Another cause of friction, aggravated by the power of disallowance, has arisen from conflict in jurisdiction as to railways. Both the Dominion and the provinces may charter and build railways. But the British Act forbids the province to legislate as to lines of steam or other ships, railways, canals, and telegraphs connecting the province with any other province, or extending beyond its limits, or any such work actually within the limits which the Canadian Parliament may declare for the general advantage of Canada; that is, declare it to be a Dominion work. A promoter, therefore, cannot tell with any certainty what a charter is worth, or who will have jurisdiction over it. The trouble in Manitoba in the fall of 1888 between the province and the Canadian Pacific road (which is a Dominion road in the meaning of the Act) could scarcely have arisen if the definition of Dominion and provincial rights had been clearer. But a more serious cause of weakness to the provinces and embarrassment to the Dominion is in the provincial subsidies. When the present confederation was formed the Dominion took on the provincial debts up to a certain amount. It also agreed to pay annually to each province, in half-yearly payments, a subsidy. By the British Act this annual payment was $80,000 to Ontario, $70,000 to Quebec, $60,000 to Nova Scotia, $50,000 to New Brunswick, with something additional to the last two. In 1886-87 the subsidies paid to all the provinces amounted to $4,169,341. This is as if the United States should undertake to raise a fixed revenue to distribute among the States—a proceeding alien to our ideas of the true function of the General Government, and certain to lead to State demoralization, and tending directly to undermine its self-support and dignity. It is an idea quite foreign to the conception of political economy that it is best for people to earn what they spend, and only spend what they earn. This subsidy under the Act was a grant equal to eighty cents a head of the population. Besides this there is given to each province an annual allowance for government; also an annual allowance of interest on the amount of debt allowed where the province has not reached the limit of the authorized debt. It is the theory of the Federal Government that in taking on these pecuniary burdens of the provinces they will individually feel them less, and that if money is to be raised the Dominion can procure it on more favorable terms than the provinces. The system, nevertheless, seems vicious to our apprehension, for nothing is clearer to us than that neither the State nor the general welfare would be promoted if the States were pensioners of the General Government.