CHAP, 1] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 673 
tannot disallow state laws : the obvious answer is that it 
can ask the Imperial Government to do so, and that Govern- 
nent would have no hesitation in doing so if the Act violated 
in any way the Imperial compact. 
The principle determining the whole matter was indeed 
clearly laid down by the Privy Council in the case of Bank of 
Toronto v. Lambe,! in which it was held by the Privy Council 
that the Legislature of Quebec has power to impose a direct 
bax, under s. 91 (2) of the British North America Act, on incor- 
Porated companies doing business in the province. The 
argument was there raised that the tax might be so heavy 
that it would defeat the Dominion power to incorporate 
Companies at all, and such arguments had been used success- 
fully in the United States Courts. The Privy Council dis- 
missed it as beside the mark :— 
People who are trusted with the great power of making 
laws for property and civil rights may well be trusted to 
levy taxes : they have to construe the express words of an 
Act of Parliament which makes an elaborate distribution 
of the whole field of legislative authority between two 
legislative bodies, and at the same time provides for the 
federated provinces a carefully balanced constitution under 
which no one of the parts can make law for itself except 
under the control of the whole acting through the Governor- 
General. And the question they have to answer is whether 
One body or the other has power to make a given law. If 
they find that on the due consideration of the Act a legislative 
Power falls within s. 92, it would be quite wrong of them 
to deny its existence because by some possibility it may 
be abused or may limit the range which otherwise would be 
open to the Dominion Parliament? 
i The problem, then, is how to give each section a fair mean- 
ng, and neither to aggrandize the Dominion at the cost of 
the provinces, nor to make the Dominion helpless to carry 
Out its fundamental purposes. A few examples will illustrate 
the main lines of solution. 
"12 App. Cas. 575, followed in Fortier v. Lambe, 25 8. C. R. 22 This 
tase was cited with approval in Peterswald v. Bartley, 1 C. L. R. . 8 
distinguished in Deakin v. Webb, 1 C. L. R. 585. _ 
PCE The Liquidators of the Maritime Bank of Canada v. The Receiver 
General of New Brunswick, [1892] A. C. 437, at pp. 441-3. 
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