A GOVERNOR AND HIS MINISTERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 145, 13 March 1908, Page 6

A GOVERNOR AND HIS MINISTERS.

The extraordinary turn which Queensland politics have taken, interesting as' it is, is hardly likely to'have any practical value in the way of modifying either British constitutional practice or > the' 1 public view of the 'functions- of a,Governor of an autonomous State of the Empire.. As a great deal of misapprehension appears to confuse the! public view of the situation in Queensland, - it is worth while' staging the essential facts' leading up to the 'Government's use of the Address-in-Keply to censure Lord Chelmsford. In order to secure- tlife passage of a Bill—the subject is, immaterial to the present issue—Mr. Kidston, as Premier of Queensland, requested the Governor to appoint a certain new batch of Legislai ivc Councillors., His" Excelltincy refused, just as Lord Glasgow oil one occasion refused to appoint a batch of the late Mr. Ballance's nominees, and Mr. Kidston, instead of copying Mr. Ballance's successful invocation of Colonial Office interference,. incontinently . resigned., Lord Chelmsford > sent for Mr.' Philp, who succeeded in forming a Ministry, but was promptly .defeated on a, test': motion. ■, Mr., Philp, following the usual practice, resigned) and asked' for . a dissolution, which was granted,to him. In the elections that- followed,. Mr. Kidston -declared in many, speeches that the issue, before the country was n'ot a party, but a constitutional, issue. .Although the election- did not very greatly disturb the balance of parties —-there,fire, still,three minority factions—the Governor sent for Mr. Kidston,,, and ■ the Premier has now declared war in an unique Address-in-Reply. ; - ■■- ' > . v The charges against; the Governor, preferred as " respectfully regretful " complaints, are that he had seen-,fit '' to dissolve a Parliament newly, 'elected .and, perfectly able and willing to carry, on ', business ■ ,provided the Governor took the advice tendered to him," and/that lie had not followed the constitutional practice of exercising his- vice-regal powers " in such a -manner as would, prove, acceptable to a majority of-the House and in the man-: ner his late advisers had counselled." In his speech, reported to-day, Mr. Kidston took the'stand..that if' is his duty " to protect the interests of the people, and reassert their right to control the Executive Government,", and that his action is intended "to make , it; certain that neither: Mr. Philp ,iior any other Premier could do again what had been done." That Mr. Philp acted illegally in'carrying on in defiance of the .refusal of the House to, grant Supply is 'unquestionable)' but the illegality or otherwise of Mr. Philp's. action in this instance has'- nothing ,to do with the Governor. Moreover, the censuring of the Governor for refusing to appoint the Kidston nominees will not prevent a future Premier from committing an illegal act. Mr. Kidston is,: therefore, confusing the, issue." . ■The real issue is, nevertheless, easy to be seen. The Governor did nothing illegal, and Mr. Kidston's resignation, leading to Mr. : Philp's resignation, left Lord Chelmsford unable to take any course other than that which he did follow. Mr. Kidston's censure is, therefore, directed at the refusal to .appoint the Kidston' nominees to the Council, and his action resolves itself into the contention that a Governor must unquestioningly follow the advice of his Ministers in the matter of making extraordinary : appointments to theTJpper House. To our mind the situation was exactly of the kind, to call for the Governor's independent exercise of a _ prerogative which, though dormant, is not dead, and which is notoriously kept alive for exercise-in unusual situations. Mr. Kidston had : his remedy—as Mr. Ballance had—but lie refrained seeking it. It was an exceptional request that the Upper House should be violently transformed! and so made permanently of one political complexion, and that complexion !'so .little representative of public opinion that its wearers were in a minorityin the Lower House. To grant Mr. Kidston's request would have been to make impossible of enactment, any proposal/lacking the imprimatur of the Kidston minority—clearly a most undesirable thing. It was the Governor's business to act-for-himself in such a case, and he acted rightly in refusing the appointments. The affair has no importance as affecting the general question of the limits of gubernatorial authority, but it illustrates very well that, if the vice-regal powers of a Governor are to be kept'alive", they caniiot be independently. exercised much better than in refusing the request of a minority Government to flood tho Upjper House with its nominees.;-