DISALLOWANCE OF PROVINCIAL ACTS. 177 the subject with a view to ascertain whether any legislation was Had during the last session of the General Assembly in regard to c. 69 of 1882, and a reply had been received from the Lieutenant-Governor enclosing a memorandum of his Executive Council passed in a Council on the 30th January ult, stating that no amendment has been made in the Act nor is it in contemplation to make any amendment thereto. “That there is no object any longer deferring action in this matter. “The Minister recommends that under these circumstances, and for the reasons communicated in the first mentioned report, that the Act of the General Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick, passed in the year 1882, c. 69, and entitled ‘an Act to incorporate the Fredericton and St Mary's Bridge Company’ be disallowed ; the Committee advise that the Act be disallowed accordingly.” The power of disallowance has been exercised in a Bills comparatively small number of cases, Of the 6000 Acts a passed by the provincial legislatures up to 1882 only 33 have lowed: been disallowed, viz. in Ontario 5, Quebec 2, Nova Scotia 5, Manitoba 7, British Columbia 12° That the Dominion government are conscious that the power of disallowance ought to be exercised with great care and caution is evidenced by the report of the Privy Council on the dis- allowance of certain Acts of Manitoba in 1885. “The Committee, whilst concurring in the report of the Minister of Justice and humbly advising your Excellency to disallow each and every of the said Acts, desire to record the expression of their constant anxiety that the action of the legislatures of the several provinces of the Dominion should be interfered with under the power of disallowance reserved to your Excellency in Council by the British North America Act 1867 as seldom as possible: but that, as in the case of these Acts, the declared policy of parliament adopted for 1 Can. Sess. Pap. 1882, No. 141.