CHAP, 1] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 723 
bo it, though such regulation may trench incidentally on 
civil rights : thus if bankruptcy is a part of the federal power 
it must necessarily in many ways interfere with civil rights,! 
but at the same time it is not illegal for a province to extend 
the period within which a company may perform its obliga- 
tions because it thus enables the company to escape from 
the operation of the federal bankruptcy law for the time 
being? Tt is clear that in Australia the case would have, 
under the present principles of interpretation. been decided 
in the opposite manner. 
In testing the validity of a Provincial Act, the first step 
is to see if it falls under any of the heads given in s. 92, and 
if that is prima facie the case, to see whether or not the 
power to deal with the matter is exclusively the power of 
the Federal Parliament under 8. 91 of the Constitution, in 
which case the Provincial Act loses validity. Then there 
are many cases where the province and the Federal Parlia- 
ment have power in different aspects : to quote a case 
suggested by Lord Watson? the province might legislate to 
prevent the sale of arms in the province, or their being 
carried by young persons, but the general traffic in arms, tho 
carrying of arms with seditious intent, would fall under 
the powers of the Dominion. Of course, when both Acts are 
cqually valid considered by themselves, and neither is 
invalid in itself, the result is that if they cannot be construed 
together the Provincial Act must give place, not as being in 
itself invalid, but as the law of the inferior body, a principle 
which, it is important to note, is not, as in the case of the 
Commonwealth, laid down in the constitution, but is a mere 
rule of law adopted by the Privy Council, and binding on 
all the Courts.4 Parliament in Canada has recognized on 
t Cushing v., Dupuy, 5 App. Cas. 409, decides that the Dominion Parlin. 
tent could provide, by Act 40 Viet, c. 41, s. 28, that the decision of the 
Court of Insolvency should be final, and that such a provision did not inter- 
fore with the powers of the Quebec legislature under s, 91. 
! L' Union St, J acques de Montréal v. Belisle, 6 P, C. 31. 
® In the Prohibitory Liquor Laws case. 19 I. N. 139; [1896] A. C. 348, 
at p. 362. 
‘ [1896] A. C. 366; La Compagnie hydraulique de St, Frangois v, Con- 
tinental Heat and Laight Co., [1909] A. C. 194 3 Lefroy, op. cit., pp. 526 seq. 
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