i196 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV
The rest of the Court held that, whether capable or not of
being included in the word tax, customs duties were not a
tax upon property in the sense in which that expression is
used in s. 114, being imposed upon the act of importation,
not upon the goods themselves in their character as property.
So in the Commonwealth v. New South Wales! the question
arose whether it was necessary to stamp a document trans-
ferring certain land to the Commonwealth under the Property
for Public Purposes Acquisition Act, 1901, in view of the
New South Wales Act, No. 27 of 1898. The Court held inter
alia that even if the Act bound the Crown in New South
Wales, which they held it did not, it could not bind the
Crown in the Commonwealth, again emphasizing the separate
personalities of the Crown in the several capacities in which
it appears in the Commonwealth.
[t was proposed in chap. v, s. 5, of the draft constitution 2
that all references or communications required by the
constitution of the state to be made by the Governor of the
state to the Queen should be made through the Governor-
General, as Her Majesty’s representative in the Common-
wealth, and the Queen’s pleasure should be made known
through him, and it was argued by Sir S. Griffith? that such
an arrangement was essential if there was to be a real federa-
tion, but this view did not ultimately prevail. At Adelaide
Mr. Deakin 4 moved for the retention of this rule, but it was
opposed by Sir Edward Braddon and Mr. Kingston as an
invasion of state rights, and the proposal was not carried.
The question of the relations between the Commonwealth
and states with regard to external affairs was raised in an
acute form in 1902 in connexion with the representations
made to the Imperial Government as to the conduct of
the Government of South Australia in refusing to arrest
the crew of the Dutch vessel Vondel in accordance with
the existing treaty between Holland and Great Britain
1 3 C. L. R. 807.
* Quick and Garran, pp. 931, 932; Harrison Moore, pp. 347-50.
* Convention Debates, 1891, p. 850, So Sir H. Parkes (p. 852) and
Sir R. Baker (p. 852). 4 Adelaide Debates, p. 1177.
