744 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART TV 
be taken, I think, by any one occupying the position I have 
the honour to hold... . The large question of principle which 
was presented for consideration was simply whether or not 
the Provincial Legislature has the power, without control, 
to take one man’s property and give it to another and to 
take away from the person injured any right of redress in 
the Courts. . . . I entertain in all honesty and sincerity the 
view that it is of vital consequence to the well-being of this 
Dominjon that the rights of the Provinces to legislate within 
the scope of their authority should not be interfered with, 
and that every Provincial Legislature, within the limits 
prescribed for it by the terms of the British North Americq 
Act, is and ought to be supreme. I believe that this is a 
principle of greater importance to the welfare of this Dominion 
as a whole than even the sacredness of private rights or of 
property ownership. I am willing to go thus far in the 
enunciation of the views I am stating to this House, that 
a Provincial Legislature, having, as is given to it by the terms 
of the British North America Act, full and absolute control 
over property and civil rights within the Province, might, 
if it saw fit to do so, repeal Magna Charta itself. I know no 
difference between that most sacred bulwark of liberty and 
of property to every British subject and any piece of legisla- 
tion. I take it that no one would dispute the power of 
a Provincial Legislature to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act, or 
any other charter of liberty which Englishmen possess : and 
in precisely the same view I take the ground that rights of 
property are subject only to the control of Provincial Legis- 
latures within Canada. “Having that view, it seemed to me 
in considering this legislation that I was not, as advising His 
Excellency in Council, called upon to think at all of the 
injustice, of the outrageous character it might be, of the 
legislation, but that my one inquiry ought to be whether or 
not there was anything in the legislation itself which went 
beyond the power of the Provincial Legislature to pass a law 
referring alone to property and civil rights within the 
Province. In that view I had the help of opinions which 
had been expressed by my immediate predecessors in office, 
the Hon. David Mills and the Hon. Charles Fitzpatrick— 
and he quoted the passages above mentioned, and pro- 
ceeded — 
Ishare these views. I believed, as I still believe, that it is 
the true spirit of our constitution. These are considerations 
entirely for the Provincial Legislature. It represents the