724 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [rarT Iv 
several occasions that this supreme power should not be 
exercised without good cause, and in incorporating a company 
has therefore refused to insert clauses inconsistent with a 
previous local incorporation. 
It is not, however, possible to hold that a Dominion Act 
must legislate for Canada as a whole : it is clear law that it 
is enough if the legislation be for the peace, order, and good 
government of Canada even if it have local effect, as, for 
example, in the case of the establishment of a court for one 
province only! This is clear as regards the enumerated 
powers, but as regards the general power there is the 
limitation that any such legislation must not deal with ‘ any 
matter which is in substance local or provincial, and does 
not truly affect the interests of the Dominion as a whole ’.2 
Mr. Harrison Moore 3 suggests that the same principle will 
apply with still greater force to Australia. 
The incidental power of legislation on the matters reserved 
to the provinces is recognized in the proviso to s. 91, which 
applies in the true interpretation to all the classes of laws 
enumerated in s. 92, but it is to be restricted to necessarily 
incidental legislation only.* Conversely the local legislature 
cannot, on the ground that s. 92 (16) gives them power over all 
local matters, deal in any way with matters included in the long 
list in s. 91 as within the exclusive power of the Dominion.’ 
Neither province nor Dominion can of course by colourable 
legislation evade the restrictions imposed by ss. 91 and 92: 
t McCuasy and Smith v. Keith, (1879) 4 8. C. R. 648: 1 Cart. 557. See 
dicta in Lefroy, pp. 567-81. 
Attorney-General for Ontario v. Attorney-General for the Dominion, [1896] 
A. C. 348; cf. L'Union St. Jacques de Montréal v. Belisle, 6 P. C., at p. 36 ; 
Fielding v. Thomas ([1896] A. C. 600), per Lord Herschell (cited in Lefroy. 
Legislative Power in Canada, p. 575, from the shorthand report). ) 
* Commonwealth of Australia,® pp. 285, 286. 
* See Attorney-General for Ontario v. Attorney-General for the Dominion, 
[1896] A. C. 348, at p. 359 (correcting Citizens’ Insurance Co. of Canada v. 
Parsons, 7 App. Cas. 96, at p. 108); Tennant v. Union Bank of Canada, 
[1894] A. C. 31; Attorney-General of Ontario v. Attorney-General for the 
Dominion of Canada, [1894] A, C. 189 ; Montreal Street Railway Co. v. City 
of Montreal, 43 S. C. R. 197, at pp. 228, 229. 
¥ Quirt v. The Queen, 198. C. R. 510, at p. 516 ; Lefroy, op. cit., pp. 647-52.