THE LONDON “TIMES” ON VICTORIAN AFFAIRS.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1300, 20 May 1878, Page 3

THE LONDON “TIMES” ON VICTORIAN AFFAIRS.

In further reference to the Victorian crisis the London “Times” says:— Will Sir George Bowen follow the advice of Mr Berry if that Minister should proceed, as he has threatened, to abolish the police force, to open the gaols and the lunatic asylums, to stop traffic on the railways and trade in the ports, to suspend the postal and telegraphicservices, and to deny currency to bank notes ? This is a momentous question for the people of Victoria. If there is no point at which a Colonial Governor may refuse to follow the advice of an unscrupulous Minister with a Democratic majority behind him, the laws of the colony and the Constitution which has been conceded by an Act of the Imperial Parliament are little better than waste paperIf Mr Berry advised the Governor to sign documents involving a violation of the law and a departure from the spirit of the Constitution, and if Sir George Bowen complied without feeling himself justified in examining the consequences, there is practically no limit to the mischief that can be accomplished by a venturous Cleon who once gets possession of power. Why, for instance, should a Minister in such a position ever resign? If beaten in the Legislature, he may advise one dissolution after another, as the Due de Broglie would have done in France had Marshal MacMahon. been unfettered by the Senate. The difficulty about supplies might be overcome by such expedients as Mr Berry is exbans ring now, and the terrorism with which the opponents of the Government are being pressed might be expected to yield results as satisfactory as the labors of the most energetic of French Prefects. Mr Berry’s organ has avowed that the dismissal scheme “is confessedly a revolutionary one, which it would be impossible to justify but for the object that is sought to be obtained by it.” Is a Colonial Governor compelled to accept the advice of his Ministers even when it is “ confessedly revolutionary?” This is the very grave question which the Secretary of State for the colonies has now to decide. Compared with this the merits of the original controversy between the two Houses of the Victorian Legislature become insignificant.