652 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [parr 1v 
other hand, it has been held by the High Court of the Com- 
monwealth! that the powers conferred on Governors by 
the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881, are still conferred upon the 
Governors of the states, and that the Legislature and the 
Executive of the Commonwealth are only a central body 
in the sense in which it excludes subordinate bodies when 
the Legislature of the Commonwealth has power to legislate, 
and perhaps only when it has done so. It is perfectly true 
that the provinces retain many powers and a wide sphere of 
operations, and they can often be regarded as illustrating 
the principles of the law affecting responsible government, 
but their position is one of infinitely greater theoretic in- 
feriority to the Dominion than that of the States of the 
Commonwealth ; it is another matter whether the practical 
difference is so great as the theoretical 2 
In the constitution of the Senate of the Dominion it was 
contemplated providing some protection for the interests 
of the provinces as such. Accordingly the Dominion was 
divided into three sections, Ontario, Quebec, and the 
Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, each 
with twenty-four members. It was added also that the 
number should be left the same if Prince Edward Island 
were added, but increased if the Colony of Newfoundland 
came into federation. Then the Imperial Act of 1871 
authorized the addition of members for the new provinces, 
and there are now in all eighty-seven members, including 
four each for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and 
three for British Columbia, the territories outside the 
provincial area not being represented in the Senate. In 
the case of the House of Commons the plan adopted was 
to fix the number at sixty-five for Quebec and then to fix 
! McKelvey v. Meagher, 4 C. L. R. 265, 
* The Canadian Government often refuses to forward provincial repre- 
sentations to the Imperial Government. Thus the desire of British 
Columbia in 1907-8 for an Imperial Commission to inquire as to Asiatic 
immigration was never sent home for consideration. On the other hand, 
the resolutions of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly of February 1894 as 
to the abolition of the Upper House were sent home without comment 
(cf. House of Assembly Journals, 1894, App. No. 17).