draftsman's idea that the pre-Confederation provinces continued; they "shall retain all their respective public property not otherwise disposed of in this Act" (q); and certain duties and revenues are "reserved to the respective legislatures of the provinces (r).”

The division of the group of miscellaneous provisions (s) into "general," and "Ontario and Quebec" is in itself significant, and the absence of provisions for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, similar to those made to meet the needs of the newly created governments of Ontario and Quebec-provisions as to the executive staff; as to the Great Seals to be used; as to the construction of temporary Acts of the parliament of old Canada, etc.-would seem to make it perfectly clear that the constitutions of the preConfederation provinces "by the sea," at all events, were not intended to be destroyed, and at most, it can only be said, that the constitution of old Canada was re-cast and made into two, each on the same pattern as the one had previously exhibited.

Upon consideration, it would appear that the really essential point to be determined in connection with this controversy, is the actual presence in the provincial machinery of government (in their constitutions, in other words,) of the same working principle as was present in the constitution of the pre-Confederation provinces. As to, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, there can be no doubt, as the B. N. A. Act is distinct, that the constitution of the executive and legislative authority in those provinces-and these two departments comprise the whole round of government-shall continue; and the controversy must therefore be limited to Ontario and Quebec. And as to these two provinces, it has already been remarked that the clauses which create their legislative and executive machinery

(q) Sec. 117.

(r) Sec. 102; and see also sec. 126. (s) Group IX.; secs. 127-144.

differ in no essential respects from the similar clauses in other Imperial Acts creative of colonial constitutions, the presence in which of the principle of the co-extensive and complementary nature of the executive and legislative powers in government, cannot be gainsaid. No Act, Imperial or Colonial, has ever expressly so enacted; but it is the legal principle of the British constitution, and of the colonial constitutions of the Empire as well. And when we find, as a comparison of the various "constitutional Acts" for the colonies will show, that the machinery of government provided by those Acts is "all of a piece," an argument is afforded in favor of, rather than against, the existence of the same working principle in each. Compare, for instance, the clauses of the B. N. A. Act, creating the executive and legislative machinery of the Dominion government, with those creating the like machinery of the governments of Ontario and Quebec, and both sets of clauses with the similar provisions of the Acts relating to (say) the Australasian colonies, and no essential difference can be found (f)-nothing to indicate that in one the law-making power is supreme over the authority which executes that law, and that in another the two are not co-terminous. The fact is, that government is one, and indivisible. The "sanction" of a law is executive action, and no impossible attempt to create two independent powers in relation to any given subject matter, is made by any of these "Constitutional Acts."

(t) Compare B. N. A. Act with the Union Act (3 & 4 Vic. c. 35), and with the Constitutional Acts of New South Wales (5 & 6 Vic. c. 76; 7 & 8 Vic. c. 74; 13 & 14 Vic. c. 59, etc.); of Victoria (13 & 14 Vic. c. 59; 18 & 19 Vic. c. 55, etc.); of Newfoundland (5 & 6 Vic. c. 120; 10 & 11 Vic. c. 44), and of Queensland (24 & 25 Vic. c. 44). See Forsyth, Constitutional Law, p. 27, for an enumeration of the various "Constitutional Acts" for the colonies.

PART II.

THE RESULTS OF OUR COLONIAL STATUS.

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT IMPERIAL ACTS AFFECT US?

While we have, in the preceding chapters, endeavored to distinguish clearly between the law and the "conrentions" of the constitution, we have necessarily had to deal with both. In the light of the conventions of the constitution, the parliament of the United Kingdom has been described as a legislature possessed of a dual nature, partaking of the character both of an "Imperial" parliament and of a "local" parliament for the United Kingdom. It must be again admitted, however, that although, by those usages and precepts of the constitution, the field of governmental action properly to be occupied by the Imperial parliament, is practically though not yet perhaps very definitely limited, the law of the constitution recognizes no limit capable of judicial enforcement.

For the whole British Empire, legislative sovereignty resides in the Imperial parliament, and when that body undertakes to legislate for the colonies generally, or for any one of them in particular, its enactments are a law unto such colony, binding on its inhabitants, and peremptorily requiring recognition by the judges in its courts («); and no colonial legislature has power, directly or by a side wind, to alter, in one jot or tittle, any such Imperial enact

(a) Letter by Historicus, in London Times, June 1, 1879; Dicey, Law of the Const.; Clark, Colonial Law, 10.