THE MARQUIS OF NORMANBY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5537, 25 December 1878, Page 2

THE MARQUIS OF NORMANBY.

(From the Melbourne Argus).

In receiving the Marquis of Normanby as Governor of Victoria the colony has all the guarantees which can be given by long Parliamentary training in the House of Common's and of tried experience as a colonial Governor for the efficient discharge of the onerous andlmportant duties which will fall to his share. The course of Lord Normanby’s career in respect to the posts he has filled as Governor in these southern colonies has singularly enough been identical with that traced before him by Sir George Bowen, he having successively filled the offices of Governor of Queensland and New Zealand, and now succeeding Sir George Bowen in Victoria. In the coarse of Lord Normanby’s term of office in the two former colonies he has had his share of the difficulties which inevitably fall to a Governor’s lot, and a brief review of the manner in which he has dealt with these will afford our readers the best means of estimating the capacity of our new Governor, and the spirit which he brings to the fulfilment of his duties.

It would be of little interest to attempt any sketch of the earlier official life of Lord Normanby, the offices he filled in her Majesty’s household, his Lieutenant-Governorship of Nova Scotia from 1858 to 1866, and his repeated representations of Scarborough in the House of Commons. Our interest in Lord Normanby commences in 1871, when he visited Melbourne on his way to assume the Governorship of Queensland, and, was entertained by the Mayor of Melbourne at the town hall. At and after the time when Lord Normanby entered upon his duties at Brisbane the course of Queensland politics was very much ruffled. The Palmer Government had a decided majority, but the balance of parties was sufficiently close to equality in weight and influence to place the prize of place temptingly near the reach of the Opposition. The Opposition, which was then led by Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Lilley and Mr. T. B. Stephens, contended that it only required that the great inequalities in the local representation »f the population should be rectified to give it a decided majority in the Legislature. It therefore attempted to force the Government to proceed with a Bill for the redistribution of electorates which, it had introduced, but afterwards showed a disposition to leave in the background. The Government wished first to proceed with the business of supply, but the Opposition resolved that supply should not go on till the Bill was dealt with. Opposition members accordingly organised a method of systematic obstruction, and in fact erected a “stonewall,” which for strength and solidity might compare with any of more recent construction. They were willing to grant two months’ supply if the Government would engage at once to proceed Electoral Redistribution Bill. The Ministry, however, refused to take part in any such arrangement. Mr. Palmer declared he would have the whole of the year's estimates passed or none, and he would “ not pay a cent, to the civil servants till the money was voted.” A deadlock resulted, and the Opposition members in the Assembly presented a memorial to his Excellency, throwing the whole blame of the stoppage on the Ministry, and protesting against the Ministry being allowed to arrest public business, or to continue the administration of affairs without supply, or to withhold any longer the redress of great and acknowledged grievances. In reply to this memorial Lord Normanby penned au admirable memorandum, which raised very highly the public estimate of him ns a constitutional Governor and experienced statesman. In dealing with the contentions of the memorialists Lord Normanby pointed out that all through their representations there was an assumption to the minority of the rights and powers of a majority. So long as his Government commanded a majority in the House he, could not “ admit the right of a minority to dictate to them the mode in which the, business of the House should be conducted.” He proceeded:— “ I trust that after an experience extending over a period of nearly 18 years in the British Parliament, and six years as the Governor of a colony, I shall ever be found ready to uphold to the utmost the dignity and privileges of Parliament, to admit to the fullest extent the right of the people of this colony to direct the government of the country according to their own wishes, as indicated by their representatives in Parliament. I must, however, at the same time point out that this undoubted right of the representatives of the people to direct the manner in which the public affairs of the country shall be conducted,_ appertains to them not in their individual but in their collective capacity, and I must therefore decline to accept the opinion of 12 members as the decision of a House constituted of 32 representatives of the people of this colony. “ It ’appears to mo, Lord Normanby went on to say, in on admirably expressed paragraph, “ that your memorial has been founded on a total misapprehension of the principles of the British Constitution, upon which the Constitution of this colony has been founded. Neither in this colony, nor in England, nor, as far as I am aware, in any British colony, does the Constitution give an inherent right to any man to participate in the election of the representatives of the country ; the franchise in each instance is regulated by Act of Parliament, and whether the law is good or bad, so long as that law continues unrepealed it is binding on all,” After a calm and decided, although conciliatory examination of the demands of the Opposition, Lord Normanby ended with the words, f‘ The Opposition, when pressing their claims so strongly, must remember that others have claims to consideration besides themselves. I shall always be ready to pay the greatest deference to the opinion of Parliament, but that opinion must be expressed by the majority of the Assembly _ in their legislative capacity, and not by a minority without the walls of the House of Assembly.” Of the issue of tho contest it is only necessary to say that this firm determination of the Governor to adhere to tho spirit of the Constitution, was attended with the best results, and a compromise was soon made by virtue of which Parliamentary business was enabled to proceed along its ordinary channels. The troubles which Lord Normanby encountered in his administration of the Governorship of Queensland were, however, but trifling compared with the difficulties to which he has been exposed during his term of office in New Zealand. So long, indeed, as the Vogel-Atkin-non Ministry waa in power Lord Normanby had easy Bailing, and nothing in the shape of a collision occurred between the Governor and his advisers. But towards the end of that peaceful time a new and powerful element of disturbance suddenly appeared in tho political

firmament. Sir George Grey left his retirement at Kawau and re-entered political life, in which he soon became an agent of strife’and conflict. Of course, while Sir George Grey was in opposition the bulwark of the Ministry surrounded the Governor, and such shafts as the erratic recluse of Kawau might launch at him —such, for instance, as the accusation of a plot between his Excellency and the commodore to bombard Auckland, or the extraordinary charge of conspiracy between Governors and the Colonial Office to poison prominent and troublesome politicians out of the way—failed of their marks from their own wild extravagance. But matters became very different when a curious shuffle of the cards, which has never been clearly explained either as trick or fluke, raised Sir George Grey to the Premiership as a consequence of the defeat of the Atkinson Ministry upen a resolution of censure moved by Mr. Larnach and carried by two votes. It very soon became apparent, whatever other resolves and promises Sir George Grey might forget on taking office, one determination remained strong and active as ever. This was hy some means, by any means, to pick a quarrel with the Governor. This was clearly enough the animating spirit of many of the acts of the Premier, and some appeared to have no other object whatever. For instance, the refusal to place the Government steamer at the disposal of Sir William Jervois for a military survey of the coast in accordance with the invitation of the New Zealand Government was only intelligible on the supposition that it was solely intended to mortify the Governor. Again, the unscrupulous attempt of the Premier to induce the Governor to use his power of disallowance to veto the Amending Land Bill which the Government had taken up and passed through both Houses, can only be explained on the supposition that it was an attempt to place the Governor in the wrong in a matter in which the responsibility of his Ministers could not screen him. The design was foiled by the tact and firmness of his Excellency, who declined to be a party to a scheme to strangle a measure passed by Parliament, ostensibly with the support of the Ministry. When the Bill was not found among the other Bills presented to the Governor for his assent prior to the close of the session he insisted on its production, and on its being presented to him, with the signature of the Premier, Sir George Grey was compelled to abandon his attempt and return to the constitutional path of a Premier. The reasons he had assigned for his action might. Lord Normanby observed, have been very goed reasons to urge on Parliament why the Bill should not pass, but as it had passed, they were without any weight when offered to him as justification for refusing his assent. In the whole proceeding Lord Normanby figured as the faithful guardian of the rights and powers of the Legislature, which were threatened by an insidious and dangerous Minister, and his steady adherence to the Constitution he was there to administer was found at once the path of boldness and of safety. It is not necessary'for us to enlarge on the details of the case of Parliamentary privilege growing ont of Lord Normanby’s, refusal to appoint a member to the Legislative Council on the advice of the Grey Government while a vote of censure was impending over the Government. Lord Normanby was induced by his crafty Premier to repeat in a written memorandum the reason he had before given verbally to the Premier, and the paper being by Government instigation called for in Parliament, was afterwards held by a foolish vote of the Assembly to constitute a breach' of privilege. The affair was clearly a trap of the most unscrupulous design, but public opinion seemed to have little hesitation in properly apportioning the shame and discredit attaching to the incident. Another conflict between the Governor and his chief adviser arose from Lord Nofmanby’s refusal of the dissolution which Sir George Grey advised in 1877. In the calm and forcible arguments opposed by the Governor to the reasonings of the Premier, Lord Normanby pointed to Clause 8 of the Royal instructions, by which Governors are authorised to exercise the powers committed to them by their commission in opposition to the advice of their Executive Councils, and in the exercise of this discretion he denied that Ministers had an unqualified right to a dissolution when the Governor thought it undesirable or unnecessary. The correspondence at length becoming long drawn and tedious, owing to the fact that Sir George Grey was more eager to urge -his own reasons than to answer those directed against him, Lord Normanby referred Ministers to his arguments, which they had left unnoticed, and proceeded : “The Governor feels bound respectfully, but at the same time distinctly, to inform Ministers that he must for the future decline to enter into any controversy or discussion with them of a general or abstract character regarding his constitutional position, his responsibilities, or his duties. “ The Governor will, on all occasions when Ministers submit to him any particular matter or question affecting the public service, feel it his bounden duty to give to. their advice his most attentive and favorable consideration; and should he deem it his duty at any time to act in opposition to their advice, he will be quite prepared to accept the responsibility which the act entails.”

In finally concluding the controversy he observed, in weighty and pointed words': “ The Governor believes that it is universally admitted by constitutional authorities that frequent dissolutions are to be avoided if possible, as they tend, as observed by Sir Robert Peel, ‘ to blunt the edge of a great instrument given to the Crown for its protection,’ and he does not believe that it is a legitimate exercise of the prerogative to resort to it when there is no great political question directly at issue between the two contending parties, and simply in order to maintain in power the particular Ministers who happen to be in office. These views have been expressed in Parliament in England by many of the leading statesmen of the times, and the Governor believes they are the principles which should guide his conduct in the present instance.” The guiding principle which has enabled Lord Normanby, as Governor, to pursue a perfectly straight track amid the sinuosities of politics has been the resolve honestly to work the Constitution committed to him to administer. From this course he never allowed himself to be diverted by any figments of a supposed obligation blindly to follow . whatever advice might be offered to him by his Ministers. The obligation to take Ministerial advice was, he clearly said, limited by his higher obligation to the law and constitution of tho colony. And when there was an apparent divergence between the" two the decision he felt rested with him, and could not without lapse of duty be devolved upen others. It is gratifying to sea that while in faithfully adhering to this plain course he has spared the colonies over which he presided the conflicts and perils which would have arisen from a different construction of his duty, he has in doing so received the warm approval of the Colonial Office. It is even more satisfactory to note that the simple rectitude and perfect impartiality of the Governor have, immediately the heat of the contest has passed, impressed even his opponents. Even when dissent has been expressed it has been devoid of the bitterness which is an inevitable product when the supreme guardian of law and order becomes the betrayer of his trust, and out of an ignoble regard to ease and supposed safety deserts his personal responsibility or casts it upon others. In social life Lord .Normanby is said to be plain and unassuming, and averse to display and to the glare of fashionable life. Indeed he, from temperament perhaps, feels the social duties of his position as more onerous than the political ones. The same absence of display marks his character as a politician. It is beyond question that till he was exposed to the stress and strain of difficulty, Lord Normanby was not credited with the statesmanlike qualities he, when called upon, could show he possessed. But when the emergency came he has on all occasions proved equal to it. Opposed by a most dangerous antagonist, the great strength of tho Governor enabled him with ease to hold his own, and to vindicate his position against all assault. The result has .been that he has made his character for faithful administration and strict impartiality clear to all sides alike, and has borne, away with him the respect and esteem even of those who were for a time counted among his Opponents.