THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNORGENERAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 6

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNORGENERAL.

According to the Canberra correspondent of a Sydney journal there is talk of an influential movement to bring about a inversion to the old method of appointing a Governor-General for the Commonwealth. One of the acts of the Labour Government under Mr Seullin was, as soon as an opportunity presented itself in the retirement of Lord Stonehaven, to secure-the appointment of an Australian citizen, in the person of Sir Isaac Isaacs, then Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, to the position of Governor-General. Apparently its recommendation in this matter did not go through Ithe accustomed channels, after consultation between the Australian’ and British Governments, but went direct to the King himself. This departure from the ordinary practice created considerable comment. The justification or impulse to its action was found by the Federal Government in - the formula adopte'd by the Imperial Conference of 1926 with reference to the eqtiality of status of: members of the British Commonwealth of. Nations. The appointment which / it made was not hailed with any particular enthusiasm in Australia, involving as it did a disregard for a welltried precedent and a popular tradition, but should there be evidence of a determination to revert to the old ( order of things, so that the appointment of a Governor-General frmja Great Britain would be made aftpr consultation between the two Governments, this would not, of course, involve any reflection upon Sir Isaac Isaacs. It would merely indicate that in \ the judgment of the Australian-,, people—wßidh is quite another thing from sectional opinion—it is desirable that their Governor-General should be an individual set apart by residence ( v and association from the political life of the country, and thus removed from any possibility of being rendered amenable to influence by reason of his political views as a resident of the Commonwealth. Obviously under the system of appointment 'which the Labour Government in Australia saw fit to discard a visible link was established between the Mother Country and the dominion concerned to which there is no equivalent when the latter selects its vice-regal representative from . among its own people. There is the consideration, moreover, that it was agreed by the Imperial Conference in 1926 that it was an essential consequence of the establishment of equality of status among members of the British Commonwealth that the GovernorGeneral of a dominion should be regarded, not as the representative of the British Government, but as the representative of the Crown, “holding i in all essential respects the same posi-; tion in relation tp the administration of public affairs in the dominion as is held by his Majesty the King in Great Britain.’’ The Governor-General being then the direct ' and personal .representative of the Sovereign, it must appear the ihore proper and fitting that he should be a person, who may be said to enjoy the confidence, based on, personal knowledge, of his Sovereign. Thus am English peer, for example, may come to the. GovernorGeneralship of a dominion with a not unimportant qualification which one of its own citizens, however distinguished, must necessarily lack. While nothing further may be heard of the suggestion contained in the report from Canberra, it would be an interesting development should an early outcome of the elections and the defeat of .Labour take the shape of an Australian ) decision to return to the former system of selecting a Governor-General. Sir Isaac Isaacs has not yet held the viceregal office for quite a year.