Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
A similar cleavage divides the _legislative_ structure. The governor of
crown colonies, like the sovereign, is at first the sole, and through
his ministers to the last the chief, legislator; the legislature is
created by concessions wrung from him, and its history is the record
of successive limitations of his authority. In charter colonies the
legislature is the creation of the people, and the laws are made by its
deputies. A single tolerably perfect example of each type is chosen.
The early history of New South Wales is one of the best preserved
specimens in the museum of political paleontology. During its earliest
years the governor was as absolute as the first Norman sovereigns.
William Rufus might ask: "You Taillebois, what have you to propose in
this arduous matter?... Potdevin, what is your opinion of the measure?"
And Philip, hunter or king, might as unceremoniously solicit the advice
of the chaplain or the commander of the forces, but they were under no
obligation to take it; and the earliest laws, like the capitularies
of Charlemagne, were public orders or proclamations. Under the sixth
governor, when civilian officials had arrived, his authority received
its first limitation: a small council was instituted, consisting of the
chief justice, the attorney general, and the archdeacon of Sydney. A few
years later the council was enlarged by the inclusion of new officials,
and an equal number of unofficial citizens, who were, however, nominated
by the crown. So far, we are still in the twelfth English century. In
1828 began fourteen years of agitation for an elective council, and with
1842 we arrive at the colonial Magna Charta. The concession had hardly
been made when, with the influx of fresh settlers, another agitation for
all the rights of self-government was begun. It was complicated with
the convict question, as the politics of the United States was long
complicated with the slavery question, but was not settled with, though
it may have been accelerated by, the settlement of that in 1848. Eight
years later full self-government was granted, largely through the agency
of one man. As a Wentworth had aided in subverting the liberties of
Englishmen, a second Wentworth redeemed the honor of his name by proving
the Shaftesbury of a second revolution, and procuring freedom for their
Australian descendants. Subsequent developments repeat the English
reforms of 1832, 1867, and 1881. Thus the colony described in less than
a century the evolution which it had taken the mother country fourteen
hundred years to accomplish. Younger colonies, omitting the earlier
stages, ran the same distance in far shorter periods.
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