Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/24

 CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, K.C. emphasizing and endeavoring to justify his libellous article. His argument fills some ten pages. Mr. Robinson replied in an hour's speech (with him was Mr. Henry O'Brien, the editor of the Canada Law Journal). But the judges differed and nothing came of all the bother, although the article was held to be a reckless, unjus tifiable attack on the judge and a contempt of court. The chief justice thought Brown should be punished. Judge Morrison was of the opinion that as the courts had ab stained from noticing the libellous matter for five months, they should not now do so on the motion of Wilkinson. Judge Wil son, of course, took no part in the motion. But this was not the end of the Big Push, for Wilkinson was tried and found guilty, but recommended to mercy; but of course he was dissatisfied thereat, and so applied to the full court to have the ver dict set aside for misdirection, and for a new trial; but the motion was not success ful. On this application Mr. Robinson again appeared for Wilkinson. Altogether Messrs. Brown and Wilkinson occupy about one hundred and fifty pages of the 4ist and 42d volumes of U. C. Re ports. Occasionally members of one family differ as to their respective rights and possessions. States and provinces do the same, though under one flag. The question as to what were the western and northern boundaries of Ontario have been a question brulante be tween the governments of the Dominion and the Province for years. Manitoba, a sturdy and progressive and self-assertive junior in the Canada galaxy of provinces, was given the land up to the western boundary of Ontario: but where was that? Manitoba tried to push it East; Ontario to shove it West. The denizens of the disputed territory voted in the elections for both provinces and for two constitu encies in the Dominion elections. In 1883, Ontario sent special constables to Rat Portage, the scene of the conflict, to sup

port the dignity of the premier province. Manitoba did the same to sustain its dig nity. On the ayth of July, the Dominion commissioner, with two policemen, the Ontario magistrate with twenty-five police men, and the Manitoba stipendiary mag istrate, with fifteen constables, were arrest ing each other all day, and the people were siding, some with one side and some with another, to the imminent danger of the peace and the loss of life. One province was Conservative, the other Reform. "Mowat'si lambs," burned the Manitoban gaol; ancl "a tory band of ruffians" were equally violent. For weeks the fight went on. At last the attorneys-general of the two prov inces met, and very soon a modus vivendi was established, and an agreement arrived at to refer to the Privy Council the diffi cult question as to whether Ontario was right in saying that the boundary should be the meridian of the Northwest angle of the Lake of the Woods or a line west of it; or if Manitoba should prevail in the contention that the meridian of the con fluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, or the height of land lying west of such meridian and dividing the waters that flow into the Hudson's Bay from those empty ing into the Great Lakes was the correct one. The unpretentious upstairs room in the low shabby-looking building in Down ing Street, where the appellate tribunal sits which maintains the even balance of jus tice over a fifth of the human race and exercises sway over a fifth of the lands occupied by man on this globe, was bril liant with the array of legal luminaries when the matter came on. The members of the Judicial Committee were The Lord President, Lord Carlingford, the Lord Chan cellor Selbourne, Lord Aberdare, Sir Barnes Peacock, Sir Montague Smith, and Sir Robert Collier. For Ontario appeared Attor ney-General Mowat, and the Hon. David Mills, and Messrs. Haldane & Scoble of the English Bar. On behalf of Manitoba, Attor ney General Miller and Mr. Dalton McCarthy