THE EXILING OF PRISONERS.
The despatch of Earl Carnarvon upon the Gardner question reached New South Wales just us the latter had worked up its political crisis. Our tiles do not contain the despatch itself, but the following digest of it, taken from the c Sydney Morning Herald,’is not without interest here, as the despatch has a direct bearing upon the release by our own Government of Sullivan : The despatch is definite upon two points—first, as ro the locus of the responsibility in respect to the granting of pardons; ami secondly, in respect of the policy of exiling prisoners. But, while, willing to recognise the importance of making the responsible Ministers in the Colony responsible for their advice with respect to the pardons granted to prisoners, Bari Carnarvon will not admit that that responsibility should rest exclusively with them, or that pardon should he considered as a branch of the local administration in the same sense in which the other details of government are .so. On the contrary, he insists on it that the Governor is the representative of Her Majesty, so far as concerns the exercise of the Royal prerogative of pardon, and that this prerogative is delegated by her only to selected and trusty servants. In the Mother Country it is delegated to the Home Secretary. In the case of a Colony it is impossible for her Majesty to delegate it in the same way personally to a Colonial Secretary-, of whom she has no knowledge, and in whose nomination she has no direct voice. In a Colony the Governor alone cun be her direct representative, and it is to the Governor, therefore, that she delegates tire responsibility of this important prerogative. In this as in some others, the fact of the Colony being a dependency makes it impossible to imitate precisely the form of procedure adopter I in tne mother country, where personal contact with the Sovereign is possible. Nor does Earl Carnarvon at all approve of the idea that the Ministerial responsibility is to be in any- way got rid of or mitigated by informal consultations between the Governox and the Minister specially charged with the penal department. On the contra) y, lie intimates that the advice should be ns specific, as clear and as unmistakeable as in other oases. From the arrangement rendered necessary by the fact that the Royal prerogative could only be delegated to persons selected and named by Her Majesty, it follows that both the Governor and the Cabinet will possess a responsibility in the matter ; it will not be halved between them, but each will possess it fully. Granting pardons is a branch of the local administration, and will be considered as such ; Ministers will have to decide what they they think it right to recommend, and will have to make their recommendations distinctly; but before doing as they recommend, and exercising or refusing at their wish the Royal prerogative, the Governor will have to consider that he is the depository of that prerogative for the last time being, and that he is to exercise it, subject to Ids own responsibility for doing it wisely. No amount of advice tendered to him would justify him in doing what ho thought his Sovereign would disapprove. The other point of importance with which the dispatch deals is the exile of prisoners. On this, the S-cretary of State is quite clear that the Governor ought to allow no exile except on his own responsibility, and in fact orr/hk not to grant exile at ali. The legality of tlio act (iu Gardner’s case) ho admit*, but the power he Rays has been sparingly used and ought to be ■practically obsolete. It is a practice calculated to give rise to reasonable complaints, nor could tho recommendation of a Colonial Ministry justify the Governor in adopting it.
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Evening Star, Issue 3738, 15 February 1875, Page 3
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640THE EXILING OF PRISONERS. Evening Star, Issue 3738, 15 February 1875, Page 3
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