cHAP. 11] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 837 
that the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 
1904, could not apply to a state railway. The Court rejected 
this view on the ground that the rule of interpretation 
adopted in that case, and laid down in D’Emden v. Pedder, 
could not apply where a power conferred on the Common- 
wealth in express terms was of such a nature that its effective 
exercise manifestly involved the control of some operation 
of a State Government, and they instanced, as possible cases 
of such legislation, legislation based on the powers given by 
3. 51 of the Constitution to legislate as to quarantine (ix), 
weights and measures (xv), immigration (xxvii), or trade 
and commerce with other countries and among the states (i). 
Moreover, the rule had no application to the question whether 
any specific thing might be brought within the state so as to 
become such a means or instrumentality. Further, it was 
pointed out that the doctrine, if applied in such a case, 
would utterly defeat the whole purpose of the creation of the 
Commonwealth, for the state could render null the Customs 
Act by importing all the goods required for use by any persons 
n the state as state property. Similarly quarantine and 
immigration laws could be set at naught and the whole 
peration of the Commonwealth prevented. 
(0) The Reserved Powers of the States 
The counterpart to the doctrine of the immunity of 
instrumentalities is the doctrine of reserved powers ; that is, 
powers which are reserved to the State Legislatures by the 
spirit of the Constitution, and which Commonwealth laws 
must not transgress, save in so far as such disregard is 
authorized by the express words or necessary intention of 
the Constitution itself. The doctrine appeared almost simul- 
taneously with that of the immunity of instrumentalities. 
In the State Railway Servants’ Case® the latter doctrine 
was applied to the state railways, but the Court also laid it 
down that subsections xxxii-xxxiv of s. 51 imported that in 
regard to such railways, save as regards transport for military 
+ (1904) 1 C. L. R. 91. 
4 C. L. R. 488: see Harrison Moore, op. cit., pp. 578 seq.