AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION.
DOWN to the very end of last Session the cause of Australian Federation seemed as prosperous as its best friends could wish it to be. It was advancing in the Colonies and advancing in England. It was known, indeed, that it had but a lukewarm friend in the Secretary of State ; but the Colonies are accus- tomed to lukewarmness at the Colonial Office, and the cause has not yet been discovered which could evoke heat in Lord Derby. But after the customary official douche had been allowed for, everything was going well. The framers of the scheme had prudently provided that the consent of any four Colonies should be sufficient to bring it into operation, and the consent of five had been obtained. In Victoria, in Queens- land, in Tasmania, in Southern and Western Australia, Federation had been adopted, either unanimously or by large majorities. New South Wales, indeed, and New Zealand, hung back ; but in the latter, parties are so equally balanced, and Ministyies are consequently so unstable, that for the present the Colony is incapable of having an opinion upon any subject, while in the former, the Opposition is shown only by one House of the Legislature, and there, as has since been proved, goes no further than a desire to postpone the question for the present, and goes even so far as this only by a majority of one. Federation has certainly not been a failure in Canada ; yet the Dominion does not even now embrace all the North-American Colonies. When the Dominion was founded, other Colonies held aloof from it ; but all, save one, have since found it to their interest to come in. The advocates of Federation had good reason therefore to think that a subject of this import- ance, and one so entirely removed from party politics, might
be dealt with even at the fag-end of a Session. The Government were of this mind also. When Parliament had not many more hours to sit, Mr. Gladstone offered to introduce the Federation Bill, and to carry it through both Houses in the short interval that still remained ; and it was only the unwillingness of the Opposition front bench to pass a Bill which they had not examined that stood in the way. Even the Recess, full as it was of other interest, seemed at first to have done no injury to Australian Federation. Deter- mined, as Mr. Gladstone has shown himself, to keep the Autumn Session clear for its special work, he at first made an exception in favour of this particular Bill. That was named by him, only a week or two back, as one of the few measures which it might be possible to get passed before Christmas ; and as neither House has had enough to do to stand in the way of an adjournment from one Monday to another, there seemed no reason why this should not be done.
Or rather, there seemed no reason down to Monday last. On that day it appeared that there was abundant reason, though hardly of a kind that will be satisfactory to the Australians. We were all wrong, it turns out, in thinking that this is a Bill to enable the Australian Colonies to confederate. The word " confederate " is "too wide." The draft Bill which was—was, it will be seen, not is—under consideration is nothing of the kind. It is a Bill to "enable them to establish simply a Federal Council for the purpose of dealing with certain questions of common interest, leaving Colonial institu- tions intact." As such, Mr. Gladstone told the House of Commons on Monday, "it is more limited than what is com- monly understood by Confederation." Mr. Gladstone is a master of words, and it is rash to differ from him as to the meaning of political terms. We venture, nevertheless, to say that the Bill in question does establish precisely "what is commonly understood by Confederation." Mr. Gladstone speaks as though the fact that it leaves Colonial institu- tions intact were in some way inconsistent with this object. If the answer to Sir H. Holland and Mr. O'Connor had been his own, if it had not been merely put into his mouth, perhaps into his hands, by the Colonial Office, we feel sure that he would never have said this. He knows perfectly well that if the Bill did not leave Colonial institutions intact, it would not be a Confederation Bill. Are the United States less a Confederation because State institu- tions are left intact ? A Bill which swept away the institutions of the separate Colonies would not be a Bill enabling them to confederate, but a Bill enabling them to substitute one Colony of Australia for many. Nor does the fact that the object of the Bill is to "establish simply a Federal Council for the pur- pose of dealing with certain questions of common interest" in the least divest the plan of its federating character. Whether the machinery devised for dealing with certain questions of common interest be a Federal Legislature or a Federal Council may be of great moment as regards the success of the scheme, but it is of no moment at all as regards its purpose. That is determined by the nature of the question with which the Federal authority, be it Council or Legislature, is empowered to deal. There is no room for any uncertainty upon this head. The powers of the proposed Federal Council are large enough in all conscience. Indeed, when the scheme was first put forward, the feeling in this country was chiefly one of doubt whether communities so large and so rapidly increasing as the several Australian Colonies would consent to delegate so large a part of their authority to so limited a body. That five out of the seven have already done so, while the consent of the other two is only a question of time, is the best possible testi- mony to the hold that the Federal idea has taken of them. But even the Bill, as limited by Mr. Gladstone's new con- ception of it, is no longer treated as urgent. "There is such a Bill,"—that much he admits. But "it is tolerably clear that if it were introduced, it would require amendment in certain respects." Why is this clear now, when it was not clear last August, nor even at the beginning of the present month? In August, if the Opposition had consented, the Govern- ment were willing to pass the Bill in three days. Almost in the middle of November they were still of opinion that it might be passed in the Autumn Session. It is only on November 25th that they discover that it will require amendment in certain respects, and that it will be "more convenient to have these amendments considered in concert with the Colonies" before the Bill is introduced in the Imperial Parliament. What would have happened, we wonder, if the Bill had been passed as it stood in August last? In that case, perhaps, the need for amendment would never have been detected. We shall not say anything at present about the effect which this news will produce in Australia. There may, we fear,, be only too many opportunities of handling this side of the question. All we care to dwell on now is the paralysing action of the Colonial Office under its present chief upon other Departments of the Government. Mr. Gladstone's answer to Sir H. Holland and Mr. O'Connor was exactly the answer which an indifferent Department returns to a trouble- some deputation. It tells the Australian Colonies that they have overstated their case, that what they ask for can only be granted with many modifications, and they must talk the matter over with the officials once more before Parliament can be troubled about it. This was not Mr. Gladstone's attitude towards Australian Federation last summer ; it was not his attitude towards it three weeks ago ; and it can hardly be doubted that the cause of a change so sudden and so complete, has been the discovery that the Colonial Office is not yet ready—left to itself will never be ready—to take the responsibility of giving effect to the Australian wishes. The whole future relation of Australia with the Mother-country may be imperilled by Lord Derby's irreso- lution, because, when the Prime Minister has other important business to think about, he is more likely to be infected by that irresolution than to show in his own person the deter- mination which is needed to overrule it.
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