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

char. v] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 263 therefore briefly review the circumstances under which this Address has been adopted by the Petitioners. The course pursued in the Assembly with respect to the Tariff and Appropriation Bills was not warranted by the practice of the English House of Commons, to which, by the Constitution Act, it was intended that the Assembly of Victoria should generally conform. Here, not only is a Bill introduced on the very day on which Resolutions for the alteration of Customs duties are agreed to, for the purpose of giving effect to those Resolutions, but every exertion is made to pass the Bill with as little delay as possible. Again, no practice is more carefully observed than that which avoids what is called tacking, or the combination of any other enactments with the Bill of Appropriation. But still, in the case which has occurred under your government, the delay of the Tariff Bill, and its union with the Appropriation Bill, were exposed to the same checks to which the like proceedings, if resorted to, would be exposed in this country. The Supreme Court was able to vindicate the right of any subject who might complain that duties were levied from him illegally, and the Legislative Council was able to main- tain its own privileges by laying aside the compound Bill. I do not think it would have been desirable for you to interfere in any such manner as to withdraw these matters from their ordinary sphere, and so give to the dispute a character, which did not naturally belong to it, of a conflict between the Assembly of Victoria and the Representative of the Crown. 1 am not able to say that, in the actual circum- stances of the case, you had it in your power to influence or control the course of affairs without incurring the risk of such a consequence. But you ought to have interposed, with all the weight of your authority, when your Ministers continued to levy the duties notwithstanding the adverse decision of the Court. Still more evidently was it your duty to withhold your personal co-operation from the scheme of borrowing money in a manner unauthorized by law. I say unauthorized by law, because the loan itself had not been sanctioned by the Legislature of Victoria, and because the judgment which enabled you to repay that loan, having been obtained as it was, can be regarded only as a form under colour of which the substance of the law was evaded. By these proceedings the Supreme Court and the Legislative Council were prac- tically deprived of the power with which the Constitution intended to invest them. This conduct on your part

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