entering my protest against the doctrine enunciated, although that protest comes from so young a Member of the House as myself. My noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack gave us a history of the crisis in the colony of Victoria, which, though strictly accurate, was, I think, somewhat too technical in its colour. I take the real state of the case to be shortly this. A Governor has been removed by the Secretary of State from his office because he had shown too great a partiality to one party, and an inclination to support one branch of the colonial Legislature against the other. No sooner was the Governor removed than the branch of the Legislature which he favoured proposed to award him a grant of money for having departed from the Imperial policy. If this is to be permitted, it is simply saying that this country must look calmly on while one of the branches of the colonial Legislatures encourages the Governor to disregard the spirit of the orders he had received from home, and that defiance of the Imperial rule by one portion of the colonial Legis lature is not to receive any notice, censure, or resistance from the Home Government. Now, this is a policy which, divested of its technical aspect, your Lordships will not, I am sure, approve, and which cannot if followed out be otherwise than productive of danger to the Empire at large. I, for one, cannot concur in the estimate of a colonial Governor's position which my noble and learned Friend appears to have formed. He seems to regard a Governor of a colony as a mere mute personage; as a gentleman who is to have no will of his own, who is to represent nothing, and who is to do, with a certain amount of obsequiousness and servility, whatever the Ministers who happen to be seated in his council-chamber may bid him. Before, my Lords, you endorse such a doctrine as that, I would ask you to consider for a moment the consequences to which it is likely to lead. Do not, I pray you, be hurried away by the argument of my noble and learned Friend that, if you allow a Secretary of State to interfere as suggested before a Money Bill is introduced, you are thereby stifling discussion. The course which the Houses of Parliament in Victoria ought to have pursued if they wished to raise a question of this kind is perfectly clear. It is a course which is adopted every day in this country. They might simply have addressed the Crown expressing their views on the subject of the proposed appropriation of

this money, and then the opinions of the Governor and of the Secretary of State, under whom the Governor acts, would in due form have been taken and expressed on the matter. I, however, understand my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack to lay down in the broadest and most distinct manner the doctrine that the Secretary of State was never to be permitted to interfere beforehand with any proposal which might be made by a Ministry in a colony where free constitutional government existed.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I did not say so. I said that a Secretary of State who so interferes would run the risk of placing the Governor in such a position that he would be no longer able to retain the Ministry who advised him, and that the Ministry would refuse to act under his dictation.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am sorry I misunderstood what fell from my noble and learned Friend; but I thought he censured very deeply any Secretary of State who should interfere in the way I have described. But, be that as it may, occasions may easily arise in which a Secretary of State may have before him only the alternative of interfering or allowing the honour of England to be tarnished. Let me suppose, for instance, that a colonial Ministry propose a Budget of repudiation. Will anybody contend that under such circumstances it would not be the duty of the Governor to put an absolute veto on the introduction of that Budget? I will not dilate on the results which might flow from that policy. In the case of our free colonies it might, perhaps, weaken the tie which subsists be tween them and the mother country; but, in the presence of such an argument, are we not entitled to ask what is the exact value of that tie? Might we not appreciate its value too highly? Would it not be better- a thousand times betterthat the tie should be broken than that anything dishonouring to the Crown of England should be suffered? There is a large class with regard to which it might be the distinct duty of a Governor to impose a veto on the proposals of his contitutional advisers, and the duty of the Secretary of State to enforce the adoption of that course. But you may go further. The policy which a constitutional Ministry in a colony may recommend may, though not absolutely dishonourable to the Crown, be dangerous to Imperial interests all over

the globe. They may recommend something which would be very embarrassing as regards the relations of the Crown to its colonies in every part of the world. This was partially so in the present case. If it be in the power of a colonial Assembly to buy off a Governor who represents the Crown, the power of the Crown is weakened throughout the entire extent of its dominions. It appears to me, therefore, a very dangerous doctrine to lay down that a Governor must not interfere with the action of his responsible advisers, and that the Secretary of State may not call a Governor to account for his conduct if he omits to do so at the proper time. I do not desire to enter more at present into the question which has been raised in this discussion. This is not an hour to do so; but I feel it is but a small portion of a very large subject which will more and more intrude itself upon your Lordship's attention. You will have more and more to consider how far the relation of England with those free constitutional colonies is a reality or a delusion. My noble and learned Friend says that free constitutional government would be a mockery and a delusion if the Secretary of State might interfere in the manner for which I contend and prevent discussion. But, my Lords, the connection between the Crown of England and its colonies will, in my opinion, be indeed a mockery and a delusion if his doctrine is allowed to prevail. Be the result what it may we must take care that whatever power we retain over them shall be a real power and that it shall be freely and honestly exercised for the good and the honour of the Empire. The moment circumstances arise in which it may appear to us that we can no longer exercise that power for those great ends the best and most honourable course for us to adopt is to resign it altogether.

EARL GREY said, that the noble Marquess who had just sat down (the Marquess of Salisbury) had so ably combated the doctrines laid down by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that it was needless for him to trouble their Lordships with some observations which he otherwise should have wished to address to them. At the same time the subject was of such grave importance that he might be permitted to add a few remarks to those just made by the noble Marquess, and in which he entirely concurred. He thought it absolutely necessary to the honour and interests of this country, if the

connection between us and the colonies was to be continued, that we should maintain some degree of authority over them; and that authority could be exercised only through the Governor. On the other hand, the Governor could not be an effective instrument for exercising that authority unless his independence was preserved by a strict adherence to a rule laid down, not only within the last few years, but almost ever since we had had colonies. He believed that, as early as the time of Charles II., instructions to the same effect as were now given on that point were issued to our colonial Governors. Such Governors had certainly from an early period been prohibited from accepting any reward from the colonies. It had been argued that that prohibition applied to Governors only while in the service of the Crown; and that in regard to India, Parliament had passed an Act expressly forbidding our public servants to accept gifts from Native Princes, which Act did not operate elsewhere. It was perfectly true that the Act referred to did not apply to persons who had been in the colonial service of the Crown, and that the severer rule was confined to those who had served in India. But this by no means implied that Parliament had ever meant to sanction the making of grants to those who had been colonial Governors. It arose from the fact that legislation was necessary to restrain the practice in the one case and not in the other. If a Native Prince, not under the control of the British authorities, made a gift to a person who had held a public office in India, perhaps to reward him for some neglect of duty, there were no means to prevent so dangerous an abuse till it was made penal to accept such gifts. But in a colony no such case could arise, because the law invested the Crown with authority to prevent such a grant being made, by refusing its assent to any Act for making it. In another part of his speech the noble and learned Lord's argument, if admitted, would go to the length of making a colonial Governor a mere machine without the power of exercising any control whatever over his advisers or the Legislature. The noble and learned Lord said that the Governor could not have refused to allow a grant to be proposed, because if he had he would have been left without a Ministry. But if to avoid that inconvenience was to be regarded as a sufficient reason for permitting the grant to be proposed, it would equally be a reason for not afterwards withholding

his assent from the Bill in which the grant was included. Indeed, it would be far more difficult for the Governor to interfere with the grant at the later than at the earlier stage of the proceedings; because when the Appropriation Act came up to him, that grant to the former Governor would be only a single item in it, and therefore the Governor would only have the option of either rejecting the whole of the Supplies of the year or of allowing the Vote to the ex-Governor to pass. And if he attempted to do that he would meet with precisely the same difficulty from his Ministers as if he had at first declined to authorize their recommending the grant. If he refused his assent to the Appropriation Bill his Ministry would resign; and therefore the coercion put upon the Governor would come at a different time, but even more certainly than by the other course. If the Governor in the present case had had plain and distinct instructions from the first from the Secretary of State, informing him that Her Majesty could not be advised to sanction such a proposal so contrary to the established rule there would have been no risk of that kind. His Ministers would have felt that if they resigned they would only throw their power into the hands of their political adversaries, and therefore an Instruction from home to the effect just indicated would have been an effectual protection against all the mischief that had arisen. It had been clearly shown that a great mistake had been committed in this case, and that owing to the want of proper firmness the colony of Victoria had been brought into a most unfortunate situation. Before sitting down he wished to say he thought it the duty of Her Majesty's Government to consider the position of extreme hardship in which the public servants of the colony were placed through the continued nonreceipt of their salaries. One case in par ticular had been accidentally brought under his notice, in which a public servant who had faithfully served in the colony for ten years, under the promise of promotion and ultimately of a pension, was at present, owing to the failure of Supplies, left actually without the means of subsistence. That was only one instance out of many, for the entire body of public servants in the colony had long been deprived of their incomes, the public works had been stopped, and the whole affairs of the colony thrown into a state of deplorable confusion. It seemed to him it would be a useful func

tion which the Home Government migh exercise for the benefit of the colonists, when party spirit ran so high and produced such evils as now prevailed in Victoria, to step in as a moderating power and suggest some mode of accommodation that both parties could fairly accept. In this case there was a mode of accommodation which he thought might be proposed and accepted. He did not hesitate to express his opinion that under no circumstances ought Her Majesty's Government to admit the proposed grant to be given to Sir Charles Darling. He did not think it ought to be allowed that the recall of a Governor under such circumstances should be converted into a reward. At the same time he felt that the consequences of his recall fell with the greatest severity on Sir Charles Darling, who, after all, had committed an error of judgment only. Instead of giving that large grant to Lady Darling, he would suggest that the colonial Legislature might consent to settle on Sir Charles Darling the pension which under the Act giving pensions to colonial Governors he might have been entitled to if he had served a few years longer-the value of such a pension would be far less than the proposed grant, and would still leave the Governor under what would be a substantial punishment for the fault he had committed, while it would diminish its extreme severity. In that manner he might be greatly relieved from the severe consequences which had fallen upon him. There was another point that he wished to notice. People seemed to think that because in this country the refusal of the Supplies by the House of Commons necessarily compelled, sooner or later, the Government to give way, the same thing was the case in the colonies. Nothing could be more entirely erroneous. In their relations with the Imperial Government the colonial Legislatures stood in a different position from the House of Commons. He could speak from experience on that point. He knew that the refusal of the Supplies in a colony had not had the effect which was apprehended. The case of the colony of British Guiana illustrated and confirmed his assertion in that respect. In the case of Demerara where the colonial Legislature threatened to withhold a part of the accustomed grants in the hope of coercing the Home Government to a change in its commercial policy, instructions were sent out that the services for which grants were not voted should cease. Instructions were given to the Governor that if the grants

necessary for maintaining the criminals in the prisons should be refused, they should be let out; that if the usual colonial allowances for the troops were not provided for, they were to be sent to Barbadoes, and that it must be for the colony to consider whether they would incur these consequences. The result was that the threat to refuse the Supplies proved to be an utter failure. If the noble Duke (the Colonial Secretary) had instructed the Governor in the present case not to include this grant in the Estimates, and if thereupon the Ministers had resigned and no others had been found, it would have been the colony that would have suffered. He had no doubt, however, that other Ministers would have been found. No one would say that if the colony refused to adopt the course pointed out by the Home Government any attempt to compel them by force should be resorted to; but the colony enjoyed, by virtue of the connection with the mother country, protection and support that were of the utmost value, but which were only to be given under certain conditions; and the colonists ought to understand that if those conditions were not fulfilled that support and protection would cease. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack argued that such a policy would destroy the ties between this country and colonies enjoying free institutions; but there was not the smallest ground for that assertion. The cases would not be numerous, and of course the power of the Crown should be exercised with discretion. In cases, however, where the honour of the Crown and of the Empire at large was concerned it was the duty of the Ministers of the Crown in this country to make it distinctly understood that they would firmly exercise the powers intrusted to the Crown by the Constitution, and then it would be for the colonies to decide. The moment he saw the alterations which the Victoria Legislature had not only been permitted but encouraged to make in the Constitutions established in that colony by the Act of 1850, he felt convinced that, sooner or later, there must come a collision between the two branches of the Legislature; for, while the one branch was made to consist of a limited number of members elected for life, the other was elected by the widest possible suffrage, and in the event of a difference of opinion. arising between them, as was to be expected, no means were provided by the Constitution for extricating the colony from that difficulty. He could not but urge

upon the colony to consider whether even now it would not be advisable to repeal or amend the Acts by which the Constitution, as settled by Parliament in 1850, had been so injudiciously altered. By the Act of 1850, by which the colony of Victoria was separated from New South Wales, a Constitution was given to it precisely the same with that which had for several years been in successful operation in New South Wales. Under this Constitution, the Legislature consisted of a single Chamber, two-thirds of the members being elected, and the others nominated for the duration of the Parliament by the Governor. To return to this system need not involve any abandonment of what is called responsible Government, on the contrary, it would, he thought, enable responsible Government to work much more satisfactorily and easily than it had done under the present system. Such was the equal division of parties in some of the colonies that there were changes of Ministry every two or three months, and sometimes oftener, and no one fixed or settled line of policy could be pursued. If the old form of Constitution were reverted to, and if a single Chamber were established, containing twothirds of elected members and one-third nominated by the Crown, but really by the Minister of the day, the nominated Members would add weight to the scale and render Government more permanent. In his opinion these colonies had not the proper materials for constituting two different Chambers.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR said, he desired to correct a misunderstanding as to what he had stated. He was very far from saying that circumstances might not arise of such transcendent importance as would justify the Home Government in issuing positive Instructions to the Governor of a colony as to the course which his Ministry should take. What he had said was that if the Ministry of a colony, supported by the full approbation of the Legislative Assembly and of the Home Government, recommended the introduction of a particular measure, and if the Home Government undertook to require the Governor to refuse his assent to the introduction of that measure, they would undertake the responsibility of bringing about that which was the natural consequence-a change of Ministry; and would thereby cause a deadlock in the colony in another form. With regard to the suggestion of the noble Earl (Earl Grey) that a pension should be voted