Marcu 17, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
GATE RAG 
GUN 

Quebec Non-Resident Tax. 
THERE was published in our issue of Feb. Io a 
letter written by Mr. W. R. White, K. C., of 
Pembroke, addressed to Minister Jean Prevost, 
relative to the proposal to impose a non-resident 
license tax upon members of clubs and other 
lessees of hunting territory in the Province of 
Quebec. To that letter the Minister making no 
reply, Mr. White wrote him again on Feb. 18. In 
the Montreal Star of Feb. to was printed an inter- 
view with the Minister, to which Mr. White made 
reply in a letter dated Feb. 22. Both of these 
communications, Feb. 18 and 22, follow: 

PEMBROKE, Feb. 1, 1906.—Hon. Jean Prevost, 
Minister Colonization, Mines and _ Fisheries, 
Quebec: Sir—As I have had no reply to my let- 
ter addressed to you early in December last, or to 
the strong protest therein contained, against your 
proposed imposition of a license fee upon non- 
resident club members and other lessees of hunt- 
ing territory in your Province, I have, pursuant 
to your permission given to me verbally in Ot- 
tawa, caused my letter to be published in the 
Ottawa Citizen, and now send you a copy under 
separate cover. 
Your failure to reply forces me to one of two 
conclusions: Either you have found my argu- 
ments unanswerable, or you have determined to 
ignore them, and proceed to legislate our rights 
out of existence. I sincerely hope that the first 
of these suppositions is the correct one. But, lest 
the latter should be the course you have deter- 
mined to adopt, I again take the very great lib- 
erty of addressing to you an open letter on the 
subject, in the hope that you may yet be brought 
to see the injustice of the contemplated interfer- 
ence with the vested rights of the Crown’s lessees 
in your Province, 
In doing so I shall be brief as possible, and 
avoid, in so far as I can, repeating any of the 
arguments used in my former letter. 
_ I submit most respectfully that in the case of 
an incorporated club, incorporated under the laws 
of the Province, we have no existence outside of 
the Province of Quebec and you have created the 
members, whether resident or non-resident, a 
corporate entity or individual, having its domicile 
only.in the Province. 
This incorporated body holds the lease, and I 
cannot see how you can now disintegrate that 
corporate body and say that certain members of 
it reside outside of the Province, and therefore 
are non-residents. Especially when it was offi- 
cially known.to the Crown, where the individual 
members of the club resided at the time of its 
incorporation; the residences of each individual 
being stated in the application. 
I further suggest for your consideration that, 
even if the Provincial Legislature can, technically, 
legislate to the injury or destruction of vested 
rights, the Federal Government has uniformly 
disallowed such legislation, and in more than one 
notable instance has solemnly affirmed that dis- 
allowance of such legislation was not only the 
right, but the bounden duty of the Federal au- 
thorities. 
Let me quote in full the words of the lease in- 
dicating the object of the lessee in getting the 
lease and the Crown in granting it. The words 
are: “The Minister of Colonization, Mines and 
Fisheries hereby leases for the sole purpose of 
enjoyment of the hunting and shooting rights per- 
taining thereto unto the said club hereof ac- 
cepting by their president and the secretary for 
and during the period, and on the conditions here- 
inafter mentioned, a certain tract of land measur- 
ing —— square miles, etc.” 
How can you justify yourself in asking the 
Legislature to pass an act which will interfere 
with “the enjoyment of these same hunting and 
shooting rights?” And how can the Legislature 

pass such a measure without violating all the 
principles that safeguard the rights and liberties 
of the individual? For the sake of the good 
name of your Province—leaving personal consid- 
eration entirely out of the question—let me urge 
you in the strongest possible manner to refrain 
from pressing this matter further. 
Your Provincial Treasurer has just delivered 
his budget speech, and announces a surplus of 
over $100,000. Of this sum it is safe to say, as I 
pointed out in my former letter, that over one- 
half is derived from. the rentals obtained from 
hunting and fishing leases. You are, therefore, 
deprived of the argument of necessity which, I 
respectfully submit, never was an argument which 
should have been used by a responsible Minister 
of the Crown. 
Your proposal to divide the annual rental by 
the number of members of the club, and reduce 
the $25 license fee by the amount of the quotient, 
is not meeting the question on either a fair or 
statesman-like basis. If it is just and equitable, 
and within your rights, to impose any fee; then, 
the question of amount does not enter into the 
argument at all. 
Neither does the question as to what is done in 
other States or Provinces. In answer to a ques- 
tion put by the chairman of the Ontario Game 
Commission at Ottawa, I then expressed the 
opinion that the charge made by that Province of 
a license fee to a certain member of a club in 
Ontario for shooting over lands held in fee sim- 
ple by the club, was an outrage, and I still hold 
that opinion. 
There is, however, no parallel between this 
case—which is the only one I know of—and your 
proposal, as | shall try to point out to you. 
Assuming that under the English common law 
the owner of lands in fee simple may be com- 
pelled to pay a license fee for shooting his own 
game on his own lands: That I respectfully sub- 
mit is not the position of a lessee in Quebec. In 
Quebec, a lease, which in itself is the most ab- 
solute and strongest form of license, is bar- 
gained for and granted by the Crown for ten 
years for the hunting and shooting rights alone. 
The lessee has no other rights in the land. The 
lumberman’s license is contemporary with the 
lease, and in many cases for a longer or shorter 
period interferes with the hunting and shooting. 
The public can travel over the lands, sail over the 
waters, and exercise all the common law or sta- 
tutory rights of the subject. 
The enjoyment of the hunting and shooting 
rights only is reserved to the lessee. It is for 
these, and these only, the lessee pays, and to these 
the lessee is fully entitled. Anything which pre- 
vents him in any degree from enjoying these 
rights is a breach of contract, which as between 
individuals the courts would restrain by injunc- 
tion or, for which, would grant damages to the 
party aggrieved. 
There is another point of view which I submit 
is worthy of your most serious consideration. Can 
you treat the citizens of a sister Province, which 
forms part of the great confederation, as if they 
were aliens; can you discriminate against them 
in this matter? You cannot do so in ordinary 
municipal taxation, nor in the interchange of the 
products. of the several Provinces, nor in the mat- 
ter of labor. Thousands of workmen from the 
Province of Quebec are annually employed in the 
lumber camps of Ontario. Would it be just or 
right, or even courteous, for the Ontario Legisla- 
ture to exclude such labor or impose an indivi- 
dual tax or license fee upon the laborers—assum- 
ing that such an act was intra vires? It was sug- 
gested privately that the proposed license fee 
was really aimed at citizens of the United States 
who held leases. This I cannot believe; for, how- 
ever you might break faith with the citizens of 
your own country, public honor, the honor of the 
Crown, of the Province of Quebec, and of the 
administration, would forbid such a breach of 
contract with the citizens of a foreign but friendly 
State. 
In conclusion, Mr. Minister, let me say that if 
my arguments appear to you conclusive, then,, do 
not be persuaded to submit this measure to your 
Legislature. If they are not conclusive, then 
surely I am entitled to your views as to wherein 
they fail. I am warned by friends that by thus 
addressing you I may arouse your personal ani- 
mosity. I have no such fear. A gentleman occu- 
pying your high position at the bar, and in the 
councils of your Province must be open to listen 
to argument on the part of those who may con- 
sider that your public acts are likely to injure 
their interests, or deprive them of their rights. 
And if these arguments are strong enough to ap- 
peal to your reason and your sense of justice, then 
I have full confidence that you will act upon your 
convictions, and that I personally shall not suffer 
in your good opinion. I shall delay publication 
of this letter for a week with the expectation .f 
hearing from you. I have the honor to be, yorr 
most obedient servant, W. R. WGSITE. 

PEMBROKE, Ont., Feb. 22.—To the Editor of thv 
Montreal Star, Montreal, Que.: Dear Sir—My 
attention has been to-day directed to your issue 
of the roth inst., containing a reported interview 
with Hon. Jean Prevost, Minister of Colonization, 
Mines and Fisheries for Quebec, in which he re- 
plies to my criticisms upon his proposed action in 
the above matter. 
As the honorable gentleman has not done me 
the honor of replying to two letters which I have 
addressed to him upon this subject, I presume the 
only course open to me is to appeal to that forum 
of public opinion which even Ministers of the 
Crown cannot afford to despise. 
As you have already published part of my first 
letter to the Minister, I now inclose herewith my 
second letter to him, and ask its publication in 
your widely read columns. I also ask you to 
print this letter in answer to the position taken 
by the Minister as reported in the above men- 
tioned interview. 
I shall not occupy your space in answering his 
denials of breach of faith and spoliation. My 
former letters deal fully with this phase of the 
question, and if the Hon. Minister can convince 
himself that the lessee of hunting territory (un- 
der his nroposed new regulations) has anything 
left of his lease, except the paper on which it is 
printed, then he is an adept at the art of self- 
deception. I venture the opinion that he will de- 
ceive nobody else. Assuming the honorable gen- 
tleman’s statement of the law to be correct, is it 
not remarkable that it should have remained a 
dead letter until the order in council of 1901 was 
passed for the purpose of wholly eliminating it 
from the regulations. Former Ministers, recogniz- 
ing the injustice of granting the subject rights 
and then preventing him exercising the very 
rights granted him, passed this order in council. 
The Hon. Mr. Prevost is the first to discover 
that this order in council is illegal, and forthwith 
proceeds to wipe it out of existence. Wherein, 
pray, is it illegal? The honorable gentleman 
concedes that the Ministers may reduce the 
license fee, but says they cannot abolish it alto- 
gether. In effect an order in council may be 
passed reducing the fee to $0.001, but not to zero. 
So says the Minister. Truly, a nice legal dis- 
tinction without a common sense difference. 
But all this is mere legal quibbling. Does the 
Minister presume to say that any club or person 
leasing territory was ever informed of the state 
of the law as he puts it, or that any lease granted 
heretofore contained the remotest reference to a 
non-resident license fee? Will he assert that any 
club or person knew of its existence, and what 
does he propose to do with licenses granted since 
the passage of the order in council of 1901? Legal 
