THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4914, 21 December 1876, Page 2

THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE MEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —One more letter and I have done. There are certain propositions which everybody ought to receive without doubt. For example, that all the virtue in the world is to be found embodied in the editor of the New Zealand Times, whilst all the vice is in those who differ with him in opinion. Well, lam content that it should be so. But upon questions of law, whether constitutional or otherwise, I prefer my own opinion. Impudent egotism and conceit, perhaps,- but so it is. You remark that I flatly contradict myself, and you point out that I do so in saying that “ the Governor, quoad the General Assembly, occupies the same position as the Queen does in regard to the Imperial Parliament, and has no superior," whilst in the same breadth I add that he cannot delegate his power, which I admit that her Majesty can do. Well, perhaps 1 ought to . have been more explicit, and have said “ the Governor, so far as the powers given to him by the Constitution Act extend, occupies, &c.” What I wished to convey was, that the entire power of convening, prolonging, and dissolving the Assembly rests with the Governor, and with him alone, and that, in my opinion, the Queen has as little power to deal with these matters as I have.

How the Governor is to act is another question. Mr; Fitz Gerald suggests that a prorogation by proclamation would not be valid, and he refers to the case of 1854; but he does not tell us that there was any authoritative decision on the point. He says that the words “by proclamation" are expressly omitted from the latter part of the 44th section, and do not, therefore,apply to “prorogation or dissolution.” Why Mr. Fitz Gerald saj s that the words “by proclamation” were expressly omitted I do not know. It is sufficient for his argument that they are omitted. In a grammatical sense, Mr. Fitz Gerald is probably right ;but I would ask him how the Governor should effect a dissolution ? As a fact the Governor, on the 6th December, 1875, dissolved the Assembly by proclamation. Here are the words, taken from the Gazette of that date, page 773, of 1875:—“Whereas I have thought fit to dissolve the General Assembly of New Zealand, which stands prorogued to the 14th day of December instant ; Now know ye that I do, for that end, publish this proclamation, and do hereby dissolve the said General Assembly accordingly." Was this legal or not ? If not, then the writs issued before the dissolution of the Assembly by effluxion of time were not legal, and all becomes chaos. I think that if Mr. Fitz Gerald will look into the authorities he will find that in this case he is somewhat in error.

You rely on the Queen’s prerogative, and its valid delegation to the Governor, in order to support the late prorogation. I, on the other hand, deny the prerogative in toto. If the prerogative exists, and has been properly delegated, then, perhaps, it has been validly exercised.

As to the case of Feather v. Reg, the point there decided was—“ That a grant of letters patent to a subject for an invention does not exclude the Crown from using the invention without the license of the patentee and the reason given is the well-known rule that all grants from the Crown are to be construed strictly against the grantee, nothing passing thereby except what is expressed, or which is matter of necessary and unavoidable intendment in order to give effect to the plain and undoubted intendment of the grant. But this case has no application, that I can see, to the question under discussion. The grant, in its terms, was held to be referable to a right conferred as against the fellow-subjects of the grantee only. The extract from Chitty merely shows that where a statute prescribes a particular form of doing some act authorised by the prerogative, the King may, nevertheless, disregard the form so prescribed. But note what Hobart says as to the intent of the statute—“ Where it is made to ease the King of labor, and not to deprive him of p-iwer.” It is no use, however, pursuing this discussion in a newspaper. If some discontented individual makes up his mind to try the matter properly, he has the Resident Magistrate’s Court open to him, under section 95 of the Counties Act, and we should all have to bow to Mr. Crawford’s decision; for the 9Sth seetion expressly ousts the jurisdiction of the Supreme Cour*, so far as relates, at all events, to the right to fill the office of county councillor or chairman. —I am, &o. Wm. Thos. Locke Travers. Wellington, December 20.