178 THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL. the common weal is set at naught, and local legislation enacted leading indirectly, and directly too; to its frustration, the Committee of the Privy Council conceive that they are compelled by their duty to Parliament, humbly to advise your Excellency to use the power in question’.” Disputes It is in regard to Acts coming under the fourth class ig referred to in the report of Sir J. A. MacDonald above quoted, nee. viz. Acts affecting the interests of the Dominion generally, that difficulties have arisen and the governors veto has been challenged. In 1881 an Act of the Legislature of Ontario was disallowed on the ground that it violated private rights without making any adequate compensation. The Govern- ment of Ontario protested, and maintained, that no Act should be disallowed which it was legally competent for a provincial legislature to pass®. More recently the legislature of Mani- toba passed several Acts authorizing the construction of railways in the province with the object of opening up communication with the United States, and these Acts were disallowed as conflicting with the settled policy of the Dominion embodied in the agreement with the Pacific Railway, viz. that for 20 years no line should be authorized to within 15 miles of latitude 49° or south of the Pacific Railway except such line runs south-west. The disallowance of an Act is notified in a form as follows :— Form of disallow- ANce. GoverNMENT House, OTrawa, 24 July, 1883. “ Present, His Excellency the Governor-General in Council. “Whereas the Lieutenant-Governor of the province of New Brunswick has reported that the Legislative Council and General Assembly of that province did, on the 6th April, 1882, pass an Act which has been transmitted. intituled as follows: t Can. Sess. Pap. 1885, No. 29, p. 44. 2 Can. Sess. Pap. 1882, No. 149 a. 3 Can. Sess. Pap. 1882, No. 166. and see post, ¢. xx.