132 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART IT
whenever necessary to repel an invasion of the territory of the
colony of which he was Governor. Nor, again, does he possess
the power of making treaties without special authority, which
has been sometimes accorded, especially in the case of the
Governors of the Cape and the Transvaal. Nor, of course, has
he ever had the prerogative of creating legislative bodies, or
any prerogatives which are obviously annexed to the Crown,
and could not be applicable to a Colonial Governor in any
conceivable circumstances. Without special delegation he
could not, it seems, create Courts, but this power has often
been given by the Crown. But what he has is great enough
for all purposes : he has all the vast executive authority which
must be possessed by any person who has to administer a
Colony or a Dominion. In many matters the Governor or
Governor in Council is legally empowered by statute to do all
sorts of executive actions which are deemed too considerable
to allow of their being properly disposed of merely by being
delegated to a minister or department. The practice of dele-
gating to the Governor or Governor in Council respectively
rests on no principle, and varies from Colony to Colony, from
Act to Act, but the difference in wording is unimportant.
In some cases indeed it has been argued that the term
Governor denotes personal responsibility. This was held by
Sir W. Manning on January 20, 1869, as regards The Volun-
teer Force Act, 1867, of New South Wales. He laid it down
that the Governor was given a position as Commander-in-
Chief, that as such he was bound to accept responsibility,
and that ministerial advice was neither desirable nor con-
stitutional. The only result was, of course, that the Governor
became involved in attacks on his action in connexion with
a dismissal under the Act, and Sir H. Robinson warmly depre-
cated thus being exposed to a personal responsibility for such
acts.2 The untenable nature of the distinction of Governor in
Council and Governor has been shown by Mr. Justice Clark 3
' Clark, Australian Constituitonal Law, pp. 262 seq.
?* Parl. Pap., C. 1202, pp. 53, 54.
* Op. cit., pp. 252-91; cf. Quick and Garran, Constitution of Common-
wealth, p. 701.
