128 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [Parr II 
seals : it is true that there are no express words fettering 
the prerogative, but the enactment is very clear; it deals 
with a matter normally regulated by prerogative and 
deliberately ignores the prerogative, and gives a new and 
anexpected power to the Lieutenant-Governors of the 
provinces. It was therefore a mistake to address the same 
warrant to these provinces as to Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick. It would have been better to suggest to these 
provinces the adoption of the new seals, and this was indeed 
ultimately done. Again, the decision of the Dominion 
Parliament to legislate seems to have been clearly wrong : 
it was no doubt influenced by a doctrine then prevalent in 
Canada, and asserted by the Supreme Court in the case of 
Lenoir v. Ritchie that the Provincial Parliaments could not 
touch the royal prerogatives at all, as the Crown had no part 
in the legislation of these provinces. But in point of fact the 
Dominion Parliament had no right to legislate on the topic at 
all, and the only power which could legislate was the Legis- 
lature of Nova Scotia or, of course, the Imperial Parliament. 
The existing letters patent for the Dominions and the 
states expressly authorize the Governor to keep the great 
seal and use it for sealing whatever he may have to seal 
under the Colonial law or practice with it. He is not autho- 
rized to change the seal, and this is done by the Crown. In 
the case of the Commonwealth and the Union the Governor- 
General was authorized to use his private seal until such 
time as a Commonwealth or Union seal was provided. In 
the case of the states the Governors were authorized to 
use the old Colonial seals until there were new state seals 
provided. A new seal was provided, of course, for the Union 
of South Africa, but the Dominion of New Zealand did not 
have a new seal on the occasion of the elevation of the Colony 
to the rank of a Dominion. New seals are also issued on 
sach demise of the Crown.? 
It may be argued from this case that the fact that a subject 
is specially mentioned in the letters vatent shows that it is 
* 38. C. R. 575. 
* See for the form, New Zealand Parl. Pap., 1904, A. 2, pp. 8, 9.