Sec. 88. Uniform duties of customs Sec. 89. Payment to States before uniform duties .. Sec. 90. Exclusive power over customs, excise, and bounties Sec. 91. Exceptions as to bounties Sec. 92. Trade within the Commonwealth to be free Sec. 93. Payment to States for five years after uniform Tariffs Sec. 127. Aborigines not to be counted in reckoning population LEGISLATIVE POWERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE STATES OF AUSTRALIA. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SURVEY. EIGHTEEN YEARS OF COMMONWEALTH PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT. Inauguration. To those who were privileged to witness the consummation of the grand ideal of Australian patriotism, Federal Union, it is a source of satisfaction to be spared to look back and engage in å retrospect extending over eighteen years of memorable and progressive Commonwealth history. Amid Te Deums and anthems of church services the booming of guns, awakening.the echo of the midnight air the flash of light and fireworks scintillating o'er land and sea, the joyous shouts and cheers of multitudes assembled in all parts of the continent, in eager expectancy, awaiting and watching the passing of the old and the advent of the new century, the Commonwealth came into existence and started upon its glorious The old order passed and the new order appeared. career. Never was a century ushered in under auspices more promising of Peace on Earth and Good-will towards Men" than the 20th of the Christian era whose dawn was coincident with the inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth. And yet at that very moment the enemy of mankind, in the shape of the German nation, hushed in grim and stealthy repose, awaited his prey, being almost then ready to make his spring in a tragic war which has since convulsed Europe with ruin and bloodshed and has threatened the very L. P. 1 existence of modern civilization. All unconscious of this coming tragedy were the joyous celebrants of the new-born Commonwealth. It was indeed well for the Empire and for Australia itself, that the Federal Union of the Australian Colonies was not longer delayed ; that the Commitwealth was established just in time to put its house in order and prepare for the great war. The first fourteen years of Federal history in Australia as if with inspired prescience were well spent in organization and preparation for the inevitable deçices of fate. When the time came it found Australia no longer divided into six separate Colonies, as in the first hundred years of its history, but welded together in one indestructible union under 'the Crown and ready to respond to the call of Empire and its duty to the world. The striking feature of the Federal change was that it was brought about not as the result of a revolutionary disturbance, but in a peaceful constitutional manner with the concurrence and goodwill of the Australian people in all the Colonies (now States) with the benediction of Her Most Gracious Majesty, QUEEN VICTORIA and with the hearty co-operation of the British people and the British Parliament. True, there were a number of persons in Australia who under the varying names of anti-federalists, anti-billities and unificationists, opposed Federation on the terms and conditions settled in the Constitution Act. They indulged in gloomy forebodings and Cassandra-like vaticinations; some forecasting dangers to civil liberty; others predicting dangers to State rights: some prophesying dangers to free-trade; others dangers to protection, dangers to democracy, dangers to labour, dangers to the small States, dangers to the large States, dangers to New South Wales, dangers to Victoria. With this array and coalition of opposition forces the real wonder is that the Constitution was accepted by the majority of people voting in all the States. The acceptance of the Constitution with all its blemishes, real and imaginary, in spite of and in the teeth of such antagonism, is a lasting testimony of what must have been a deeply rooted instinct in the masses of the people in favour of Federal union and a proof of profound and determined aversion to the continued separation and isolation of the Australian Colonies. They responded to the promptings of national yearnings and the voice of national destiny, in preference to appeals to parochialism, localism, trade jealousy, class prejudice and lawyer-like quibbles. All these difficulties and objections were swept aside in that Pan-Australian "Amen" with which the Constitution was adopted and became the law of the land. They reasoned well. They realized that in the preparation of any deed of political partnership it would be impossible for human wit and wisdom, however accommodating, to please all at the beginning and that it would be better to federate on the best and most practicable working terms attainable rather than run the risk and dangers of delay which might lead only to greater discordance and greater obstacles to union in the future. They knew also that the Constitution was not a cast iron instrument incapable of improvement but that it contained within itself the germ, the power, and the potency of growth and adjustment sufficient to meet the demands of a progressive Commonwealth consistently with the main outlines of the federal plan. The Act for the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth received the Royal Assent on the 9th July, 1900. By Proclamation dated 17th September following, QUEEN VICTORIA appointed the 1st January 1901, as the day for the legal establishment and inauguration of the Commonwealth. By Letter Patents of 29th October, 1900, Her Majesty constituted the office of Governor-General and by Commission of the same date the EARL OF HOPETOUN was appointed to be the first Governor-General of the Commonwealth. Lord HOPETOUN reached Sydney on the 15th of December 1900, and at once set to work to secure responsible advisers, in order that when the appointed day came the Government of the Commonwealth forthwith organized and brought into action, on the 19th December, he sent for Sir WILLIAM LYNE, who was then Premier of New South Wales, the senior and most populous of the Colonies which were about to become States of the Commonwealth. Five days later, Sir WILLIAM LYNE, finding himself unable to form an acceptable Administration, returned the Commission, and Lord HOPETOUN, in accordance with Sir WILLIAM's advice, sent for Mr. (afterwards Sir) EDMUND BARTON, who had been the leader of the Convention which framed the Constitution, and was the recognized leader of the federal movement. Mr. EDMUND BARTON accepted the task and a few days later he submitted to his Excellency the names of the gentlemen whom he recommended for appointment as members of the Federal Executive Council and Ministers of State. So far, all was merely preliminary; no portfolios could be assigned |