THE JUDICIARY [PART VI 
of the public, where a merciful consideration is prayed for 
and is refused. 
I entertain grave doubts whether any change at present 
from the system which has hitherto prevailed will be bene- 
ficial to the Colony. In a community so small as ours, the 
distinctions between classes are very slight. The persons 
entrusted with authority and the relatives and friends of 
prisoners move closely together. The means of political 
pressure are easily accessible. A larger share by the minister 
in the exercise of the prerogative of pardon would not, in 
my judgement, be more satisfactory to the public. But if 
a change is to take place, and the cases of prisoners are to be 
decided on the advice of ministers, I can see no sufficient 
reason for making a distinction between this class of business 
and the ordinary business of Government. The minister 
ought to inquire into and examine each case, and each case 
ought to be decided on his advice. The refusal of the 
Governor to accept his advice in any case of this kind ought 
to have the same significance and effect as a similar refusal 
in any other case. In no other way can the minister be 
fairly responsible to Parliament for what is done. Either 
‘ the responsibility of deciding upon such applications * must 
still “rest with the Governor’, as Lord Granville expresses 
it, or it must rest with the minister in the only way in which 
it would be just to hold him responsible. 
(Signed) Henry PARKES. 
Colonial Secretary’s Office, Sydney, May 30, 1874. 
(Extract.) Government House, Sydney, June 29, 1874. 
In a public dispatch by this mail I have forwarded to 
your Lordship a parliamentary paper, showing the decision 
which has been come to in Executive Council as to the mode 
of exercising the prerogative of pardon in cases which are 
not provided for by the royal instructions, but I think it 
right, at the same time, to state fully in this confidential 
dispatch all the circumstances which have occurred here, 
and which have led to the conclusion which has at length 
been arrived at on this subject. 
When I assumed the Government of New South Wales, in 
June 1872, my attention was almost immediately attracted 
to this question by finding a number of petitions for mitiga- 
tion of sentences submitted for my decision, without any 
opinion or advice endorsed on them by the Colonial Secretary, 
through whose hands they reached me. I was the more 
surprised at this because I was aware that such a course