692 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv 
Subsequent legislation altered the composition of the board, 
and the proportion of the grants was changed to accord 
with the number of children under the charge of the denomi- 
nations, but the principle was maintained down to 1890 that 
state aid was given to denominational schools, and that 
each denomination was entitled to conduct its own schools 
in the way it thought best.! In 1890 the whole position was 
changed by the enactment of legislation, ce. 37 and 38, under 
which a system of non-denominational schools was set up. 
The Roman Catholics thus lost the right to maintain their 
own schools, and to receive public assistance, and their 
exemption from paying for the maintenance of non-Catholic 
schools. The action taken was naturally much resented by the 
Roman Catholics of the province, and efforts were made to 
secure the disallowance of the Acts by which the new system 
was brought into force, but these efforts were unsuccessful, the 
Dominion Government holding that if the Acts were upheld 
as constitutional, nevertheless there would be possible an 
appeal to the Dominion Parliament for remedial legislation. 
The Manitoba Act of 1870 followed generally, as regards 
religious education, the principles of the British North 
America Act, s. 93, but varied them slightly. In the first 
place, the restriction on the power of the Legislature to make 
laws in regard to education was not merely a restriction 
affecting any right or privilege with respect to denominational 
schools existing by law at the union, but applied also to any 
right or privilege existing by practice. An appeal was to 
lie to the Governor in Council from any Act or decision of 
the Legislature, or of any provincial authority, affecting any 
right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic 
minority of the Queen’s subjects in relation to education, 
and if any provincial law which the Governor-General in 
Council thought requisite for the due execution of the pro- 
visions of the section was not made, then in so far as the 
circumstances of the case might require the Parliament of 
Canada might make remedial laws. The questions there- 
' Bee Sir J. Thompson's report in Provincial Legislation, 1867-95. 
pp. 947 seq.