CHAPTER III 
THE GOVERNOR AND MINISTERS 
§ 1. Tue GovERNOR AND THE Executive CoUNCIL 
Ix a Crown Colony the Governor in effect constitutes the 
Executive Government: he is indeed surrounded with 
a Council, and he is often required by law to do certain 
things in Council : moreover, he is expected by constitutional 
practice and by the royal instructions to deal with much 
business in Council, and as a matter of fact the business 
of the Colony is in large measure so disposed of, by discussion 
and consideration of questions raised in the several depart- 
ments. But the Governor is entitled to overrule, and does 
readily overrule if he thinks it desirable, his Executive 
Council, and the responsibility for decision rests upon him, 
in so far as he is not able by reference home to throw it 
upon the Secretary of State. 
The matter is far otherwise in a self-governing Dominion 
or State. There the Governor occupies a position nearly 
the reverse of that occupied by him in a Crown Colony. 
The ministers govern while the Governor looks on, is the 
popular conception of responsible government, and the idea 
has been given additional force by utterances of so distin- 
guished a man as the late Mr. Goldwin Smith. ‘ A Governor 
ls now politically a cipher,” he wrote; ‘he holds a petty 
court and bids champagne flow under his roof, receives 
civic addresses and makes flattering replies, but he has 
lost all power not only of initiation but of salutary control.’ 
This was written no doubt under the influence of the dis- 
! Cf. Lord Lansdowne in House of Lords, April 10, 1905; Col. Seely in 
House of Commons, June 29, 1910; Cape Parl. Pap., 1878, A. 2, p. 14; 
Parl. Pap., C. 911, pp. 18, 19, 26; C. 3382, p. 268; TW. A. L. R. 230; 
Norton v. Fullon, 39 S. C. R. 202; [1908] A. C. 451; Dilke, Problems 
of Seater Britain, i. 295, 296; Transvaal Legislative Council Debates, 1907, 
n. 135.