172 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II
officer, or to maintain the separation which he endeavoured
to assert of the responsibility of the Colonial Government in
internal matters and the absolute control of the Imperial
Government in external affairs.
As a matter of fact, the Governor in his twofold capacity
as head of the Colonial Executive and representative of the
Crown, and as an officer appointed by the Imperial Govern-
ment, serves as a link between the Imperial and the Colonial
Governments, and it is impossible to treat him as serving
solely in either capacity. It is impossible to doubt the
legality or the constitutionality of the Government receiving
instructions from the Crown ; the Chief Justice stated that
if appointed to act as officer administering the Government
in the absence of the Governor he would decline to send
reports to the Secretary of State except such as he was asked
by his ministers to furnish! That he adopted that position,
which was no doubt logical, is sufficient to show how un-
practical were his views of the position of the Governor.
On the one hand he emphasized almost unnecessarily the
dependent character of a Colonial Government, while on the
other hand he emphasized the independence of its adminis-
tration. The separation of the two sides of its activities is
impossible. A Colonial Government is part of the Empire,
and must play its share in the external relations of the
Empire, and on the other hand it cannot claim, owing to the
fact that it is not a separate entity, the full development
of ministerial responsibility which appertains to the Ministry
in the United Kingdom, and which is enjoyed by the Execu-
tive Government of a Sovereign State in the full technical
sense of the term.
§ 4. TeE DuaL PoSITION OF THE (GOVERNOR
There is certainly this great advantage about the views
of both Mr. Higinbotham and Mr. Blake that they distin-
guish clearly between the Governor in his post as head
* Accordingly he was not allowed to administer the Government at any
ime, special arrangements being made to avoid this contingency ; see
Dilke, Problems of Greater Brituin, i. 233 seq.
