.
The Dominion government also supervises all the provincial legislation
and has in a few cases disallowed provincial acts. This power is
exercised very carefully, and it is regarded with intense jealousy by
the provincial governments, which have more than once attempted to set
it at defiance. In practice it is found the wisest course to leave to
the courts the decision in cases where doubts exist as to constitutional
authority or jurisdiction.

The organised districts of the North-west--Assiniboia, Alberta,
Athabaska, and Saskatchewan--are governed by a lieutenant-governor
appointed by the government of Canada and aided by a council chosen by
himself from an assembly elected by the people under a very liberal
franchise. These territories have also representatives in the two houses
of the parliament of Canada. The Yukon territory in the far north-west,
where rich discoveries of gold have attracted a large number of people
within the past two years, is placed under a provisional government,
composed of a commissioner and council appointed by the Dominion
government[8], and acting under instructions given from time to time by
the same authority or by the minister of the interior.

[8: Since this sentence was in type the Dominion government has given
effect to a provision of a law allowing the duly qualified electors of
the Yukon to choose two members of the council.]

The public service enjoys all the advantages that arise from permanency
of tenure and appointment by the crown. It has on the whole been
creditable to the country and remarkably free from political influences.
The criminal law of England has prevailed in all the provinces since it
was formerly introduced by the Quebec act of 1774. The civil law of the
French regime, however, has continued to be the legal system in French
Canada since the Quebec act, and has now obtained a hold in that
province which insures its permanence as an institution closely allied
with the dearest rights of the people. Its principles and maxims have
been carefully collected and enacted in a code which is based on the
famous code of Napoleon. In the other provinces and territories the
common law of England forms the basis of jurisprudence on which a large
body of Canadian statutory law has been built in the course of time.

At the present time all the provinces, with the exception of Prince
Edward Island, have an excellent municipal system, which enables every
defined district, lar