1370 THE JUDICIARY [PART V1 
came to it direct from a State Court, to accept the judgement 
of the High Court. Higgins J.! disagreed with the other 
members of the Court, pointing out that the King in Council 
was on a higher platform than the High Court, although the 
High Court might prevent the litigant from ascending the plat- 
form, and he quoted the fact that though an appeal never lay 
to the House of Lords from the Court of Crown Cases Reserved, 
nevertheless that Court always followed the judgements of 
the House of Lords. The High Court also held that in the 
exercise of federal jurisdiction an appeal lay to the Privy 
Council only by special leave, and not as of right under the 
Order in Council. They held that, in the case of a new juris- 
diction created by the Act of 1903, only such appeal as was 
allowed in the Act, and the prerogative right could exist. 
They also refused permission to appeal from their decision 
on the ground that it would be a breach of their duty to pass 
on a case of the type contemplated in s. 74 of the Constitution 
unless some exceptional cause was shown. 
The attempt to obtain special leave from the Privy Council 
to appeal from this decision in the case of The Commissioners 
of Taxation, New South Wales, v. Baxter 2 was declined. 
The ground for the refusal to consider this case was, in 
the main, that an Act, No. 7 of 1907, of the Commonwealth 
had been passed expressly authorizing the State Parliaments 
to tax the salaries of Commonwealth officers, and that 
therefore the dispute could not reasonably arise again. It 
was clear that the Commonwealth Act could hardly have 
been valid, had the decision of the High Court been correct 
that it was a fundamental principle of the Constitution that 
such taxation should not be allowed? but on the view of the 
Judicial Committee the Act was merely a nullity, and in any 
case it was clear that the question did not require decision. 
But not only was the immediate cause of dispute removed 
by the action of the Commonwealth Parliament, but steps 
'4C. L. R., at pp. 1162, 1163. 2 [1908] A. C. 214, 
* So per Higgins J. in Flint v. Webb, 4 C. L. R. 1178, at p. 1194. Contra, 
per Griffiths C.J., at p. 1187. Cf. Parliamentary Debates, 1907, pp. 
3860 seq.