1416 THE JUDICIARY [PART VI 
Canada criminal law is a matter for the federal parliament, 
while in the Commonwealth it is a provincial matter, each 
state retaining unfettered power to deal with offences against 
its criminal law. Moreover, the Commonwealth Courts in their 
federal jurisdiction are not intended for criminal cases of 
the kind authorized to be tried in any part of the Empire by 
the Courts of the place where the criminal is apprehended 
or in custody, and therefore the power of the Commonwealth 
extends mainly to pardoning offences against the quarantine, 
defence, customs and excise, and the postal laws of the 
Commonwealth ; in such cases there might be a double 
power of pardon, viz. the offender might, e.g. by forgery, be 
guilty of a common law or statutory offence and also of 
a crime against the postal regulations ; in such a case there 
would be power to exercise the prerogative according as he 
was indicted under the ordinary criminal law of the state or 
under the Post and Telegraph Act of the Commonwealth. It is 
true, however, that the words of the state letters patent are 
so wide that technically they would seem to cover the pardon 
of an offender by a State Governor on the advice of his state 
ministers for an offence against a Commonwealth law ; it 
is needless to say that such a proceeding would be utterly 
unconstitutional, and may be deemed as beyond the range 
of possibility ; if it did, the matter could be decided by a 
Court on proceedings taken either to secure the discharge of 
the prisoner from custody or his restoration to bondage! 
§ 5. Tue SourTH AFRICAN COLONIES AND THE UNION 
South Africa stands quite apart from the other Colonies 
regarding the exercise of this prerogative. The form 
adopted in the case of the Cape in 1872 and again in the 
! That in Canada the Governor-General could pardon offences against 
provincial laws under the terms of his former instructions even in 1878, is 
quite clear, was deliberately intended by the Imperial Government, and 
is asserted in Canada Sess. Pap., 1869, No. 16. Before federation matters 
were different in regard to Upper Canada, where both the Governor- 
General and the Lieutenant-Governor had a delegation ; see Upper Canada 
Leaislative Assembly Journals, 1839, IL. ii. 625.