360 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART III
Parliament, and such delegation was repugnant to s. 1.of
the Constitution, which provided that the legislative power
of the Commonwealth should be vested in a Federal Parlia-
ment consisting of the Sovereign and the two Houses.
They quoted the American Courts as laying down that it
was an axiom in constitutional law universally regarded as
a principle essential to the integrity and maintenance of the
system of government, that no part of the legislative power
could be delegated by the Parliament to any tribunal or
body. The Commonwealth had not the power which the
State Governments had under their constitutions, to create
subordinate bodies with powers of general legislation.
To the objection that the State Parliaments had legislated
in a similar manner without having any expressed power to
create subordinate bodies with powers of general legislation,
it was replied that the State Parliaments, like the Legislatures
of the Provinces of Canada, had power to alter their constitu-
tions by legislation in the ordinary way, and a delegation
of legislative power would in effect be an alteration of the
constitution which vested that power in the Parliament itself.
They did not contend, however, that the Parliament was
a delegation of the Imperial Parliament and that the maxim
delegatus non delegare potest applied, but that this particular
provision was repugnant to the Constitution. The High
Court decided unanimously against the contention of the
limitation of the power of Parliament. They relied upon
the case of Reg. v. Burak! They could see no difference
between the powers that were exercised with regard to
Customs by the State Parliaments before the Commonwealth
Constitution came into operation, and the powers conferred on
the Parliament of the Commonwealth by the Constitution itself.
The argument as to the power of the states to alter their
constitutions was expressly noted by Isaacs J., who pointed
out that as a matter of fact the power of the Legislature to
alter the constitution depended on the terms of the constitu-
tion as it existed at any given moment, and he referred to
the case of Cooper v. Commissioner of Income Tax? as showing
' 3 App. Cas. 889, 2 4 LR. 1304.
