also was Brown. But there was general agreement, despite Brown's
plea for a change, that the local governments should take the form
preferred by themselves and that ministerial responsibility on the
British model should prevail throughout. Upon the question of
assigning the same subjects, such as agriculture, to both federal and
provincial legislatures, Mowat said:

The items of agriculture and immigration should be vested in both
federal and local governments. Danger often arises where there is
exclusive jurisdiction and not so {75} often in cases of concurrent
jurisdiction. In municipal matters the county and township council
often have concurrent jurisdiction.

In the famous contests for provincial rights which he was afterwards to
wage before the courts, and always successfully, Mowat was not
necessarily forgetful that he himself moved for the power of
disallowance over provincial laws to be given to the federal authority.
With the caution and clearness of mind that governed his political
course, he naturally made sure of his ground before fighting, and could
thus safely break a lance with the federal government. The provincial
constitutions were, therefore, left to be determined by the provinces
themselves, and this freedom to modify them continues, 'except as
regards the office of lieutenant-governor.' No province has yet
proposed any constitutional change which could be regarded as an
infringement of the inviolacy of that office, and no circumstances have
arisen to throw light upon the kind of measure which would be so
regarded.[4]

One more point, touching upon provincial autonomy, deserves to be
noticed. In the {76} resolutions of the conference, as well as in the
British North America Act, the laws passed by the local legislatures
are reviewable for one year by the _governor-general_, not by the
_governor-general in council_. The colonial secretary drew attention
in 1876 to this distinction in the expressions used, and suggested that
it was intended to place the responsibility of deciding the validity of
provincial laws upon the governor-general personally. The able and
convincing memoranda in reply were composed by Edward Blake, the
Canadian minister of Justice. He contended that under the letter and
spirit of the constitution ministers must be responsible for the
governor's action. His view prevailed, and thus within ten years after
Confederation the principle that the crown's representati