714 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv
(8) Banking, Insolvency, dc.
Difficulties have also arisen in the case where both the
Dominion and the provinces have legislative authority,
and the decisions are often based on decidedly narrow
lines.
In the case of Tennant v. Union Bank of Canada the
question arose as to whether an Act (46 Vict. ¢. 120) of the
Dominion under which warehouse receipts were negotiable
instruments was valid, or whether it must be held to be
invalid as dealing with private rights in the province, a
subject on which exclusive legislative authority was given
to the province by s. 91 (13). It was then held that, though
the matter was within the sphere of provincial authority, it
fell also within the power of the Dominion as to banking,
which included all transactions auxiliary to banking, and
that the Dominion Act was accordingly valid. It was
argued on behalf of the province that the power of the
Dominion to legislate as to banking companies would enable
it to deprive those companies of privileges conferred by
provincial law, but that it would not enable it to confer
on banking corporations privileges contradictory to such
provincial law, but this view was not successful.
On the other hand, in the case of Attorney-General of
Ontario v. Attorney-General for the Dominion of Canada? the
question arose whether an Ontario Act relative to voluntary
assignments of property, which it preferred to incompleted
judgements, was an infringement of the right of the Parlia-
ment of Canada to legislate on bankruptcy, and it was held
that it was not such an infringement so long as the Parliament
of Canada had not in legislating on bankruptcy enacted
a provision which would be contrary to the provincial
legislation.
It has been decided that an Act of the Dominion
‘ [1894] A. C. 31; cf. Lefroy, op. cit., pp. 426 seq.
* [1894] A. C. 189, reversing 20 O. A. R. 489. Cf. Kinney v. Dudman,
(1876) 2 R. & C. 19; Lefroy, pp. 438, 439; Peck v. Shields. (1880-3) 31
U.CCP. 112; 60. A.R. 639: 88. C. R. 579..
