Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

227

The Governor is not authorised by law or by the Royal Instructions to delegate those powers to any other person. Even to meet such events as his death or absence from the Colony he is not permitted to bequeath or delegate temporarily those powers to any other person. The Crown carefully provides for such cases, and nominates the officer who, in the event of their occurrence, is for a time to exercise such powers for the Crown.

Certainly, therefore, the Governor cannot delegate the powers of the Crown entrusted to him to persons who are in no way responsible to the Queen or the British Parliament for any abuse of such powers. The so-called "Responsible Ministers" in this Colony are not, in truth, responsible to the Queen or British Parliament for any abuse which they may commit of the powers of the Crown, nor are they responsible to the New Zealand Assembly for any such abuse of the powers of the Crown, for these powers do not belong to the General Assembly, and do not emanate from that body, nor are they conceded to the Ministers by it.

What was conferred upon this Colony by the Queen and Parliament, under the Constitution Act, was the power of governing itself, by the bodies named in that Act. The Government to which Your Excellency apparently alludes, in your letter of the 19th instant, is an Executive Council, called by Your Excellency your "Responsible Government." No such Government has been conferred upon this Colony, nor has the Crown or its Ministers the right to confer or impose such a Government as now exists under that name, and which, in truth, is not a Responsible Government, upon New Zealand.

The Executive Council given to Your Excellency by the Royal Instructions is simply a Council of advice, and you are especially authorised in those Instructions, when you differ in opinion from your Executive Council, to act in opposition to their advice, the responsibility arising from any act done in the Queen’s name, under the powers of the Crown, being thus distinctly thrown upon the Governor. A due and wise precaution for the preservation of the rights of the Native race, of the Crown lands, of other large interests in this Colony, and of its own good name in reference to those matters, necessitated this provision in its Instructions upon the part of the Crown.

The law upon such subjects is also this: When the Queen, conjointly with the Imperial Legislature, has bestowed upon a Colony a Constitution, Her Majesty cannot infringe upon, alter, or vary in any respect whatever that Constitution. Even when letters patent have been formally issued by the Crown, under the great seal of the United Kingdom, which had any one of the above-named effects, such letters patent have by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council been declared null and void. If the Crown cannot perform such acts by letters patent, much less can it do so by Royal Instructions or by Orders from a Secretary of State. The Constitution Act carefully defines the subjects upon which a Secretary of State can issue Orders or Instructions to the Governor, and any Secretary of State has no powers except such as are in those respects conferred upon him by the Constitution Act. If the law says that the Governor is to do certain acts, he is responsible to the Crown and the British Parliament for the manner in which he performs them, and must, submit himself to that which the law directs him to do. The act so done must be regarded as his act, and he must incur all responsibility springing from it.

I venture to point out to Your Excellency that, to prevent acts being committed such as I have complained of, the British Parliament provided that there should be in New Zealand in the first instance Provincial Legislatures, and then a General Assembly, which was to consist of

The Governor,
The Legislative Council,
The House of Representatives;

and to accomplish the wise intentions of Parliament a complete balance of powers was established between the three bodies composing the General Assembly of New Zealand, which, in fact, if carried out, guaranteed and provided for the preservation of the rights of all persons, and rendered it almost impracticable that acts of oppression such as I, the Superintendent of this Province, complain of could have been committed.

Your Excellency is aware that the Provincial Legislatures have been prevented from meeting, by an Act of the General Assembly, passed in its last Session, to which Your Excellency’s assent was given, although I believe the General Assembly had no power to do this, the assent of the Provincial Legislatures to such a proceeding not having been previously obtained. Thus the first and a very great guarantee for the preservation of public rights has for the present disappeared.

It is admitted in Your Excellency’s letter of the 19th instant, that the Governor, quoad the Governor of the Constitution Act, no longer exists, but that the Minister for the four has to all intents and purposes become the Governor of New Zealand, even in respect of exercising the rights of the Crown in this country. Then the Legislative Council being nominated by the same Minister, or rather increased to any extent he pleases by members nominated by himself, another of the means provided for the protection of the rights of the Colonists has been swept away; for by the Constitution Act it was provided that these Legislative Councillors should only be such person or persons as Her Majesty might think fit to summon to the Assembly, but that power was, by the 31 and 32 Vict., c. 57, given to the Governor, that is, to the Minister for the time being. Lastly, the principle regarding the Members of the House of Representatives recognised by the Constitution has been altogether departed from, as, in fixing the number of Members for each District, fair regard has not been had to the number of electors within the same, so that the number of Members assigned to any one District should bear to the whole number of the Members of the House of Representatives nearly as may be the same proportion as the number of electors within such District shall bear to the whole number of electors in New Zealand. I unhesitatingly state that every just and impartial man would admit that at present there is no fair representation of the people of New Zealand in the House of Representatives as now constituted. Indeed, an Act of last Session, introducing new representatives into the House of Assembly, struck a fatal blow at the fair representation of the people of this Colony.

These circumstances would all seem conclusively to show the great necessity which exists for the Governor to carry out fairly and fully that system of Government which the law requires, and expects him to conform to.

Your Excellency will observe that in the case of the act I have particularly complained of in my letter of the 18th instant, as well as in other acts, it is complained that grievous wrongs have been inflicted on some of the Queen’s subjects in this Province by the agency of the Sovereign’s Representative.