cuar. 1] POWERS OF DOMINION PARLIAMENTS 363 
these minor prerogatives alone were regulated by the local 
law, and that others could not be so regulated. But the 
distinction seems to be absolutely without warrant, and the 
only true doctrine seems to be that the power to affect any 
prerogative depends on the use of appropriate language in 
dealing with it : it is probable that any prerogative whatever 
can be barred by the use of suitable terms in dealing with it. 
It is of course a question what terms are sufficient to bar 
the prerogative. Thus it has been held in a series of cases 
that the prerogative of priority in payment in cases of 
bankruptcy is existing in Canada ! and Australia 2 generally, 
but, on the other hand, it has been decided by the Privy 
Council 8 that it does not exist in Quebec because of the fact 
that the civil code of that Province expressly provides that 
there shall be only a preference to the Crown in regard 
to this matter when special circumstances exist, viz. the 
insolvent being an officer under obligation to account to the 
Crown ; and the law of Quebec is, according to the Imperial 
Act of 1774, the old colonial French law, save as modified 
by legislation since. But there is no trace in the decision 
of the Privy Council that they regarded one prerogative as 
less important than another, or that they accepted the view 
that the barring of a minor prerogative was other than 
the barring of a major prerogative; the words barring the 
general right of the Crown are not expressly set out in the 
civil code, but that the right is meant to be barred is evident 
from the express grant of it in one case, and the rule is not 
that the prerogative can only be barred by express words: 
it can also be barred by necessary intendment as in this case. 
t The Queen v. The Bank of Nova Scotia, 11 8. C. R. 1. Cf. [1892] A. C. 
437, at p. 441. See above, pp. 145, 146. 
* New South Wales Taxation Commissioners v. Palmer [1907] A. C. 179; 
Attorney General of New South Wales v, Curator of Intestate Estates [1907] 
A. C. 519, 
* Exchange Bank of Canada v. Reg., 11 App. Cas. 157. Cf. Colonial 
Government v, Laborde, 1902, Mauritius Decisions, 20 seq., where the same 
doctrine is applied to Mauritius. There the French law is in force in 
virtue of the terms of capitulation and allowance by the Crown, not by an 
Imperial Act as in Quechee, but the fact of such an Act is not in point ; 
the local law can bind the Crown if it tries to do so.