Page:Extraordinary Government Gazette of Western Australia (No.48 of 1890).djvu/2

 difficulty in selecting as Premier whatever member of Parliament may appear to me to have the better prospect of support. To do so at this moment would not only be to anticipate and prejudge the result of the elections, but would, as I have suggested, give an unfair advantage to the Ministry provisionally selected, as they would of course go to the country with a certain degree of prestige which the representatives of the other party would not possess. The fact is we are dealing with a state of things which has not been in so many words provided for by the law; although I am myself of opinion that the Constitution Act and new Letters Patent contemplate the continuance of the present Executive Government until the elections shall be completed, the Legislative Council selected, and the Governor has something to guide him in deciding to whom he will entrust the formation of the first Parliamentary Ministry. This at all events is in my judgment the course which I ought to take. It has been inferentially approved by the Secretary of State, and I am decidedly of opinion that it is open to less objection than any other. Now, as regards the law. The Constitution Act creates two branches of the Legislature; one is to be the result of election, the other is to be nominated by the Governor in Executive Council. They are both to be called together within six months after the commencement of the Act. This of itself points to a period of delay. Section six provides for the appointment of a Legislative Council, the members of which are to be selected by the Covernor in Council before the first meeting of Parliament. Section 2 treats of both Houses. Together they form the constituted Legislature of the Colony, and will consequently, when created as required by Statute, take the place of the Legislative Council now subsisting. Provision for what is required in the interval—that is, until Parliament is complete, and Ministers can be constitutionally selected—appears to be made by section 7 of the new Letters Patent constituting the office of Governor and issued by Her Majesty in connection with the New Constitution Act, which states: "There shall be an Executive Council for the Colony, and the said Council shall consist of such persons as are now members thereof or may at any time be members thereof in accordance with any law enacted by the Legislature of the Colony, and of such other persons as the Governor shall, from time to time, in our name and on our behalf, but subject to any law as aforesaid, appoint under the public seal of the Colony to be members of our said Executive."

There is no actual provision in the Statute in direct terms for the interval which must elapse as between the Proclamation and the exercise of the powers of the Act with regard to the selection of the Legislative Council; but by implication it would seem as if the continued existence of the present Executive Council was intended to provide for the due carrying on of a provisional form of Government, in respect of which, however, care should be taken to avoid the responsibility of any acts or powers created or allowed to be done by the Statute after the machinery designed for the future Government of the Colony shall be completed.

But, beyond all this, and much as I should personally like to install a political ministry without an hour's delay, there are two practical constitutional objections to such a course, which appear to me to be fatal, and to which, more or less directly, I have referred.

In the first place it would throw the selection of the first Legislative Council—a selection which cannot properly or conveniently be made until after the elections—into the hands of one political party; and, secondly, it would lay the Governor open, when Parliament eventually meets, to an accusation on the part of the opposition, that in selecting his ministers prematurely he had given those ministers an advantage before the constituencies, and in so doing had departed from that position of strict impartiality which it is the first duty of a constitutional governor to assume.

As regards the Legislative Council, I may add that I know, as a matter of fact, that the Government responsible for the Act never for one moment contemplated that the first Legislative Council would be appointed by either political party, but on the contrary intended, and very properly so, that the first Council should be nominated by the existing Executive, which as I have explained cannot be done till after the elections. It may possibly be asked why do you not appoint your present Executive to be Ministers until after the elections and so conform to, at all events, the form of the New Constitution? My reply is, that there is nothing to be gained by such a course; that there is practically nothing for the ad interim Government to do beyond seeing that the work of the Departments is kept up to date, and the routine business of Government discharged; and that, in my judgment, it would be little short of an affront to the great principle of Constitutional Government to appoint as responsible Ministers gentlemen who, with one or two exceptions, have no intention of presenting themselves to the constituencies at all.

I may here call attention to the following extract from a letter addressed by the Governor of New South Wales to the Colonial Secretary on the occasion of the introduction of Responsible Government