cusp. v] THE PREROGATIVE OF MERCY 1409 
noticed a growing tendency under certain circumstances to 
bring under criticism of the popular branch of the Legislature 
administrative functions performed by the Governor even 
under the advice of responsible ministers. How much more, 
then, would such a tendency develop in cases which concern 
the internal administration of the Colony, but where the 
Governor does not act with the advice of ministers, and can- 
not maintain that he is acting with a desire to hold the balance 
between parties, as in the case of the granting or refusal of 
a dissolution or the choice of a minister. 
11. Were it not that the Governor is directed to consult 
his Executive Council, it might be held that the Governor 
alone exercised the prerogative and was alone responsible 
for its exercise; but, as ministers must give advice, they 
must also be responsible for that advice to Parliament, and 
may at any time demand that it be taken as effective advice. 
The consequence is a responsibility differing from the 
general responsibility of the Governor to the Crown and the 
ministers to Parliament, in that it creates a double responsi- 
bility, with the possibility of deadlock. 
12. In a dispatch to the Governor of New South Wales 
on November 1, 1871, Lord Kimberley says: ‘ A Governor 
is to pay due regard to the advice of his ministers, who are 
responsible to the colony for the proper administration of 
justice and prevention of crime ;’ and your Lordship, in 
your dispatch of October 30, 1888, to the Administrator of 
the Government of Queensland, adds to that doctrine that 
the Governor ‘ will allow greater weight to the opinion of his 
ministers in cases affecting the internal administration of 
the Colony than in cases in which matters of Imperial interest 
or policy, or the interest of other countries or Colonies, are 
involved ’. Had your Lordships intended these instructions 
to apply not only to ordinary cases in which the royal 
prerogative of mercy is involved, but to capital cases also, 
the duty of the Governor would have been perfectly clear. 
13. I am not prepared to follow Mr. Ballance into an 
inquiry whether the present is a survival of Crown Colony 
practice, but I am unable to say that it appears to me 
otherwise than as an anomaly in a community possessed of 
responsible government ; for it seems incompatible with 
those principles that the Governor should be instructed to 
consult his ministers and yet be specifically instructed that 
he may, and in certain cases ought to, disregard their advice 
at the risk of finding himself without advisers able to carry 
measures and votes in Parliament.