776 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
its right to veto any law intra vires the provinces, and in 
effect the Dominion Government has yielded. The rising 
spirit of Ontario has been seen in the regret publicly expressed 
in a recent speech by Sir James Whitney, the Premier, that 
the province cannot appoint an Agent-General in England 
who can correspond directly with the Imperial authorities, 
but must go to them through the High Commissioner. The 
secret of this consciousness of strength is obvious : the people 
of Canada and the Federal Parliament cannot change the 
Constitution of Canada, however much they desire it, or 
deprive the provinces of any of their powers, unless the 
Imperial Government agree, while in the Commonwealth 
the powers of the states can be and are gradually being 
taken from them by the federal electors. 
The truly federal character of the Constitution is un- 
doubtedly due in great measure to the decisions of the Privy 
Council which has corrected the earlier tendency of the 
Supreme Court to interpret the powers of the provinces in 
a restricted sense. But great part of the credit of maintain- 
ing provincial rights against the unificationist tendencies of 
Sir John Macdonald must be ascribed to Sir O. Mowat, who 
was determined that federation should mean for Ontario 
freedom in internal matters. His tenure of office saw the 
successful assertion of the powers of the provincial legislatures 
to define their privileges! the admission of their right to 
confer on the Lieutenant-Governor the power of pardon,? 
the acquisition for the provinces of the right to escheats?® 
the settlement of the Ontario boundary,* the declaration of 
the provincial title to the freehold of the Indian lands? the 
upholding of the provincial right to regulate the liquor trade,® 
and the disuse of the federal veto as regards acts not un- 
constitutional” In the later years of his career he had the 
support of Sir John Thompson, perhaps Canada’s greatest 
lawyer, who respected the Constitution too greatly to seek 
to upset it even on federal grounds.® 
t Above, p. 696. * Above, pp. 680, 681. 8 Above, pp. 679, 680. 
' Above, p. 770. 5 Above, p. 684. ¢ Above, p. 676. 
* Above, pp. 738, 739. ¢ Cf. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. ii. 208-10.