THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA.
THE papers just arrived from Canada, despatches from Lord Dufferin to Lord Kimberley, throw very little light on the great Pacific Railway Scandal, for which the Dominion Par- liament has just dismissed the Ministry ; but they throw a great deal upon Lord Dafferin's action in the matter, and incidentally raise and settle some most curious questions of constitutional procedure. It may be remembered that when the Scandal first assumed formidable dimensions, the Dominion Parliament had just been informed thatit would be prorogued on August 13, and a Committee of the Canadian House of Commons was sit- ting to investigate the conduct of the accused Cabinet. Public opinion, or at least a large section of public opinion, excited by the "McMullen letters," immediately demanded that Par- liament should at once be called together, so that, in fact,
a vote of want of confidence in the Ministry might be passed at once. The Governor-General, therefore, found himself in this almost absurd position :—He had a Cabinet on which he was bound to rely for advice, yet which he was bound in some way or other to try, on charges which, if proved, would be fatal to their careers ; and the relics of a Parliament sitting which wanted to vote the Cabinet down, while the Ministry all the while were demanding the fullest and most unsparing inquiry. He himself was absent from Ottawa, settling difficult questions in Prince Edward's Island, and on his return found all the fat in the fire,—newspapers abusing him, Opposition candidates to the number of nearly half the House demanding that there should be no prorogation, and the Cabinet pretty evidently, though he does not say so, at its wits' end. Under such circumstances, as we maintained, a Viceroy who has to guard two interests and not one—the welfare of Canada and the welfare of the Empire—has on the latter behalf a constitutional right to order full inquiry into his Ministers' conduct without dismissing them, and without, though not against, a Parliamentary sanction. His responsi- bility to Canada compels him to submit the whole question to Parliamentary vote when attainable, but his responsibility to England binds him to order full, searching, and independent inquiry at once. The Parliament might be corrupt or might be factions. The Times, however, condemned this doctrine, alleging that Lord Dufferin in refusing to delay the prorogation demanded had acted in breach of the Constitution. As it has now turned out, however, neither theory was in fairness applicable to Lord Dufferin. He could not have delayed the prorogation, if he would. Already, at the first news of their coming release, Members had scattered too widely for recall. Some were in England, others across the Rocky 3fountains, some • returned to their homes in Victoria, 4,000 miles from the capital. It was so late in the season that it was impossible to recall them, and Lord Dufferin, as he himself says, felt it his duty to guard the rights of all the Provinces under his control, and not allow a grave constitutional question to be settled in the absence of the representatives of entire Provinces. In taking this high ground he was undoubtedly right, as right as the Queen would be in vetoing an Act which disfranchised Wales for a single Session or a single vote ; and he was, more- over, strictly within the Times' theory of the Constitution, for Sir James Macdonald and the Cabinet thoroughly agreed with him, and to make his course more easy agreed also that Parlia- ment should meet within two months. Lord Dufferin, there- "fore, in the strictest constitutional manner, had obtained time for inquiry into the conduct of his Ministers, whom he could not dismiss unheard, and yet had secured the absolute right of Parliament to judge finally on their fitness to continue members of the Dominion Government. These, as it seems to us, were the precise ends to be obtained.
Nothing could be more constitutional, but the rage of the Opposition, who hoped to have crushed an irresistible Ministry, which has gathered many hatreds on its head, grew red-hot, and Lord Dufferin was attacked in terms unusual in England, and nearly as violent is those of which Americans think nothing. Unable to interfere with the prorogation, they fell foul of the inquiry, which, as they unhesitatingly declared, was intended to supersede the rights of the House of Commons. The facts of the appointment were, however, as follows :- Parliament had appointed a Committee of Inquiry, consist- ing of three friends and two opponents of Sir John Macdonald, and these Lord Dufferin, always with the advice of his Ministers, appointed Royal Commissioners, leaving them, in fact, under another name, to carry out the function imposed on them by Parliament. The Opposition members of the Committee, however, Mr. Blake and Mr. Dorion, refused to accept their appointment, leaving the Commission composed only of Sir John Macdonald's friends. As that was absurd, Lord Dufferin proposed and his Ministers sanctioned the appointment of a Commission composed of three Judges,— all men selected on account of their character for probity and intelligence, a character not denied to them by the Opposition. Their Report, a very vague one, as we understand, has been submitted to Parliament, with whom it rested absolutely to order a new inquiry, to pass a vote of want' of confidence, or to support Sir John Macdonald and his friends ; and their decision then would doubtless be guided by letters which the leader of Opposition, Mr. Huntington, re- fused to produce before the three Judges, but retains, as he affirms, in his hands. They have adopted the second course, though for reasons which have not reached England.
It is clear, even from this short analysis of the papers, that Lord Dufferin was absolutely within his right ; but he pro- duces another argument of his own, which is much more for- midable, and raises a question even yet more difficult to decide. He says, in the beginning of his despatch of the 18th August, "Again, as an Imperial officer, it was my duty to watch with especial care over Imperial interests. The allegation current against my Ministers and others was that they had fraudu- lently dealt with certain monetary trusts, voted indeed by the Parliament of Canada, but guaranteed, to a considerable ex- tent, by the Imperial Government. This being so, I was evidently bound, apart from any action of the Canadian House of Commons, whose powers of scrutiny seemed for the present of small avail, to obtain satisfaction in regard to these matters by any constitutional methods within my reach. Indeed, from this point of view, it was not the Ministry of the day—who are but an evanescent Committee of Parliament—bat the Parliament of Canada itself, that was responsible to Great Britain in respect of any malversation which might have occurred,—as having confided the disposal of these interests to improper agents." There is the real rub of the whole situa- tion. Suppose a Colonial Parliament not only to sympathise with any set of incriminated Ministers, and being corrupt itself, resolutely and persistently to whitewash them, what, then, would be the power, or the position, or the duty of the Viceroy or other representative of the British Government ? He cannot dismiss Ministers so supported. He cannot go on working with Ministers so accused, and he cannot dissolve more than once, for that may simply be to place himself in still greater oppo- sition to his people. Something nearly approaching to that has occurred in American State history, especially in Alabama, and we can see no remedy at all, except in the addition to Colonial Constitutions of a supreme Court, competent to try and to punish anybody accused by the Head of the Executive of taking bribes, even if Parliament defended him. Lord Dufferin seems to think it quite impossible to allow suspicion to be a ground of removal, inasmuch as the intolerable recklessness of accu- sation produced by the intensity of party feeling in Canada would soon leave him, or at all events his Lieutenant- Governors, without competent advisers at all, but the limita- tion of the right of prosecution to the Executive would be a sufficient guarantee. We see no reason whatever as yet for a verdict against the Canadian Ministry, but we see the greatest reason to distrust the practice of leaving acquittal or sentence to minute Parliaments and electorates, who may be willing, like Londoners in 1768 to condone any extent of personal vicious- ness in favour of political support. The risk of penal servitude arrests or diminishes forgery, and we cannot see why it should not arrest the development of any habit of plundering the public. The Minister would fear the Court, if he did not fear the Parliament, and would have every external motive every- body else has for keeping his hands clean. These remarks, of course, do not apply to Canada, where Ministers are not even accused of accepting money for themselves, but even there we think there is one failure in their case. Why did they not bring a common action for libel, and so compel everybody-con- cerned to give evidence on oath, and clear up the whole case?
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