Prince. — Fishery Administration in Canada 173 



Quebec Government questioned Dominion rights in respect 

 to inland fisheries, and denied the validity of an eel-fishing 

 lease on the Richelieu River which had been issued from Ot- 

 tawa. The Dominion Government invited the Quebec Gov- 

 ernment to agree to a reference to the highest legal tribunal 

 in the British Empire, the Privy Council in London, and to 

 allow the Dominion to issue leases and licenses pending a 

 final decision; but Quebec refused. Various other cases arose, 

 and in 1894 Ontario passed a code of fishery regulations, fol- 

 lowed by similar action in British Columbia in 1897, so that 

 the authority of the Dominion was being directly impugned. 

 A reference was made to the Imperial Privy Council in the 

 form of an appeal against the judgment of the Supreme Court 

 of CaJiada on seventeen points in controversy, which judg- 

 ment was not acceptable either to the several Provinces, or 

 to the Federal Government, and was not indeed a unanimous 

 decision of the Bench. 



Important Fisheries Decision, 1898. — Setting aside a 

 number of minor points the Imperial Fisheries Judgment, 

 dated July 18, 1898, decided these four important questions: 



1. That fisheries jurisdiction, the making of fishery laws 

 in Canada, is vested in the federal government. 



2. That property rights in fisheries, and in consequence 

 the issue of leases and licenses, is vested in the several Prov- 

 inces. 



3. That the federal government can impose a tax for 

 revenue purposes on every license fishery issued by the Prov- 

 inces. (This power might be so exercised as to make provin- 

 cial licensing a practical impossibility.) 



4. That all public harbors, and the fisheries therein, are 

 vested in the Dominion. 



Dominion Retains Great Property Rights. — It was 

 admitted, before the Imperial Tribunal, that in such a Prov- 

 ince as Nova Scotia all the existing harbors are public har- 

 bors,* and as all the mouths of salmon rivers, and probably 



*Hon. Mr. Longley declared "Every harbor in Nova Scotia is a public harbor." 

 p. 227; Official Report of Imperial Privy Council Appeal, London, 1899. 



