of the recent Parliament Act. But the British North America Act, by sec. 26, expressly limits any such power to adding at most six members to the Senate. It must be remembered, however, that as sec. 22 shews, there was intended to be a certain balance in the Senate between the different provinces, 24 from Ontario, 24 from Quebec, and 24 from the Maritime Provinces; and it may have been thought an unlimited power to recommend additional appointments would upset this federal aspect of the Upper House. Yet it seems clear that this could have been guarded against by providing that all additional appointments should be equally distributed between the above divisions.*

And now I must pass to a feature of our Constitution which cannot be omitted in any review, however superficial, of its points of special interest. I refer to the veto power of the Dominion Government over provincial legislation. Nothing of the sort is to be found in the Constitution of the United States, or in that of the Australian Commonwealth. And yet if the analogy of the British Constitution was to be observed, and at the same time the sound conception maintained of this Dominion as an imperium in imperio-or, as I would suggest, it might well be called, one of the Imperial Kingdoms-it was essential that this power should be conferred upon the federal government. But by what seems a perfectly sound and natural development of constitutional theory, a change of view has established itself since the early days of Confederation. Even. as late as 1882 we find a Quebec appellate Judge stating that the true check for the abuse of (provincial) powers, as distinguished from an unlawful exercise of them, is the power of the central government to disallow laws open to this reproach." We may probably consider such a view as this now finally discarded. A series of decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has established that the provinces, acting within the scope of their powers, are almost sovereign States; and we may perhaps say, with confidence, that a domestic constitutional convention has now established itself in the Dominion that the proper remedy for provincial legislation which is unfair, or unjust, or

*For an attempt in 1873 to have this power to add six members to the Senate exercised. and the refusal of the Imperial Government, on the ground that no sufficiently serious and permanent difference had arisen between the two Houses for which the limited creation of Senators, allowed by the Act, would be an adequate remedy. seo Todd's Parl. Gov. in Brit. Col., 2nd ed., p. 204.

contrary to the principles which ought to govern the legislatures in dealing with private rights, is not the federal veto power, but an appeal to those by whom the legislature is elected. Anything else would mark an inferior phas of political life in the provinces to that enjoyed by the people of the United Kingdom. Yet just as there must, if the Imperial Union is to continue, be a reserve power in the Imperial Government to veto Acts of the King's self-governing Dominions beyond the sea where they seriously conflict with Imperial interests, or the honourable fulfilment of Imperial obligations, so it seems equally clear that if this imperium in imperio, the Dominion of Canada, is to be maintained, there must always remain a reserve power in the Federal Government to veto provincial legislation which seriously conflicts with the interests or the honour of the Dominion as a whole.

I must ask yet a few minutes to briefly refer to one more feature of the Constitution of this Dominion of special interest and immense importance. I mean the character of the exclusive powers expressly vested in the federal legislature, in which the framers of the British North America Act took warning from the experience of the United States to the lasting benefit of this country. Most important of all, perhaps, is the general power to regulate trade and commerce, supplemented by power over such subjects as are inseparably and vitally connected with trade and commerce, such as lines of steam and other ships, railways, canals, telegraphs and other works and undertakings connecting the province with any other or others of the provinces, or extending beyond the limits of the province: navigation and shipping; banking, the incorporation of banks, and the issue of paper money; bills of exchange and promissory notes; and bankruptcy and insolvency. The United States possess no such powers as these over trade and commerce. As Mr. Z. A. Lash said in a weighty address recently delivered by him to the Toronto Board of Trade: "It does not require much consideration to see that to regulate efficiently the trade of a country the size of Canada or the United States, where the question of transportation and freight rates is of such vital importance. where discrimination may enrich one industry or section and ruin another, and where huge combinations may practically monopolize the necessaries of life both in foods and

manufactures, there should be one general legislative power capable of dealing with all the important questions which are involved. In Canada we have such power in the Dominion Parliament. . . With respect to the two great subjects of trade and transportation, a new comer from the United States of America comes to a country where under its Constitution power exists to pass efficient laws to guard against the evils which exist in the country he comes from, and he may well be satisfied with the change. This power has been exercised already in important instances such as the Act creating an all powerful Railway Commission, and the Act relating to the investigation of injurious trade combinations. Clear power exists to make such amendments and additions to these Acts as the public interest may from time to time require." And I may mention in this connection an interesting paper by Professor Leacock of the University of McGill, published among the proceedings of the American Political Science Association of 1900, which brings home to one to how great an extent the framers of the British North America Act, as compared with those of the Constitution of the United States, in fixing the exclusive legislative powers of the federal parliament minimised the disadvantages, in the economic and industrial sphere, which are inseparable from federal government and divided jurisdictions.

Then I must mention also the complete jurisdiction over the criminal law and procedure in criminal matters which is vested in the Dominion Parliament, whereas in the United States each State possesses this power, with the result that their criminal laws and procedure differ, and differ widely, in some instances, not only as to what constitutes a crime, but as to the trial of the offender and his punishment. On this subject Mr. Lash says in the address I have referred to: "We have not in Canada the scandals and delays and perversions of justice which are constantly in evidence in the States, in connection with criminal trials. Our criminal

procedure is prompt and sure. Crime does not go unpunished, and no lynchings, because the power of the law fails, take place. No one can say of Canada as President Taft felt constrained to say publicly of the United States,-'I grieve for my country to say that the administration of criminal law in all the States of this Union (there may be one or two exceptions) is a disgrace to our civilization.' . .

I firmly believe that, if the United States Constitution had granted to the central authoriy exclusive power over criminal law and procedure, Congress would have enacted such laws, applying to the whole country, as would have gone far to obviate the scandals and delays and perversions of justice, and lynchings, and make it impossible for any President of that great nation to utter the lament I have quoted."

Lastly, I will refer to that Dominion power over marriage and divorce, which has been so much before the minds of the public of late. In the first place that power gives the Federal Parliament jurisdiction to prescribe a general law of marriage. For although the Privy Council in a famous recent decision have held that, under the exclusive power confided to the provincial Legislatures to pass laws in relation to the solemnization of marriage in the province." legislatures of each province can enact what shall be necessary to contract a valid marriage, if contracted in that province, the Privy Council have by no means held that if a couple find the requirements of their own province uncongenial to their religion or other principles, they cannot go and be married in some other province where the requirements suit them better, and so still contract a perfectly valid and binding marriage, which must be recognised as such throughout the Dominion, provided they comply with any requirements of the Federal marriage law. Then, on the other hand, by having exclusive control over divorce, Canadians are saved from liability to the eccentricities in that regard which characterize some of the States of the Union.

The conclusion of the whole matter, then, I think is this: that while the British North America Act leaves it to the future to settle such modifications as circumstances may dictate or the will of the people of Canada desire in the form of the relations of this Dominion to Great Britain and the Empire at large, it has provided for her domestic affairs a most wisely devised constitutional system under which Canadians possess all the freedom any people can desire to develop their own national life in their own way; and under which they may live free, contented, and prosperous, while the British name lasts,—and continue, after the manner of our ancestors, to fear God, love the brotherhood, and honour the King.

A. H. F. LEFROY.

CURRENT NOTES ON INTERNATIONAL LAWS.

CHINA'S REPUBLIC.

The delay in the recognition of the Chinese Republic appears to be occasioned mainly by the desire of the principal Powers to make the acceptance of loans on somewhat onerous terms by China a condition of recognition. It is not clear what is involved in the somewhat vague term "recognition." When used with regard to a new State, which is fighting for its separate existence, the word has a very definite meaning. It imports that, in spite of the rights of the parent State, the Power which accords "recognition" will enter into relations with the new State as an international entity. But in the case of an existing State like China, where there has merely taken place a change of Government, the phrase is meaningless. There is no parent State whose rights are in any way affected. China needs no "recognition." In her case the phrase simply means that the Power which is asked to accord "recognition is asked to continue friendly relations with China under its ́ new Government. It is not a new State.

Of course one State is perfectly entitled to discontinue official relations with another if it pleases. But so long as the established government is struggling to maintain itself, it would be inadmissible for any State whatever to assist those who are seeking to overthrow its rule. Contrary to Hall's opinion, the present writer believes that it is not improper for such a State to intervene in order to support the established government. For the latter represents the organization of the State and it is this organism, and not the fortuitous population within its territorial limits, which foreign Powers are under a duty to respect. As long, therefore, as the position of the republican government was in any way actively assailed by the imperial forces, foreign nations might properly have intervened to support the latter. But nothing of the kind happened. The success of the new régime was immediate. The former government (in a fashion which must be extremely rare) formally constituted it its successor. "Recognition," therefore, can do China no good in any legal sense. Intervention to restore the Manchus is evidently impossible, as well as illegal.

What is really meant, however, is that the Powers should resume their former diplomatic and consular intercourse with