486 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION GI, 



are vested in the federal government. Those which are regarded 

 as local or sectional are left to the constituent States. 



Second, this distribution must be unalterable by the ordinary 

 processes of legislation. In other words, it must be embedded in 

 a written Constitution, which is alterable only in a special way, 

 different from the methods of ordinary law making. 



Thus we get the co-existence of two co-ordinate and indepen- 

 dent sets of authorities, both being limited in their powers, both 

 deriving those powers from the same ultimate source — the Constitu- 

 tion; the general, or federal, or national government being invested 

 with all powers of a national or general character, the local or State 

 authorities retaining those which are supposed to be essentially 

 local in their nature. 



In the third place, this distribution of governmental powers 

 between central and local bodies, if it is to be maintained, implies 

 the existence of some authority, independent of either, in which 

 shall be vested the power and duty of restraining any attempt on 

 the part of one of these authorities to exceed its constitutional 

 rights, and trespass on the sphere of the other. This authority, 

 both in the United States Constitution and our own, is a judicial 

 tribunal. It cannot be said, with accuracy, that this is an essential 

 element in every federation, for at least two comparatively recent 

 federal constitutions, those of Germany (1866 and 1871) and 

 Switzerland (1874) are without it. In both these cases the federal 

 legislature is the judge of its own powers, and no Court has the 

 power of disallowing, or treating as null and void, any Federal 

 legislation. In this respect, however, both these Constitutions 

 diverge from the true federal type. For the purposes of this 

 discussion it may be assumed that in every true federation there 

 must be some authority of the kind referred to above, which has 

 the power, in effect, to disallow and to treat as null and void, any 

 exercise of power on the part of either federal or State authorities, 

 which in its opinion does not fall within the grant made by the 

 Constitution. 



These, then, are the essential principles of the federal system 

 — the distribution of the powers of government between inde- 

 pendent and co-ordinate authorities, and the existence of an 

 authority outside these to see to the maintenance of the distribution. 



A word must be added as to the method by which this dis- 

 tribution is effected. It may be, as in the United States and our 

 own constitutions, by the enumeration of certain specific matters 

 in respect of which the federal parliament is to have legislative 

 power, all matters not so enumerated being reserved to the local 

 authorities. It may be, as in the Canadian Constitution, by the 

 assignment of certain named matters to the general government 

 and of certain others to the local governments, all the residuary 

 powers being given to the general government. In both cases, 

 however, the principle is for the present purpose, the same. 

 Certain subject matters of legislation must be defined as clearly as 

 possible and assigned either to the general or the local governments. 



