130 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



This was changed after the Quebec Act; in Carleton's Instructions 

 it reads thus: "No Ordinance be passed relative to the Trade, Commerce 

 or Fisheries of the said Province by which the Inhabitants thereof 

 shall be put on a more advantageous footing than any other of His- 

 Subjects either of this Kingdom or the Plantations." Much trouble 

 had been experienced from the American Colonies levying retaliatory 

 duties on each other's products, making laws which laid a burden on 

 English merchants and the like (8). This was to prevent such 

 practices in Canada. 



(b) The Royal Prerogative was an elastic term and convenient as 

 elastic; scarcely anything could be done by the Colonies in the way of 

 self-government but the High Tory might consider it an encroachment 

 on the Royal Prerogative while scarcely anything could be such an 

 assertion of independence that it might not by a complaisant monarch 

 or his advisers be considered compatible with his Royal Rights (9). 

 The clause does not call for particular attention. 



(c) Interference with the rights of private persons is always a 

 serious matter; no one can doubt the Power of the Imperial Parlia- 

 ment in the premises but this was forbidden the Colonial Legislatures 

 (10). 



(d) Laws of an unusual or extraordinary character were not 

 uncommon in the American Colonies (11). 



These provisions (b), (c) and (d) disappear after the Quebec Act 

 but there is no reason to suppose that had any legislation of the kind 

 been passed it would have received the Royal assent. 



Murray's Instructions (1763) also recited difficulties arising from 

 the enactment by' the American Colonies of Laws for so short a time 

 that they expired before the Royal Assent or Refusal could be obtained 

 and he was directed to refuse assent to any law enacted for a less time 

 than two years, except in case of imminent necessity or immediate 

 temporary expediency; moreover he was not without express leave to 

 permit a law to be reënacted which had failed of the Royal Assent, 

 nor to permit a law to be repealed (which had once been approved) 

 without a clause suspending its operation until the Royal pleasure 

 should be known (11). 



The temporary Act was a well known means of evading the 

 directions of the Board of Trade (12) and equally well known were the 

 re-enactment of laws already disallowed and the repeal of those which 

 had been approved and confirmed (13). The same clause is found 

 in the Royal Instructions after the Quebec Act (14). 



We may pass over the purely directory clauses in Murray's 

 Instructions, mentioning only that all Ordinances were to be trans- 

 mitted in three months or sooner to the Board of Trade (15). 



