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 expressed
 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 Constitution
 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 Constitution
 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.