The Manawatu Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1877.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 27, 20 January 1877, Page 2

The Manawatu Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1877.

Two or three of our contemporaries have lately been discussing a question of constitutional law, (more to the display of their own ingenuity than to the edification of the majority of their readers, we suspect) and the conclusion- arrived at on one side was that the Queen has no power to summon, prorogue, or dissolve the Assembly, having divested herself of all such power by assenting to the Constitution Act, which transfers the said power to the Governor. It will be almost superfluous for us to say that we do not aspire to take Eart m this learned controversy. Our nowledge of law is about as extensive as our old friend Horace's acquaintance with mathematics. " Rectum distinguere curvo." — to distinguish a right line from a curve — was. he tells us, the extent of his attainments m the science which Plato delighted to honour ; and we do not pretend to very much more law than is sufficient to enable us to discriminate between a civil case and a criminal one without, any considerable difficulty. There is, however, something more important than law — something which is the end of law, namely, the general good, and of that end, m its relation to this particular question of Koyal prerogative, we wish to say a few words. The tie which connects the British Colonies with the Throne must be ft very weak one— legally speaking — if ttte Queen has no power over their Legislatures. The veto on Acts of Parliament is now an almost mythical branch of the Royal prerogative, aud yet this and the right of nominating the Governors, together with the honour of having her name used as a mere formality m land-grants, and other docunieuts, are almost the only powers which the Sovereign can exercise within the Colonies, if the above doctrine be sound. In short, the policy which we are pursuing is, upon this supposition, that of weakening the connection between the Colonies and

the Crown, and making the unity of the British Empire to depend on the Legislative authority of the Imperial Parliament. Now, it does not require much reflection to convince any candid person that the tendency of this policy is to separate the Colonies from the Mother Country. No one m his senses can suppose that the Colonies will always recognise the authority of the Imperial Parliament. The day is coming, though neither this nor the next generation may see it arrive, when the Colonies, each and all, will aspire to be the equals of the Mother Country, and when the Legislatures at Wellington, Melbourne, and Sydney, will no more own themselves subordinate to the Parliament of the United Kingdom than to the Congress of the United States. They tolerate that subordination now because they are young and " their limbs are crude" ; but when their maturity shall have been attained, they will disdain all control but that which emanates directly from the Crown ; and if the authority of the latter be allowed to sink into inanition, instead of being conserved and strengthened by all possible constitutional means, the result will be the dissolution of the Empire. The wisest of our political thinkers agree m deprecating such a consummation as this, and advocate a policy of union, the reverse of that policy of disintegration which, according to the theory of certain constitution mongers, we are actually pursuing. As we have said, we do not pretend to say whether this constitutional doctrine is sound or not ; but there can be no mistake as to its political tendency ; and, unless we are content with the prospect of ultimate separation from the British Empire, the sooner we mend both our theory and practice m this matter the better.