1460 IMPERIAL UNITY [PART VIII 
are not yet prepared. In Canada the question has not arisen 
of recent years as far as concerns the Dominion Government! 
for the Dominion has been ruled by two strong parties, but 
the question has presented itself no less than thrice in the 
Commonwealth of Australia. The constitutional practice 
in the United Kingdom is undoubtedly that ministers shall 
receive a dissolution of Parliament whenever they ask for 
it, but no such practice prevails in the Dominions. If the 
Dominions were to be regarded as Kingdoms and their 
Governors were to be regarded as Viceroys—chosen where 
possible from the royal family, and reigning as constitutional 
monarchs—this distinction between the United Kingdom and 
the Dominions would certainly disappear, and there is no 
proof that it is yet desirable that the distinction should 
disappear or that it is desired that it should. In this con- 
nexion it is interesting to note that at the Imperial Con- 
ference of 19112 the New Zealand Government proposed 
that the High Commissioners should be given a new status, 
should be authorized to communicate directly with the 
Foreign Office, given seats on the Committee of Imperial 
Defence, and made the only channel of communication 
between the Home and the Dominion Governments. This 
proposal evidently implied that the Governors-General and 
Governors should not be used as at present, as a medium 
both of information to the Secretary of State and the 
Imperial Government, and for enforcing by their personal 
interposition in the form of explanation and discussion the 
views of the Imperial Government. Such a position of the 
High Commissioners would be appropriate if the Governor 
is to be regarded as a Viceroy and a constitutional monarch, 
but it would not be consistent with the position at present 
accorded to the Governor. 
! Quite otherwise in the provinces, where dissolutions have been refused 
and Ministries dismissed on several occasions. The strong position of the 
Government in Canada renders an appointment such as that of the Duke 
of Connaught as Governor-General possible ; it would be different if it 
were likely that political action were needed, for one so closely allied to 
the Crown must be beyond personal interference in government and such 
attacks as those on Lord Aberdeen in 1896. 
Parl, Pap., Cd. 5513, p. 6; cf. C. 5091, pp. 555-8.