§ MR. BENTALLsaid, in the absence of his hon. Friend (Mr. J. Howard), he wished to ask the Under Secretary of 1293 State for the Colonies, If his attention has been directed to the New Patent Law Act passed by the Senate and House of Representatives of Canada, and to which the Governor General gave- his assent on the 22nd June last; if he is aware that by the terms of this Act the rights hitherto enjoyed by British subjects and Foreigners are abolished, and that unlike the Patent Laws of England and all other countries, the benefits of its provisions are limited to persons permanently resident in its own dominion; and, whether the Colonial Office is prepared to recommend the Government to advise Her Majesty to withhold or postpone her assent to the Bill, with a view to give an opportunity to the Canadian Legislature to re-consider its provisions?
§ MR. MONSELLsaid, in reply, that his attention had been directed to a copy of the Act given in a Canadian newspaper, but no copy had been sent over here officially. By the former Canadian Act, 22 Vict. c. 34, a. 3, a person to obtain a patent in Canada must have been a "subject of Her Majesty, and resident in the Province." By this new Act the residence must have been '' for at least one year next before the application." In other words, the residence of the former Act had a minimum fixed of "one year at the least." The new Act was the same as the former Nova Scotia Act, c. 117. It differed from the New Brunswick Act, in which no such limitation was fixed. The subject of patents was essentially one with which the Dominion of Canada might deal, and this was evidenced by the terms of the 18th section of the Imperial Act, 15 & 16 Vict., c. 83, in which it was specially provided that nothing in the Act should be deemed to give operation to any Letters Patent granted under the authority of the Act in any colony in which such or the like Letters Patent would be invalid by the law in force in the same colony for the time being.
§ MR. MACFIEsaid, that next Session he would call the attention of the House to the propriety of having at the Colonial Office a set of all the Acts of the Colonial Parliaments.