Chapter XXV: Future Relations of the Australian

COMMONWEALTH TO BRITAIN.

Australia however is not a State standing alone in the world, but a member of the British Empire, so we cannot close an examination of her Constitution without asking whether the union of her Colonies will affect her relations to the mother country.

When the first Convention to frame a Federal Constitution assembled in 1891, most Englishmen supposed that a Federated Australia would soon aspire to complete independence. Australian statesmen saw deeper, and predicted that the formation from the several Colonies of an Australian Nation would tend not to loosen, but rather to draw closer the ties that unite the people to Great Britain. So far as can be judged from the course of Australian opinion during the past ten years, this has been the result. There were at first some who advocated Federation as a means to independence. But they soon desisted, overborne by a different current. The same National feeling through which Federalism triumphed seems to have deepened the sense of unity with other members of the British race. And possibly that suspicion which colonies are apt to feel of a sort of patronage on the part of the mother country, and which sometimes disposes them to be self-assertive, may have vanished as they came to realize that the old country was proud of them and wished to treat them not only as a daughter but as an equal. Neither do they, democrats as they are, harbour distrust of a monarchy, or deem their freedom in any way hampered by it. The love for republicanism in the abstract, though far stronger in Continental Europe than in England, was everywhere a force in the first half of the nineteenth century. It has faded away in the second half throughout the British world, because the solid substance of freedom has been secured, because the old mischiefs of monarchical government have reappeared in republics, because men’s minds have begun to be occupied with economic and social rather than with purely political questions. The fact that the British Crown is titular head of the Australian Commonwealth will not render the working of the Constitution less truly popular, any more than has befallen in Canada, a somewhat less democratic country. So far as the internal politics of Australia are concerned, she will take her own course, scarcely affected by her connexion with England. But the fact that she is, and seems likely to remain, a part of the British Empire, sharing in the enterprises and conflicts and responsibilities of that vast body, is a fact of the highest moment for her future and for the future of the world. Still more momentous might her relation to the Empire become should any scheme be devised for giving the self-governing Colonies of Britain a share in the financial liability for common defence, together with a voice in the determination of a common foreign policy. The difficulties of constructing any constitutional machinery for this purpose are obvious, yet perhaps not insurmountable. Should any such arrangement be ever reached, it will probably be reached through some crisis in the history of the Empire itself.

Sixty years ago it was generally believed that as soon as each British self-governing colony had become conscious of its strength, it would naturally desire, and could not be refused, its independence. But the last sixty years have brought with them many favouring conditions; and among these, one of which no one then thought, the long reign of a sovereign whose personal character, by its purity, simplicity and kindliness, won such reverence and affection, not only for herself, but also for the ancient institutions at the head of which she stood, that the prolongation of her life may be reckoned among the causes which have kept these far-off lands a part of the British realm and have given its actual form to the Commonwealth of Australia.

END OF VOL. 1

OXFORD
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

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Transcriber’s Note

At 314.9, the Norse discoverer of Iceland, Naddodd (or Naddoðr in Old Norse), is referred to as ‘Naddođ’. This is only occurence of the barred d in this text, the Norse letter eth (ð) was probably intended.

Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

32.32 by Mr. E. G. Hardy.[)] Added.
44.32 round the Aeg[a]ean. Removed.
94.30 receptive rather than [resistent] _sic_
111.34 except[s] as respect[s] land Removed/Added.
167.32 Ἀ[ρ]χαιοπλούτων Restored.
260.1 the creation of a Rigid Constit[ut]ion Inserted.
261.24 every[ ]thing tends to knit individual men Removed.
together
316.13 where deserts[,] glaciers and morasses Added.
323.9 Úlflj[o/ó]t having in the meantime returned Replaced.
344.16 only a father[,] son or brother Added.
408.3 confidently to answer[.] Added.
502.3 as against the States[.] Added.