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8 GRAND HOTEL BUILDINGS, CHARING CROSS,

Head Office: 64 CORNHILL, LONDON.

WILLIAM J. VIAN, Secretary.

DEC 9 1884

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. XCIV.-DECEMBER 1884.

IMPERIAL FEDERATION

FROM AN AUSTRALIAN POINT OF VIEW.

THE question of Imperial Federation has never been raised in a finer vein of patriotic feeling than it was by Lord Rosebery at Aberdeen in an address which he delivered to the Trades Union Conference. He assumed that leading statesmen were giving their attention to the subject as one which must be discussed before long, and he arrived at the conclusion that those who professed to lead opinion in this matter must take the people into their confidence. If there really was to be federation, it involved immense constitutional changes, and a basis of action must be found for this in the wishes and the reasonable conclusions of the people themselves, of the many who feel, as well as of the few who have to think and devise. He declined to specify or to dogmatise how it was to be done, but he asserted that the more immediate unification of the outlying portions of the empire with the central system of government is expedient, and even necessary, if the British Empire is to perpetuate its existence in correspondence with its achievements in the past. To do this the federal principle must be recognised, and he declared for union on that principle.

The Imperial Federatists are, if I understand aright, influenced in the first place by a hope that they may re-create a united empire on a grander and more substantial footing than the present one; and in the next place they think that the empire will thus be prevented

from entering upon a period of decrepitude and decadence, from which nothing can save it unless we have recourse to some sort of heroic reconstruction suited to the circumstances of the times. Lord Rosebery to some extent adopts this view. While in Australia he lately expressed himself strongly in favour of doing all in his power to promote the lasting union of Australia with the mother country, and be does nothing more than justify his intentions when he raises the question of Federation as he has done. His speech at Aberdeen will be read with much interest in Australia. It was the deliberate statement of one who, having been an eye-witness of the immensity of the British possessions beyond the seas, believes in the necessity for a constitutional reconstruction of the British Empire, so as to bring the whole into more active and more sympathetic accord. The Empire has to be reconstructed, he thinks, and the people have to think out the question with their statesmen. He invites them to do so, and every really patriotic man who prizes his inheritance in history as the best of his political possessions is entitled to respond to the invitation. The present writer responds to it in this spirit, and perhaps, so far as Australia is concerned, he has some slight right to do so, for he has lived a life of active sympathy and of intercourse with many of the leading men of Australia, whether as explorers of new country or as explorers in the tangled paths of experimental politics.

In order to arrive at an adequate conception of Imperial Federation from an Australian point of view, it may be desirable, in the first place, to trace briefly the causes which have led up to the movement in favour of Australian Federation. Previous to 1870 very little had been done. Up to that time the various colonies or states of Australia had been fully occupied with their own internal affairs, industrial and political. The Franco-Prussian war in that year showed what mighty catastrophes might still occur in the history of nations. The necessity for union was felt. The great despotic powers of Germany and Russia might combine, and at one time Russia openly declared that she would no longer be bound by her engagements. Belgium, too, was threatened. These European complications drew the attention of our leading men to the possible position in which we might find ourselves, and the result was a strong recommendation to federate, which came from a Royal Commission then sitting at Melbourne.

It may be well here to quote a few of the pregnant opening sentences of that report, in order to indicate the spirit which then animated the community.

Advantages of a Federal Union.-On the primary question of a federal union of the Australian Colonies, apart from all considerations of time and method of bringing such a union about, there was a unanimity of opinion. The indispensable condition of success for men and nations is that they should clearly understand what they want, and to what goal they are travelling, that life may not be wasted