Talk:Governor-General

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1 Cleanup
2 Hyphen
3 In NZ ...
4 No Second-in-Line in Australia
5 Governor General Ceases to Represent British Government
6 Governor General and Queen's Powers
7 Netherlands
8 Something wrong
9 Later political careers
10 India
11 Governor[-]General

[edit] Cleanup

I've completely rewritten this article for clarity, brevity, and to reduce reduncancy. I've been very careful to respect all and retain most of the pre-existing information in the article (though it's been entirely re-arranged), and have noted anything that was actually removed, along with my reasons for doing so. I discuss specific changes below.

All in all, the article is much cleaner, clearer, and all but one or two bits of information are retained (though sometimes removed to a more appropriate location). The cleanup also makes fairly obvious what the article needed all along: more information on Governor-Generals in general and a balance to the Anglo-centricism of the article.

[edit] Appoitment Section =

The substantic information in this section is already explicit in much of the article, and many of the particular points have been subsumed under the more chronologically oriented discussion. The original had a lot of duplicate information (even before the rewrite), and when that was removed, it just wasn't very substantive on it's own. Plus, the paraticular points merged well with the rewritten article. The points that were particular to a particular terratorial Governor-General history were moved to that article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Governor-General_of_Australia&diff=39592743&oldid=38482756
I was going to move the bit about the Governor-General of India to the specific Governor-General of India article, but it seemed to contradict information in that article, so I took the latter as controling and merely deleted it.

[edit] Commonwealth Countries with Governors-General

I simplified put this information under the "see also"; while British Governor-Generals are probably, especially from an Anglo-centric viewpoint, the most important of the governor generals, this is an article about Governor-Generals and not only Commonwealath Governor-Generals. The additional information of the dates and websites seems like it would be better placed in the specific articles. In addition to cleaning up the article as viewed, it's also worthwhile to simplify the Wiki-code itself where reasonable to do so. I also alphabetized the list.

[edit] Other Attributes

This section was removed. The first part had redundent information that users could access by going to individual articles. Also, it was at too specific, talking about the differences only between former commonwealth territories. If someone can formulate a concise way to state the differences between the post in a more general sense, that may be worth putting back into the article somewhere.

The main point in the paragraph on presidencies is already captured in the section "Modern Times: In the Former British Colonies", and the specific detalis are already captured in the articles pertaining to the particular posts.

The bit about the uniform was largely incorporated into the historical context. The bit about the South African Governor-General was removed as being too specific. (I have not checked to see if the information is in the article on the South African Governor General).

The bit about the flags of the governor general was removed. This is actually something I'm not sure about, but the problem is that it really didn't fit nicely in the historical discussion, and it just didn't seem very important. Certainly not important enough to warrant it's own section. If someone feels strongly about it, they can put it back in somewhere. The bit about Canada changing the flag, though, was way to specific and should go in the Canadian Governor-General article.

I also removed the bit about addressing the Governor-General for the same reasons.

[edit] Former colonial Commonwealth posts and Former post-colonial posts representing the British Sovereign as local Head of State

I checked each and every entry, and there was already a listing for "Governor-General of X", or where there was not, I created one. I did put these in the "see also", but did not give them seperate lines as they are mostly quite trivial and the vertical size of the list was absolutely dominating the article. In many cases, the info on the more specific page was far more complete.

The one exception is this bit:

1 August 1953 - 31 December 1963 The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (also called the Central African Federation) comprising Southern Rhodesia (present Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (present Zambia) and Nysaland (present Malawi)

I simply removed this as it does not actually list any Governor-Generals.

New articles:

There was never an entity called British Guyana - it was British Guiana and then it became Guyana in 1966. There was never a Governor-General of Sri Lanka, only a Governor-General of Ceylon. Sri Lanka is and always has been a republic. Quiensabe 13:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Same with Tanzania and Rhodesia - neither had Governors-General (for different historical reasons) I have changed the text and moved them to Ceylon, Tanganyika, and Guyana, and Governor-General of Rhodesia to Governor of Rhodesia Quiensabe 14:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other equivalents

This section was empty.

[edit] Source and References

I removed the intra-wikipedia references (which was all but one) as it's rather innapropriate to cite a thing as it's own reference. :) Forgive me if this is presumptious, but I don't see the difference between this and if World Book were to cite it's own articles as justification for another. In that case, it's manifestly of little value, and potentially very harmful. If something becomes merely self-referencing, then it can easily float away from reality. Yet the presence of 'references' tend to lend an air of credibility and research which is somewhat disengenuous.

[edit] Misc Bits I removed

Picture of Canadian Governor General: this just didn't add anything to the article and seemed more appropriate under the [ [Governor-General_of_Canada] ] article; I was going to put it there, but there's already a very similar picture. Code:

[ [Image:btweedsmuir2.jpg|right|frame|[ [John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir|Lord Tweedsmuir] ] was [ [Governor General of Canada] ] from 1935 to 1940. The uniform worn here was the customary ceremonial dress for Commonwealth Governors General until recently.] ]

The talk about Governor-Generals in modern times beginning with In its modern usage, the term "Governor-General" originated in those British... was confusing. It seemed to be saying that the title Governor-General was not historically universal in all colonies, though it's usage has been regualised. I retained that. Some of the specific mentions, such as Canada and Australia, where confusing each had the post at different times, whereas the mentioning here seemed to imply that there was some universal regulation. I would suggest that the particulars of the particular realms, which readers can reference through the "see also" notes or through the Commonwealth realm article linked in the paragraph would be a more appropriate place to make the point of titular changes for each of the territories.
Image of Governor-Geniral of the Irish Free State: again, not directly relevant to this article moved to the Governor-General of the Irish Free State article.

WikipediaAdventures 16:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC) (Zane Rockenbaugh)

What the heck? What you are done in a whole range of areas is wrong. For a start cutting out images is dead wrong. A professional encyclopaedia uses images of the holders of the office for layout reasons. A text-alone article is a non-starter. So the images have to go back. For a start the Buchan photo is directly relevant in showing the standard visual representation of a Commonwealth GG until recently. The Healy photo is 100% relevant. The manner of his appointment, in which the native government was directly involved, albeit informally, broke new constitutional ground in the then empire so he is an automatic have to include. Secondly you have removed important contextual information. The whole point of an article like this is to pull together information, not scatter it around into other articles. Articles like this pull together themes and draw attention to parallels, similarities and differences. That requires a lot of the detail you removed.

I don't doubt the sincerity of your edits, but I doubt the wisdom of removing a lot of stuff. But I do appreciate your decision to explain your edits. FearÉIREANN

\^(caint) 00:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It would help if you could identify yourself. Hit the ~ key four times. A lot of the stuff is sloppy and inaccurate (references to Commonwealth realms as British Commonwealth and non-existent places like British Guyana) and the English needed working on - the word is colonial outpost, not colonial post and virtually nobody says autochthonous in English. By all means include references to usage in other parts of the world, but current usage is confined to Commonwealth realms - Netherlands Antilles and Aruba have Governors, not Governors-General.Quiensabe 13:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hyphen

OK, I'm going to start the discussion here, so we don't keep moving back and forth between my, Jtdirl, and Cafemusique's talk pages. It appears that sometimes the hyphen is used, and sometimes it's not; in Canada it is apparently official that there is no hyphen. I'm not convinced that it would be an error by the people who made the webpage to leave out the hyphen...and while it may be official to use the hyphen in Ireland or Australia, I don't think that means it is necessarily official in Canada.

Personally, I don't think it matters, as long as one redirects to the other, since searching for governor general with or without a hyphen makes no difference (either on Wikipedia, or Google). Perhaps we could just make a note about the hyphen use on this article's page, if it turns out Canada doesn't use the hyphen. Adam Bishop 23:09 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Certainly if Canada dropped the hypen it is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) the Irish "Representative of the Crown" was modelled on the Canadian Governor-General. In the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922 the term governor-general was used and it was taken exactly from Canada. If Canada had no hypen then, Ireland wouldn't have had one either.

I'll check with Buckingham Palace to see if they know whether the Letters-Patent governing the GG were varied to drop the hypen. The Letters-Patent are the definitive source because they define the office and are drafted by the Canadian Government. If they use a hypen, then the GG is hypenated. If they don't anymore then it no longer is. What is the GG called by French canadians? Might the hypen have been dropped to suit the linguistic needs of Quebec? FearÉIREANN 23:33 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In French it's just Gouverneur Général, with no hyphen. But there are French words with hyphens, so I don't think that is a problem. Adam Bishop 23:40 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] In NZ ...

it's Governor-General

[[LETTERS PATENT CONSTITUTING THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF NEW ZEALAND]]

[edit] No Second-in-Line in Australia

I can't speak for other countries, but in Australia it is most definitely not the case that there is any "second-in-line" to the GG. Where the GG goes overseas in an official capacity, dies in office, goes on leave, or is prevented by illness from performing his duties, the convention is that the most senior state Governor is appointed Administrator of the Commonwealth. However that appointment is an explicit appointment made by the government of the day; it is not some sort of automatic succession to the office like the US V-P succeeding to the Presidency on the death of the President. The government is under no obligation to appoint the most senior state governor. In fact Gough Whitlam removed the capacity of the then Queensland governor Sir Colin Hannah to be appointed Administrator in such circumstances, due to Hannah's grossly inappropriate partisan political public comments. Hannah wasn't the senior governor at the time, but he was prevented from ever being made Administrator in the event that he were ever to become the senior governor. The subsequent Fraser government (and of course Gough himself) could have reversed that decision, but to my knowledge never did. But the point is that the government decides who the GG is, and the governemnt decides who the Administrator is. I even doubt that a government is under any obligation to appoint any state governor at all. What's to prevent, say, a Chief Justice or indeed any eminent person from being appointed Administrator? Nothing as far as I'm aware. JackofOz 04:13, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In Canada, the Chief Justice is, by convention, appointed as the Administrator of Canada if the Governor General were ever to die, be incapacitated, be unable to perform his or her duties, or to be absent from the country for a period of longer than one month. This happened in the recent past when the Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, PC, CC, CMM, COM, CD, LL.D. was unable to perform her duties due to the installation of a pacemaker; the Rt. Hon. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, PC, automatically became the Administrator. I just thought that maybe Canada's procedure might help? FiveParadox 05:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Governor General Ceases to Represent British Government

There is a contradiction in the article on the issue of when the Governor General ceased to represent the British government. At one point the article states that the change took effect in 1927. Then, only a few lines later, we learn that the Governor General still represented the British government until 1929 when there was a dispute over the appointment of the Australian Governor General. Is someone able to clarify this? HistoryBA 00:00, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some realms kept the G-G as a representative of the imperial gov't longer than others. This was the case in NZ until 1939. Alphaboi867 02:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Governor General and Queen's Powers

This article needs to make it clear that the Australian Governor-General's constitutional powers are his own, unlike Canada or New Zealand where the Governor-General's powers are exercised on behelf of the Queen. There is no possibility of the Queen over-riding the Australian Governor-General, for instance. She doesn't hold his powers, may nnot exercise them, and may not instruct him on how to use them. Skyring 18:15, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Netherlands

I've removed the Netherlands Dependent Area entries from the list, to a separate list. The section headings go:

1 Commonwealth Usage
    * 1.1 Appointment

In the Commonwealth Usage section of the article, there is a list of Commonwealth GGs. I've created a Dutch section for the Netherlands GGs. Even though the idea being followed with including the Dutch GGs is that "a viceroy is a viceroy", the different histories etc between the two flavours mean that the two cannot be mixed—you can't compare apples and oranges.

DiamondVertex 21:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something wrong

Actually its wrong. The Queen (or more likely King) has overruled the governor general at least once in the 20th century. Governor General Byng left Canada for England when it came time to choose a new Prime Minister, and the King ordered him to return for the election. AllStarZ 04:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Later political careers

When Lord Alexander of Tunis ceased his term as GG of Canada, he became Minister for Defence in Britain. Is there any other case of a GG or vice-regal rep coming down from the non-partisan Olympus and rejoining the political fray? I would have thought that could be seen as casting a light on his actions as GG, not a perception the Crown would be keen to foster. JackofOz 22:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Ed Schreyer, former Governor General of Canada, ran unsuccessfully for the House of Commons in the 2006 federal election. Masalai 09:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. How very interesting. JackofOz 10:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] India

Regarding hyphenation see Talk:Governor-General of India. Greentubing 04:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Governor[-]General

Is the bracketed hyphen in Governor[-]General really necessary? I understand that there are differences between Canada's (& India's) style and other styles, but it seems absurd to add a bracket in every instance of the term. Think of how unwieldy the article on color would be if it was written as colo[u]r throughout the entire article! I really suggest that it be "Governor-General", the name of the article, in all instances not regarding Canada or India, and "Governor General" in those places. Comrade^4·2 01:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the [-] is ugly and unnecessary. I'm going to get rid of it. FiggyBee 14:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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