The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-09-11
THE PACIFIC
Commercial A6bGrtiser.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER IL.

A GREAT deal has been written N said
lately about constitutional Governments"
the special object whether avowed or not of
those who have busted themselves with the
subject being to make it appear that in the
recent appointment of a new Administra-
ton His Majesty has acted unconstitution-
ally. AT the root of m argument of this
class must lie the definition of the words
used. We have seen and heard during the
last fortnight, several definitions of consti-
t~utional government which betray a griev-
Gus confusion Of ideas on the part of their
authors. The prevalent idea seems to be
that Government by party as it has been
developed in Great Britain is the very type
and perfection of constitutional govern
ment. So it may be and why? Because
it is prominently a Government in ac-
cordance with the Constitution of the Brit
ish Empire itself. At the present day the
parliamentary leader of that political party
which can command a majority of votes in
the lower house of the Legislature becomes
virtually the ruler of the country. The
system has grown up slowly to it's present
form and stability, and cannot be said to
have been fully developed until within the
present century-the personal will of the
sovereign and his prediction for certain
men or certain measures having by degrees
disappeared from the scene as an active
factor in the shaping of political events.
1t has been sought to be shown that in his
recent appointment of Ministers His Males
ty has ignored the p~recedents which the
past and contemporary history of Great
Britain offer for his guidance, and that
Al l. 800 - H.
But in such an argument the whole ques-
ton is begged by ~confounding together con-
stitutional government and government
after the English model as one and the
same thing. If there be no constitutional
government unless it be carried ON in &C
cordance with the written and unwritten
constitution of Great Britain, what about
the United States, or the German Empire
or the French Republic? Have none of
these constitutional governments? In
none of them does the English system exist
by which a parliamentary party leader
attains the highest power in the state and
becomes virtually, whilst he retains his
office, the elective monarch of the realm.
The strongest of party organizations in the
lower house of the United States Congress
cannot drive from power an administration
which does not possess it's confidence, until
the term of office of that administration
lapses. Is that position of affairs unconsti-
tutional because it does not conform to the
British model? The question is absurd
and equally absurd is the attempt to foist
upon this country English precedents, I'M
less it can be shown hat the circumstance
and the Constitution of the Kingdom are
f1aVffoaI xrffh 4Aozn ~ NHo D..3;,l. TN~~-.-z
The Constitution of Great Britain is the
growth of long years, during which the
popular rights which it secures nave been
fought for. The Constitution Of the United
States followed a war for Independence.
The Constitution of this Kingdom is not
the result of centuries of struggle on the
part of a people to curb the power of kings.
1t was the free gift of the king to a people
who can scarcely be said to have wholly
understood the nature of the gift. The
statement made by a contemporary that
"the Hawaiian Kingdom owes to foreign
ers the formation of the constitutional
government" it enjoys, is a perversion of
the truth. Hawaii has been ruled with
wisdom by its successive kings and it was
to the common sense of one of them, who
saw the soundness of the policy that he
then adopted, that we owe the Constitution
under which we live. What he learnt from
foreigners OF the subject would have been
of little avail had he not possessed an en-
lightened mind and a true love of his peo-
pie and a heartfelt desire for their welfare.
By adroit, and at the same time upright,
personal conduct, by a little diplomatic
skill in playing off one foreign power
against another, and by committing them
selves to none, the Kings of Hawaii might,
had they so willed, have been absolute
monarchs to this day. We ave reason to
be thankful that a wiser course has been
We nave a Constitution of a
highly liberal type and we nave a King |
who knows how to rule in accordance with
Constitution, and who is heartily will |
ing so to rule. Those only who are deter
mined, by shutting their eyes, to see things
in the Constitution which are not there, |
will venture to say that His Majesty has |
ever infringed one iota of it. |
EAST INDIANS m CHTUESE9