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 Government
 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 Manitoba
 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.