AUSTRALASIA. 





The question of the right of appeal from the 

 Australian High Court to the Privy Council has 

 been under discussion since the scheme of federa- 

 tion was discussed at the first meeting of the con- 

 vention at Adelaide. When the Premiers visited 

 England, on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee 

 in 1897, Mr. Chamberlain urged reconsideration. 

 It was accordingly reconsidered at Melbourne, and 

 finally the compromise contained in the bill was 

 adopted. The Australians were unwilling to re- 

 sign the right of having their Constitution inter- 

 preted by their own tribunal, and believed that 

 by excepting cases in which the public interests 

 of the United Kingdom or of other colonies were 

 involved they conceded all that was necessary 

 and right. But the term " public interests " 

 seemed to the Colonial Secretary vague and in- 

 definite. In the course of further discussion be- 

 tween the delegates and the Colonial Secretary, 

 James R. Dickson, the Queensland delegate, sepa- 

 rated himself from his colleagues and expressed 

 himself in favor of accepting the proppsed amend- 

 ments in order to get the commonwealth bill 

 passed as early as possible. Sir Julian Salomons, 

 serving provisionally as delegate from New South 

 Wales, approved the amendments for similar rea- 

 sons. The Australian governments, however, con- 

 tended that the right of deciding Australian con- 

 stitutional questions should reside in the tribu- 

 nals of Australia. After further conference Mr. 

 Chamberlain arranged a compromise with the 

 delegates, allowing the Executive Government to 

 determine whether an appeal from the High Court 

 to the Privy Council should be allowed. This 

 proposal to confound executive and judicial powers 

 was universally condemned in Australia. The 

 Victorian delegate was superseded. The Govern- 

 ment of Queensland asserted the right to leave 

 to Parliament and people the decision whether 

 they would accept a constitution into which such 

 a principle was introduced. Further conferences 

 between the delegates and the Secretary of State 

 resulted in a new compromise, according to which 

 interstate and constitutional questions shall be 

 finally settled by the Federal High Court unless 

 that tribunal rules that the question is one which 

 ought to be settled by the Privy Council. Private 

 litigants may carry their cases from the state 

 Supreme Court either to the Federal High Court 

 or to the Privy Council. If they desire to appeal 

 from the decision of the High Court to the Privy 

 Council they must obtain permission from the 

 Privy Council. This amendment proved accept- 

 able in Australia and was adopted by the British 

 Parliament, though New South Wales, Victoria, 

 Tasmania, and South Australia would have pre- 

 ferred the clause in the original draft, while 

 Queensland and Western Australia objected to 

 any restriction of the right to appeal to the im- 

 perial court, and New Zealand also desired the 

 plenary right to appeal. The new clause runs as 

 follows: No appeal shall be permitted to the 

 Queen in Council from a decision of the High 

 Court upon any question howsoever arising as to 

 the limits inter se of the constitutional powers of 

 the commonwealth and those of any state or 

 states or as to the limits inter se of the constitu- 

 tional powers of any two or more states, unless 

 the High Court shall certify that the question is 

 one which ought to be determined by her Majesty 

 in Council. 



The position taken by Mr. Dickson was ap- 

 proved by his Government, which had opposed 

 from the beginning the restricting of the right of 

 appeal to the Privy Council. Newspapers and 

 commercial bodies in the other colonies sustained 

 the view of the Imperial Government, and so did 



the chief justices of all seven Australasian col- 

 onies. The Government of New Zealand protested 

 against the transfer of the appellate jurisdiction 

 from the metropolitan to the Australian authori- 

 ties. The Premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, 

 South Australia, and Tasmania, while pleading 

 for the passage of the bill as it stood, did not 

 question the constitutional right of the British 

 Parliament to alter its provisions. 



The bill was introduced in the British House 

 of Commons by Mr. Chamberlain on May 15, with 

 the amendments on which the Imperial Govern- 

 ment insisted. The only alteration in the Consti- 

 tution as drafted in Australia was the deletion 

 of the entire clause restricting the right of appeal 

 from the High Court to the Privy Council, and 

 empowering the commonwealth "Parliament to 

 make further restrictions. The bill was altered so 

 as to allow Western Australia to come into the 

 federation as an original state, and an amendment 

 was added which provides that, notwithstanding 

 anything in the Constitution, the Queen's preroga- 

 tive to grant special Jeave to appeal to the Privy 

 Council may be exercised with respect to any 

 judgment or order of the High Court of the com- 

 monwealth or the Supreme Court of any state. 



The Earl of Hopetoun, born Sept. 20, 1860, who 

 was Governor of Australia from 1889 to 1895 and 

 since Lord Chamberlain, was appointed to be the 

 first Governor General of the Commonwealth of 

 Australia, and Jan. 1, 1901, was fixed for its 

 proclamation, its inaugurat'on to take place at 

 Sydney, but the future capital to be determined 

 by the Federal Parliament. The Federal Parlia- 

 ment, as is provided in the Constitution, will sit 

 at Melbourne until the new seat of Government 

 is fixed. It is to be placed within territory 

 granted to or acquired by the commonwealth and 

 vested in it, of not less than 100 square miles in 

 area, situated in the state of New South Wales, 

 but distant not less than 100 miles from Sydney. 

 The representation in the Federal House of Repre- 

 sentatives, as calculated for the five colonies that 

 applied for federation, is as follows: New South 

 Wales, 23 members; Victoria, 20; Queensland, 8; 

 South Australia, 6; Tasmania, 5; total, 62 mem- 

 bers. 



New South Wales. The Legislative Council 

 contains 69 members, who are nominated for life 

 by the Governor. The Legislative Assembly has 

 125 members, elected in separate districts by all 

 males of full age who are qualified by a residence 

 of tw r elve months in the colony. At the election 

 of July 27, 1898, the number of electors registered 

 was 324,338, which was 24.28 per cent, of the 

 population; the number who voted was 178,717, 

 which was 56.41 per cent, of the number registered 

 in contested districts. The Governor, appointed 

 in January, 1899, is Earl Beauchamp. The min- 

 istry at the beginning of 1900 was composed as 

 follows: Premier and Colonial Treasurer, Sir Wil- 

 liam John Lyne; Chief Secretary, John See; 

 Attorney-General, Bernhard Ringrose Wise; Sec- 

 retary for Lands, Thomas Henry Hassall ; Sec- 

 retary for Public Works, Edward William 

 O'Sullivan; Minister of Public Instruction and 

 of Industry and Labor. John Perry; Minister of 

 Justice, William Herbert Wood; Postmaster- 

 General, William Patrick Crick; Secretary for 

 Mines and Agriculture, John Lionel Fegan ; Vice- 

 President of the Executive Council, James Alex- 

 ander Kenneth Mackay. 



The new Cabinet has endeavored to show that 

 the surpluses shown in G. H. Reid's budgets were 

 fictitious, and that he left behind him an accu- 

 mulated deficit of a million sterling. The expend- 

 itures are still increasing faster than the revenue, 



