CHAP. 11] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 855 
was no inconsistency so far between the proposed award 
and any state law up to the present moment, and that the 
language of the Victorian Act No. 2241 was insufficient to 
annihilate the federal power. 
Higgins J.! reiterated the view which he had laid down in 
the Federated Saw Mill Employés case. It was clearly the 
Intention of the Federal Parliament that the order of the 
Court should override any State Wages Board determination, 
and the only question was whether that intention as ex- 
pressed in ss. xxxv of the Federal Act was ultra vires. If the 
Court had not that power it could not effectively settle 
disputes. The Arbitration Court of New South Wales had 
held that bootmakers were entitled to a minimum wage of 
9s. a day, but could not award more than 8s. as Melbourne 
manufacturers were only required to give 8s. Or again, in 
one case employees were willing to have a dispute settled on 
the basis of ordinary pay on Sundays if forty-eight hours in 
the week were not exceeded, but the Victoria Wages Board 
determination required that time and a half must be paid 
for Sunday work. It appeared to him clear that a federal 
award overrode any state law under clause v of the Constitu- 
tion Act. It was true that an award was not an Act, but the 
Act plps the award was a law just as in the case of Powell 
v. Apollo Candle Company? He pointed out that it was 
admitted that a Wages Board determination was a law of the 
state, and he could see no conceivable distinction between 
it and the determination of the Arbitration Court. He 
thought, too, the same result might follow under s. 2 of the 
Colonial Laws Validity Act, for the Constitution gave power 
to establish a Court of Arbitration, and the award was an 
order or regulation made under the authority of the Con- 
stitution Act, which was an Imperial Act. 
It was true that arbitration connoted subjection to the 
existing laws, but only to such laws as bound the arbitrators, 
—to laws which created them, not to state laws which had 
nothing to do with them. In the Alabama Arbitration the 
arbitrators expressly held that it was no answer on the part 
' 10 C. L. R. 266, at pp. 331 seq. ? 10 App. Cas. 282.