provincial governments to a central authority, but to create a federal government in which they should all be represented and trusted with the exclusive administration of affairs in which they had a common interest, each Province retaining its independence and autonomy. That object was accomplished by distributing between the Dominion and the Provinces all powers, executive and legislative, and all public property and revenues, which had previously belonged to the Provinces; so that the Dominion Government should be vested with such powers, property, and revenues, as were necessary for the due performance of its constitutional functions, and that the remainder should be retained by the Provinces for the purpose of provincial government. But in so far as regards those matters, which by s. 92 are specially reserved for provincial legislation, the legislature of each Province continues to be free from the control of the Dominion and as supreme as it was before the passing of the Act."

But the litigation over the relative rights of the Dominion and the Province had begun long before Mr. Justice Gwynne became a member of the Supreme Court Bench, and very soon after he took his seat, and before the Parsons cases came before that tribunal, he had occasion, and he seized it, to give a full statement of his views. They are instructive, and are found in City of Fredericton v. The Queen, 3 S. C. R. 505. Beginning at p. 560, he says, among other things:—

"Historically we know that the terms of a feasible scheme of union of all the B. N. A. Provinces, constitutes a subject which for many years engaged the attention of public men in those Provinces-that the matter became the subject of debate in the legislatures of the several Provinces-that eventually the views of public men of all political parties were moulded into the shape of resolutions, which, having been subjected to the most careful consideration and criticism in the Provincial Legislatures, and to the consideration also of the Imperial authorities, in consultation with delegates sent for the purpose to England, by the respective Provinces, were, after having been revised and amended, reduced into the form of a bill, which the Imperial Parliament, at the special request of the Provinces, passed into an Act.

"The object of this Act was, by the exercise of the sovereign Imperial power, called into action by the request of the then existing Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, to revoke the constitutions under which those Provinces then existed, and, as the preamble of the Act recites, to unite them federally into one Dominion, under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom— to sow, in fact, the seed of the parent tree, which, growing up under the protecting shadow of the British Crown until it should attain perfect maturity, would in the progress of time become a nation, identical in its features and characteristics. with that from which it had sprung, and to which, in the meantime, should be given the new name of 'Dominion," significant of the design conceived, and of the anticipated fortunes of this new creation.

"The Act then proceeds to shew that the mode devised for founding this new 'Dominion,' and for giving to it a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom, was to constitute it as a quasi Imperial sovereign power, invested with all the attributes of independence, as an appanage of the British Crown, whose executive and legislative authority should be similar to that of the United Kingdom, that is to say, as absolute, sovereign, and plenary as, consistently with its being a dependency of the British Crown, it could be, in all matters whatsoever, save only in respect of matters of a purely municipal, local, or private character-matters relating (to use the language of a statesman of the time) to the family life' (so to speak) of certain subordinate divisions, termed Provinces, carved out of the Dominion, and to which Provinces legislative jurisdiction limited to such matters was to be given.

"The inhabitants of those several Provinces being, as such, members of this quasi Imperial power termed the Dominion of Canada, might, in some matters, have interests, qua inhabitants of the particular Province in which they should live, distinct from or conflicting with the general interests which they would have as constituent members of the Dominion.

In order to prevent the jarring of those distinct or conflicting interests, and to maintain the peace, order, and good government of the whole, it would be necessary, in any perfect measure, that provision should be made for such a contingency, that the subordinate should yield to the superior-the lesser to the greater: and that, in respect of any matter over which the several Provinces might be given any legislative authority concurrently with the Dominion Parliament, the authority of the latter, when exercised, should prevail, to the exclusion, and, if need be, to the extinction, of the provincial authority.

"The scheme therefore comprised a fourfold classification of powers. 1st. Over those subjects which are assigned to the exclusive plenary power of the Dominion Parliament. 2nd. Those assigned exclusively to the Provincial Legislatures. 3rd. Subjects assigned concurrently to the Dominion Parliament and to the Provincial Legislatures. And 4th. A particular subject, namely, education, which for special reasons is dealt with exceptionally and made the subject of special legislation.

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The 5th clause, out of the Dominion so created, carves four subordinate creations called Provinces, and named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, the two latter of which, although being coterminous with those of the extinguished Provinces of like names merged into the Dominion, are, notwithstanding, wholly new creations brought into existence solely by the B. N. A. Act. The executive and legislative authority of all the Provinces as at present constituted, as well as of the Dominion, are due to the B. N. A. Act, which now constitutes the sole constitutional charter of each and every of them, and which, with sufficient accuracy and precision, as it seems to me, defines the jurisdiction of each."

The Parsons Cases (4 S. C. R. 215) were appeals from the Province of Ontario. The Legislature of that Province had been active, and had passed many statutes on the undefined borderland of property and civil rights and that of trade and commerce. Great hardships had been experienced in the

Province by the enforcement by fire insurance companies of conditions under which they evaded responsibility. A gross case having been brought to the attention of the Ontario Government by the Judges, a commission had been issued by the former. As a result of the report of these gentlemen a statute was passed by the local Legislature prescribing certain uniform conditions to be applicable as against the insurers in all fire insurance contracts. These conditions the companies were required to print on all their contracts, and if they desired to vary any of them such variations were to be conspicuously printed and in different coloured ink. The natural amount of litigation followed this statute, and in the end the Privy Council had to decide, and did so, speaking broadly, in favour of the right of the Provinces to regulate the conduct of fire insurance within its bounds.

The Parsons cases were three: One against the Citizens' Insurance Co., a corporation created by the old Province of Canada, which had obtained a new charter from the Dominion, and whose origin was in the Province of Quebec. Another, the Western, domiciled in Ontario, but incorporated long before Confederation by the old Province. The third was the Queen, an English company. All three had been. licensed by the Dominion Government to carry on business in Canada. It is hard to give a brief outline, but the great constitutional points of difference and the reasons for them appear in the two following extracts from the judgments of Chief Justice Ritchie, and those which follow from the judgment of Mr. Justice Gwynne. The Chief Justice said:—

Ritchie, C.J. (p. 245): "In my opinion, this Act has no reference to trade and commerce in the sense in which these words are used in the British North America Act. It is simply an exercise of the power of the local Legislature for the protection of property in Ontario, and the civil rights of the proprietors thereof in connection therewith, by securing a reasonable and just contract in favour of parties insuring property, real or personal, in Ontario, and deals therefore only with a matter of a local and private nature. The scope and object of the Act is to secure to parties insuring a just and reasonable contract, to prevent the exaction of unjust and

unreasonable conditions, and to protect parties from being imposed upon by the insertion of conditions and stipulations in such a way as not to be brought to the immediate notice of the insured, or capable of being easily understood, or by the insertion of conditions calculated practically in many cases to deprive the parties paying the premiums of indemnity, though justly entitled to it, and, if the statutory conditions are omitted or varied, to compel the terms of the contract to be so plainly and prominently put on the contract that the attention of the assured may be called to them, and so that he may not be misled, judicial experience having proved that the rights of the insured, and legitimate indemnity in return for the money paid, demanded that the insured should be thus protected.

As to the construction which my brother Gwynne has put on section 3 of the Act, in the case of Geraldi v. Provincial Insurance Company, 29 C. P. 321, though the arguments used by him in that case, and in the judgment he is about to deliver, which he has kindly afforded me the opportunity of reading, and which I have most attentively considered, are very cogent and plausible, yet I have been unable to arrive at the same conclusion that he has. I think the history and phraseology of the Act shews it was passed for the protection and benefit of the insured, and "as against the insurer" that the insured may insure without conditions if he pleases, except those conditions which the law implies, but that in such a case, as against the insurer, the insured may claim the benefit of these conditions (p. 249).

I can hardly condense Mr. Justice Gwynne's judgment, but the following portions sufficiently shew the bias of his convictions upon this vital constitutional issue.

Mr. Justice Gwynne said in part (4 S. C. R. p. 329): "The question thus raised is, undoubtedly, one of a very grave character, for, as became developed in the argument of the several cases now before us wherein the point is raised, one of