halves. But in the case of Australia, the pre-existing constitutions of the Colonies, granted by the Imperial Government at various times, go on unchanged, subject only to the supersession of some of their functions by the Commonwealth, and to one or two specifically mentioned restrictions. That these restrictions are comparatively few may be partly ascribed to that aversion which the English everywhere show to this kind of safeguard against the misuse of legislature power. The omnipotence of the British Parliament seems to have fostered the notion that all Parliaments ought to be free to do wrong as well as to do right. The only things from which a State is disabled are the keeping of a naval or military force (except with the consent of the Commonwealth Parliament), coining money, and making anything but gold and silver coin legal tender1. A State is not, as are the American States, forbidden to grant titles of nobility, or to pass any ex post facto law or law 'impairing the obligation of contracts.' That no such prohibitions exist in Canada may be ascribed to the fact that in Canada the National or Dominion Government has the right of vetoing laws passed by provincial legislatures, so that improper legislation can be in this way checked. The power is not often exercised in Canada, but when exercised has sometimes led to friction. This plan, however, is neither so respectful to the Provinces nor so conformable to general principles as is the American plan, which leaves the States subject only to the restrictions imposed by the Constitution, restrictions

1 See sections 114 and 115 of Constitution, and compare Art. I. sect. 10 of Constitution of U. S. A.

which ipso iure annul a law attempting to transgress them. And the Australians have wisely followed the American rather than the Canadian precedent. The Australians have, to be sure, in reserve a power to which nothing similar exists in America, viz. the right of the British Crown at home to veto legislation. Rarely as this right is put in force, it might conceivably be used at the instance of the National Government to avert an undesirable conflict between State statutes and National statutes. Note further that each Australian State is left as free to amend its own constitution as it was before, subject of course to the veto of the British Crown, but to no interference by the Commonwealth, whereas in Canada acts of the Provincial legislatures amending their constitutions are subject to the veto of the Dominion Government as representing the Crown.

The omission of any provision similar to the famous and much litigated clause which debars an American State legislature from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts is especially noteworthy. That clause, introduced by the Philadelphia Convention in order to check the tendency of some reckless States to get rid of their debts, produced in course of time unexpectedly far-reaching results, from some of which American legislatures and courts have made ingenious attempts to escape. It has indeed been thought that several subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court are not easily reconcileable with the famous judgement in the Dartmouth College Case (A.D. 1818), in which the full effect of this clause was for the first time displayed. That effect has been to fetter

legislation in ways which are found so inconvenient in practice that they are acquiesced in only because many State legislatures are in the United States objects of popular distrust. No corresponding distrust seems to be felt in the British colonies, and therefore the Australians have not deemed any such prohibition needful, following the example of the British House of Commons, which in 1893 rejected a similar clause when moved as an amendment to the Irish Home Rule Bill of that year.

In another point the Australian States have been treated with respect. In each of them the nominal executive head has hitherto been a Governor appointed by the British Crown. This was the case in Canada prior to 1867: but when the Canadian Federation was formed, the appointment of the Governors of the several provinces was entrusted to the Governor-General of the Dominion, that is to say, to the Dominion Cabinet by whose advice the Governor-General, being a sort of constitutional monarch, is guided. In practice, therefore, these governorships have become rewards bestowed upon leading party politicians. The Australians wisely (as most Englishmen will think) avoided this plan. Neither did they adopt the American method of letting the people of each State elect the Governor, a method unsuited to government on the Cabinet system, because, as the State Governor is under that system only a nominal head of the Executive (the Cabinet being the real Executive), there was no good reason for setting the people to choose him, and good reasons against doing so, inasmuch as popular elections are invariably fought on party lines. Accordingly the k k

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Australians have preferred to let him continue to be appointed by the Home Government, and to allow him to communicate directly with the Colonial Office in London. His Ministers are indeed described in the Constitution (sect. 44) as being 'the Queen's Ministers.'

VIII. DIFFERENCES FROM THE UNITED STATES
AND CANADIAN FEDERATIONS.

Four other remarkable divergences, from both the American and the Canadian Federal systems, remain to be mentioned.

One relates to the judiciary. In the United States there is a complete system of Federal Courts ramifying all over the Union and exercising exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under Federal statutes, as well as in a number of other matters specified in Art. III. sect. 2 of the Constitution. But the State Courts remain quite independent in all State matters, and determine the interpretation of the State Constitutions and of all State statutes, nor does any appeal lie from them to the Federal Courts. In Canada this was not thought necessary, so there the same set of Courts deals with questions arising under Federal statutes and with those arising under Provincial Statutes, and the Supreme Court of Canada receives appeals from all other Courts. This is less conformable to theory than the United States plan, but does not seem to have worked ill. The danger that Courts sitting in the Provinces would, under the influence of local feeling, pervert Federal law was not serious in Canada (though a similar danger was feared in the United States in 1787), and indeed all the Canadian judges

are appointed by the Dominion Government, a further illustration of the preponderance which the Nation has over the Provinces. The Australians have taken a middle course. They have established a Federal Supreme Court, to be called 'The High Court of Australia,' and have taken power for their Parliament to create other Federal Courts. So far, they follow the United States precedent. But they have given power to the Commonwealth Parliament to invest State Courts with federal jurisdiction, thereby allowing those Courts to be, as in Canada, both State and Federal. And they have also allowed an appeal from all State Courts to the Federal High Court. By this plan the States are more directly connected with and subordinate to the National Government than they are in the United States. The Australian scheme has one great incidental advantage. In the United States the law of different States may and does differ, not only in respect of the difference between the statutes of one and the statutes of another, but also in respect of questions of common law untouched by statutes. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts may, for instance, take a different view of what constitutes fraud at common law from that taken by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and there is no Court of Appeal above both these Courts to bring their views into accord. This has not happened to any great extent in Australia, because the British Privy Council has entertained appeals from all its Courts, and it will happen still less in future, because the Federal High Court will be close at hand to settle questions on which the Courts of different States may have been in disaccord.