We now turn to the possible conflicts of legislation under a federal constitution. It will be convenient to use the more expressive and generally understood word “State” for the autonomous components of the federation. The Canadian term “Province” is prior in time within the Empire; but it might be misleading to readers unacquainted with Canadian affairs, as tending to suggest merely administrative functions like those of a County Council: a body which has many important duties and some delegated legislative authority, but cannot reasonably be called autonomous. A federal constitution must assign some legislative powers exclusively to the federal legislature, and it may reserve or assign others exclusively to the State legislatures. It may also leave a region in which the States have power to legislate, but subject to a concurrent and superior power in the federal authority. This is actually the case in Canada. Hence questions may arise of a more complicated kind than those which are open under unitary Home Rule; they may nevertheless be instructive in simpler cases. The Judicial Committee has deliberately abstained from laying down any general system of interpretation or any presumption in favour of extending or limiting the powers of either Federal or State legislation. It is prepared to take some pains to reconcile apparently conflicting enactments, but beyond that no precise method can be formulated. The Court must deal with the problem of each case on its own merits. “The true nature and character of the legislation in the particular instance under discussion must always be determined in order to ascertain the class of subject to which it really belongs.”(79) Again: “In performing this difficult duty, it will be a wise course for those on whom it is thrown to decide each case which arises as best they can, without entering more largely upon an interpretation of the statute than is necessary for the decision of the particular question in hand.”(80) It would seem obvious without argument that the courts of Canada, Australia, or in the future, Ireland, cannot be bound in any case to give effect to two conflicting enactments of the local and the central legislative bodies at once, notwithstanding that some of the language used by the Judicial Committee a few years ago, on an appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, suggests that there is no authority anywhere, short of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, capable of resolving such a contradiction.(81)