FEDERATION. 



345 



The cause of Australian union has been removed from the academic 

 to a practical stage by the action of Mr. G-. H. Eeid, the present leader 

 of the movement, in convening a meeting of the Premiers at nf)bart, 

 in January, 1895, and in subsequently preparing and carrying through 

 the New South Wales Parliament a Federal Enabling Bill "b mad-basT-d 

 upon the people's will." The South Australian,Vict()rian, and Tasmanian 

 Legislatures have also passed that bill by large majorities; so that when 

 the Queensland Parliament has had an opportunity to deal with it ten 

 representatives to the statutory Convention, as provided for in the 

 Enabling Act, can be elected in each of the Colonies. The fact that 

 the Premier was triumphantly returned at the last general election 

 shows — although Australian federation was not the chief qucstif.n sub- 

 mitted to the electors by the Government — that the great bnlk of the 

 electors were not opposed to the proposals carried at the llobart con- 

 ference for a popular initiative to the national work of moulding a 

 federal constitution. 



Amongst the best advocates for the federation of the Colonies have 

 been representative ministers of religion, who in many addresses have 

 eloquently pleaded, away from provincial and party ties, for a political 

 unity of spirit. Cardinal Moran, of Sydney, the Rev. Dr. Bevan, of 

 Melbourne, and the Rev. Dr. Jeiferis, of Adelaide, have from time to 

 time delivered special and important lectures on Australian federation 

 in several of the Colonies. 



One of the most encouraging signs in connection with the federation 

 movement was an understanding entered into by leading politicians 

 that it would be something little short of wickedness to make Aus- 

 tralian unity a party question ; and they have accordingly on many 

 occasions advocated its claims from the same platform, whilst in o])en 

 opposition to each other on other political subjects. 



It was when Sir Hercules Robinson occupied the position of Governor 

 of New vSouth Wales that the question of the necessity for the unity 

 of the Australasian Colonies was ably revived by him, in an addi'ess 

 delivered at Albuiy in 187G, and many of Her Sfajesty's representa- 

 tives in the various Colonies, appointed since that time, have also 

 expressed themselves willing, as far as they constitutionally could, to 

 further that desired end. 



A late Governor of the Colony, the Earl of Jersey, in his report to 

 the Marquis of Ripon on the Colonial Conference at Ottawa in 1803, 

 as representative of the Imperial Government, says : — " The visits of 

 the Australian delegates to Canada impressed them forcibly with tlie 

 advantages which accrue from the federation of neighbouring pro- 

 vinces.'^ History affords many examples of terrible feuds between 

 adjoining colonies owing to there being no basis of unity between 

 them ; and the present Governor of New South Wales, Lord Hampden, 

 has but recentlv remarked with regard to reprisals betAveen \'ictoria 

 and New South Wales :— " It seems a strange thing to me— an unac- 

 countably strange thing — to find on arriving on these shores that there 

 is a wall of menacing tariffs and a hostile railway gauge between 

 friends and neighbours, residents in the same country, subjects of the 

 Crown, and divided only by an imaginary boundary line." 



Amongst the best workers in the federation movement are many 

 leading representatives of the various Trades' Halls, who perceive the 



