284 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [part It
grounds, in the sense that they rested on grounds which the
Imperial Government believed it was their duty in the
interest of the whole Empire to maintain. Thus, as will be
seen later, for years they thought that it was right that all
pardons in the case of criminals should be given on the
deliberate judgement of the Governor, advisedly insisting
upon this rule in the case of local matters as well as Imperial.
Or, as will also be seen later, they insisted on Governors
reserving currency Bills, divorce Bills, and Bills for differential
duties along with Bills more clearly of Imperial interest in
the narrower sense of the term in which are included only
matters which affect the Empire independently of the
particular part concerned, such as matters affecting the
control of the Imperial troops in the Colonies and acts
prejudicing persons in other parts of the Empire, or British
shipping. The whole process of self-government has con-
sisted in a development of the conception of the narrower
sense of Imperial interest, and in the recognition of the fact
that the government of a Colony in its internal affairs is
normally not a matter with which the Imperial Government
can or should interfere ; it may be said in a wider sense that
the good or the bad government of a Colony is a matter of
intense importance to the Empire, but it is of more impor-
tance to the Colony, and the Colony must be left to decide
whether or not it approves its system. The principle is
a sound and very wise one ; the various parts of the Empire
must develop internally on their own lines ; there must be no
effort at a uniformity even if that uniformity is much better
in theory than the diversity which independence always
produces. The real life of the Empire might well fail entirely
to survive artificial uniformity, for the Empire is an organism
in which the development of the whole is dependent on the
free growth of the several parts.
Of this new sense of Imperial interest there is no trace at
all in the old-fashioned letters patent and instructions of
the Cape and of Newfoundland. But save in such cases
the prerogative of mercy is to be exercised subject to minis-
terial advice according to the letters patent issued for the
