746 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV
but an Act of 1906 (c. 12), confirmed the Order in Council of
August 14, 1905. Notwithstanding this the company brought
an action on December 26, 1906, against the Cobalt Lake
Mining Company, to whom the Government had in the mean-
time sold the property.
In April 1907 an Act (c. 15) was passed by the Ontario Legis-
lature which confirmed the sale made by the Government, and
declared the property to be vested in the purchasers as and
from the date of the said sales absolutely freed from all claims
and demands of every nature whatsoever in respect of or
arising from any discovery, location, or prospecting. Great
efforts were made by the mining company to securé that
the Bill should not be assented to, but their efforts were
unsuccessful, and the Bill became law: whereupon the
Governor-General was asked to disallow the Act, but on the
advice of his ministers he declined to do so. The case was
still carried to trial, but the decision of the Court was, of
course, in view of the Act, against the company. A good
deal of feeling was excited in financial circles in Canada, and
the Court used somewhat strong language in admitting its
inability to deal with the case.
The matter was discussed at length in the Dominion
Parliament on March 1 and May 18, 1909, and the action of
the Ontario Government was defended on grounds of the
interest of the provinces at large, namely that there was
thus saved to the provinces a very valuable property which
otherwise would have simply conferred benefits on a few
individuals,
Mr. Aylesworth, Minister of Justice, defended the conduct
of the Dominion Government in not disallowing the Act.2
He admitted that if the matter had been before 1896 the Act
would have been disallowed.
In 1873. Chief Justice Draper in the Goodhue case? had
! See 18 O. R. 275. But it was held both in the Ontario Appeal Court in
1909 (House of Commons Debates, 1909, pp. 6920 seq.) and in the Privy
Council in 1910 that there was really no good case.
® Sir J. Whitney replied in the press on March 2, energetically condemning
Mr. Aylesworth. #19 Gr. 366, at p. 386.
