dispute by imposing obligations with respect to duties to be performed on British ships engaged in voyages coming within the terms of that section. A dispute is not necessarily less a dispute extending beyond the limits of any one State merely because some of the operations in respect of which the dispute exists are performed extra-territorially, inasmuch as some such operations must be within the ambit of covering clause V. whatever the meaning of that clause may be."

The Seamen's Compensation Act 1911 was held by the High Court to be a valid exercise of the legislative powers of the Commonwealth Parliament within sections 51 (1.) and 98 relating to interstate commerce and shipping and navigation: The Australian Steamships Ltd. v. Malcolm, (1915) 19 C.L.R., 298. In that case William Malcolm second mate of the steamer Burwah owned by the Australian Steamships Co. was drowned at sea on 7th May 1913 as the result of an accident arising out of his employment. His widow brought an action against the Company to recover compensation and she obtained judgment in the District Court Sydney for the sum of £500. The shipowners appealed to the High Court. The Seamen's Compensation Act 1911 was pronounced to be valid and it followed that under covering clause V. of the Constitution, that law was in force on board the British ship Burwah sailing on the High Seas, at the time when the accident occurred. Explaining this principle the Chief Justice Sir SAMUEL GRIFFITH said: The first observation which I have to make is that the ambit of the legislative authority of the Parliament in exercising this power as well as all others is restricted to the territorial limits of the Commonwealth. Any extra-territorial effect is to be sought in section V. of the Constitution Act under which laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth (i.e., of course valid laws), are to be in force on certain British ships. The test to be applied in determining the validity of the Act is, therefore, whether regarded as an act relating to intra-territorial matters, it is within the ambit of power. The circumstance that many of the operations of interstate and foreign commerce are carried on beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the Commonwealth is irrelevant": 19 C.L.R., at p. 304.

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Definitions.

6. The Commonwealth " 17 shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as established under this Act.

"The States" shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory 18 of South Australia, as for the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such colonies or territories as may be admitted into or established by the Commonwealth as States; and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called " a State."

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Original States" shall mean such States as are parts of the Commonwealth at its establishment.

§ 17. "THE COMMONWEALTH.”

Primary Meaning of "Commonwealth."

The primary meaning and most comprehensive signification of the term "Commonwealth" is to be found in the preamble and first six covering clauses of the Act, in which it is distinctly used to indicate the Federal union of the Australian people and the Australian Colonies into one indissoluble political partnership under the Crown. The statutory definition is given in clause 6, which declares that the Commonwealth shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as established under this Act." By the same clause, the former Colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia are declared to be "parts of the Commonwealth" under the name of "States."

The Commonwealth, formed by the union of the Australian people and Colonies, was established by clause 3 of the Imperial Act. It came into existence independently of the Constitution detailed in clause 9. In other words, the newly organized political society is clearly distinguishable from the new system of government. The Commonwealth, as a political entity and political partnership, is outside of and supreme over the Constitution. It is outside of and supreme over the government provided by the Constitution.

Secondary Meaning of "Commonwealth."

So much for the wider and more natural signification of the term "Commonwealth," as it is manifestly defined by the first six

covering clauses of the Imperial Act. In several sections of the Constitution, however, the term "Commonwealth" is inartistically used to denote the Central or Federal Government, as contrasted with the Governments of the States, i.e., "The legislative power of the Commonwealth," section 1; "the executive power of the Commonwealth," section 61; "the judicial power of the Commonwealth," section 71. These expressions refer to the legislative, executive and judicial powers granted by the Constitution to the various organs of the central or Federal Government. In the American Constitution the term "United States is sometimes used to describe the Union, and sometimes to denote the central or Federal Government of the Union. These are instances of the secondary use and significance of corresponding terms in both Constitutions. The secondary use and meaning of "Commonwealth" must be distinguished from its primary and proper meaning, as defined in the constructive clauses of the Imperial Act: Pomeroy's Constitutional Law, p. 68; Quick and Garran's Annotated Constitution, p. 368.

The attributes and characteristics of the union, which may be gathered from the preamble and covering clauses, can be thus summarized-It is a quasi national State, composed of a related people, of ethnic unity, occupying a fixed territory of geographical unity bound together by a common Constitution, and organized by that Constitution under a dual system of provincial and central government, consisting of two sets of legislative, executive, and judicial departments, each set being operative within its own assigned sphere, and each set being subject to the common Constitution Quick and Garran's Annotated Constitution, p. 368.

The Essence of Federation.

The essence of a federation is, that it is a community welded together and subject to a dual system of government. Not only are the people of the pre-existing communities, provinces, or colonies united, but those communities, provinces or colonies, considered as corporate political units, are also united into one larger aggregate or whole, under one common Constitution, to which they owe allegiance, and which regulates their rights and duties. Of the dual system of government referred to, one part consists of the former separate colonial or provincial governments, to the extent to which they have not been altered by the new constitutional instrument,

whilst the other part consists of the new group of governmental agencies created by the same document. Thus the legislative executive, and judicial authorities of the former provinces or colonies continue in the exercise of the residue of powers and functions left to them undisturbed by the new regime, and a fresh set of governing instrumentalities, in the shape of a federal legislature, a federal executive, and federal judiciary appear on the scene, charged with the exercise of powers and functions of a general or national character, having jurisdiction for limited and assigned purposes over the whole of the people in the united community : Quick and Groom, The Judicial Power of the Commonwealth, p. 2.

The Scheme of Federal Union.

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"The scheme of the Australian Constitution said the Chief Justice in a memorable judgment, like that of the Constitution of the United States, is to confer certain definite and specified powers upon the Commonwealth, and to leave the residue of power in the hands of the States. This is expressed in our Constitution by the language of sections 51 and 52, which confer the Federal power, and section 107, which provides that Every power of a Parliament of a Colony which has become or becomes a State, shall, unless it is by this Constitution exclusively vested in the Parliament of the Commonwealth, or withdrawn from the Parliament of the State, continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth.' In the American Constitution it is expressed in the words of the tenth amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. In our judgment the schemes of these two Constitutions are, in this respect, identical. In neither case is any new power conferred upon the States. nor is there any exclusive distribution of powers, except as to a limited class of cases. It was suggested in argument that a distinction is to be found in the fact that in the United States the ultimate source of power is the people. i.e., the collective people of the United States in the one case, and the people in the several States in the other, while in Australia the ultimate source is, in each case, the Crown or the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We are quite unable to see the relevancy of this distinction. It is a matter of common knowledge that the framers of the Australian Constitution were familiar with the two great examples of English speaking federations, and deliberately adopted, with regard

to the distribution of powers, the model of the United States, in preference to that of the Canadian Dominion. They used language not verbally identical, but synonymous, for the purpose of defining that distribution. And the respective powers of the Commonwealth and the States having been defined and distributed by the ultimate sovereign power, it appears to be quite irrelevant to the question of interpretation whether that sovereign power is one or several, or whether it is the collective people or a personal monarch or a constitutional parliament. The scheme of the Canadian Constitution, which was rejected by the framers of this Constitution, is essentially different. An attempt was made in the British North America Act, by which the powers of the Dominion and the Provinces are conferred, to enumerate all possible subjects of legislation and to distribute them between the Dominion and the Provinces, giving the power in each case to the one authority to the exclusion of the other. It follows that every power of legislation must reside in one authority or the other, and if it cannot be exercised by the authority on whom it is conferred in express terms, it cannot be exercised at all" Per the Chief Justice (Sir SAMUEL GRIFFITH), in Deakin v. Webb and Lyne v. Webb, (1904) 1 C.L.R., at p. 605.

§ 18.

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INCLUDING THE NORTHERN TERRITORY OF SOUTH
AUSTRALIA.”

The Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory ceased to be a part of the State of South Australia on the 1st January 1911, having been surrendered by the State and accepted by the Commonwealth by virtue of an agreement dated the 7th December 1907, which the Parliament of South Australia ratified by the Northern Territory Surrender Act 1907, and the Federal Parliament ratified by the Northern Territory Acceptance Act 1910.

Repeal of Federal Council Act-48 & 49 Vict. c. 60.

7. The Federal Council of Australasia Act, 1885, is hereby repealed, but so as not to affect any laws passed by the Federal Council of Australasia and in force at the establishment of the Commonwealth.

Any such law may be repealed as to any State by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, or as to any