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

cusp. v] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 275 cases where the action of the Governor can almost never but be in accord with that of ministers. If a Ministry, which is presumably at least honest, assures the Governor that he should proclaim martial law, he would rest under a grave responsibility if he refused to do so and in the face of a crisis left the Government in hopeless confusion, while the Governor was running about trying to find a minister to accept responsibility for carrying on the Government. It is certainly within the bounds of possibility that a crisis might arise in which it was clearly the unhappy Governor’s duty to dismiss ministers or to refuse their advice and accept their resignations, but it is not probable, and it may fairly be said that this is one of the cases where the Governor can hardly be expected to differ from ministers. Similarly the Imperial Government cannot well disallow an indemnity act, for the logical conclusion of such disallowance would be that the Colonial Government should be deprived of self-govern- ment ; the matter would be a critical proof that the Imperial Government did not consider the Government and the Parliament capable of conducting with propriety the affairs of the country. But even so, the Imperial Government raised, in connexion with Act No. 5 of 1908,2 the question which they had before raised, that the Act was too widely worded and would cover certain grave alleged wrongs com- mitted in the course of the matter of the repression, but the Act was not disallowed. It may be noted that the Act expressly reserved power to punish civil and military persons for any wrongdoing in a manner to be decided by the Governor. The Act is a remarkable document, for it ratifies and makes all the actions of the Governor and the various officers legal, and confirms the sentences and makes them legal sentences, and allows pardon by express enactment to the Governor in Executive Council. This is a strange ' The Bill of 1866 in New Zealand was never allowed, but a suitable Act, No. 39, was passed in 1867 and then allowed; Rusden, ii. 364, 365. ' Parl. Pap., Cd. 4328, pp. 88 seq., 103 seq. See also the debates, Hansard, 1908, cxe. 102-29 ; cxciii. 2101 seq., and the replies to questions, clxxxv. 336, 672; clxxxvi. 1076. ™0

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