Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/707

 constitutrororsouth Australia ADELAIDE AND VICINITY xxxi should be submitted to the Crown ; and the Precedency Act, passed in 1 870. was also disallowed, because it interfered with the prerogative of the Crown to regulate the precedence of all Her Majesty's subjects. Secondly — Any Bill altering the constitution of either House of the Legislature must be passed by absolute majorities in both Houses, and reserved for Her Majesty's assent. As to those conventions or established maxims which form part of our Constitution, they can be as readily altered in South Australia as in England. For example, if popular opinion permitted him so to do, the Governor might to-morrow dismiss his advisers and appoint advisers whose opinion co-incided with his own, and in whom Parliament had no confidence ; and if such advisers could not obtain funds to carry on the Government, or were otherwise habitually thwarted by Parliament, he could dissolve the House of Assembly, and rely on the public opinion to which I have referred to justify his unconstitutional action. There is, in fact, no such thing, so far as I know, as an entirely written Constitution — it is only a question of degree. Even in the United Slates of America, where the whole Constitution was supposed to have been set out in one document (which could not be altered or varied except by the people of the United States acting in a specified manner^ time, practice, the United States judges (notably Judge Marshall), and evolution, have made great alterations. As Mr. Woodrow Wilson says: — "There has been a constant growth of legislative and administrative practice and a steady accretion of precedent in the management of federal affairs which have broadened the sphere and altered the formation of the Government without perceptibly affecting the vocabulary of our constitutional language. Ours, no less than the British, is a living and a fecund system." Conclusion There are many constitutional questions of great importance which have been left uninvestigated, such as the authority for, and the effect of, "Orders in Council," that is, Orders made by the Queen with the advice of the Privy Council or some committee thereof ; the position of the Judges of the Supreme Court; the electoral laws; the growing but unconstitutional and pernicious practice of permitting the Executive to legislate without the consent and approval of Parliament by means of regulations ; the reservation of Bills, etc., etc. It is not, however, pretended that these notes contain either a complete history or analysis of the Constitution of South Australia — they are simply notes on some of its most important characteristics, and the theory of our Constitution has been mainly elucidated, and perhaps a somewhat scanty consideration given to the practical reality. This has been done advisedly, because it i.s- essential in order to properly understand the whole subject that both the theory and the reality should be known and understood. The former is known to and understood by few, whilst the latter is known fand understood to a certain degree) by most.