ersonal responsibility cannot be distinguished in practice from
his responsibility to the Crown, which appoints and can remove him.
Cases have arisen where the Governor of a self-governing Colony has
written home for special guidance on some specific point, and where the
answer given has been that he must act on his own responsibility, or
follow the advice of his Ministers. All Colonial Governors, however,
whether or not their powers are defined in the Constitution, are
appointed by Commission from the Crown with powers defined in Letters
Patent and Instructions as to their exercise. These Letters Patent and
Instructions are not of much importance in the case of a self-governing
Colony where responsible advice so largely controls the action of the
Governor. Sometimes the executive powers given by Instructions to the
Governor are indirectly alluded to in the Constitution, as in the South
Africa Act of 1909, where, by Clause 9, under the head of "Executive
Government," the Governor-General is "to exercise such powers and
functions of the King as His Majesty may be pleased to assign to him."
In the Australian and Canadian Acts of 1900 and 1867 respectively, the
words do not appear. I name this point because in Clause 5 of the Home
Rule Bill of 1893, and Clause 7 of the Bill of 1886, a similar course
was taken in providing that the Lord-Lieutenant should "exercise any
prerogatives, or other executive power of the Queen, the exercise of
which may be delegated to him by Her Majesty." The words are not
strictly necessary. The Lord-Lieutenant will, of course, have his
Letters Patent and Instructions, but the powers of the Crown are
theoretically absolute. If the Crown, acting under responsible British
advice, should wish to defy the Irish Legislature, it could do so
whatever the terms of the Bill.

Naturally, there will be certain Imperial and non-Irish matters in which
the Lord-Lieutenant will act primarily under the orders of the British
Cabinet, and the Departmental British Minister primarily responsible for
Irish-Imperial matters would be the Home Secretary.[169]

The question may be raised, as in 1893 (July 3, Hansard), whether a
staff of Imperial officials ought not to be set up to conduct any
Imperial business which has to be done in Ireland, on the analogy of the
Federal staff in the United States. I hope Mr. Gladstone's answer will
still hold good--that no such staff is needed; that the Irish officials
will be respons