LOCAL MATTERS. 
HF 
15. Locar MATTERS. 
Each province has jurisdiction in 
(1) Municipal institutions in the province. s. 92 (8). Municipal 
(2) Generally all matters of a merely local or private Sp 
nature in the province. s. 92 (16). 
This last sub-section must be read in connection with the 
following provision in section 91: — 
“ Any matter coming within any of the classes of subjects 
enumerated in this section [s. 91] shall not be deemed to 
come within the class of matters of a local or private nature 
comprised in the enumeration of the classes of subjects by 
this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the 
provinces.” 
In the case of I’ Union St Jacques v. Belisle! the Judicial What are 
Committee of the Privy Council was called upon to consider oll 
the meaning of the words “matters of a merely local or 
private nature.” A benefit society called L'Union St Jacques 
de Montreal, incorporated in the city of Montreal, and con- 
sisting of members living within the Province of Quebec, had 
owing to improvident regulations become embarrassed. The 
local Legislature passed an Act imposing a forced commut- 
ation of existing rights upon two widows who were 
annuitants of the society, but reserving the rights so cut 
down in the possible event of an improvement in the affairs 
of the association. “Clearly this matter is private,” said Lord 
Selborne in delivering the judgment of the Court; “clearly 
it is local, so far as locality is to be considered, because it is 
in the province and in the city of Montreal” A majority of 
the judges of the Quebec Court of Queen’s Bench had held 
that the subject-matter of the Act came within the class of 
“insolvency,” which under the 91st section belonged exclu- 
sively to the authority of the Dominion Parliament; a view 
not followed by the Judicial Committee. The fact that the 
! T..R. 6, P. C. 31; 1 Cart. 63.