COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 1569 
nature of the powers, though of course within the limits of 
the statute law of the Colony and of the common-law powers 
of the Crown in that Colony. The instruments are therefore 
perfectly simple and useful. It is, however, the division 
of the documents which has led to the Chief Justice of South 
Australia thinking that under the power to appoint a deputy 
Governor given in the letters patent the deputy can only 
exercise powers resting on the prerogative, and not therefore 
powers given by statute law, except perhapssuch powersasare 
merely reaffirmations of prerogative powers. Fora deputy is 
merely one form of a Governor, and so long as the commission 
contained both the appointment of the Governor and his 
powers the right of the Crown to say that a man selected by 
the Governor should be Governor for certain purposes could 
hardly be denied! But the division of instruments was 
neither intended to change nor has it really changed the 
position. 
LETTERS PATENT passed under the Great Seal of the 
United Kingdom, constituting the Office of Governor- 
General and Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth 
of Anstralia,. 
Letters Patent, Dated 29th October 1900. 
Victoria, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of 
India : To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting. 
WHEREAS, by an Act of Parliament passed on the Ninth day of 
July 1900, in the Sixty-fourth year of Our Reign, intituled An Act 
to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia’? it is enacted that 
“it shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the Privy Council, 
to declare by Proclamation that, on and after a day therein ap- 
pointed, not being later than one year after the passing of this 
Act, the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, 
Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her Majesty is satisfied 
that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto, of 
Western Australia, shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth 
under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia. But the 
Queen may, at any time after proclamation. appoint a Governor- 
General for the Commonwealth :’ 
And whereas We did on the Seventeenth day of September One 
thousand nine hundred. bv and with the advice of Qur Privy Council, 
¢ Unless it were held that there could only be one person at a time with guber- 
natorial functions, and for this I know no authority, while practice has uniformly 
heen otherwige 2°69  B4 Vict 0 19.