. New Zealand rulers and statesmen from 1840 to 1897 . of the Governor is in allprobability tantamount to an entire change in thepresent New Zealand Constitution and a substitutionof the United States Constitution in its place. Respon-sible government, as known in the English Constitution,will not work with an elective head and elective Superintendents, when first elected for provinces inNew Zealand, tried the system, and it either did notwork well or wholly failed. In some cases it evenbrought about a deadlock between the elective super-intendent and a majority of his elective
. New Zealand rulers and statesmen from 1840 to 1897 . of the Governor is in allprobability tantamount to an entire change in thepresent New Zealand Constitution and a substitutionof the United States Constitution in its place. Respon-sible government, as known in the English Constitution,will not work with an elective head and elective Superintendents, when first elected for provinces inNew Zealand, tried the system, and it either did notwork well or wholly failed. In some cases it evenbrought about a deadlock between the elective super-intendent and a majority of his elective ministers, eachparty declaring that it represented the majority of Lord Onslow 217 electors. It occasionally happened that a Deus exmachind in the shape of a provincial dissolution had to beinvoked to untie the Gordian knot, and as the Governorwas the only competent authority to grant a dissolu-tion another complication sometimes arose. And even adissolution was not always effective in reconciling theconflicting parties, for a Superintendent might be. Lord Onslow, G returned by a majority for the whole province whichconsisted of one electoral district for the election of theSuperintendent, while in the several districts for theelection of the Provincial Councillors a majority adverseto him might be simultaneously elected. Should the Governor of a Colony be elective the onlyescape, in my opinion, from difiiculties of this kind lies 218 Neiv Zealand Rulers and Statesmen in the adoption of the constitutional system of theUnited States. I very much doubt whether such apoHtical change would be acceptable in New love of English principles of constitutional govern-ment, on which the New Zealand Constitution isfounded, is strong in that Colony, and there is no like-lihood at present of any wish to exchange, in respect ofthe Constitution, the old lamp for a new one, especiallywhen the beneficent genius which the old could evokecan no more be summoned by the owner of t
Size: 1316px × 1900px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherlondonslowmarston
