§ 272. “The Executive Power of the Commonwealth.”
The expression, “The Executive power of the Commonwealth,” must be read to mean the Federal Executive power as distinguished from the Executive power reserved to the States. As to the secondary meaning of the term “Commonwealth,” in which it is equivalent in signification to Federal Government, see note, § 43, supra. The Executive power reserved to the States by the Federal Constitution is as much a part of the Executive power of the Commonwealth, as a united political community, as the Federal Executive power; both powers are but sub-divisions or fractions of the one quasi-sovereign power, as will appear in the following conspectus:—
It may be said that the whole mass of the Executive authority of the Commonwealth is divided into two parts; that portion which belongs to the Federal Government, in relation to Federal affairs, being assigned to the Governor-General as the Queen's Representative, and that portion which relates to matters reserved to the States being vested in Governors of the States. The Executive authority reserved to the Governors
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of the States, is of the same origin but of higher antiquity than that newly created authority conferred on the Governor-General. The State Executive authority is of as much importance within its sphere as the Federal Executive authority is within the Federal sphere. The Executive authority possessed by a State Governor, acting as the Queen's Representative in and for a State, is not of a subordinate nature, or of an inferior quality; it is of the same nature and quality as that possessed by the Queen's Representative acting in the name of the Commonwealth. See the arguments in the Attorney-General of Canada v. Attorney-General of Ontario (1892, 3 Ont. App. 6).