should be final and not subject to the Appeal as of right to Her Majesty in Council allowed by Art. 1178 of the Code of Civil Procedure'." The following provincial Acts have been held valid :— An Act of N. B. providing that as against the assignee of the grantor under any law relating to insolvency, a bill of sale should take effect only from the time of filing thereof. An Act of New Brunswick abolishing imprisonment for debt as respects a person not shewn to be a trader or subject to the Dominion Insolvent Acts. An Act of N. B. for the imprisonment of a person making default in payment of a sum due on a judgment in certain cases1. 11. TRADE AND COMMERCE. To the Dominion are assigned s. 91 (2). Trade and The regulation of Trade and Commerce. Bankruptcy and Insolvency. s. 91 (21). The words 'regulation of trade and commerce' in their unlimited sense are sufficiently wide if uncontrolled by the context and other parts of the Act, to include every regulation of trade ranging from political arrangements in regard to trade with foreign Governments requiring the sanction of Parliament down to minute rules for regulating particular trades. But a consideration of the Act shews that the words were not used in this unlimited sense. In the first place the collocation of No. 2 with classes of subjects of national and general concern affords an indication that regulations relating to general trade and commerce were in the mind of the Legislature when conferring this power on the 1 It was also held that the Statute did not affect the right of Her Majesty to allow an appeal as of Grace. In re De Veber, 21 N. B. R. 401; 2 Cart. 552. 3 Armstrong v. McCutchin, N. B. 2 Pugsley, 381; 2 Cart. 494. 4 Ex parte Ellis, N. B., 1 Pugsley & Burbidge, 593; 2 Cart. 527. merce. Dominion Parliament. If the words had been intended to have the full scope of which in their literal meaning they are susceptible, the specific mention of several of the other classes of subjects enumerated in section 91 would have been unnecessary, as 15, banking; 17, weights and measures; 18, bills of exchange and promissory notes; 19, interest; and even 21, bankruptcy and insolvency." "Regulation of trade and commerce' may have been used in some such sense as the words 'regulations of trade,' in the Act of Union between England and Scotland (6 Anne c. 11), and as these words have been used in Acts of state relating to trade and commerce. Article V. of the Act of Union enacted that all the subjects of the United Kingdom should have "full freedom and intercourse of trade and navigation" to and from all places in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, and Article VI. enacted that all parts of the United Kingdom from and after the Union should be under the same prohibitions, restrictions and regulations of trade. Parliament has at various times since the Union passed laws affecting and regulating specific trades in one part of the United Kingdom only without its being supposed that it thereby infringed the Articles of Union. Thus the Acts for regulating the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors notoriously vary in the two kingdoms. So with regard to Acts relating to bankruptcy and various other matters." "Construing therefore the words 'regulations of trade and commerce' by the various aids to their interpretation above suggested, they would include political arrangements in regard to trade requiring the sanction of Parliament, regulations of trade in matters of inter-provincial concern, and it may be that they would include general regulations of trade affecting the whole Dominion." The above remarks of Sir Montague Smith in the important case of Citizens' Insurance Co. v. Parsons' indicate the 1 L. R. 7 App. Cas. p. 112. view taken by the Judicial Committee, as to the meaning of the words "regulation of trade and commerce," though it is expressly stated that "their Lordships abstain on the present occasion from any attempt to define the limits of the authority of the Dominion Parliament in this direction." They held however that the authority to legislate for the regulation of trade and commerce did not comprehend the power to regulate by legislation the contracts of a particular trade, such as the business of a fire insurance in a single province. tions. The subsection in question is limited in its operation by Limitathe effect of some of the provisions in section 92. To prohibit the sale of certain articles in the public street is an interference with trade, but it was held that a by-law of a municipal body to this effect was not ultra vires of a provincial Legislature, inasmuch as it related to police or municipal matters which are within provincial control1. The power of the Dominion Parliament to legislate on trade and commerce is limited by the implied or incidental power the provinces have of passing laws necessary to give effect to the express powers of legislation committed to them. On this ground the Quebec Pharmacy Act 1875, requiring qualifications on the part of persons exercising the business of selling drugs and medicines, was held valid as falling within "local" matters in the province. 12. MONOPOLIES. The Dominion has also sole jurisdiction in 1. Patents of Invention and Discovery. s. 91 (22). 1 Re Harris & the Corporation of City of Hamilton, 44 U. C. Q. B. 641; 1 Cart. 756; see also Hodge v. The Queen, L. R. 9 App. Cas. 117, and the cases in Cartwright, vol. ii. 2 Bennett v. Pharmaceutical Association of Quebec, 1 Dorion's Quebec Appeals, 336; 2 Cart. 250. But with the exception of banks the provinces have full power as regards "the incorporation of companies with provincial objects," s. 92 (11). This however implies that the incorporation of companies to carry on business throughout the Dominion belongs to the Dominion, and the fact that a company confines the exercise of its powers to one province will not render its incorporation ultra vires1. 13. MONEY AND BANKING. The following matters are solely within Dominion legislation :— 1. Currency and Coinage. s. 91 (14). 2. Issue of Paper Money. s. 91 (15). 3. Legal Tender. s. 91 (20). 4. Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes. s. 91 (18). 5. Banking and Incorporation of Banks. s. 91 (15). 7. Interest. s. 91 (19). A province may authorize a corporation or other body to borrow money at a rate of interest legalised by the Dominion Parliament, but it cannot alter the legal rate of interest. 14. AGRICULTURE AND IMMIGRATION. On two subjects, viz. 1. Agriculture in the province, 2. Immigration into the province, concurrent powers of legislation are given to the Dominion and the provinces, subject to the proviso that a provincial law is only to be of force in so far as it is not repugnant to the Dominion Act. s. 95. 1 A. G. for Quebec v. Colonial Building and Investment Association, 9 App. Cas. 157. 2 Royal Canadian Insurance Co. v. Montreal Warehousing Co. Q. 3 Legal News, 155; 2 Cart. 361; Ross v. Torrance, Q. 2 Legal News, 186; 2 Cart. 352. 15. LOCAL MATTERS. Each province has jurisdiction in (1) Municipal institutions in the province. s. 92 (8). Municipal (2) Generally all matters of a merely local or private tions. nature in the province. s. 92 (16). This last sub-section must be read in connection with the following provision in section 91: "Any matter coming within any of the classes of subjects enumerated in this section [s. 91] shall not be deemed to come within the class of matters of a local or private nature comprised in the enumeration of the classes of subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the provinces." institu local In the case of L'Union St Jacques v. Belisle' the Judicial What are Committee of the Privy Council was called upon to consider matters. the meaning of the words "matters of a merely local or private nature." A benefit society called L'Union St Jacques de Montreal, incorporated in the city of Montreal, and consisting of members living within the Province of Quebec, had owing to improvident regulations become embarrassed. The local Legislature passed an Act imposing a forced commutation of existing rights upon two widows who were annuitants of the society, but reserving the rights so cut down in the possible event of an improvement in the affairs of the association. "Clearly this matter is private," said Lord Selborne in delivering the judgment of the Court; “clearly it is local, so far as locality is to be considered, because it is in the province and in the city of Montreal." A majority of the judges of the Quebec Court of Queen's Bench had held that the subject-matter of the Act came within the class of "insolvency," which under the 91st section belonged exclusively to the authority of the Dominion Parliament; a view not followed by the Judicial Committee. The fact that the 1 L. R. 6, P. C. 31; 1 Cart. 63. |