Agreement having been at last attained, a new enabling Bill, by which a mere majority was required, was passed by the New South Wales Legislature, and federation was now approved by substantial majorities in five Colonies, Queensland at last having fallen into line. It was not till the Bill was passing through the British Parliament that Western Australia, in return for the right of imposing for five years intercolonial customs duties, threw in its lot with the rest of Australia, and the vote of the referendum adopting the Constitution was not made till after the passage of the Act through the British Parliament.

A deputation of Australian Ministers brought the Bill to England. On nearly every point Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, was ready and willing to adopt the measure of the Australian people; but a vigorous attempt was made to resist the provisions of the clause which abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council in cases affecting the rights inter se of the Commonwealth and the States. The final compromise, under which such an appeal could be made if so ordered by the High Court, may be thought a surrender, because the High Court was hardly likely to question its own competence to give a final decision;1 but the attitude taken up by the Australian Premiers and by the Ministers in London, that the Bill represented the exact arrangement upon which the Australian people had given their verdict, and that any alteration would throw the whole subject into the melting-pot, made it necessary that the Home Government should walk warily. Whatever our own inclinations toward an Imperial Court of Appeal as a link of Empire, we must recognize that it becomes valueless if not depending upon popular approval. 'Bonds which chafe', whatever their merits in other ways, can

1 Note the emphatic language of Chief-Justice Griffith in Baxter v. the Collector of Customs of New South Wales (4 C. L. R., Part 2, 1103), claiming the competence of the High Court to be final judge in matters relating to the Commonwealth,

hardly be 'bonds which attach'; and from an Imperial standpoint the gain of a strong united Australia was worth many times the loss of some power for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The Bill passed through Parliament on July 3rd, 1900, and on January 1st, 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia entered into life.

What will be the ultimate character of the Constitution it is impossible to say. In spite of the vigorous assertion of State interests and the natural desire of State Ministers to magnify their own offices, it is possible that a generation brought up under new influences may recognize the accidental character of State divisions and attach little importance to what now seems sacrosanct. The provisions of the Act giving concurrent jurisdiction to the Commonwealth Parliament on a variety of subjects which at first belonged to the State Legislatures, and the free use which is being made of the power to amend the Constitution1 afford an easy way by which the powers of the Commonwealth may wax and those of the States may wane. It is true that the great distances between the various points of Australia seem to necessitate a genuinely federal government, but science is daily achieving new wonders in the bridging of space, and British South Africa, in spite of its size, has ventured on a unitary government. These things are for Australia to settle in its own way. For us here it is enough to note that the Commonwealth Act of 1900, in the laborious care with which its every syllable was drafted, in the anxious attempts of its framers to secure unanimity, and the jealous provision made throughout its stages for its popular sanction, represents a high-water mark in democratic constitution-making of which every member of the Anglo-Saxon race, who, with whatever searching of heart and anxiety, recognizes that democracy is the inevitable goal, may well be legitimately proud.

1 The electors, however, have not hitherto treated very favourably such proposed amendments (1924).

THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.

We have seen how reluctantly in Canada and Australia centrifugal influences yielded before the advance of the federal principle. In South Africa a more surprising thing has happened, and men, who a few years before were opposing each other in deadly war, have succeeded in friendly co-operation in establishing the political union of British South Africa.

Here, again, it is only by some knowledge of the past history that we can understand the situation. The keynote, then, of the subsequent history will be found in the opposing methods of dealing with the natives adopted by the Dutch Colonists and by the British Government. The difference was not between opposing races. When British Colonists came out to Cape Colony, their ways of dealing with the natives did not substantially differ from those of the Dutch; and even the British Governors were found often sympathizing with Colonial methods rather than with those imposed on them from Downing Street. We have here nothing to do with the rights or the wrongs of the controversy: probably, as in most disputes, the path of wisdom lay between the two extremes. For us the only point to notice is that, because of their distrust of British methods, the more bitter of the Dutch farmers shook off the dust of British sovereignty from their feet, and sought a new home in the unknown north. The British Government, which still regarded Cape Colony of importance merely as a half-way house on the road to India, naturally shrunk from pursuing the Boers in their 'trek'. Whatever might be true in law, in the court of common sense it followed that allegiance could not be claimed where protection was no longer afforded.

Meanwhile, though the general trend of British policy was against extending responsibilities, strong men on the

spot, who already recognized that expansion was the inevitable goal, were able to force the hands of the Home Government and thus to give it an appearance of inconsistency which added to the confusion and disgust of the 'voortrekkers'. In spite, however, of the lamentable course of events which served to widen differences which need not have been great, the advantage of co-operative union among the South African Provinces was so manifest that had the matter been left to the decision of the people of South Africa some form of union would probably have been evolved.

In support of this contention may be cited the action of the people of the Orange River Colony after its annexation by Great Britain in 1848. Although that annexation was resisted by many of the Dutch, it seems clear that, after the more extreme had fled from British rule into the Transvaal, the great majority of the inhabitants quickly reconciled themselves to British rule; and, when the Home Government decided to renounce the sovereignty, its decision was regretted by the Dutch no less than by the English colonists. The fatal step having been taken of allowing the creation of independent States, the only road of safety lay in establishing some system of federation which would bind together the various portions of South Africa, at least in matters of general concern. To Sir George Grey belongs the credit of initiating this policy. Writing to the Home Government towards the close of 1856, he advocated 'a federal union amongst all these territories, in which great individual freedom of action should be left to each Province, whilst they would all be united under British rule'. He urged emphatically the necessity of a 'United South Africa under the British flag'. The Home Government unfortunately was in no mood to change the policy which had been deliberately adopted 'of recognizing by treaty the formation of independent States on the frontiers of British possessions by emigrant British

subjects, and thus raising an effectual barrier to the system of continual and indefinite expansion of the frontiers towards the interior'; and the words of wisdom of Sir George Grey fell on deaf ears. The case for some kind of federation was on its merits strong enough. The revenues derived from duties levied at Cape Town and the other Cape Colony ports were taken by Cape Colony for its sole exclusive use; while the inland States paid the additional cost on their goods, occasioned by these duties. Again, only by a federal union could the South African Colonies become so strong and so united in policy and action as to make impossible the danger of a native rising. Not only would the power and prestige of the white races be so increased by a federal union as to make the native more chary in venturing on war; but also the individual Colonies or States would become more cautious in entering upon proceedings which might result in war, when such war would need the sanction of a federal authority.

Under the policy of separation South Africa had become a land of small States, wherein petty and parochial issues filled men's minds; but federation would open out a wider horizon, along which would appear wider questions and more general interests. If Great Britain should grow weary of her burden in South Africa, federation afforded the only means by which a strong government could be erected, able to succeed to her responsibilities and to avert from the rival Provinces confusion and anarchy. By federation great individual freedom might be left to each component part, whilst for certain purposes they were united under British rule.

It is obvious that if such a federation could have been established in 1857 the whole future of South Africa would have run a different course. Mr. F. W. Reitz, the Transvaal Secretary of State at the time of the war, wrote to Sir George Grey in 1893: Had British Ministers in time past been wise enough to follow your advice, there would