cHAP. 111] TREATMENT OF NATIVE RACES 1055 
appoint, any matters concerning the administration of 
native affairs or the interests of natives, and the Governor in 
Council shall consider any reports or representations sub- 
mitted to him by any such assembly, and shall take such 
action thereupon as may seem necessary or proper. 
(3) No lands which have been, or may hereafter be, set 
aside for the occupation of natives shall be alienated or in 
any way diverted from the purposes for which they are set 
apart otherwise than in accordance with a law passed by the 
Legislature. 
§ 2. CaNADA 
For a time in the case of Canada there was maintained 
at the expense of the Imperial Government a native depart- 
ment which dealt direct with the natives, and for which 
funds were provided by Her Majesty’s Government. The 
position was clearly quite anomalous, and naturally it did 
not last long, for in 1860! the arrangement was cancelled, 
the Imperial Government ceased to make payments on behalf 
of Indians, and ceased to exercise any control whatsoever 
sver the Indians. The administration of the Indians was 
reserved by the British North America Act for the Parlia- 
ment of Canada, which, by s. 91 (24), alone has legislative 
authority in connexion with the Indians, and exercises in 
accordance with that power executive authority. 
The Indians, under the rule of the Dominion, have pros- 
pered, and the treatment has been most successful. Great 
care has been taken to preserve for them suitable lands for 
their occupation and to prevent the alienation of these lands 
without proper precautions. On the other hand, treaty 
after treaty is made to secure the surrender of their peculiar 
interests, a process rendered difficult by the fact that the 
provinces have by law the beneficial interest in all lands over 
which the Indian title is extinguished, and the Dominion 
sannot be expected to secure the surrender of lands without 
* See the correspondence for 1854-60 in Parl. Pap., H. C. 247, 1856, and 
575, 1860. For the position of the Indians in 1877, sce Sess. Pap., 18717, 
No. 11. For the Esquimsux, cf. Bernier, Cruise of the Arctic, 1908-9, 
ap. 316 seq. 
* Qee Revised Statutes. 1006. c. 81, amended in 1910 (c. 18) and in 1911,