842 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
that was explicitly prohibited by the express grant of 
power to legislate for trade with other countries and among 
the states. In my opinion,” said Griffith C.J.,! “it should 
be regarded as a fundamental rule in the construction of the 
Constitution that when the intention to reserve any subject- 
matter to the states to the exclusion of the Commonwealth 
clearly appears, no exception from that reservation can be 
admitted which is not expressed in clear and unequivocal 
words. Otherwise the Constitution will be made to contradict 
itself, which upon a proper construction must be impossible.’ 
On the other hand, Isaacs J.2 and Higgins J.2 were equally 
clear that the power to legislate as to trade-marks covered 
the actual legislation which had been passed. The former, 
by an elaborate examination of the true meaning of trade- 
mark, arrived at the conclusion that it merely imported a 
mark used in trade and connected in some way with goods 
in order to identify the goods with persons. The Common- 
wealth Parliament was therefore fully entitled to confer the 
right of having workers’ trade-marks on such persons as 
it thought fit, and its legislation in that regard would 
override any state legislation to the contrary. I confess,’ 
he said, ‘I do not understand the doctrine which acknow- 
ledges the plenary character of powers, and at the same time 
restricts them. Denying complete supremacy with regard 
to a power affirmatively granted is a doctrine which seems to 
me incompatible with s. v of the Commonwealth of Australia 
Constitution Act, and one which leads not merely to constant 
conflict, but also to inevitable uncertainty as to the respec- 
tive spheres of national and state action and authority.’ 
Higgins J. held that the workers’ trade-mark contained all 
the essential characteristics of a trade-mark as understood 
at the time of the passing of the Constitution, although not all 
the essential characteristics of a trade-mark then enforceable 
in British Courts. The term must be understood in its full 
grammatical and ordinary sense in 1900, and he argued 
further that even if the workers’ trade-mark went beyond 
16 C. L. R. 469, at p, 503. 2 6 C. L. R. 469, at pp. 559 sea 
© 6 C. L. R. 469, at pp. 599 seq.