Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/704

 XXviii ADELAIDE AND VICINITY. Notes on the Constitution of South Australia Governor Wall was hanged for inflicting excessive corporal punishment, resulting in death, during the time he was Governor. General Picton was convicted of a misdemeanor for an act done in his capacity of a Governor, and would have suffered imprisonment had he not been killed at the battle of Waterloo ; and a few years ago our old Surveyor-General, Governor Eyre, was harassed and ruined by actions brought against him in England for acts done by him as Governor of Jamaica. The Ministry Bv the Governor's Commission he is required to appoint an Executive Council, which is to "consist of such persons as are now or may at any time be declared by any law, enacted by the Legislature of our said Colony, to be members of the said Executive Council, and of such other persons as the said Governor shall from time to time appoint," and by his instructions he is directed and enjoined in the execution of the powers and authorities committed to him to "in all cases consult with our said Executive Council, excepting only in cases which may be of such a nature that in his judgment our service would sustain material prejudice by consulting our said Council thereon." And he is authorised " in his discretion, and if it shall in any case appear right, to act in the exercise of the powers committed to him in opposition to the advice which may in any such cases be given to him by the members of our said Executive Council." By the Constitution Act and its amendments it is provided that the persons holding six specified offices, the appointments to which are vested in the Governor alone, shall be the Chief Secretary, the Treasurer, the Attorney-General, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, the Commissioner of Public Works, and the Sixth Minister, and that the six persons shall be ex officio members of the P^xecutive Council, and shall all be members of Parliament (except the Attorney-General, who may or may not be a member of Parliament). This is the whole of the law of the "Constitution " in reference to the appointment of the Ministry. It is only by the force of constitutional maxims, which may not improperly be termed congealed public opinion, that the powers, the functions, and the authorities of the Ministry exist. These constitutional maxims provide that : — (a) The Ministry shall possess the confidence and be in accord with the opinions of the majority (if not of both Houses of Parliament, at all events of the House of Assembly). (^) That they shall be a quasi corporate body holding the same opinions on all important questions, and advising the Governor through one of the body called the Premier. {c) That the Ministry shall be formed by the instrumentality of the Premier, to whom the Governor shall entrust the task. (^d) That the Governor shall in all matters of local concern act on the advice of the Ministry (except those cases indicated under the heading of Governor). [e) That the resignation of the Premier involves the resignation of all the Ministers.