The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1921. The Quest For Governors.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 170414, 14 January 1921, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1921. The Quest For Governors.

It is a little disconcerting;, to discover that the supply of Governors gives signs of failing-. At a farewell luncheon to the uovernorElect of Victoria Viscount Milner confessed that “it is not an easy job” these days to find enougti g-ood men to go round, lie spoke indeed with a little weariness. So long as the Dominions, he said, desired Governors from England, it would be the duty ot England to find somebody for them. But it was a duty, obviously, that gave the Colonial Office increasing- anxiety and labour. So perhaps the time is not far distant when some such advertisement as this will appear in “The Times”: “Governor wanted for Overseas Dominion. Salary T7000.' Inhabitants reasonably docile.” Anyliow the Secretary of State for the Colonies foreshadows a striking change in the method or selection. He admits quite frankly that the Imperial Government has no fixed policy. At present Governors are sent from the Homeland. But Australia, and of course that means any other Dominion as well, may have a home-grown Governor as soon as it is quite certain that it wants one. That is to say, the partnership theory of the Empire has now no limitations. We. select our own Parliament. We make our own laws. In a general way we arrange for our own defence. And we may also, as soon as we like, select our own representative of the Crown- —or, which would be the same thing, get the Crown to select some one from our own number of ivhom we must approve. But of course it must not bo supposed that there would be any change in the nature of the office. The Governor, no matter where he comes from, has perfectly de■ finite duties, and well-understood, if not quite so definite, prerogatives. He is not a Viceroy—not, like the King, above the laws, because the fountain and source of the laws. He could not, as the King could, pick the pocket of his Prime Minister,_ and he would certainly be liable if he took it into his head to emulate Sardanapalus. As a matter of fact a Governor has been hanged for a misjudged interpretation of his powers: and although we have not hanged any one yet in Australasia, we have arrested and deported a Governor with impunity. But short of any gross misdemeanour or grotesque interpretation of his prerogatives a Governor can, and occasionally must, do a great deal more than people imagine. The popular idea of the decorative figurehead is less than half the truth. It is iot true even in purely domestic affairs: and of course it is the very opposite of the truth on

those rare occasions when domestic and imperial policies clash. Those who suppose that Viscount Jellicoe’s hardest task is to pilot the “Iron Duke” to victory in Hauraki Gulf, or woo the tinny monsters irorn their lurking 1 places in Taupo, have not read our history very closely.