WHEAT ACQUISITION ACT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2392, 23 February 1915, Page 6

WHEAT ACQUISITION ACT

INTERFERENCE WITH INTERSTATE TRADE. .!-. (Rec., February 22, 8.40 p.m.) - :r.. Melbourne, - February 22.: ■The Inter-Stato 1 -Commission-has de'fivered judgment on the Commonwealth > Government's application-for an injunc- • tion to restrain: the - New South TUaies Government from 'interfering with in-ter-Stato trade in reiard to the ssiaure of wheat uiider the wheat Acquisition 'Act. The Commission, by two to one, upheld' the Commonwealth's plaint,:.the ichairman of the Commission vMr. P'd-; :idington) forming tho r nni!w:ty:" DECISION CRITICISED. (Rsc. .February 22, .11.25 p.m.) Sydney, February 22. •The New South Wales Government was ordered to pay costs in the, wheat ;Case, 'and' givea a;; month- in which to appeal. , , - ■ Mr. D. R. Hall (Now South Wales 'Attorney-General) states that the Commission's decision.did not allow an' hour longer than it would take to refer to the High Court, the one tribunal to, . which it belongs, and should have been submitted instead of spending hundreds of pounds in the expensive, farce enacted in Melbourne. One . Commissioner, a learned lawyer,-: found! that New South. •Wales had acted within its powers.' It was not to bo, thought of,' for one moment that two gentlemen, with no training whatever on legal or constitutional ■ questions,- in dissenting from their chairman, were to be allowed to decide tho limits of the power vested by the Sovereign in the : Parliaments of tho Australian States. : : .