THE COMMONWEALTH 329 



Australian Colonies, mainly with the object of securing uniformity 

 in their respective tariffs. It was recommended that this body 

 should be given entire control of all matters relating to legal 

 jurisdiction, customs, harbours, shipping, coast-lighting, carriage 

 of mails, and the formation of roads or railways traversing more 

 than one colony. It was to be called into action by the Gover- 

 nor of New South Wales, who in this connection was called 

 " Governor-General," from time to time as its services might be 

 required. There was a delightful vagueness about responsibility 

 and finality in the position of the delegates that was at once 

 apparent to the experienced politician, and although Lord John 

 Eussell embodied the conditions in his first Bill, they were so 

 strongly assailed by Mr. Gladstone that he promptly withdrew 

 them. 



For a while the idea slept, the discovery of gold in Australia 

 having driven all constitutional questions into the background. 

 In 1853, when a Select Committee of the Legislative Council of 

 New South Wales was formulating a new Constitution for that 

 colony, Mr. Wentworth declared that the establishment of a Gen- 

 eral Assembly to make laws in relation to intercolonial questions 

 and to have the control of tariffs and some other matters had 

 become indispensable and ought no longer to be delayed. The 

 Committee urged that the Secretary of State should introduce 

 a Bill into the Imperial Parliament at once, so that the machinery 

 might run concurrently with the revised Constitution then before 

 the Commons. Lord John Eussell was polite, and apparently 

 sympathetic, but he had not forgotten his former rebuff. He 

 said he thought the time was hardly ripe for Imperial action, 

 though he declared that the Queen's Government would give the 

 most serious attention to any federal proposals which might emanate 

 concurrently from the respective Legislatures. The desire of the 

 British statesman to avoid provoking jealousies and to ensure 

 the uniform consent of all the Colonies was a wise one, but the 

 conditions were far more difficult of fulfilment than he could have 

 anticipated. For nearly half a century feeble debates, selfish 

 protests and demands based on the narrowest provincial ideas, 

 dragged on their tedious course, and Lord John had been dead 



