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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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CO. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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part of the Empire, told the Secretary of State to make rules for the guidance of all those paid officials who had to be employed for the purposes of Government, and the Secretary of State issued those rules, not for public bodies, not for the citizens of the Empire, but entirely and purely for those officials who consented to serve His Majesty for pay.

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Rules for Officials.

Discipline must be insisted upon between an employer of labour and an employee Where there was an absent employer, it was right on his part to say to all the employed that they should consider the man of his choice in a particular place to be like unto himself, or to be his own representative, and that if for purposes of discipline they did not pay that proper respect and obedience which was expected of them they should forthwith suffer the punishment which was enjoined in the rules published by the employing authority. On that principle it was that he took it that the Secretary of State had issued rules to all he paid officials of Crown Colonies, and said to them: look the Governor of the Colony as the representative of the

upon Beware that King; and if you do not do that, give him all that the obedience and all the respect which I say he deserves at your hands, you do it at your peril." He said, therefore, that the Colonial Regulations, which his honourable friend had relied upon, were no more than regulations to be observed by those officers who served the Governor for pay, and he said further, that those Colonial Regulations could not by any means override a decision so formed and so authoritative as the decision of the Privy Council presided over by His Majesty's own judges. He could not think with the freedom His mind was so constituted that it laboured hard to find for itself of the wild ass. authority for its guidance. The mind of man was man himself. Though he disre- garded the latter, if he did not labour hard to find what principles ought to guide his mind, he became a creature of his own corporeal likes and dislikes. He systemati- eally subdued the likes and dislikes of his body and took care to inform himself what principle the law dictated to his mind, and he compelled his mind to obey the law. Whatever the likes and dislikes of his body might be, he said: "You shall obey the law and shall execute the law, and shall not act in any way but according to the law." He said that knowing the principle of the law enunciated by His Majesty's judges, it was his duty to stand by that law, and it was his duty to regulate his life from morning to midnight to the observances of the law. After that explanation he felt sure honourable members would pardon him for reminding them what the dictates of the law were, and that they were endeavouring to carry a principle that would be scouted out of court if taken before the Privy Council.

Difference between a King and a Governor.

The King of England was very different from the Governor of a Crown Colony; and though he admired the loyalty and the great esteem in which the ser- vants of the Crown looked upon the Governor of the Colony, and though he, himself, liked to follow that example, yet when it came to the enunciation of constitutional principles, when it comes to the making of legislation on behalf of the people of Ceylon, he considered it was his duty to tell his honourable friends what he thought was the law on the case, and that was his excuse for addressing to the attention of the Government some remarks about that word "pray." His honourable friends said that they had no great inclination to preserve the word "pray," and they said that they were more concerned by his remark about the Governor-in-Council not But what representing the King. Well, push him out of the case altogether. Who was poor

They might see him sink into the grave to-morrow. about the Privy Council? That was not going to sink into the grave. It was not the Ceylonese member who was speaking now, it was the spirit of the law that was promulgated by the Privy Council that was speaking. Do not let them think of poor Ramanathan, who might drop dead as he was speaking. He was not worth attention at all as a human body, but it was the principle which he enunciated that he wished them to consider. If his honourable friends desired to respect the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Ceylon let them agree to delete from that law He asked their forgiveness for urging those remarks upon them, the word "pray." but he pointed out that he carefully avoided the subject until his honourable friends forced him to speak. He hoped that better counsels would prevail with regard to that word "pray."

Ramanathan?

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The Attorney-General to the rescue.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL considered that the honourable member would, per- haps, have been of more service to that House, and might, perhaps, have explained his position more clearly, if he had done, what he certainly would have done, if he had been presenting his argument in another place; and that was, to produce the Of course, he fully understood the honourable authority upon which he relied. Lomber's remarks were impromptu, and that he did not come to Council that day with the intention of entering into the question which he had entered into. At the same time he certainly thought that he ought to produce the judgment of the Privy Council to which he had referred as his authority. Like the honourable member who had just spoken, he (the Attorney-General) was also a lawyer and he could not decide upon a legal proposition without seeing the actual authority before him; he did not think that House ought to be asked to give a vote upon an important ques- tion of that kind without having the actual words of the authority stated. The particular judgment of the Privy Council to which the honourable member had alluded was one to which he referred some years ago, and if he recalled the circum- stances correctly, a Governor of Jamaica took upon himself illegally to direct the seizure of a vessel. He had no justification for his action, and the owner of the vessel sued him in Courts. He there pleaded that as the King's representative that he enjoyed all the King's personal immunities; and if he recalled the decision aright, that was the only point upon which the decision was given; and it was the only point upon which the decision could be given, because that was the point at issue, and any observations made by the Privy Council with regard to the case must be read with If the honourable member would pro- reference to the circumstances of the case. duce to him any authority either of the Privy Council, or of the Courts of the Colony, saying that the Governor of this Colony was in no sense the King's representative, he would be indeed astonished.

Needs no argument.

But surely it needed no argument there or anywhere else for the purpose of maintaining the position of the Governor of the Colony. It was a position which they all felt in their consciences in the habits of their daily lives. No one who was present at any assembly of the inhabitants of the Colony, when the Governor entered the room and the strains of the National Anthem were heard, could fail to be con- conscious of an emotion, which he personally always felt at that moment, that he was in the presence of the representative of the Sovereign. (Applause.) As to any question as to whether His Excellency the Governor or any other Governor of a Colony because of that position was entitled to ignore the rights of the King's subjects, that was entirely a different question, which must not be confounded with the other. The rights of a Governor as the King's representative were not dependent upon a clause framed by the Colonial Office. That clause merely enunciated a well- known and established principle. It did not introduce it for the first time. (Hear. hear.) The source of the Governor's authority as the King's representative lay in the Royal instructions, which placed him in that position; and he would ask honourable members to reflect what were among the functions which those letters patent and those Royal instructions (sic). The power of life and death was com- mitted to the Governor. He supposed the highest power vested in His Majesty the King in the Empire was the power of life and death. He had the prerogative of mercy and he could decide whether the decress of a court which sentenced a man to death should be carried out, or whether the order of the judges should be set aside. That same power was vested in His Excellency the Governor of Ceylon as the King's representative. He did not intend to argue the question further, but there had just been put into his hand a book which cited a despatch of the Secretary of State of 1868, defining the position of the Governor-General of Canada. It was the " Parlia- He knew of no mentary Government in British Colonies," by Alphæus Todd. distinction between the Governor-General of Canada and the Governor of Ceylon, and the principle there laid down by the Secretary of State was that the Governor was the representative of the Queen.--He read from the book :--

"He is the representative of the Queen of the highest authority in the Dominion, if it is in question, occupied by several millions of people, comprising within its territories provinces recently brought together, which can only be knit into a mature and lasting whole by wise and conciliatory administration."