CHAP. 1] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 753 
Court of the province, that the Court had no divorce juris- 
diction. The ground for his decision was that the only means 
by which it could ever have been introduced was by the 
proclamation of Governor Douglas in 1859 and the Act of 
the Provincial Legislature, while the country was still a 
Colony, in 1867 adopting English law so far as applicable to 
the conditions of the place. The judge held that the mere 
adoption of English law was too vague to allow of the intro- 
duction of so special a matter as divorce legislation, and he 
pointed out that the Imperial Act of 1857, which created 
a divorce jurisdiction, entrusted it not to the ordinary Court 
but to a special Court. The Privy Council! would not 
accept this reasoning, but reversed the decision of the Court 
and declared that, in view both of the law and of the fact 
that there had been a continuous exercise of such jurisdiction, 
the judge was clearly wrong. As a matter of fact, the case 
had already been disregarded by Martin J., who in a subse- 
quent case, Sheppard v. Sheppard? decided after an elaborate 
historical argument that the jurisdiction could not possibly 
be denied to be fully valid. The Dominion has never legis- 
lated, and divorce is still only possible in the other provinces 
by an Act of Parliament of the Dominion. The practice for 
the Senate to act in such cases as practically a Court, and 
bhe absence of a law of divorce, are merely inconvenient and 
irritating. But of course, in view of the changes in that 
law made in Australasia, it is certain that any Canadian law 
would propose to go much further than merely to establish 
a Court to adopt the law in England, as is now the only 
possible proceeding in Canada in the provinces which have 
courts with jurisdiction, while the Parliament follows the 
same principles ; and as the opposition of Quebec would be 
very strong against any change, there is no immediate likeli- 
hood of the removal of this blot on the juristic system of 
the Dominion. From all the Courts appeals lie direct to the 
! Waits v. Attorney-General for British Columbia, [1908] A. C. 573. For 
a discussion, see Senate Debates, 1910-1, pp. 293 seq., where full statistics of 
all divorces are given, and the practice of parliamentary divorce severely 
aandled. * Cf. 13 B. C. 281. 
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