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

cHapr. v] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 261 it would remain so. I look with extreme apprehension on a state of things in which the Government of a British Colony is engaged in collecting money by mere force from persons from whom the Supreme Court has declared that it is not due. It is an example of violence which may do incalculable mischief beyond the limits of the Colony in which it has been allowed to occur. Next, I do not understand on what ground it can have been imagined that you were legally authorised to borrow from a private bank large sums of money on behalf of the public. No authority is alleged, and I am unable to conjecture any. The only excuse for such a proceeding would have been an overwhelming public emergency of such a nature as to justify what was not justified by the letter of the law. But, as I have observed, you had already declared that no such emergency existed. And you were right ; no such emer- gency did exist. If payments were legally due from the Crown to public officers for salaries, or to any other persons on any account, it was open to such persons to recover what was so due to them in the ordinary course of law. It was for one or other branch of the Legislature to yield, or for both to compromise their difference. It was not for you to give a victory to one or the other party by a proceeding unwarranted either by your Commission or by the laws of the Colony. I must point out that by such a proceeding the Governor and his Government, with the co-operation of a local bank, might at any moment withdraw any amount of public funds from the ‘ Public Account’ to which it is consigned by law, and place it at their own command, relieved from all the checks with which the Legislature has carefully surrounded it. Thirdly, as to the expenditure of the moneys thus obtained, I find it difficult to suppose that by the Crown Remedies and Liabilities Act the Legislature intended to enable the Government to discharge, without its concurrence, those ordinary expenses of Government which it reserves to itself the right to re-consider annually. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether office-holders who are under a standing notice that their salaries are dependent on laws, annually passed, by the Colonial Parliament, would be treated by the Supreme Court as having a claim upon the Government independently of any such law. But it is not alleged that the Supreme Court was ever called upon to give judgment on the question, and you do not inform me of any law which would warrant you in paying away any public money except

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