caAP. 11] THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR 139 
and it was the duty of the Governor to cause a writ to be 
issued for a new election. It was contended before the 
High Court that it was impossible to issue a mandamus in 
this case, and the decision of the High Court was in favour 
of this contention. The Court pointed out that under the 
constitutions of the states it was provided that upon a 
dissolution of the House of Assembly the writs for a General 
Election were to be issued by the Governor, but it had never 
been suggested that if the Governor failed to issue the writs 
a mandamus would lie from a State Court to compel him 
to do so. There was always a remedy in such a case, but 
it was to be sought from the direct intervention of the 
Sovereign and not by recourse to a court of law. 
The case of an election of the Senate was not quite 
analogous. It was conceivable that the Executive Govern- 
ment of a state for the time being might desire that no 
senator should be chosen to fill a particular vacancy. If 
they advised the Governor to abstain from taking any action 
to fill it, and refused to afford him the necessary administra- 
tive facilities, and he accordingly did nothing, it might be 
that he would have failed in his duty, but if so it was clear 
that the duty would be one which he owed to the State 
sollectively. It was not easy to see how in such a case he 
could perform the duty without dismissing his ministers 
and finding others, and that power was manifestly one the 
exercise of which could not be reviewed by any authority 
but the Sovereign. The duty, therefore, was one of the duties 
which the constitutional head of a state owed to the state 
(and in the case of a Governor, but in a slightly different sense, 
to the Sovereign), and its performance must be enforced 
in the manner appropriate to the case of such duties. 
Instances of such duties, duties of imperfect obligation, 
were familiar to students of constitutional law. 
Apart altogether from these considerations, they thought 
that a mandamus would not lie to a Governor of a state to 
compel him to do an act in his capacity of Governor. There 
was, of course, no British precedent for such a writ. Reference 
had been made to the cases in which it had been held that