Government was carried on, and there was little desire to plunge into unknown experiments. For years British Australasia seemed mistress in her own southern seas; and it is noteworthy that it was the threat in 1883 of the Germans in New Guinea which first set Australian public opinion moving in the direction of federation.

6

The inconvenience of a system under which neighbouring Colonies could forge against each other hostile tariffs had indeed been long recognized. As early as 1846 Mr. E. Deas-Thomson, the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, recognized the need of some general control over intercolonial legislation; and in the following year Lord Grey outlined a scheme which, in fact, proposed a kind of federal constitution. There are questions', he wrote, which, though local as it respects the British possessions of Australia collectively, are not merely local as it respects any one of those possessions. Considered as members of the same Empire those Colonies have many common interests, the regulation of which in some uniform manner and by some single authority may be essential to the welfare of them all. Yet in some cases such interests may be more promptly, effectively, and satisfactorily decided by some authority within Australia itself than by the more remote, the less accessive, and, in truth, the less competent authority of Parliament.' He undertook to devise some method for enabling the various legislatures of the several Australian Colonies to co-operate with each other in the enactment of such laws as might be necessary for the regulation of their common interests, such as the imposition of duties on imports and exports, the conveyance of letters, and roads and railways traversing more than one of the Colonies.

Other portions of this dispatch aroused warm resentment in New South Wales, for reasons into which it is unnecessary here to enter; but the proposal with regard to an intercolonial Congress, though it attracted little notice,

won the approval of the Australian statesman, William Charles Wentworth. In order to be sure of his ground, Lord Grey referred the subject of the future of Australian government to the Committee of the Privy Council on Trade and Plantations, revived for the nonce, whose report, drafted by Sir James Stephen, after recommending the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, urged the necessity of a uniform tariff. Such a tariff should at first be set on foot by the Imperial Parliament; but any alterations it might require would necessitate the assistance of some authority, competent to act for the Australian Colonies jointly. For this purpose there should be a Governor-General of Australia, who should convene a General Assembly of Australia.

It was suggested that the General Assembly should consist of the Governor-General and of a single House, to be called the House of Delegates. The House of Delegates should be composed of not less than twenty, nor of more than thirty members. They should be elected by the legislatures of the different Australian Colonies.

Whilst certain subjects, the most important of which were the imposition of a uniform tariff and the establishment of a General Supreme Court, were expressly allotted to this Assembly, it was proposed that it should exercise more general powers of legislation if so desired by the Legislatures of all the Colonies represented in it. Such revenue as the General Assembly might require was to be obtained by the appropriation of such sums as might be necessary, by an equal percentage from the revenue received in all the Australian Colonies by virtue of any enactments of the General Assembly of Australia.

It is noteworthy as illustrating the temper of the time that among the subjects referred to this General Assembly no mention is made of military defence.

Unfortunately for the dispassionate discussion of such proposals the air in Australia was thick with the smoke of

fierce controversy. New South Wales resented bitterly the prospect of losing the rich and lucrative district of Port Phillip; while Port Phillip, anxious to start life upon lines independent of the parent Colony, was in no mood to welcome proposals for a common legislature, even with respect to certain specified subjects. It must be remembered also that South Australia had been started on lines directly opposed to those of New South Wales, and in its perhaps somewhat pharisaic purity was not ready to welcome association with those Colonies that were still held to be tarred with the brush of the convict system. Western Australia at the time remained in melancholy isolation, and was far from the stage at which it could take part in any kind of corporate life. In fact, it was not included in the Colonies represented in the House of Delegates under the scheme of the Privy Council.

There was a further objection which stood in the way of such a federation. It is the general experience of history that a federal system cannot work successfully where one of the members of the federation greatly exceeds the others in population and importance, and the peculiar form of the German Empire hardly makes it an exception to this rule. This was the rock upon which the association of the New England Colonies, established in 1643, had foundered. The position of Massachusetts was so preponderant as to make any form of federation either unfair to its interests or a nullity. So, under Sir James Stephen's plan, New South Wales, with a population at the last census of 155,000, would have been represented by twelve members in the federal legislature, the other three Colonies, with an aggregate population of 111,000, being represented by thirteen members. Whilst such a representation was less than that to which New South Wales was entitled by its population, it would still have given it a controlling voice, which the other Colonies would have naturally resented.

A further mistake was made by Lord Grey in at once in 1849 introducing a Bill, on the lines of the Privy Council Report, without consulting the Colonies affected. It was proposed that a uniform tariff should, in the first instance, be set on foot by the British Parliament. Under the provisions of the Bill it was apparently in the power of any two Colonies to compel the others to take part in a federal legislature. It proved, however, impossible to pass the Bill in the Session of 1849. Although in the Bill of 1850 the proposals of the Government were made more palatable, by dropping the plan of a uniform tariff to be set on foot by the Imperial Parliament, and by making the use of the General Assembly permissive instead of compulsory, they found little favour either in Australia or in England. The school of colonial reformers of the type of Sir William Molesworth were opposed to them on the ground that they were of English manufacture, and not the outcome of Australian public opinion, and for once supported the more timid critics, who saw in them the seed of a future independent and republican Australia. In this state of things, though not a little to the chagrin of Lord Grey, it became necessary to lighten the Bill by the omission of the clauses relating to a general legislature; and the Australian Government Bill of 1850 started the Australian Colonies on the constitutional way with no attempt to direct them into a common channel. 'I am not, however,' wrote Lord Grey, 'the less persuaded that the want of some such central authority to regulate matters of common importance to the Australian Colonies will be felt, and probably at an early period.' But he consoled himself with the reflection that, when this want was felt, it would of itself suggest the means by which it might be met. It was true that the separate legislatures would be unable themselves to establish a General Assembly; but arrangements might be arrived at between different Colonies, whilst application was made to the Imperial

Parliament to set on foot the necessary machinery. That Lord Grey was wise in seeking to avert the evils which undoubtedly resulted from a divided Australia, must be freely admitted. At the same time, in seeking to decide a question which mainly affected the Australian Colonies themselves by the external authority of the British Parliament, he was in fact injuring the cause he had at heart. What was necessary was to create a public opinion in Australia favourable to federation; but for many years the fact that a proposal originally issued from Downing Street was a reason why it should be regarded with suspicion.

Lord Grey had failed in his attempt to make possible a federal legislature, but it was still possible to appoint a Governor-General of Australia. The expanding interests and increasing relations of the Australian Colonies would necessitate some means of establishing a mutual understanding and concert between them; and it seemed fitting that the officer administering the government of the oldest and largest of these Colonies should be provided with a general authority to superintend the initiation and foster the development of such measures as they might deem calculated to promote their common welfare. But to place the Governor of any one of the Australian Colonies in a position of pre-eminence over his colleagues was merely to give occasion for that spirit of jealousy and rivalry which so strongly characterized the relations of the different Colonies; and the institution of a Governor-General was only not productive of mischief because it remained a mere title, barren of practical results. In any case, when responsible government was in 1856 set on foot, the rôle of the Governor-General in the promotion of the federal movement ceased to be of any possible importance; and, with the retirement in 1861 of Sir William Denison, the title was allowed to lapse.

After the failure of the federal clauses of the Australian Governments Act of 1850, the Home Ministry became