34^ 



NFW SOUTH WALES. 



abandoned by the Government as premature, and the Act as passed 

 provided for the complete separation of Victoria, postponing the 

 question of partial re-union for further consideration. 



Ao-ain, prior to Responsible Government being granted in 1856 to 

 New South Wales and Victoria, statesmen in both Colonies unsuccess- 

 fully advocated that provision should be made for the establishment of 

 a General Assembly to legislate on matters of common Australian 

 concern. The reports of the committees appointed in New South 

 Wales and Victoria respectively in 185o to draw up Constitutions for 

 those Colonies dwelt on the necessity of some such General Assembly ; 

 but the Constitution Acts were eventually passed by the Imperial 

 Parliament without any provision of the kind, the Home Government 

 being of opinion (to quote Lord Russell's despatch) that " the present 

 is not a proper opportunity for such an enactment, although they will 

 give the fullest consideration to any propositions on the subject which 

 may emanate in concurrence from the respective Legislatures." 



During the next few years the question of federal union was kept 

 before the legislatures of the several Colonies by means of select com- 

 mittees, royal commissions, and reports. The leading spirits seem to 

 have been Sir E. Deas-Thomson in New South Wales and Sir Charles 

 Gavan Duffy in Victoria; but the movement was confined to a few far- 

 sighted politicians, and produced no general effect. Their efforts, 

 however, helped to leaven the parliamentary mind, and the result was 

 a period of intercolonial conferences, dating from 1803 onwards, 

 which were prolific in resolutions in favour of some form of union, but 

 ed to no definite scheme and no direct result. At this time we find 

 Deniehy — an Austi-alian disciple of the philosophic De Quincey — 

 lamenting, in an eloquent plea for the federation of the Colonies, the 

 diflaculty of weaning many of the politicians of that day from the sole 

 advocacy of local wants. 



At last a conference of all the Australasian Colonies, including Fiji, 

 which was held in 1883 to consider the question of French claims in the 

 New Hebrides, led to an Imperial statute being passed for the creation 

 of a Federal Council of Australasia, with power to legislate on a narrow 

 list of matters, neither of Imperial nor purely local interest, such as 

 fisheries, intercolonial legal process, and the influx of criminals. This 

 Act actually provided a kind of federal legislature for such of the 

 Australian Colonies as cared to join, and has since 1885 formed a loose 

 bond of union for legislative purposes between Victoria, Queensland, 

 Western Australia, and Tasmania. South Australia also joined for a 

 time, but afterwards withdrcAV. The Federal Council has no executive, 

 and no judicial powers, and consists only of two delegates from each 

 colony represented ; so that it effects not a true federation, but only a 

 loose confedei'ation like that of tho American states of 1771, ''which 

 had no judiciary to enforce its Acts, and no executive head to represent 

 and administer its authority." On these grounds New South Wales 

 has persistently refvised to join the Federal Council, which, partly for 

 this reason, and partly owing to its Avant of popular initiative and its 

 imperfectly representative basis, has not achieved any important work. 



At a conference of Australasian delegates held in London in 1887 

 a scheme of Australasian naval defence Avas approved, and a consequent 

 Imperial statute provides for the maintenance — partly at the expense 



