The list was further expanded in to include French Somaliland now Djibouti and Oman. The Comoro Islands were included in and New Caledonia in From to , 54 Territories attained self-government.
At present, there are 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories remaining. When the United Nations was founded in , some million people, nearly a third of the world's population, lived in Territories that were dependent on colonial Powers.
Today, fewer than 2 million people live under colonial rule in the 17 remaining non-self-governing territories. Starting in , on the 30th anniversary of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples , the United Nations has declared four consecutive international decades for the eradication of colonialism.
This payment opened the road to the highest political offices, and it has been trodden by many men who started from the humblest homes. Among the federal prime ministers—the nearest equivalent to our presidents—we find miners, labor-union secretaries, a country doctor, a neighborhood storekeeper, a grade-school teacher, and a small-town accountant.
The present prime minister, Mr. His war cabinet includes two railroad workers, a barber, a teacher of electrical engineering, a patternmaker, a farmer, a newspaper proprietor, and a lawyer who worked his way up to a judgeship of the High Court of Australia and then resigned to become a Labor member of Parliament. In the federal field democratic government has reached about the highest possible point. In the states it is curbed to some extent by the existence of two legislative houses.
One of them—the Assembly—is chosen by full adult suffrage, but the other—the Council—is either nominated for life or is elected by owners of real estate, householders, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and military or naval officers. The Council is a legacy of the old days when property, position, or the practice of a profession was thought to confer rights to special consideration. This restricted franchise helps to make the Council more conservative than the Assembly.
Its members are older men, usually ranchers, business or professional men. They serve without pay, and are likely to look with suspicion on change, especially a change which is going to injure themselves or their class. The Councils have been a brake, slowing down and sometimes even stopping the wheels temporarily; but the record of bills actually passed shows that if there was enough popular driving force the resistance was eventually overcome and the wheels started turning again.
The Labor Party has been the chief victim of delay and has therefore sought to abolish the Councils. The most interesting features of Australian democracy are not the machinery of government, but the way it has been used, the men and parties who have operated it, and the policies they have pursued. Here we find some marked differences between American and Australian experience. American democracy was born in a rural society.
It inherited the Revolutionary dislike of an overseas government and was therefore prone to dislike all government restraint, regulation, and taxation, though it did not object to government help.
The business of government was to let you have land free or cheaply, to aid you in developing industry or trade, and to protect you from being oppressed by big fellows—unless you were a big fellow yourself.
The idea of self-government was encouraged by the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights which established that the British Parliament—and not the king—had the ultimate authority in government.
In the s, the Parliament began to pass laws regulating their colonies in the Americas. The Sugar Act established a tax of six pence per gallon of sugar or molasses imported into the colonies, and by , the Parliament had begun to ban, restrict, or tax several more products.
This provoked much anger among the colonists, despite the fact that their tax burdens were quite low when compared to most subjects of European monarchies of the same period.
Slowly, as interference from the Crown increased, the colonists felt more and more resentful about British control over the colonies. Colonial governors were appointed by the Crown, while assemblies were elected by local colonists.
In the British Empire, a governor was originally an official appointed by the British monarch or cabinet to oversee one of the colonies and be the head of the colonial administration.
The governor was invested with general executive powers and authorized to call a locally elected assembly. The governor had the power of absolute veto and could prorogue i.
The governor lived in an official residence, known in most of the colonies simply as Government House. In some colonies, the colonial assembly shared power with a royally appointed governor. On a more local level, governmental power was vested in county courts, which were self-perpetuating—the incumbents filled any vacancies and there never were popular elections.
The colonial assemblies had a variety of titles, such as House of Delegates, House of Burgesses, or Assembly of Freemen. Assemblies were made up of representatives elected by the freeholders and planters landowners of the province. The assemblies usually met for a single, brief session, although the council or governor could and sometimes did call a special session.
In practice, this was not always achieved, because many of the provincial assemblies sought to expand their powers and limit those of the governor and crown. Laws could be examined by the Board of Trade, which also held veto power over legislation. The Board of Trade originally known as the Lords of Trade or Lords of Trade and Plantations was a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, first established as a temporary committee of inquiry in the 17th century that evolved gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions.
Taxes and government budgets also originated in the assembly, and the budget was connected with the raising and equipping of the militia. The House of Burgesses was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America. The House, which consisted of delegates elected by the colonists, was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America.
The word burgess means an elected or appointed official of a municipality or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons.
Conflicts over taxation and budgets contributed to the tensions between assemblies and governors that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. As the Revolution drew near, colonial assemblies began forcibly ejecting their governors from office. Under a new charter, Massachusetts and Plymouth were united for the first time in as the royal colony of Massachusetts Bay.
The other colonies that had come under the Dominion of New England quickly reinstalled their previous governments. The Glorious Revolution had other positive effects on the colonies. The Bill of Rights and Toleration Act of affirmed freedom of worship for Christians and enforced limits on the Crown.
Equally important, John Locke's Second Treatise on Government set forth a theory of government based not on divine right but on contract, and contended that the people, endowed with natural rights of life, liberty and property, had the right to rebel when governments violated these natural rights. Colonial politics in the early 18th century resembled English politics in the 17th. The Glorious Revolution affirmed the supremacy of Parliament, but colonial governors sought to exercise powers in the colonies that the king had lost in England.
The colonial assemblies, aware of events in England, attempted to assert their "rights" and "liberties. The legislatures used these rights to check the power of royal governors and to pass other measures to expand their power and influence. The recurring clashes between governor and assembly worked increasingly to awaken the colonists to the divergence between American and English interests.
In many cases, the royal authorities did not understand the importance of what the colonial assemblies were doing and simply neglected them. However, these acts established precedents and principles and eventually became part of the "constitution" of the colonies.
In this way, the colonial legislatures established the right of self- government.
0コメント