THE ADVANTAGES OF A FEDERAL UNION. 893 
veloped, must be manifest from the foregoing considerations ; and 
the principle must be recognised that the sources of production 
should not be held profitless. Much may be done by the Statistical 
Department in every country to ascertain requirements, and to 
control by the intelligence which it can exercise. It will yet be 
admitted that political economy is a science, able, like other 
sciences, to trace the operation of law amid agencies apparently 
fortuitous, and to serve as a guide to action which may achieve 
the highest and best results. 
No. 3.—_THE ADVANTAGES OF A FEDERAL UNION. 
By W. Jetruro Brown, M.A., LL.D. 
(Read Tuesday, 11 January, 1898.) 
THE object of this paper was to show the precise advantages 
which might be expected to follow the federation of the Aus- 
tralian Colonies. Union must tend to insure our peace, promote 
our prosperity, and advance our honor. It ensured peace in the 
internal affairs of the separate colonies, since the difficulties of 
insurrection were increased when it was necessary to arouse the 
citizens of a Commonwealth ; it ensured peace between colony 
and colony, by submitting all disputes to the peaceful arbitration 
of a common authority ; it ensured peace in our foreign relations 
by increasing the respect of foreign States, and by securing a 
more wise and consistent foreign policy. So, too, federation 
must tend to promote our prosperity. It was clearly desirable, 
in the management of State affairs, that no more force should be 
applied to desired ends than was absolutely necessary ; that yet 
sufficient force must be applied, and that the force must be care- 
fully exerted in the right direction. Each of these principles was 
violated in our present state of disunion. The most forcible 
illustrations of this fact could be found in the spheres of produc- 
tion and exchange. Finally, federation must tend to advance 
our honor. No student of Australian politics could fail to 
observe the commonness of tone in political life, and the exces- 
sively provincial character of our political ideas. Such defects 
were proving a serious menace to our future, and it was not 
perhaps too much to hope that they might be overcome under the 
inspiring influence of a new national ideal. With respect to the 
Commonwealth Bill, there were necessarily many questions for 
