CHAP. 11] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 839 
tection’ policy of the Commonwealth Parliament. This policy 
was intended as a counterpart to the levying of a high tariff, 
and to secure to the workers their share in the advantages 
which accrued to the manufacturers by the enactment of a 
high tariff. Accordingly, by the Excise Tariff, 1906 (Act No. 16 
of 1906), an excise duty was placed inter alia on implements 
manufactured in Australia, but an exemption was given 
if the conditions as to remuneration of labour specified in 
the Act were complied with. Under the Act penalties were 
claimed against Barger and M cKay, manufacturers of 
agricultural implements, who declined to comply with the 
conditions specified or to pay the excise duties. The State 
of Victoria was permitted to intervene in support of the 
objection to the Act. The Court, as usual, were divided in 
opinion: the majority, composed of Griffith C.J ., Barton and 
O’Connor JJ., were against the validity of the Act. the 
sther two judges in favour of it. 
The judgement of the Court recognized that the language of 
an Act was not decisive as to its character, which was deter- 
mined by the substance of the legislation. They held also 
that taxation was essentially different in a federal state from 
the power to regulate indirectly the domestic affairs of the 
states, a power denied to the Commonwealth Parliament, and 
that the power to tax must not be used so as directly to inter- 
fere with the control of the domestic concerns of any state. 
To select a method of taxation which made the liability to 
taxation dependent on conditions to be observed in the 
industry in which they were produced was as much an 
vttempt to regulate the conditions as if the regulation were 
made by distinct enactment. The Excise Tariff, 1906, was not 
ceally an Excise Act, but an Act to regulate the conditions 
of manufacture of agricultural implements, and was not an 
exercise of the power of taxation of the Commonwealth. 
The Act was also open to the objection that it dealt with the 
regulation of the conditions of manufacture as well as excise, 
and so contravened the express provision of s. 55 of the 
Constitution, which confines an Excise Act to matters of 
excise. and, moreover, even if every other objection could