crap. 11] THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR 129
one which would not be included in the usual grant of power
to a Colonial Governor, except for express words. But this
argument would be erroneous, because the letters patent
are not historically such instruments as can be relied upon
for giving indications of deliberate views of law on such
apoint. They are, historically, revised versions of documents
which were used in days of Crown Colony administration,
and the idea in setting forth the rights of the Governor was
mainly to secure that he did not exercise more of the execu-
tive power than he was wanted to do, and therefore the
present form of these instruments does not shed light on
a distinction between executive authority and the delegation
of special prerogatives. For example, all the letters patent
confer on the Governor the power of appointing and dis-
missing officers. These clauses are certainly not necessary
to confer the right even in cases where, like Tasmania or
the Cape, no special provision is made in the matter in the
Constitution Acts. In the Crown Colony letters patent they
are inserted to limit and define, by the further conditions
there added, the power of dismissal, and in the early days
of responsible government, indeed sometimes right down to
the days of the issue of permanent letters patent after 1875,
the power of dismissal was hampered by directions as to the
procedure to be adopted so as to secure that each case was
fully investigated, just as it still is under the Crown Colony
régime. Nowadays when they are merely formal they are
otiose, and in this regard the letters patent are hardly needed.
§ 6. THE PREROGATIVE OF MERCY
A different problem is presented by the letters patent con-
ferring the power to pardon. Is the power to pardon a pre-
rogative which is carried by a grant of executive authority
generally ? There is unhappily no real case on the subject
which is quite in point. The matter isone of those which have
been considered at great length in Canada in connexion with
the power of the Lieutenant-Governors to pardon offences
against the laws of the provinces. The power of pardon
in Canada generally was beyond question conferred on the
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