cuAP. vir] CABINET SYSTEM IN DOMINIONS 337
It is also clear that if ministers and the Governor are
to be harmonious the Governor must not—unless under
Imperial instructions for an Imperial end—hold language
disagreeing with the policy of his ministers. Thus if a Gover-
nor comes to South Australia, where his Government have
decided against religious training in the schools, and makes
a speech in favour of religious influences in education, the
position will be a difficult one for the Governor and for
ministers also with their ultra followers, and not every
Governor will be lucky enough to find so able a minister
as Mr. Jenkins to defend him! and to explain away his
action as due to ignorance of local circumstances. Nor,
again, must a Governor express himself as an entity in
political matters beside his ministers in normal circum-
stances. There is almost an extreme case of that in the
effective attack made by Mr. (now Sir George) Reid on the
Governor-General of the Commonwealth on January 30, 1902,
an attack which doubtless helped to induce the Governor-
(General to decide that he would not remain on in the Common-
wealth. The Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, with his
usual generosity, felt that the Government were being unfairly
attacked in Parliament and out of it, because of their failure
to send further forces to South Africa to take part in the
Boer war. He took, therefore, the opportunity of a speech at
a public occasion on January 27 to declare that the Ministry
and himself had carefully considered the whole situation,
and decided that more troops were not necessary, clearly
intending to show that as an Imperial officer he was accepting
a full share of the responsibility for the decision not to send
more men for the time being. But Mr. Reid 2 censured the
speech as a grave breach of etiquette and as improper, and
' Cf. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vi. 346, and Mr. Martin’s attack
on Lord Grey, Debates on Colonial Affairs, 1910, pp. 73, 75. Cf. Sir John
Macdonald’s remarks, Canada House of Commons Debates, 1877, p. 313.
Lord Dudley’s support of his ministers’ views on naval defence was
censured in some quarters; see Hobart Mercury, April 27, 1909. Mr.
Verran, in South Australia, publicly attacked the Governor ; see Register.
December 29, 1910, which censures his action; above, p. 269, note 1.
' Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 1901-2, pp. 4976 seq.
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