cuar. I] POWERS OF DOMINION PARLIAMENTS 359 
sannot as matters of law be provisions for the peace, order, 
and good government in the territories to which the statute 
relates, and further, that if a Court of law should come to 
the conclusion that a particular enactment was not calculated 
as a matter of fact and policy to secure peace, order, and 
good government, they would be entitled to regard any 
statute directed to these objects, but which the Court should 
think likely to fail of that effect, as ulira vires and beyond the 
competence of the Dominion Parliament to enact. Their 
Lordships are of the opinion that there is not the least colour 
for such a contention; the words of the statute are apt to 
authorize the utmost discretion of enactment for the attain- 
ment of the objects appointed to them. They are words 
under which the widest departures from criminal procedure 
have been authorized in Her Majesty’s Indian Empire. 
Mr. Justice Clark ! raises an interesting question as regards 
the position of the Colonial Parliaments in delegating their 
authority. The cases above do not cover all possible cases : 
they all deal with matters which seem a reasonable: mode of 
carrying out legislative authority. But could the Parliament 
of the Commonwealth delegate the power to legislate regard- 
ing divorce to a committee of persons elected or summoned in 
some manner? The answer seems clearly to be in the negative, 
and it is easy to feel that this is correct, but the line might 
be hard to draw in any given case. 
The question as to whether the power of a Colonial Parlia- 
ment is exercised as a delegation of power from the Imperial 
Parliament was nevertheless raised again before the High 
Court of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1909, in the 
case of Baxter v. Ah Way? Tt was there contended by the 
defendant that s. 52, sub-section (g) of the Customs Act, 1901, 
which provided that goods, the importation of which should 
be prohibited by proclamation, should be prohibited imports, 
was ultra vires. It was a delegation of legislative power by 
deliberate (cf. Lefroy, Legislative Power in Canada, pp. 210, note 1; 314, 
note 2),it had apparently no legal effect or difference. ‘Welfare’ and ‘order’ 
are both subjective, to be judged by the Legislature enacting, not by the 
Courts. In Australia ‘welfare’ is used in the case of New South Wales, 
Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania ; ‘order’ in the Commonwealth 
and Western Australia ; in Victoria the power is to make laws in all cases. 
Australian Constitutional Law, pp. 41-51. 3 8 C. L. R. 626.