I move the adjournment of the Dáil until 12 o'clock tomorrow.
THE ADJOURNMENT. - CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL.
There are two questions on the adjournment: one is a question raised by Deputy Johnson with regard to the constitutional relationship between the Executive Council and the Governor-General, and the other is a question regarding the roads, on which the Minister for Local Government and Public Health wishes to make a statement. We will take Deputy Johnson's question first.
I do not want to raise a big constitutional debate, but I think it is necessary to make some reference to the statement which appears in this morning's papers as having been made by the Governor-General in London, inasmuch as it sets forth a certain constitutional doctrine. As constitutional doctrine, constitutional law, if I may use the term, grows by virtue of such statements, it is necessary that a counter-statement should be made, or, at any rate, that some protest or demurrer should be made. The statement appears in inverted commas as follows:
"It is the modern jargon to say that the King must be advised by his Ministers. But I have had the audacity to tell my Ministers that they had better take the advice of an old man. This idea that the Sovereign has not the power of initiative, the power of remonstrance, or of insistence on reconsideration is, in my opinion, as great an error as the notion that mere feudal tyranny can be tolerated any longer."
It may seem presumptuous for me to put my view against that of so distinguished an official as the Governor-General, but I think it is a very great pity that he should have allowed himself to use such a term in respect to the constitutional practice which we have adopted, the constitutional phraseology which we have adopted both in our form of Constitution and in much of our legislation and our resolutions, and that he should describe it as "jargon." I referred to two or three dictionaries and I found that there is general unanimity that jargon is (1) "confused, unintelligible talk, gabble and gibberish; (2) rude and harsh language; unintelligible talk; a mixture of two or three or more languages; (3) peculiar phraseology of a party, sect, etc., gibberish, lingo, cant."
Now, when we have set forth in our Constitution that the Governor-General acts on the advice of the Executive Council and that he must be advised by his Ministers—as the King must be advised by his Ministers, as the Governor-General states—following the law and practice and constitutional usage operating in the Dominion of Canada, and when the phraseology of our own legislation and our own Constitution is described by the Governor-General as "jargon," I think it is time to draw attention to the fact that we, at least, do not recognise it as "unintelligible talk, gabble or gibberish"; that we actually mean that the Governor-General acts in all his official actions on the advice of the Executive Council. I think that it is quite reasonable, often very desirable, that the Council which is the king to us—the Executive Council, representing the people—should be willing to accept the advice of an old man, if that old man has experience and wisdom. It is very desirable as a practice that the Executive Council should always listen to that advice. But when that is followed up by pointing to the power of initiative and the power of remonstrance, and the insistence on the reconsideration—while it may be formally and legally a correct statement of the position of the representatives of the Crown—if we do not take note of it and point out that it is merely the formal legal position, and not the true constitutional position, created by usage or practice, we may find ourselves faced with this statement of the constitutional position in a few years' time, and find it an obstacle to our constitutional development. I am prepared to risk the charge of presumptuousness by putting my view forward, that the advice even of a young man who may succeed an old man, should be received and given heed to by the Executive Council, but that we should not assume the right of the Governor-General to use his power of initiative and remonstrance and insistence on reconsideration of the Acts of the Executive Council. While I say that there may be a formal legal right to do these things we must make the constitutional practice such that he does not do these things.
If we had any desire to be flippant with the Deputy, it would be open to us to say that the Executive Council did not advise his Excellency the Governor-General to make that particular speech, or any speech, last evening, and that consequently it is at least questionable whether we should be called upon to answer for it or to comment on it here. The further point arises as to the accuracy of the Press reports of the Governor-General's speech.
This is accurate all right.
It may be accurate; we do not know, and the Deputy will perhaps agree that a summarised and condensed report of a speech very often does either more or less than justice to the speaker and is liable to misconstruction. The official actions of the Governor-General of the Irish Free State are, of course, as the Deputy has pointed out, governed by Article 51 of the Constitution. The Executive acts performed by him are done on the advice of the Executive Council, and not otherwise. There has been no departure from the spirit or the letter of that Article of the Constitution, and I can safely guarantee on behalf of the Executive Council that there will be no such departure. It seemed to me that something turns on the use of the word "advice," and that the word in this connection has been used loosely. The President and the Executive Council receive advice from many people, some of it good advice and some of it not quite so good. Deputy Johnson has been good enough to advise us frequently; occasionally with benefit to ourselves and to the public we have acted on that advice, and frequently we have not so acted.
With equal benefit to the public.
Advice in that connection is merely an expression of opinion tendered by somebody with an interest, presumably, in the general welfare of the community, and tendered out of good will and perhaps out of special knowledge. The Governor-General or any other citizen may tender advice of that nature to Ministers or to people who are not Ministers, and it is simply open to them to accept or reject that advice. But the word "advice" used in Article 51 of the Constitution has a different meaning when it is used in the sense of the Executive Council advising his Excellency.
In that case the word "advice" is a signification of the decision of the Council in matters of policy, and when and if that advice is not acted upon I quite agree with the Deputy that a constitutional crisis of the first magnitude arises. We have had no such crisis, and I feel that I can assure the Deputy that there is no probability of any such crisis arising. If at any time a crisis of that nature should develop it could be dealt with, but I suggest that the Deputy is attaching unwarranted importance to a humorous remark attributed to his Excellency which was never intended to bear the interpretation that the Governor-General had at any time acted, or would at any time in the future act, otherwise than in accordance with Article 51 of the Constitution. We do not need to raise any thorny discussion about the divine right of kings; we can possibly agree that it has been settled before our time, and settled to the general benefit of the community. It is not a matter that we have had any occasion to give grave consideration to, and it scarcely arises. Article 51 of the Constitution defines the question so far as we are concerned. The Governor-General, in official executive acts, acts on the advice of the Executive Council and not otherwise. If from time to time the Executive Council receives advice from the Governor-General, using the word "advice" in an entirely different context, it is open to the Executive Council in its wisdom, or unwisdom, to accept or reject that advice. The Constitution does not enter into it.