376 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART III 
Supreme Court in the case in re Criminal Code, Bigamy 
Sections. The Code of 1892 by ss. 275, 276, punished bigamy 
committed anywhere by any British subject who left Canada 
for the purpose. The validity of the enactment was upheld 
by four judges, Gwynne, Sedgewick, King, and Girouard. 
The last-named judge rested his decision on the highest 
grounds: the Dominion Parliament was, he said, a subordinate 
legislature, but subordinate only to the Imperial Parlia- 
ment, and it had all the legislative authority of the Imperial 
Parliament so long as it did not contravene the positive 
prohibition of repugnancy enacted by the Colonial Laws 
Validity Act, 1865; and the other judges held that at any 
rate the actual exercise of power in this case, one of a Canadian 
resident, was justified, adopting the view that Macleod’s case 
depended on the wideness of the terms of the Act. On the 
other hand, the Chief Justice pronounced the sections invalid, 
and held that the limitation of the Act to cases of persons 
who left Canada for the purpose of committing bigamy did 
not render it valid. He cited Macleod’s case as decisive of 
the view, and reminded the Court of his judgement in Peek v. 
Shields? in which he had held that an act committed in 
England could not be an offence under the insolvency law 
of Canada? It seems probable that in the actual decision 
the majority of the Court were right and the Chief Justice 
wrong, but only on the ground that the offence penalized 
was leaving Canada with intent. Clearly the law could 
punish any leaving of Canada—the crime is committed at 
latest at the last moment of departure within the territory 
—and if it punished sub modo the fact that the act which 
proved the intent was done elsewhere could not be said to 
invalidate the penalty on the leaving. 
In one very interesting case, The Ship ‘DD. C. Whitney’ v. 
8t. Clair Navigation Co.* the question was whether Canadian 
' 27 8. C. R. 461. * 88. C.R. 579. 
' Overruling the Ontario Appeal Court decision in 6 O. A. R. 639: 
3 Cart. 283. 
+ (1907) 38 8. C. R. 303, on appeal from the Exchequer Court, Toronto 
Admiralty Division, 10 Ex. C. R. 1.