Walch's Tasmanian Almanac for 1904... Forty-second year of publication. by Walch's Almanac: - 1904

Hobart: J. Walch & Sons. 1904. 392pp, 56pp advertisements at rear (and on both endpapers), folding map, folding coloured graph (Progress of Tasmania 1816-1902), coloured signals plate. Original red cloth, decorated in blind and lettered in gilt on the spine, also with 'Presentation copy' stamped in gilt on the upper board; extremities a little rubbed and a slight dark stain at the inner foot corner of lower board. A good to very good clean copy. ***'With the publisher's compliments' slip tipped to the front endpaper, inscribed to H.L. D'Emden Esq. Henry D'Emden was later employed by the new Commonwealth government as Deputy Postmaster-General, and featured in the first important case relating to constitutional law to come before the High Court of Australia, in April 1904. Pedder v D'Emden concerned the question of whether salary receipts of federal government employees were subject to state stamp duty, but in a broader sense it concerned the degree to which the two levels of Australian government were subject to each other's laws. Pedder was a Superintendent of Police in Tasmania, and Tasmania's case was argued by the Attorney-General, Sir Herbert Nicholls. When the case was before the Supreme Court of Tasmania, Andrew Inglis Clark had written a minority judgment, against the state government; the High Court agreed with him and found for D'Emden, and the Commonwealth. .