CHAP, 1] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 741
Pacific line was a work for the general advantage under
3. 92 (10) of the British North America Act, and that by the
declaration the matter had been definitely removed from
the jurisdiction of the Provincial Legislature and assumed
bo be within the cognizance of the Dominion, that the work
proposed to be carried out was essentially a Dominion work,
and therefore the whole of the Manitoban action was hope-
lessly illegal. The Supreme Court decided unanimously
against this contention, holding that the Provincial Act
was clearly valid, and that the railway constructed under it
was entitled to cross the Canadian Pacific Railway subject
to the approval of the Canadian Railway Commission, as
provided by the Canadian Railway Act of 1888.1
On the other hand, there was no disallowance of the remark-
able Act of the Province of Quebec in 1888 (c. 18), which
granted the Jesuits a compensation for the estates which were
baken from them by the annexation of Canada, and which
they had vainly desired to have restored to them. There
was much bitterness in Canada as to this action, and pressure
was brought to bear on the Government to disallow, but the
Government declined to do so, on the ground that it was
essentially a fiscal matter for the decision of the Government
of the province and its Legislature, a decision which naturally
Was probably in part due to motives of policy with regard
to the treatment of Quebec. Nor in 1890 was the Manitoba
Act, which opened the long dispute as to education in that
Province, disallowed, but in that case it must be remembered
that the provincial right to legislate was subject to positive
limits, which could be enforced by the Courts, and which in
the long run could be made good by the action of the Legis-
lature of Canada under the powers conferred by the Act
constituting the Province of Manitoba.
But a change has certainly come over the spirit of the
“12L.N. 4,5; Cass. Dig.* 487.
* Canada House of Commons Debates, 1889, pp. 811-910; Provincial
Legisiation, 1867-95, pp. 386 seq. ; Hopkins, Sir John Thompson, pp. 116=
36; Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, ii. 40-6.
* See Provincial Legislation, 1867-95, pp. 947-9 ; Hopkins, op. cit., pp.
255-70
