We know, and all the world knows, and we cannot in interpreting modern constitutions of the Empire ignore, the tremendous advance in status of the Dominions within the Empire even before 1900. That is only another mode of expressing the advance of local responsible government. Constitutions made, not for a single occasion, but for the continued life and progress of the community may and, indeed, must be affected in their general meaning and effect by what Lord Watson in Cooper v. Stuart [63] calls "the silent operation of constitutional principles". "Responsible government," said Lord Haldane on an occasion referred to in the Engineers' Case [64] , is "the greatest institution which exists in the Empire, and pertains to every constitution established within the Empire." And it was to this constitution that Lord Haldane was specially directing his words. It is part of the fabric on which the written words of the Constitution are superimposed. Its influence upon the actual working of the letter of local constitutions has been the acceptance of a doctrine, amounting almost to a principle in itself, that the great self-governing Dominions are not any longer in tutelage but are constituent units of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The doctrine cannot be ignored in construing a recent written instrument of constitutional powers. It is now more than a high-sounding phrase or a statesman's aspiration. It is an acknowledged working thesis of the unwritten constitution of the Empire I cannot doubt that it is well within the power of the Australian Parliament, notwithstanding any existing Imperial legislation prior to the Constitution, when investing a State Supreme Court with federal jurisdiction so to limit that investiture as to direct the stream of judicial power at any given point into the High Court. Whatever subsequent course that stream may take depends in that case on ss. 73 and 74 of the Constitution and on any step by certificate or legislation which may follow by authority of those sections. In relation to the present matter the Australian Constitution is not subordinate to, but is pro tanto superior to, the earlier Act, the Judicial Committee Act, passed at an earlier stage of constitutional development.
Later in the same year, the Imperial Conference (at which Australia was represented) presented a report containing the following:
There is, however, one most important element in it which, from a strictly constitutional point of view, has now, as regards all vital matters, reached its full development - we refer to the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions. Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. (My emphasis.)
1. (1926) 37 C.L.R. 393, at pp. 413-414.
2. (1889) 14 App. Cas. 286, at p. 293.
3. (1920) 28 C.L.R. 129, at p. 147.