866 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv
1. The Public Debt and Property.
2. The Regulation of Trade and Commerce.
3. The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxa-
tion.
and Lefroy, op. cit., p. 212, note 2, is mistaken on this point, On the other
hand, see Smiles v. Belford, (1876) 23 Gr. 590; 1 0. A. R. 436 ; Routledge
v. Low, (1868) 8 H. L. 100; Ta: Sing v. Maguire, (1878) 1 B, C. (Irving),
at p. 107 ; ex parte Worms, 22 L. C. J. 109, at p. 111, per Dorion C. J. ; Reg.
v. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, 44 U. C. Q. B. 564 ;
Metherell v. The Medical Council of British Columbia, (1892) 2 B. C.(Cassidy),
at p. 189. See also City of Fredericton v. The Queen, (1880) 3 8, C. R. 505, at
pp. 529, 530; Attorney-General of Canada v. Attorney-General of Ontario,
(1890) 20 O. R., at p. 245; the Thrasher Case, (1882) 1 B, C. (Irving), at
p- 214; ex parte Renaud, (1873) 1 Pugs. 293, at p. 274; Merchants’ Bank of
Canada v. Gillespie, (1885) 10 8. C. R. 312 (this case is wrongly decided,
for the Companies’ Act of 1862 did not apply to the Colonies); and the
copyright controversy in Part V, chap. viii; Canada Sess, Pap., 1875,
No. 28; 1890, No. 35; 1892, No. 81; 1894, No. 50; Cornewall Lewis,
Government of Dependencies, pp. 91, 92, 155, 156; Bourinot, Canadian
Law Times, ix. 193 seq. ; Lefroy, op. cit., pp. 208-31. The Colonial Laws
Validity Act, 1865, applies beyond doubt to the provinces, if for no other
reason than that it applies to the Dominion and a fortiori to the provinces,
but it is also to be remembered that it is merely a statutory statement (and
limitation) of the common law rule, that a subordinate legislature is subject
to the paramount power of the power which created it.
It may be added that the interpretation of the Act of 1867 is in some
degree aided by the course of legislation in the Dominion and the provinces,
but neither Dominion nor province ean authoritatively intervret the terms
of the Act; see Lefroy, op. cit., pp. 233 seq.
Comparatively little is heard of sovereignty as regards Canada and the
provinces in the cases : Gwynne J., indeed, 4 8, C. R. 215, at pp. 346, 347,
declared that the Dominion Parliament alone had sovereign power, but
Ritchie C. J. (ibid., pp. 238 seq.), declared that both province and Dominion
had a legislative sovereignty (Lefroy, pp. 252, 253). The older cases (Tai
Sing v. Maguire, (1878) 1 B. C. (Irving), at p. 108; Reg. v. Wing Chong,
(1885) 2 B. C. (Irving), at pp. 161, 162; Reg. v. The Gold Commissioners
of Victoria District, (1886) 2 B. C. (Irving), at p. 260), which asserted limita-
tions on the powers of the provinces resting on implied restrictions by the
operation of (non-existent) treaties, or the rule of uniform treatment of
citizens, are of no weight. The statutes of the provinces, therefore, must
be read as presumably valid (Lefroy, pp. 260-9). The provinces within
the limit of these powers can act as they please; they are not bound by
any consideration of propriety except their own judgement, and they can
affeet private rights as they deem desirable. The American doctrine of the
