LORD DERBY ON COLONIAL FEDERATION. T ORD DERBY, like Achilles—whom, however,
he does not A resemble in any other respect —has his weak point. We can claim no credit for having found the way to it, for the discovery was wholly accidental. Still, after the fact, there is some satisfaction in having made this discovery, the more, per- haps, from its being so unexpected. On Monday week Lord Derby took occasion, in answering a question of Lord Carnar- von's, to explain the real attitude of the Government towards Australian Federation. He had seen, he said, suggestions in various quarters that the Government had not made .up their minds about the Australian Bill. We must plead guilty to having made this suggestion ourselves, and to having made it with no idea that it would be resented by the Department to which it related. We did think that the Secre- tary of State for the Colonies was "hesitating," and that in his hesitation the cause of the delays to which the Bill has undoubtedly been subjected, was to be found. It is pleasant to find that for this impression of ours " there is no shadow of foundation." In the Colonial Office, at all events, vacillation, uncertainty, postponement, are unknown. In the breasts of every official, Parliamentary or Permanent, " the Star of the Unconquered Will " is for ever rising. From Lord Derby downwards, they are one and all " serene, and resolute, and still, and calm, and self-possessed." When once the fiat has gone forth they pursue their even way, without haste perhaps, but also without rest. It is not wonderful that the Minister who reigns over such an office should feel aggrieved at being a mark for charges of delay and hesitation. Had he been buffeted for his faults he might have taken it patiently ; but to have his virtues ignored or misrepresented, is more than even Lord Derby's patience can bear. As regards the scheme of Australian Federation, it seems that all is going well. It is Lord Derby's own offspring— the carrying into effect of the policy which he suggested last year; and he is, therefore, " the last person likely to be in- different to its success." It is true that he did not introduce it in the Autumn Session ; and considering that, in Lord Derby's opinion, " it will meet with very little opposition here or elsewhere," this may seem a little strange. But consider what excellent reasons he had for its postponement. First, there was the inevitable uncertainty as to the duration of the sittings. Lord Derby likes to see a clear road to the end of the course before he starts ; and he would not read the Bill a first time until he could be sure that it would be read a third time before the Lords adjourned for the holidays. He was confirmed in this resolve by an examination of the Bill. As is ordinarily the case with Bills, it has been found to contain various points of detail on which amendments seem desirable. Our own belief is that when it has received the Royal Assent it will still contain several points of detail on which amend- ments will seem desirable, and that for years to come the experi- ence of the Colonies will from time to time suggest new points. To our minds, therefore, it was quite unnecessary to consult the Governments of the various Colonies before introducing these amendments. Naturally, however, Lord Derby thought differently. He knows that his temptation is to be over-hasty, to come to rash and premature conclusions, to leap first and look afterwards. Rightly, therefore, he is careful to lean away from the aide to which his nature draws him ; and for this purpose he welcomes the salutary checks of a correspondence with the several Colonies. In one Colony, at all events, he will seemingly find all the checks he can desire. Why New South Wales should take so languid an interest in the project of Federation, it is hard to say. Had Sydney been denied its titular precedence, and the Colonial Convention been held at Melbourne, there would have been an obvious reason for this indifference. - But Sydney had every honour given to it, and the Government of New South Wales had only to make the scheme its own to ensure its acceptance in that character. The motive assigned by the New South Wales Ministers is curiously inadequate. They would not, they say, have objected to a closer and more detailed federation, but they do not like the looser tie with which it is proposed to begin. A Federal Legislature would have been quite to their mind ; but they cannot away with a Federal Council. Had the Convention proposed a Federal Legislature, it is permissible to suppose that Sydney would have argued, and argued quite justly, that the project was greatly in advance of the real position of affairs. The Australian Colonies are ripe for a first beginning of Federa- tion ; they are not ripe for a perfect Federation. The machinery incident to such a Federation will come in time, and the experience gained under a more elementary arrange- ment will be of great value in determining the shape it will take. But at present the material for it does not exist, whereas the material for such a Council as that proposed by the Convention does exist. We can see no reason, therefore, for the indifference which New South Wales has shown to- wards the proposals of the Convention ; and in the absence of such reason, there was no excuse for the action taken by the Sydney Government in August and September last. Victoria was then anxious to get the Enabling Bill passed during the Autumn Session ; and in order to quicken the action of the Colonial Office, they invited the other Colonies to exercise pres- sure upon the Home Government. It must be borne in mind that this was only an Enabling Bill ; that it simply took power to create a Federal Council for any four Colonies that might be minded to set up one ; that the Colonies not concurring in the scheme would be altogether untouched by it. What need, then, was there for the Prime Minister of New South Wales to telegraph to London that the Enabling Bill was premature, and that Federation without New South Wales would not be "truly Australian " ? No one proposed to call it truly Australian in the sense of embracing all Australia ; and in the sense of embracing a large majority of the Australian Colonies it was truly-Australian. So as to its alleged prematureness. A Bill to enable any four Colonies to set up a Federal Council for themselves only, can hardly be premature when once there are four Colonies waiting to carry the scheme into execu- tion ; and in this case there were five. Nor were the New South Wales Government content with doing what they could to delay Federation. They were equally anxious to curtail a measure of far more pressing necessity. Victoria wished to extend British protection not only over New Guinea, but also over all the islands which form the outer fringe of the Australian continent. There can be no question that this will be done in the end, because if any one of them is left out it will become the theatre of the very evils to guard against which a protectorate has been established in New Guinea. The Colonial Office is trying to divide its cherry into as many bites as possible ; and such a communication as that which the Agent-General of New South Wales was instructed to forward, was exactly calculated to encourage its efforts in this direction. The limitation of the protectorate set up in New Guinea itself is, perhaps, due to the New South Wales policy, and, if so, the Sydney Govern- ment have no cause to be proud of their achievement. That protectorate is restricted to the Southern Coast, and within this limit it will, no doubt, be " sufficient to afford protection to the natives against lawless action, whether by British subjects or foreigners." But it will not prevent similar lawless action on the Northern Coast, or anywhere else in the island outside the protected line. Meantime, this system of protect- ing by instalments is a standing invitation to other nations to be beforehand with us, and in so far as that invitation is accepted, a standing source of inevitable complications in the future. No one can look at the map without seeing that these islands will one day be included 'in the Australian Dominion of the future ; and when this is once conceded, it follows that the preliminaries of annexation cannot be too soon gone through. Such a step would pledge us to no inconveniently immediate action ; it would only give us the requisite locus standi in the event of that inconveniently immediate action being taken by some other Power. It is much, no doubt, to
have the principle of a protectorate conceded by the Home Government ; but it would be still more to have the area of its application made coextensive with the needs which it will one day have to meet.
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