CHAP. I] THE DOMINION OF CANADA 747 
laid down that the Governor-General was entrusted with 
authority, to which a corresponding duty attached, to disallow 
any law contrary to reason or to natural justice and equity. 
Sir John Macdonald, in 1881, declared that it devolved upon 
the Dominion Government to see that the power of a local 
legislature to take away private rights was not exercised 
in flagrant violation of private rights and natural justice.! 
In 1893 the acting Minister of Justice used the following 
language in referring to an Ontario statute :— 
Assuming the statute to have the effect which the railway 
company attribute to it, the case would appear to be that of 
a statube which interferes with vested rights of property 
and the obligation of contract without providing for com- 
pensation, and would therefore, in the opinion of the under- 
signed, furnish sufficient reason for the exercise of the power 
of disallowance.? 
The speech of Mr. Aylesworth received the honour of 
quotation at length in the reply of the Government of Ontario 
to the applications for the disallowance of legislation regarding 
electric power in the session of 19093 The Legislature had 
intended to allow the municipalities of the province to make 
agreements with the Hydro-Electric Commission, a body 
established under an Act of 1906 (c. 15), and reconstituted 
ander an Act of 1907 (c. 19) for the purpose of acting as 
agents of the municipalities in obtaining cheap water-power 
from Niagara. The municipalities were, however, first to be 
authorized to do so by a vote of the ratepayers, and it was 
in the intention of the Government that if this were done the 
council of the municipality could make the contract without 
ratification by the ratepayers, as was normally necessary. 
+ Provincial Legislation, 1867-95, p. 178. 
© Provincial Legislation, 1867-95, p. 239. The Act was 55 Vict. c. 8. 
Similarly the Nova Scotia Mining Act, 55 Vict. c. 1, was amended to avoid 
disallowance ; see Lefroy, pp. 199, 200. It was objected to on the ground 
that it took away rights of litigants. 
3 Of. Canadian Annual Review, 1908, pp. 296-311, 337, 338; 1909, pp. 
372 seq. ; 1910, pp. 402-11. The petition for disallowance was heard at 
Ottawa on Oct. 7 by a sub-committee of the Privy Council, counsel 
appearing for the petitioner, but was refused in 1910. and the Courts declined 
to interfere with the law.