CHAP. 1] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 685 
whether the Dominion of Canada was entitled to recover 
from the province a proper proportion of annuities and other 
moneys which the Dominion undertook in the name of the 
Crown to pay to an Indian chief under a treaty of October 3, 
1873. The case was decided in the first instance in the 
Exchequer Court of Canada in favour of the Dominion, but 
in the Supreme Court of Canada three out of five judges 
reversed the decision. Under the treaty the Indian interest 
Was extinguished by consent over 50,000 square miles, and 
in return certain payments and other rights were agreed to 
and promised. At that time it was not certain whether any 
part of the land was included within the Province of Ontario, 
but when the appeal was brought it had long been decided 
that the land was part of the province. In making the 
treaty the Dominion Government acted upon the rights 
given under the constitution, not in concert with the Ontario 
Government but on their own responsibility, and their 
motive was not any special benefit to Ontario, but a motive of 
policy in the interests of the Dominion as a whole. When, 
however, it was established by decision subsequent to 1873 
that by the release of the Indian interest the lands enured 
to the benefit, not of the Dominion, but of the province, it 
became clear that Ontario had derived an advantage under 
the treaty, and the object of the appeal was to secure the 
making good by Ontario to the Dominion of so much of 
the burden incumbent on the Dominion as might properly be 
attributed to the lands within Ontario which had been dis- 
encumbered of the Indian interest by virtue of the treaty. 
In deciding the case the Judicial Committee stated that 
for the Dominion to win its case they must bring it within 
some admitted legal principle, and though the Exchequer 
Court of Canada, by statutes both of the Dominion and the 
province, had jurisdiction to hear the case, it was not entitled 
to dispose of it on any but proper legal grounds. It might 
be that in questions between a Dominion which included 
provinces with varying legal systems, and a particular 
1894 dealings as to native lands have been conducted on the basis of agree- 
ment with Ontario. See [19031 A. C. 73, at p. 83.