RESPONSIBILITY OF COLONIAL GONERNORS.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1926, 8 July 1869, Page 2

RESPONSIBILITY OF COLONIAL GONERNORS.

(From the Wellington Independent,)

Some interesting and important correspondence has recently been laid before Parliament with reference to the position occupied by Colonial Governors. It appears that Mr Fitzherbert, when in England, addressed a letter to his Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, in which, after referring to the proceedings against Governor Eyre, he points out that the colonists of New Zealand have consented, with the sanction of the Imperial authorities, to assume the control and responsibility of their own internal defence. “ Responsible Government has been established, and the Governor/ in accordance with the directions of the Imperial Government, acts in all matters under the advice of his Responsible Ministers. Bills of Indemnity have been from time to time passed by the Colonial Legislature. The proceedings, however, to which I have referred, disclose a state of risk affecting all persons in authority in Colonies circumstanced like New Zealand, from the Governor downwards, against which I respectfully submit that Her Majesty’s Government is imperatively bound to protect them. It is true that in Governor Eyre’s case the proceedings have led to no result, grand juries having ignored the indictments preferred against him ; but, although it has been held that the circumstances did not, in the opinion of the grand jury, justify the prosecution, the party accused has been arraigned before a criminal court, at the suit of private individuals, and subjected to great anxiety, and no doubt to severe pecuniary loss. I venture, very respectfully, to submit to your Grace that the acts under which prosecutions of this nature may be instituted —viz, the Act of the 11th and 12th Wm. 111., c. 12, and the 42nd Geo. 111., c. 85— should be altered to the following effect: —(1) That in the case of all colonies in which Responsible Government is established, a colonial Governor shall not be held to ineur personal responsibility in respeet of any act done by him under the advice of his Responsible Ministers, who shall be alone held responsible. (2) That in all cases ha which an Act of Indemnity shall have been passed by the Representative Legislature of a colony, and not disallowed by her Majesty, such Act of Indemnity shall be a bar to all proceedings in the ordinary courts of law —saving to the House of Commons apd the Imperial Parliament the right of impeachment.” In a letter to Mr Stafford, Mr Fitzherbert points out that *•' the Governor (say of New Zealand) might be required to act in accordance with the advice of his Responsible Advisers, and that possibly for so doing l}e should be liable, whenever he happened to show himself in this part or the empire, to be tried as a common felon at the Old Bailey, at the suit of a private individual—and the case seems scarcely less objectionable so far as regards Colonial Ministers.” The end of the correspondence is that the Secretary of State agrees to give the subject careful consideration.