CHAP. IT] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 851 
Court, which attempted to provide that the determination 
of a special Board on the Court of Industrial Appeal of 
Victoria should be the final authority as to conditions of 
labour. He considered, however, that this enactment did not 
attain the effect at which it aimed, for the legislation could 
only affect powers over which the Victoria Legislature had 
legislative authority, and in any case the words of the section 
left open the whole field of agreement with which in his opinion 
the field of arbitration was coterminous, and as that field 
was by the Constitution left open to the arbitrament of the 
Federal Court, no statute of a state could effectually close it 
‘n the face of the Court. 
Barton J.! who had not taken part through illness in the 
decision of the Woodworkers’ case, accepted the view of 
the majority of the Court. He recognized the supremacy of 
the legislation of the Commonwealth where the Common- 
wealth and the state had equal powers of legislation, but he 
pointed out that the Constitution was a federal one and that 
the principle had been accepted that it must not be inter- 
preted so as to enable the Commonwealth to interfere with 
matters which were intended to be reserved to the state, as 
In the case of the field of industrial matters according to the 
rulings in the case of Huddart Parker & Company Proprie- 
lary Lid. v. Moorehead? and the Union Label case? Applying 
these principles to the subject-matter in dispute he held that 
the range of the Court’s authority was co-extensive with the 
Powers of the parties to settle their dispute without it, but 
the Court could not make for them an agreement in face of 
the mandate of positive law. The Commonwealth could 
not legislate directly to interfere with industrial conditions, 
and it could not do so indirectly by creating an Arbitration 
Court. The decisions of the Court of Arbitration were 
judicial, not legislative acts, and therefore did not override 
state laws. Like the Chief Justice, he could not accept the 
argument that because there was discontent in two states 
the Court could disregard the laws of both. Again, like the 
Chief Justice, he thought that, on the principle which he laid 
' 10 C. L. R. 266, at pp. 289 seq. * 8C. L.R. 330. ?6C. L. R. 469, 
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