Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 135, 23 February 1891 — The Queen and the Cabinet [ARTICLE]

The Queen and the Cabinet

(Continued.) In continuation of Mr. Thurston*s observations 011 English preccde»t, he states . that Lord Melbourne, wh© was the Ptime Minister to W'lliam IV.. retained his portfolio, IHjd was not removōd by Quecn ] Victf»ria. llistorian Brialmont in his lifc of Arthur. Duke of Wel- j lington." Vol 4, page 87, sj?v? ? | " Her Majesty ivittinctī in oiliee the ; minister whoin shc found at the head of affairs, " whieh distinctly implies, that the Queen had an option in the niatter. Mr. ton ingeniously omits referenee to the fact that I ord Melbourne held en to his four years tenure of office, onlv through the young Queen*s having dcdined i>: uei 011 the advice 1 of a cabinet minister. The faets j are briefty these: In Ju;io t 1837, ! Victoria, then turned sixteen years of age, was called to tho throne. The philesopher and iiiend of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and the Young Queen, was Arthur, Duke of Wellington. The governiaent of the day, under Lord Melbourne; was whig, and the Duke, altbough a Tory, was so far fro*n being a factious politician thaf he «upported the ministrv. For the Duke to advise the young Queen on her accession to replace Lord Melbourne, would have been to" incur a grave responsibility, and U> .agsuiiae to a large extent the reins <>f government herself. But in 1 S3v, two years after the accession of Victoria, Lord Melhoume tendered his resignation, aud Bir Robert Peel was called td form a cabinet. Her Majesty refueed tue usual requireinent that the ladies her court shou|d not be those of ihe Prime Ministers oiīieial oppenents; and the result was tbat after an interregnum ©f a week, the Queen conimanded Lord Melhoune to return with his cabinet to oliiee, although he had just sustained a eignal defeat in the House cf Comnions, on the question of having the Constitution of .īamaiea suspended. The above is a eaee in po!nt to prove, that the English sovereign is not an autoniaton ©r naere registering official to the cabinet, as Mr. Tharston, in his ignorance of English constitutional government, would have it appear. A furthcr and yet stroager proof of the recognition ef power īn the British Sovereign ie, that she eaa exerciBe a discretionary power 111dependent of the Cabinet in the *-very importnnt matter ef dissolvingthe Parlisment, and ordering a gen£ral eleeiioo, and as a matter of fact this right hae been several times exercite<l both in England and the Colonies, antl fsoecially when parties become toe evenly balanced for the healthy exercise of party govererment. Mr. Thurston fbrtifies his posi-

[ ti«n })y statmg tbat thc Eiipisb •abinet has eome into existen<je by "pimple cu6tom," whereas otirs exists by written law. To wjhich we reply, that to a 3arge the whole British eoustitutioa is unwritten, and that is perhap&; $ne •f its chief merits. It poftfies4es a ' niobility % aii(i flexibility not known to written constitutions There never yet was a written eonfititution whieh did not contaiti auabiguities aml contra<lictions over whieh lawyers i'oulil difler. In a odnstitutional orisis ing iHterpretation the* House of Comnvoiis appoints a Coramitteii to search its rec.ords for prece<ler»ts, mueh after the manner of ju<li!cial tribunals. This is a niatter t}hat Mr. ThurstOn entirely overl®oked in quoting English practice. | Now. as the Hawaiian eonstitution is silent on the question in xlispntc, and tlae custom of eacb of Liliuokalani ? s predecessors has been to change their a-dvisors'oll being ealle<l to the thr9ne. it seenjs to us tbat it wili aeeonl with the practico of senii-<lemocratic iimited mcnarchy Knglaml,. to admit llie rij;rht in question. As to pvacti,c6 in the l'nite<l States, no candi<3 writcr. takmg of the argument that Mr. Thurston does, ean lind >.upport from that quarter. (To be conti»vued.)