THE POSITION OF FEDERATION.

Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 24, 30 January 1899, Page 4

THE POSITION OF FEDERATION.

The Conference of Premiers, summoned to consider the amendments proposed by New South Wales in the Commonwealth Bill, met on Saturday. The cable message we publish with reference to the discussion indicates that Federation has still some storms to weather before it safely reaches port. Mr. Reid, who acts as spokesman for his colony, appears to have set out his case at length, and to have made it clear that the amendments he desired radically affected the basis of the Bill. There will naturally be strong opposition to their acceptance in their entirety, and the chief hope for Federation lies in a reasonable compromise. The interests of New South Wales are necessarily greater than those of any other colony, but if Mr. Reid has brought to the Conference a similar spirit to that recently displayed by his Postmaster-General, the prospects of a satisfactory issue will grow dim. Mr. Varney Parkes; in a speech on Federation, boasted a week or so ago that New South Wales in commerce and resources was equal to all the other colonies combined. This is an admirably patriotic sentiment, but it is the exaggerated expression of it that has caused the present hitch in the Federation movement. New South Wales will not subordinate the immediate interests of New South Wales to the welfare and prosperity of Australia. It is possible that the colony was not as fully considered in it Commonwealth Bill as some of its politicians thought it ought to be, but that does not justify the attitude assumed towards Federation by Mr. Reid and his Parliamentary supporters.

Mr. Reid, it will be remembered, has two sets of amendments under his charge, one passed by each branch of the New South Wales Legislature, and it is not apparent as yet how far he has drawn upon each set for the proposals he submitted to his fellow-Premiers on Saturday. The seven points in Mr. Reid's resolutions as passed by the Lower House in New South Wales were— (l) That the referendum or a bare majority in a joint sitting of the two Houses should settle deadlocks in the Federal Parliament instead of, as under the Bill, a two-thirds majority at a joint sitting; (2) the removal of' the "Braddon blot;" (3) that the Federal Capital should be in New South Wales; (4) that better provision should be made for preventing the change of State boundaries without the consent of the States concerned ; (5) and (6) were concerned with inland rivers and money bills ; and (7) suggested that all judicial appeals should be either to the Privy Council or to a High Court, and not be at the option of t^e litigants, as under the Bill. The , Legislative Council, among other demands, asked that Sydney should be the Federal Capital, and that the Privy Council alone should form the final Couft of Appeal. The whole point of the difficulties lies in New South Wales's desire to gain a Federation which would enable her to control the Federal Government. It must be remembered, however, that though smaller, the other colonies are equally independent political entities, and, as with the United States, this fact must be admitted in the establishment of a constitution.