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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Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. The executive Government

Collection:: Economics Books

258 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART 11 If, however, the passing of such an Act is likely to raise any collateral issues, or otherwise to be attended with difficulty or delay, I think that in the present case, which is rather constitutional than legal, the desire of the com- munity would be sufficiently expressed by an Address from both branches of the Legislature. If therefore the Council and Assembly should request you to be hereafter guided by the advice of your ministers in the execution of the duties imposed on you by the 55th section of the Constitution Act, Her Majesty authorises you to accede to that request, and will then hold you relieved of the personal responsibility which now attaches to you. Not much resulted from this correspondence, for the truth is that the necessity of providing money by such warrants will always exist unless a Parliament has strong traditions of financial responsibility, and whatever the cause—whether from the practice in Crown Colony days where the authority of the Secretary of State is acted upon whenever given, and the grant ratified afterwards, a procedure harmless in a case where the Secretary of State has control of the Legislature or from the needs of young communities—the Colonies have not as a rule strong views as to constitu- tional action in financial matters. Thus in 1910 the New South Wales Act No. 44 covers over £207,000 suspense expenditure in anticipation of sanction. There are excep- tions to that rule: on a recent occasion in Canada in the face of obstruction in the House of Commons, the Govern- ment refused to pay salaries,! but this step was regarded as decidedly a case of financial purism, and the Conservative Government in 1896 went on spending moneys freely though supply had expired? until the Governor-General questioned U Canadian Annual Review, 1908, p. 53. One of Lieutenant-Governor Angers’s charges against Mr. Mercier was of illegal expenditure ; see Cana- dian Gazette, xviii. 296, 513. The lack of parliamentary authority for the sxpenditure of funds was insisted on by Sir W. Laurier as a ground for inaction in regard to sending troops to South Africa in 1899 ; see Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, ii. 339. For a case of Commonwealth irregularity, see Queette, 1911, pp. 1222 seq.; Act No. 2 of 1910. 2 See Canada House of Commons Debates, 1896, Sess. 2, pp. 58 seq., 620-852. Cf. also Sir R. Cartwright’s remarks, ibid., 1891, pp. 4537 seq. ; Sess. Pap., 1896, Sess. 2, No. 8; but of. Canadian Annual Review, 1905, pp. 147-9, for the resignation of the Auditor-General, as a protest.

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