840 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
be overcome, the Act would be invalid, as it authorized 
discrimination between states, and so violated s. 97 of the 
Constitution, which forbids any preference of one state over 
another. 
The two dissenting judges, on the other hand, maintained 
that the true mode of viewing the question was not to assert 
the doctrine of implied prohibition, but to construe the 
powers granted to the Commonwealth in as full a manner as 
if the Commonwealth Parliament were that of a unitary 
state. The powers of the states were the residual power 
remaining after the powers of the Commonwealth had been 
ascertained, and the possibility of the misuse of a legislative 
power was no argument against its existence ; the remedy 
lay with the electorate, not with the Courts. The objections 
aimed at the Act were based on alleged abuse of power, 
consequences, and motive, all of which the Court was incom- 
petent to entertain. The demand of a contribution to the 
consolidated revenue was taxation, and the Excise Tariff, 
construed as it stood and not transformed, was well within 
the powers of the Commonwealth. The Act did not attempt 
to render unlawful any conditions of manufacture : it was 
not an Act which a State Parliament could pass, but an 
exercise of the power of excise taxation, and it did not 
contravene s. 55 of the Constitution, for it merely imposed 
excise taxation. Nor did it discriminate between states as 
such, and so did not contravene the provisions of the Con- 
stitution forbidding such discrimination. 
The same principles, the determination to respect the 
sphere of action of the state and the wish to interpret strictly 
the powers granted to the Commonwealth Parliament by 
the Constitution, were illustrated by the case of the Attorney- 
General for New South Wales v. Brewery Employés Union of 
New South Wales! In that case the validity of part vii of 
the Commonwealth T'rade-Marks Act, 1905, came up for 
consideration. That section of the Act provided for the 
registration of workers’ trade-marks. These marks or labels 
were marks affixed to goods to show that they were manu- 
(1908) 6 C. L. R. 469 ; Harrison Moore. op. cit., pp. 371 seq.