the case, presents the Governor with a possibility of differing from his ministers with success; it necessarily implies the existence in the Colony of two parties, of which one is in possession of the Government, but the other has been successful in driving them to appeal to the people. The Governor has therefore a difficult task, not merely in deciding to refuse to accept ministerial advice but in deciding to accept it; for the fact that the prerogative is not expected as a matter of course to be used as the Ministry advises, prevents him from sheltering behind the advice of his ministers. If he acts on their advice he may easily find himself quite as unpopular as if he had refused to do so, and indeed the Governor is expected to do what is best for the rountry, a course by no means normally at all simple or easy. There are two important facts which the Governor must consider in granting or refusing a dissolution. In the first

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