tHAP. 11] THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR 121 
§ 4. TeE ArPOoINTMENT OF King’s COUNSEL 
If the view is accepted that the Governor has the whole 
executive power and nothing more or less, so far as it is 
needed for colonial government, then it becomes easier to 
understand the decision of the great case of the appoint- 
ment of Queen’s Counsel which agitated legal circles in 
Canada for years! On January 4, 1872, the Governor- 
General of Canada inquired from the Imperial Government 
whether since confederation the Governor-General was alone 
entitled to appoint Queen’s Counsel in Canada, or whether 
the power was also possessed by the Lieutenant-Governors, 
and whether a provincial legislature was in a position to 
pass an Act empowering the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint 
Queen’s Counsel, and how the question of precedence should 
be settled. Lord Kimberley, after consulting the law officers, 
replied on February 1, that the Governor-General had the 
power to appoint Queen’s Counsel, and that the Lieutenant- 
Governor had no such right, but that the Lieutenant- 
Governor could be given the power by statute, and might 
determine thus the right of precedence in provincial Courts 
between the counsel with appointments from the Governor- 
General and those with merely provincial appointments. 
But despite this correspondence, which he seems not to have 
known, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario on the advice 
of his ministers decided to appoint certain counsel, and the 
appointments were notified in the official gazette of the 
province. The Dominion Government then decided to point 
out that there was great doubt regarding the soundness of 
the appointment of these gentlemen, and agreed to issue 
new commissions by the Governor-General, appointing them 
Queen’s Counsel for Ontario. Naturally Ontario objected to 
this procedure, and said that they would legislate, while 
the Dominion Government recommended that a friendly 
t Elsewhere there was also doubt, as in Victoria, and the local appoint- 
ment of Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand dates only from 1903. But it is 
now universally practised. It began in Victoria in 1863: see Morris, 
Memoir of George Higinbotham, pp. 81. 82.