490 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION GI. 



contributed to raise greatly the standards of constitutional and 

 political education in this country. It is not by any means an 

 empty boast to say that we have in the judgments of the High 

 Court of Australia a body of legal and constitutional literature 

 Avhich is already recognised far beyond the borders of this con- 

 tinent as being of great and permanent value. These are solid 

 and substantial advantages, which no critic of the federal system 

 could overlook. But they must not be allowed to blind us to the 

 political dangers and disadvantages which that system involves. It 

 is those dangers and disadvantages to which I propose now shortly 

 to refer. 



In an earlier part of this paper I endeavoured to explain that 

 the distribution of governmental powers between independent 

 authorities was an essential part of the Federal system. I then 

 went on to show that in the nature of the case it was very difficult 

 to make the distribution either logically satisfactory or reasonably 

 clear, and that to resolve the doubts which so frequentlv arose 

 continuous recourse to the Courts was necessary. 



These conditions involve a twofold disadvantage. First, the 

 actual distribution of the powers of government between different 

 authorities tends to weaken the effectiveness and promptness of 

 governmental action. Secondly, the uncertainty as to the limits 

 of the powers of the Legislatures, and the frequent intrusion of 

 legal questions into the work of legislation, tends to diminish the 

 sense of responsibility both on the part of legislators and citizens, 

 and to divert their minds from what sh(,uld be the fundamental 

 question about all legislation- — the question whether it is good 

 or bad for the community. 



As to the first of these observations, it is almost a truism that 

 where the powers of government are divided up among a number 

 of co-ordinate ^nd independent authorities they can hardly be so 

 effectively exercised as when they are concentrated in a single 

 all-powerful hand. New problems, new and unforeseen situations, 

 arise day by day. The legislative requirements of Society cannot 

 be compressed within the rigid lines of constitutional definitions. 

 Situations arise from time to time which can only be adequately 

 dealt with by an exercise of general sovereign power : which require 

 something more than the exercise of a legislative power over a 

 defined subject matter. The industrial, social, and economic 

 interests of the community cannot be divided into watertight 

 compartments, -with legislative powers in the jiarliament to corre- 

 spond. Lord Acton, in his recently published "Lectures on the 

 French Revolution," speaks of the federal system as being the 

 true natural check on democracy. One does not willingly quarrel 

 with the opinions of so profound a scholar as Lord Acton, but it is not 

 quite easy to see how the federal system can be correctly described 

 merely as a check on democracy. That it is a check is obvious. 

 But it may often be much more. It may, and often has, rendered 

 impossible or exceedingly difficult the attainment of an object 



