FL10343644

13

No. 6.

From the Speaker of the House of Commons to the Earl of Carnarvon.
Glynde, Lewes, 10 December, 1877.

Dear Lord Carnarvon,

I HAVE received your letter of the 3rd instant, transmitting papers with reference
to the recent political crisis in New South Wales.

I have also heard from Sir Erskine May that the same papers have been
referred to him by your direction, and that he reported his opinion at length in a
letter of the 6th instant, a copy of which he has sent me.

I have carefully gone through the papers, and I concur generally in the
substance of Sir Erskine May's report upon them.

I apprehend that there can be no doubt of the right of the Governor, acting
in the public interest, to qualify his acceptance of Ministerial advice, although by so
doing he incurs serious responsibility.

The course taken by Sir Hercules Robinson upon the recent occasion of a
political crisis seems to have been thoroughly constitutional. He declined to accept
unconditionally the advice of his Ministers until he had endeavoured through other
political arrangements to carry on the Government, and when his several attempts
had proved abortive, he then acquiesced in the advice originally tendered by his
Ministers.

It appears to me that the Governor and his Ministers and the Legislative
Assembly can never be placed in proper relationship, so long as the present system
prevails of deferring supply; for the Governor ceases to be independent, the
Ministers are hampered by the constant need of temporary Supply Bills, and the
House has a strong inducement to stop supply, in order to prolong its own existence.

It is to be hoped that the complications arising out of the several crises
occurring recently in New South Wales, will open the eyes of the Colony to the
propriety of voting supplies more in accordance with the practice of the Mother
Country.

Believe me, &c.,
H. BRAND.