678 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [Part 1v 
taken under a Dominion Act, 61 Vict. ¢. 51, was adverse to 
prohibition, for there was only a majority of 14,000in a total 
vote of 543,049. though Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward 
Island, and Manitoba in separate referenda returned decided 
majorities, 
(d) Fisheries 
The subject of fisheries has also raised perplexing problems. 
In 1868 the Minister of Marine and Fisheries was authorized 
to grant licences for fishing, and he did so in respect of certain 
non-tidal waters in New Brunswick. The Supreme Court 
of Canada! decided that the property in the fishery was a 
provincial matter merely, and that the Dominion could only 
regulate generally the fishing, and could grant licences only 
in cases where the land was that of the Dominion. It has 
also been held that the land in harbours is the property of 
the Dominion, and so the harbour fisheries belong to them.? 
The Judicial Committee has quite clearly held that whatever 
proprietary rights were vested in the provinces at the date 
of the British North America Act remained so vested unless 
expressly transferred to the Dominion Government. Such 
transfer is not to be presumed from the grant of legislative 
jurisdiction to the Dominion in respect of the subject-matter 
of these proprietary rights. The Committee also held that 
the powers of the Dominion over fisheries extended to doing 
anything except vest the proprietary rights in other than 
their true owners, and that both the Federal and Provincial 
Legislatures could impose licence duties on fishing. They 
also held that an Ontario Act to regulate the fisheries was 
ultra vires, and they meted out the same fate to a Federal 
Act to empower the grant of exclusive fishing licences in 
rivers or over provincial property. Moreover, they held 
that the public harbours were transferred to the Dominion 
together with all naturally understood by that term. They 
pronounced inirg vires an Act (Revised Statutes, c. 24, s. 47) 
authorizing the Government of Ontario to appropriate land 
* The Queen v. Robertson, 6 8. C. R. 52; cf. 26 8. C. R. 444 5 Quick and 
Garran, Constitution of Commonwealth, pp. 568, 569. 
* Holman v. Green, 6 S. C. R. 707.