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

268 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART 11 made on the authority of the Governor’s warrant, which was issued upon a requisition by the Treasurer, and a certificate by the Auditor, that the funds requisitioned by the Treasury were legally available for issue. But the value of this pro- cedure was completely vitiated by two facts. It appears that the system was that all the officers should draw upon one account, the Paymaster-General’s Account, and it was pos- sible for the Treasury, after money had been transferred from the Exchequer Account to the Paymaster-General’s Account to meet the expenditure under the one head in the estimates, to divert that expenditure to an entirely different purpose, even one for which no provision at all had been made in the estimates. This method of managing the public accounts was condemned by the Transvaal Public Services Commission, and by the Auditor-General in paragraph 30 of his report for the year ended June 30, 1907, but no alteration was made in the practice. Then the Treasury, even if there were no balance in the Paymaster-General’s Account, used to allow overdrafts on that Account despite the protests of the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee in 1909. The result was that there was nothing whatever to prevent the totally illegal action of paying salaries before Parliament had consented at all. * Ministers are of course personally responsible for their own illegal acts, though (e.g. in cases of expenditure such as that sanctioned by Sir T. Bent) it may often be that impeachment—which is quite obsolete as regards the Dominions—would be the only possible punishment. Cases are not rare of other illegal deeds, such as Sir H. Parke’s efforts illegally to exclude Chinese (see Parl. Pap., C. 5448, pp. 23, 46, 47) from New South Wales, which failed. It was also a Prime Minister of New South Wales who in 1907 removed illegally wire netting while detained by the Commonwealth Customs Department; Turner, Australian Commonwealth, pp. 180-2. Malversation in office, such as that of Mr, Crick in New South Wales, is of course punishable in the ordinary way, and minor offences (such as those of Mr. McKenzie in Victoria in 1903) may be met by loss of office. Fora gross example of disregard of law by a Ministry and Governor-General, cf. the extradition of Lamirande in Canada (Clarke, Batradition, pp. 116-8; Canada Sess. Pap., 1867-8, No. 50). For Sir H. Robinson’s insistence on law, cf, his action in Rossi’s case, Pari. Pap., C. 1202, p. 54. For the violation of law in the Cape in the war, see Cd. 1162. For New Zealand cases, see Rusden, iii. 159, 160, 454. 455.

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