car. ir] THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 953 
administration of native affairs and of matters affecting 
specially or differentially Asiatics throughout the Union 
shall vest in the Governor-General in Council, who shall 
likewise exercise all special powers in regard tonative adminis- 
tration hitherto vested in the Governors of the Colonies or 
exercised by them as supreme chiefs, and shall control all 
native reserves, which if previously inalienable save by Act 
of a Colonial Parliament shall remain inalienable save under 
an Act of the Union Parliament. The insertion of this clause 
is no doubt intended to do away with the previous rule, 
ander which in native affairs the Governor of Natal was 
especially bound by the royal instructions of 1893 to act 
on his personal discretion after consultation with ministers, 
while a similar rule is clearly implied in the provisions of 
the Constitutions of the Transvaal! and Orange River 
Colony.? 
The fact that a power is assigned to a Governor or to a 
Governor in Council is not a distinction of much importance.? 
By the royal instructions issued to the Governor he is told 
to consult his ministers, and constitutional practice renders 
their advice equally necessary in the cases where legally he 
must act in Council and in those where he can legally act 
without ministerial advice. There is, in fact, no act which 
a Governor should do without advice, if his ministers are 
willing to advise, and the only matter of importance is to 
decide when to accept and when to reject that advice. In 
considering this question the Governor can receive in the 
great majority of cases no help from the mere legal fact of 
an Order in Council being required or not. Nor again, must 
it be remembered, is the legal difficulty absolutely fatal: it is 
! Letters Patent, December 6, 1906, s. 51. 
* Letters Patent, June 5, 1907, s. 53. 
* The Interpretation Act, 1910, No. 5, of the Union provides that 
Governor-General shall in all cases mean Governor-General in Couneil, 
a curiously logical insistence on the rule of ministerial responsibility. 
Cf. Higinbotham C.J. in Attorney-General v. Goldsbrough, (1889) 15 
V. L. R. 638, at p. 647; Sir J. Macdonald in C. 2445, p. 1563; Lefroy, 
Legislative Power in Canada, p. 193, n. 1; Barton, Melbourne Federal 
Debates, pp. 2253, 2254 ; above, pp. 150, n. 1; 729, n. 3: 948. n. 1.