CHAP. Xx] MILITARY AND NAVAL DEFENCE 1279
the power of the Commonwealth extended by s. 51 (vi) of the
Constitution to legislate for naval defence, and it could not
be urged successfully that this legislation was meant to apply
solely within the limits of territorial waters. Moreover, it
was clear that s. 10 of the Colonial Naval Defence Act, 1865,
supported the view that there was no Imperial restriction
on Colonial legislation in this regard other than such restric-
tion as might be inherent in all Colonial legislation. More-
over, the Commonwealth Constitution Act, s. 5, expressly
authorized the application of the laws of the Commonwealth
to all vessels, the Queen’s ships of war excepted, whose
first port of clearance and port of destination were in the
Commonwealth. That section had authoritatively been
interpreted ! by the High Court of the Commonwealth to
apply to cases of such voyages to whatever part of the world
they extended, and in particular if they extended to the
Western Pacific, India, or similar regions, and therefore
apparently the laws of the Commonwealth would be in force
on Commonwealth Government vessels. There was, how-
ever, an obvious difficulty in the exception of the Queen’s
ships of war, but it was clearly doubtful whether this could be
considered as intended to apply to naval forces raised by the
Commonwealth Government. Moreover, it was clear that
there had always been a distinction between the two sets of
laws. The naval vessels of the Commonwealth since the
Defence Act, No. 20 of 1903, had been raised and maintained
under the Commonwealth law; the State Acts ceased to
be in force; the State Governments had put only a part
of their forces under the operation of the Colonial Naval
Defence Act, and the agreement of 1887 expressly recognized
the continued autonomous existence of the local fleets. It
is true that, according to the indications of the Statutory
Rules and Orders in force on December 31, 1906, the Orders
in Council of March 4, 1884, and June 24, 1885, under the
Act of 1865 authorizing the commissioning of three vessels
of war of Victoria and authorizing the commissioning of
" Merchant Service Guild of Australasia v. Archibald Currie d& Co. Pro-
wrietary Lid., (1908) 5 C. L. R. 737 ; above, pp. 1197-9.
AT 62
