692 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
system without a Governor, are both experimental, and need not here 
be considered. A less violent change would probably meet all 
requirements. The duties of a Governor, as chief executive officer, 
are of two kinds; (1) formal duties for which his advisers are respon- 
sible and which the political Executive might very well perform 
of themselves ; (2) discretionary duties, for which he himself is 
responsible, and the most important of which occur at Ministerial 
crises. Those might, perhaps, conveniently be entrusted to the Chief 
.Justice of the colony — who, as it is, is often called upon as Lieutenant- 
Governor to discharge these functions — and who might perhaps be 
invested with the title of Governor. Or, if it were thought anomalous 
for the Governor to he appointed by his Executive, these occasional 
duties might be entrusted to the Governor-General. True, he would 
be both an Imperial officer and a Commonwealth officer, and the 
interference of either Empire or Commonwealth in State affairs is 
undesirable. But the duties in question are quasi-judicial ones, whose 
decision requires only political impartiality and an acquaintance with 
constitutional rules and with the state of parties; and there would 
perhaps be no serious objection to their performance by the Governor- 
General, as the highest non- political officer in the Commonwealth. 
These details, however, are for the States themselves. The framers 
of a Federal Constitution have no concern with the alteration of State 
Constitutions except so far as is necessary for federal purposes. 
They have only to see that the States have facilities for altering their 
own Constitutions, and for legislating at their own sweet will, within the 
four corners of the Constitution. All that the Constitution need do 
is to define, in some way or other, the exact limits of State legislation, 
and within those limits to reserve to, or confer upon, the State Parlia- 
ments full power to alter their Constitutions and their laws. 
In speaking of the Crown so far I have considered only its 
executive and legislative functions, because it is chiefly with them 
that my argument need concern itself. But the outline of this paper 
would "not be complete without reference to the judicial authority of 
the Crown in the colonies. A British self-governing colony has of 
course full control over the administration of justice within its 
territory, except that there is an appeal in the last resort to the Privy 
Council. Federation under the Grown creates an intermediate court 
— that of the Commonwealth ; and it remains to consider what are 
the proper functions, in such a federation, of the courts of the 
Commonwealth and the Empire. With this view it is instructive to 
compare the American and Canadian systems. In America the federal 
principle of “State rights” is as strictly guarded in judicial as iu 
legislative or executive matters. The decisions of the State courts 
cannot be reviewed in the federal courts except where a special federal 
jurisdiction arises — that is, roughly speaking, when a point of federal 
law is in dispute. In cases which affect only one State or the citizens 
of one State, the decision of the highest court of that State is final, 
and there is no appeal to a federal court. Only where the case is 
one of federal jurisdiction can the Federal Supreme Court he appealed 
to. In Canada, on the other hand, the Dominion Supreme Court is a 
general court of appeal for all Canada; it has appellate jurisdiction 
in all cases arising in Canada, however local may he the interests 
affected ; so that (so far as appears from the Constitution) all 
