740 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV
(47 Vict. c. 70 and amending Acts) incorporating the Manitoba
Central Railway Company, and in 1887 the Act incorporat-
ing the Rock Lake, Souris Valley, and Brandon Railway
Co. (48 Vict. c. 45)! the Acts regarding the Emerson (50 Vict.
¢. 54) and Central Railways (c. 1), and the Acts incorporating
the Winnipeg and Southern Railway Company (50 Vict. c. 2)
and the Red River Valley Railway Company (50 Vict. c. 4).
In 1883 the Acts passed by British Columbia to incorporate
the Fraser River Company (46 Vict. c. 26) and to incorporate
the New Westminster Southern Railway Company (46 Vict.
¢. 27) were also disallowed in furtherance of the same policy.
Naturally Manitoba was up in arms after this wholesale
disallowance of the Provincial Acts merely because of a sup-
posed federal interest, and the relations of the two Govern-
ments, which were destined in a few years to bring ruin on
the Conservative party in the Dominion, assumed a serious
aspect : the Dominion Government felt that it must attempt
conciliation, and therefore arranged with the company to
abandon the rights they had on consideration of certain
further privileges conceded to them and ratified by an Act
of Canada in 1888.2 The dispute between the two Govern-
ments thus terminated, but it was to be renewed in the
Courts, since in 1888 the Railway Commissioner of Manitoba,
under the statute of 1888, which was no longer disallowed,
commenced the construction of the Portage extension of
the Red River Railway, and it became necessary to obtain the
approval of the Railway Commission in Canada to secure the
crossing by the new branch of the Pembina mountain branch
of the Canadian Pacific line. The latter company at once
intervened, and took the preliminary objection that the
railway commissioner of the province had no authority to
construct a line crossing the Pacific line, as the Act was
illegal. It was argued by Mr. Blake for the company before
the Supreme Court, that the Parliament of Canada had years
before, by Acts, declared that a work crossing the Canadian
! ‘Canada Sess. Pap., 1882, No, 166’; 1886, No. 81 ; Provincial Legislation,
1867-95, pp. 862 seq., 1082,
* Bee 51 Vict, ¢. 32; Canada House of Commons Debates, 1888, p. 1332,
