CHAPTER V 
THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 
§1. Tee EXPENDITURE oF PuBric Funps 
THERE is another limitation to the right and duty of the 
Governor to act on ministerial advice, unless he sees fit for 
adequate cause to dismiss his Ministry or cause them to 
resign by refusing to accept their advice on some matter 
which they deem of essential importance to them in the 
conduct of the Government. He is, as we have seen above, 
bound to obey the law because he is not immune from 
action, criminal or civil, if he disobeys the law. His letters 
patent and his commission record the duty in clear language, 
and he should remember the paramount importance of being 
above suspicion of illegality. It is also a matter in which 
his double responsibility, that to his ministers and that to 
the Secretary of State, comes into full play. The Colony is 
entitled to expect that the head of the Government will not 
in any way infringe the law of the land ; in a constitutional 
Dominion there is only one way of altering law, that is the 
change of the law by the legally constituted legislative body, 
and the violation of law is not a matter which can possibly 
be condoned without the gravest cause. 
We have seen in the case of dissolutions the duty which 
the Governor has thrown upon him to try to secure supply 
before he grants a dissolution : whenever that is not done 
there will certainly be a time when the law will, strictly 
speaking, be violated if the public obligations are to be met. 
But this fact is subject to various considerations : in the 
first place, in the Australian Colonies, which are, and have 
always been, by far the greatest offenders in this respect in 
virtue of the constant change of Ministries, the practice exists 
and has always existed for moneys to be paid out on a 
Governor’s warrant anticipating the sanction of Parliament. 
This custom is not a desirable one, but it has been so rooted 
in the practice of those Colonies, now States, that it cannot