Evening Post. MONDAY. AUGUST 22, 1892. AN ELECTED GOVERNOR.

Evening Post, Volume XLIV, Issue 45, 22 August 1892, Page 2

Evening Post. MONDAY. AUGUST 22, 1892. AN ELECTED GOVERNOR.

* We wonder how many of those who rashly voted for tho Elective Governors Bill really understood what the effect of such a measure would be, assuming that it should become law. Very few, we venture to think, have reasoned the matter out, f=o as to realise the consequences of such a change, apart altogether from the great question of its bearing on the relations of the colony to tho Empire and the Crown. What may be termed the domestic results would be of the most revolutionary nature. An Elective Governor would mean a complete abrogation of Responsible Government as it is now understood in this and other British communities. It would bubstitute for the modified Party system of Responsibility which now exists, a system of personal government of the most pronounced type It would degrade the Legislature and exalt the Governor. The Governor and not the Legislature would represent the voice and power of the people. The Governor, the elect of the majority of the whole people, would be the embodiment of the popular will, the true repository of all power and authority. He would be over and above tho elected branch of the Legislature, the members of which would be but the representatives of isolated majorities. An Elected Governor would not be content, as the head of every British selfgoverning State now is, from the Sovereign downwards, to reign rather than to govern. An Elected Governor would undoubtedly feol it his mission to rule and govern personally. Ho would not, backed as he would be by a majority of the suffrages of the whole people, subordinate his own opinions and feelings to those of Ministers who would simply represent tho majority of Parliament. His Ministers would necessarily , exist to do his will rather than that of Parliament. They would be more his officers than his Advisers. He would bo moro powerful than they or the body thoy represent, aB in America tho President is more powerful than Congress, and chooses his Ministers practically without reference to its wishes. Whatever tho term of an Elocted Governor's office might be, he would for that term bo tho absoluto hoad of the State, and he would be more than human if he did not use his power and opportunities to strengthen his position and consolidate his Party. The strngglo of Party for place and power would bo transtorred from Parliament to the election of Governor. The Party which succeeded in placing its nominee in the Governor's chair would be tho ropository of all power for the term of his office. As in tho United States, Parliament and Ministers would count for very little. All political intorest would centre in the elections of Governor, and in these elections great forces from the operation of which we aro now happily free, would bo called into operation. The prize would bo worth striving for, and elaborate and costly machinery would be devised to assist in gaining it. Tho idea of tho best and wisest man in the Stato being chosen to govern it, is a purely Utopian one. The candidates for tho Governorship would simply bo Party nominees, chosen as instruments to serve tho interests and obey tho behests of their Party, as represented by rings of wire-pullers, probably moro or less corrupt, and seeking not tho good of the State but their own profit and aggrandisement. Modest merit would have a very poor chance in such a costly and factionmanaged contest as that for the Governorship would undoubtedly be whenever a vacancy occurred in the office. No man who reflects on the subject will believe that a Governor elected after a costly and probably bitter, contest, ranging from ono end of the colony to the other, would bo content with the position of almost nominal power which the Governor now holds in the Constitution. He would be no mere figurehead. Ho would feel that his mission and duty was to govern, and a regime of personal rule would necessarily bo substituted for the present form of constitutional representative and responsible government. Under such a system politics would become more than ever a pursuit to be shunned by the wisest, the best, and the most honest of the community. Tho government wonld be handed over practically to rings and wirepullers, each combination assuming the name of a Party striving by ovory effort, reputable or otherwise, to obtain control of the Stato for the period of a Governorship, and the successful Party using its power in trying to secure an extension from term to term — if necessary through a differont nomination. The minority, under such a system, would be practically wiped out. It would ceaso to be a factor in the government of tho country. The majority would rule through the Governor, and it would rule as it liked, regardless of principle, equity, or justice. Its motto would bo " The spoils to the viotors." No consideration whatever could be expected to be extended to the minority or losinsr Party. The worst evils of the American Presidential system, evils the effect of which aro patently undermining the political foundations of that country, would be more than reproduced here in the attempt to alter the Btatus of the Go vernor in th c manner proposed , by grafting an elective head on to the existing constitutional stock. It would be an anomaly out of all sympathy and harmony with British ideas of free government and real liberty under representative institutions. An elected Head of the State must in a Democratic community be almost an autocrat. We trust no such experiment will ever be made in this colony. It would be absolutely ruinous, even if it did not involve what is popularly termed "cutting the paintor." That it would do this wo do not for a moment doubt, but the considerations sustaining this conclusion are of too much weight and importance to joe fairly dealt with in the space at our disposal on the present occasion. It is not necessary, nowevor, to consider this branch of the subjeot to justify an unequivocal condemnation of the change suggested in this most mischievous measure, which nevertheless is supported by several Ministers. "