AN AUSTRALIAN REPUBLIC

Waipawa Mail, Volume IX, Issue 905, 13 March 1886, Page 4

AN AUSTRALIAN REPUBLIC

The following report is given by the Hobart Mercury ’ of the speech made by the lion. Adye Douglas, Premier of Tasmania, at the banquet given by the President of the Federal Council : Mr Douglas said he was placed in a somewhat awkard posilion, as it was a question whether he ought to utter the opinions of Mr Service or his own opinions,— (Laughter). His own opinions on the subject they had not heard yet, and so he thought lie would give them ; and he dared say that some of them—particularly since they had seen the morning paper —would be anxious to hear what his views were. During the time the subject of federation was before the Parliament of Tasmania, he did not take an active part in it, and, as Mr Brown had told them, he would have preferred that someone else should have represented Tasmania in the Federal Council rather than himself. His own views were not entirely the views of those who spoke in the Council on the previous day, and perhaps if lie were not to be guided entirely by his own opinions, lie would not altogether declare what his views, were as to the probable results of the Federal Union. But he was compelled, as it were, to give his views, inasmuch as his second lieutenant, Mr Brown, had declared that he did not think that certain things would arise. liis own views were these, and he could not come to any other conclusion. Though for a time it was only a small union it would afterwards be a greater one—in fact it would become as it were, the “ United States” of Australasia, independent of the Mother Country.—(Expressions of dissent.) He was only giving them his own views, and for what they were worth. lie had not come to Tasmania only a few years ago. He believed he was the oldest colonist of Tasmania, or the Australian Colonies, then present in the room. He had watched the growth of the Colonics for over fifty years. What was Victoria when he anived in the Colonies ? Merely a small village, with not a street in the place, and not a house which could be called a decent domicile, no place they could go to without sticking in the mud ; and yet now let them look at it. But then look, too, at the difference in Sydney now and then. f Where then was Brisbane or South Australia? They had become a great Empire, which at no distant period would not be satisfied with being under a little bit of an island in the Northern Hemisphere called Great Britain. It was all nonsense.—(Laughter.) Mr Justice Kerferd : What are you going to gain ? (Hear, hear.) Mr Douglas : It was not a matter of what they would gain. Man must have his freedom, whether he gained or lost by it. Why did they not bring their children up to look upon Australia as their native country, just as the citizens of the United States ditl ? And from that must spring the outcome he predicted. He did not mean that they should separate from the Mother Country in an improper manner, in imitation of the United States. The separation would be of a friendly character when it came ; but its would come, and come as soon as a. European war forced the Colonies to consider the question of their position. Mr Service : We had to do that with the Soudan.

Mr Douglas : The Soudan was a humbug—an ignis fatuus, a piece of bunkum, which was not, worth consideration. A great deal had been made of it, but it would soon die out. (Oh). lie was expressing his own idea—he did not ask any man to endorse his views—but it was no new idea of his, because forty years ago he had given the toast of “The Australian Republic.”—“(Oh,” and laughter.) He believed he would do it agair. before he died. Any man who recognised the truth of things must see this was the position of the people who were now rising up around them. The people they were now educating would not in the future know either Great Britain or its Queen, and Australia would become a nation, and he hoped he would live to see the day when it would become so. He quite agreed with many of the views which had been expressed in the Council, and lie would never have given expression to his views in the Assembly as he had done there. Had he spoken there he would have been more guarded, but ho had taken this opportunity when they were met together in a different way to tell them wliat his views really were on the subject.

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