The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1912. THE CROWN AND NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1327, 3 January 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1912. THE CROWN AND NEW ZEALAND.

It has sometimes been said with satirical bitterness that nothing but physical force would ever remove Sir Joseph Ward from the Treasury benches. The events of the last fortnight have given point to the saying, but they have also served to direct public attention to the fact that the Constitution is not without means of securing that tho a'ffairs of tho nation shall not be administered in defiance of the verdict of tho electors. His Excellency the Governor has the power, and he may regard it as his duty, to cause Parliament to. assemble, however reluctant Sir Joseph Ward may be to tender him advice in that behalf. We believe Lord Islington is watching present extraordinary situation with a view to taking, if necessary, the proper steps to safeguard both the Crown and the people against the usurpation of a Ministry which continues to hold office on sufferance. It is the right of the Crown, as represented in Now Zealand by the Governor, to have as advisers Ministers who possess the confidence of the country. It is the right of the people to. have a Government formed in accordance with their wishes as expressed in the election of a Parliament. The strange .and improper course taken by Sir Joseph: Ward since the elections is an invasion of both those rights. Both may be protected by his Excellency from further invasion, and although his hand may not be seen, we do not doubt that he is prepared to act.

This fresh instance of the way in which the constitutional liberties of our people are secured to them by the Imperial. connection and by the British- monarchy must be viewed ivith general satisfaction. We have witnessed in recent-years a series of attempts to exploit New Zealand's fealty to the Throne and Empire in a very different spirit and for very different objects. We have seen a Prime Minister offer a battleship to the Imperial Government without consulting Parliament, and no amount of subsequent explanation has been able to make the mass of the people think otherwise than that the Prime Minister assumed, in the name of Empire, a right to Lax them at his own will and for bis own ends. They were told—or so they interpreted the speeches for the defence—that a regard for their constitutional liberties was incompatible with loyalty. They knew better than to believe it. When Parliament, in 1909, and again in 1911, was delayed in its assembling and curtailed in its sessions, the Prime Minister who had decreed that it should do nothing in his absence was virtually telling tho people, indirectly but quite clearly, that the Imperial tie, as it appeared to his mind, necessitated an interference with their right to effective Parliamentary representation. Again, Sin Joseph Ward's refusal to afford Parliament an opportunity to discuss, in 1910, the string of motions which he proposed to place before the Imperial Conference amounted tu an intimation that Imperial affairs were no concern of the Parliament, and therefore no concern of tho nation. By omitting to give so much as aii niltlinn of his Imperial federation schema in any. cif tho platform or

after-dinner speeches which he made before his departure, he, in effect, reaffirmed the same monstrous doctrine. And he asserted it yet again in 1911 by withholding from Parliament an opportunity of discussing the reported proceedings of the Conference. There was a like significance in the suppression of the Coronation invitations, as well as in th. attendance of the then Attorneybeneral at the Conference, ostensibly as a representative of New Zealand, but actually—and New Zealand knew it—as the nominee of Sir Joseph Ward. And when tho news came that the Imperial Council scheme, put forward in the name of New Zealand, though New Zealand had never asked for it, and had neyer been given a chance of considering it and did not want it, was unanimously rejected by the Conference, the public satisfaction with this result was tempered with a feeling of shame that New Zealand should have been so misrepresented and so humiliated in the eyes of the Empire. The principal effect of the Imperial Conference, as viewed by the great bulk of the people of this country, was that New Zealand had been made to look ridiculous. Such was the popular verdict on the cabled summary of the proceedings, and it was amply confirmed when the full official report showed how the pretensions of Sir Joseph Ward had withered under the searching questioning of the other Premiers, and how Ms. Asquith had described his proposals as "fatal to the very fundamental conditions on which our Empire has been built up and carried on." The securing of a baronetcy for Sik Joseph Ward and a knighthood to Sir John Findlay was but another instance of the disposition to reserve the Imperial connection as a mere instrument for the political and social ambitions of certain individuals.

It' is much to the credit of New Zcalanders that their loyalty was scarcely at all affected by these actions. Their resentment at all this selfish exploitation of Imperialism, aud at much besides that could only have _ come from the same type of politicians, took the proper course and was registered the other day at the polling booths with the result that everybody knows. Sir Joseph Ward, however, has refused to recognise that result, and it may therefore become the duty of his Excellency the Governor to give New Zealand a practical demonstration that the Crow*n, through him as its representative, is ready to exercise its latent powers as the guardian of our constitutional liberties. Should Lojii) Islington take the decisive course which the circumstances of the immediate future may call for, he will be acting in the spirit of his own clearly-expressed and perfectly correct conception of constitutional Imperialism. In a speech at Christchurch, when he was entertained by the citizens last Thursday evening, his Excellency is reported to have said:

What he thought was true and obvious to most people, and might be regarded us of ilie deepest' and most hopeful significance to (.he future, was the fact t hat, never in. the history of the British Em])iro had.the conviction been moro profound thai national freedom and Imperial unify wcro compatible factors in the BriliMi Constitution, .lust us (he scope of freedom had developed in the national' life, to. to n corrospanding exIcut, had the adherence to Imperial ties .become closer and stronger. . . . Each Dominion was coming to realise jnorc and mure that under the British flag a system of constitutional government has " been established that was bette adapted to Iho charaotor and.'irisihifcts of Ik, Bri-tK-li people than any oilier that had yet been devised.

We' do not suggest that Lord Islington, when he spoke as above, had in mind all [he implications of the secret Wardist caucus which had been held a few hours earlier in Ihe same city. Yet- we cannot but think that if any such .gathering is proved .by. its outcome to have- heof the nature.of.a, conspiracy against the Constitution, he will be readv to prove by his official acts that national freedom and Imperial unity arc indeed compatible and that New Zealand really does possess constitutional government under the British flag, Such an event would illustrate in the clearest light the profound wisdom which animated the words of Burke :

The. people of ( England . . . look upon the legal hereditary succession of their Crown as among their rights, not a.5 among their wrongs; as a benefit, not as a grievance; as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude. They look on the frame, of thdr commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the Crown to bo a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our Constitution.

And_ the people of Now Zealand, looking to the leprosentativc of a hereditary Crown for protection against "the never-ending audacity" of a certain class of politicians, may be thankful that this young nation is a partaker in that old security for liberty and pledge of the .Constitution. It is well that, at such a time as this, we can say, as truly said it, and gloried fn it, onbohalf of the English of his day: "We. have an inheritable Crown

._ . . and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors."