should come into operation until it had actually been confirmed by Your Majesty.

We propose to limit the range of the legislative authority of the General Assembly to the ten topics which we proceed to enumerate. These are:

1. The imposition of duties upon imports and exports. 2. The conveyance of letters.

3. The formation of roads, canals, or railways, traversing

any two or more of such Colonies.

4. The erection and maintenance of beacons and lighthouses.

5. The imposition of dues or other charges on shipping in every port or harbour.

6. The establishment of a General Supreme Court, to be a Court of Original Jurisdiction, or a Court of Appeal from any of the inferior Courts of the separate Provinces.

7. The determining of the extent of the jurisdiction and the forms and manner of proceeding of such Supreme Court.

8. The regulation of weights and measures.

9. The enactment of laws affecting all the Colonies represented in the General Assembly on any subject not specifically mentioned in the preceding list, but on which the General Assembly should be desired to legislate by addresses for that purpose presented to them from the Legislatures of all those Colonies. 10. The appropriation to any of the preceding objects of such sums as may be necessary, by an equal percentage from the revenue received in all the Australian Colonies, in virtue of any enactments of the General Assembly of Australia.

By these means we apprehend that many important objects would be accomplished which would otherwise be unattainable; and, by the qualifications which we have proposed, effectual security would, we think, be taken against

the otherwise danger of establishing a Central Legislature in opposition to the wishes of the separate Legislatures, or in such a manner as to induce collisions of authority between them. The proceedings also of the Legislative Council of New South Wales with reference to the proposed changes in the Constitution, lead us to infer that the necessity of creating some such general authority for the Australian Colonies begins to be seriously felt."

SCHEDULE 2.

Composition of the House of Delegates.

"Each Colony to send two members, and each to send one additional member for every 15,000 of the population, according to the latest census before the convening of the House.

On the present population the numbers would be as follows:

:

Although the proposals of the Privy Council and the clauses in the Bill of 1849 and 1850 which gave effect to them were a praiseworthy attempt to avoid a danger which afterwards became very serious, it must be confessed that they do not show any close grip of the subject, or sign that their authors realized how they could be worked in practice. Lord John Russell, indeed, finally confessed that the clauses relating to federation had to be withdrawn during the passage of the Bill of 1850, because of the difficulty of reconciling the respective rights and interests of New South Wales and of the lesser Colonies (Hans. Parl. Deb., 3rd Series, cxiii, p. 623). At a time when a colonial reformer of the type of Sir William Molesworth 'did not see how a Federative Assembly could be admitted at all unless the intention was to separate these Colonies from the mother country' (Hans. cx, p. 800), matters were not yet ripe for the adoption of

the federal principle. Had the permissive clauses of the Bill of 1850 not been dropped, they would still in all probability have remained a dead letter.

It has been thought advisable to transcribe the greater portion of the Report of the Privy Council; because, though much of it is not concerned with the subject of federation, it throws valuable light on the strong and weak points of English Colonial Government in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The federal sections of the Australian Colonies Bills of 1849 and 1850 are given in Appendices A and B of Mr. C. D. Allin's The Early Federation Movement of Australia, 1907, pp. 419-423. Their fate can be traced in the pages of Hansard for these years.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

CONSTITUTION ACT

63 AND 64 VICT, CHAP. 12

An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia.

1

[9th July, 1900.]

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God,2 have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth 3 under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:

3

And whereas it is expedient to provide for the admission into the Commonwealth of other Australasian Colonies and possessions of the Queen :

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same as follows:-

1. This Act may be cited as the Commonwealth of Short Australia Constitution Act.

1 Note expression 'the people', following precedent of United States Constitution. The British North America Act merely spoke of 'the Provinces as expressing their desire, &c.

2 Considerable criticism had been evoked by the omission of any mention of God in the Bill of 1891. Section 116 was strengthened with a view to making clear that such mention did not imply denominational proclivities.

3 The word 'Commonwealth' excited some criticism mainly on account of its republican associations; but it was defended by quotations from Shakespeare.

Title.

Act to

extend to

2. The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall Queen's extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovesuccessors. reignty of the United Kingdom.

tion of

wealth.

1

Proclama- 3. It shall be lawful for the Queen with the advice of the Common Privy Council to declare by Proclamation 1 that, on and after a day therein appointed, not being later than one year after the passing of this Act, the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia. But the Queen may, at any time after the Proclamation, appoint a GovernorGeneral for the Commonwealth.

Commencement of Act.

Operation

4. The Commonwealth shall be established, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth shall take effect, on and after the day so appointed. But the Parliaments of the several Colonies may at any time after the passing of this Act make any such laws, to come into operation on the day so appointed, as they might have made if the Constitution had taken effect at the passing of this Act.

5. This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament of the of the Con- Commonwealth under the Constitution, shall be binding on and Laws. the courts, judges, and people of every State and of every

stitution

part of the Commonwealth, notwithstanding anything in the laws of any State; and the laws of the Commonwealth shall be in force on all British ships,2 the Queen's ships of war

1 The Proclamation was made on September 17, 1900, and the Commonwealth began its life on January 1, 1901.

2 This provision was taken from Sec. 20 of the Federal Council of Australasia Act of 1885. It was objected to by Mr. Chamberlain when the Bill was first brought to England as too wide; but in the face of the determination of the Australian delegates he waived his objections. See article by Mr. A. B. Keith, on 'Merchant Shipping Legislation in the Colonies', Journal of Comparative Legislation, 1909, p. 203. See Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Companies v. Kingston [1903] A.C. 471; and Merchant Service Guild of Australia v. A. Currie & Co. (Lim.), 5 C. L. R. 737. Sec. 5 only applies to cases where both the beginning and the end