The Senate is the sheet-anchor of the four small States. Commanding a majority in it, they have consented to acquiesce in the great preponderance which their two larger neighbours possess in the House of Representatives. The numbers of the latter House are to be always as nearly as practicable double those of the Senate, a point whose importance will presently appear. The House is to continue for three years (subject of course to dissolution), a term intermediate, though inclining in the democratic direction, between the two years of the American Congress and the seven (practically six) years of the British House of Commons. The Canadian term is five years. Until the Commonwealth Parliament otherwise provides, the electoral suffrage is to be (as in the United States) the suffrage prescribed by State law for the election of members of the more numerous State House, and it is expressly provided, doubtless with a view to the fact that women's suffrage already exists in two colonies, that no law shall prevent a State voter from voting at Commonwealth elections. So far from securing, as does the United States Constitution, that no person shall be excluded on the ground of race from the suffrage 1, Australia has expressly provided that persons belonging to a particular race may be excluded, for she declares (sect. 25) that in such case the excluded race is not to be reckoned among the population of the State for the purposes of an allotment of representatives. Plural voting is forbidden. The quorum of members is a mean between the inconveniently large quorum (one-half) of the American, and the very small one (forty) of the British House. The seat of any Senator or member of the House becomes ipso facto vacant if he fails (without permission) to attend any session for two continuous months. No person having any pecuniary interest in any agreement with the public service (except as member of an incorporated company of at least twenty-five persons), or holding any office of

1 See Amendment XV to the Constitution.

profit under the Crown, can sit in either House, unless he be a Minister either of the Commonwealth or of a State. The exception is noteworthy, not only because it is framed with a view to the establishment of Cabinet Government, but also because it implies that a man may, contrary to American and Canadian usage, be at the same time both an executive official of a State and also a member of the Federal Legislature. It would appear that women are eligible to membership of either House. Every Senator and Representative is to receive a salary, fixed for the present at £400 ($2,000) a year.

XI. THE EXECUTIVE.

The Executive is to consist of the Governor-General and the Ministers. To the great convenience of the Australian people, the head of the Executive does not need to be elected either by popular vote (as in the United States) or by the Chambers, as in France and Switzerland. He is nominated by the British Crown, and holds office so long as the Crown pleases, receiving a salary fixed, for the present, at £10,000 ($50,000) a year (exactly the salary of the American President). He has an Executive Council, modelled on the British Privy Council (though the name Privy Council is not used as it is in the Canadian Constitution), and from it he chooses a number of Ministers (fixed for the present at seven) who are to administer the several departments of the public service. They must be members of one or other House of Parliament-a remarkable provision, for though this is a British practice, that practice has never been embodied in any positive rule. As the GovernorGeneral is only a constitutional figure-head, these Ministers will in fact constitute the ruling executive of the Commonwealth.

XII. THE JUDICIARY.

The Judiciary is to consist in the first instance of a Federal High Court (containing a Chief Justice and at least two other judges) capable of exercising both original jurisdiction in certain sets of cases, and also appellate jurisdiction not only from single Federal Judges and inferior Federal Courts, but also from the Supreme Courts of the States. Power is taken both to establish lower Federal Courts and to invest State Courts with federal jurisdiction. But besides this Judiciary proper, there is created a second Court for dealing with cases relating to trade and commerce, under the name of the Inter-State Commission (sect. 101). This remarkable and very important institution has doubtless been suggested by the United States Inter-State Commerce Commission created by Congress some eighteen years ago in order to deal with railway and water traffic between the States. Its functions will be half-administrative, half-judicial, and in questions of pure law an appeal will lie from it to the High Court, while a guarantee for its independence is found in the clause which declares that its members shall not be removed during their seven years' term of office. All Federal Judges are to be appointed by the Governor-General, that is to say, by the Executive Ministry. All trials (on indictment) for any offence against the laws of the Commonwealth shall be by jury, and held in the State where the alleged offence was committed. The judicial establishments of the States remain unaffected, and the judges thereof will continue to be appointed by the State Executives.

In determining the functions of the High Court there arose an important question which seemed for a moment to threaten the whole scheme of Federation. The draft Constitution which the Convention had prepared and which the people had approved by their vote provided that questions arising on the interpretation of the Con

stitution as to the respective limits of the powers of the Commonwealth and of the States, or as to the respective limits of the constitutional powers of any two or more States, should be adjudicated upon by the High Court of the Commonwealth, and that no appeal should lie from its decision to the Queen in Council (i.e. to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, which is the Supreme Court of Appeal from the British Colonies and India), unless the public interest of some part of Her Majesty's dominions, other than the Commonwealth or a State, are involved.' When the draft reached England to be embodied in a Bill, the British Government took exception to this provision as tending to weaken the tie between the mother country and the colonies. There were many in England who thought that it was not in the interest of Australia herself that she should lose, in questions which might involve political feeling and be complicated with party issues, the benefit of having a determination of such questions by an authority absolutely impartial and unconnected with her domestic interests and passions. How much better (they argued) would it have been for the United States at some critical moments could they have had constitutional disputes adjudicated on by a tribunal above all suspicion of sectional or party bias, since it would have represented the pure essence of legal wisdom, an unimpeachable devotion to legal truth!

To this the Australians replied that the experience of the United States had shown that in constitutional questions it was sometimes right and necessary to have regard to the actual conditions and needs of the nation; that constitutional questions were in so far political that where legal considerations were nearly balanced, the view ought to be preferred which an enlightened regard for the welfare of the nation suggested; that a Court sitting in England and knowing little of Australia would be unable to appreciate all the bearings of a constitutional question, and might, in taking a purely technical

and possibly too literal a view of the Constitution, give to the Constitution a rigidity which would check its legitimate expansion and aggravate internal strife. Australia must-so they pursued-be mistress of her own destinies, and as it is she that had framed and procured the enactment of this Constitution, so by her ought the responsibility to be borne of working it on its judicial as well as its executive and legislative side. Not only was this better for Australia herself, but it would be more conducive to the maintenance of the connexion between the Commonwealth and the mother country.

After some wavering, the British Government, perceiving the risk of offending Australian sentiment, gave way. They dropped in Committee of the House of Commons the alteration which they had introduced into the Australian draft, substituting for it an amendment which, while slightly varying the original terms of the draft, practically conceded the point for which the Australian Delegates, sent to England to assist in passing the measure, had contended. The Act as passed provides that no appeal shall lie to the Crown in Council upon the constitutional questions above-mentioned unless the High Court itself shall, being satisfied that the question is one which ought to be determined by the Privy Council, certify to that effect. In all other such cases its judgement will be final.

Appeals to the Privy Council in questions other than constitutional will continue to lie from the Supreme Courts of the States (with the alternative of an appeal to the High Court) and from the High Court itself, when special leave is given by the Privy Council. The Commonwealth Parliament may limit the matters in which such leave may be asked, but the laws imposing such limitations are to be reserved for the pleasure of the Crown.

The scheme of judicature above outlined follows in the main the model contained in the American Consti