Wanganui Herald. (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1884. THE FEDERATION COLLAPSE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 5306, 12 March 1884, Page 2

Wanganui Herald. (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1884.

THE FEDERATION COLLAPSE.

The Premier must feel a little ashamed of himself over the Federation business, which is turning out a bad investment on his part. He was authorised by Parliament to proceed to Sydney to discuss a proposal for annexing New Guinea and a few islands in the Pacific. Led away by a cry for Federation, he arrived hastily at the conclusion that the British Government would not assent to annexation of any territory until the colonies had federated. His enthusiasm waxed strong, and he declared that he would never rest satisfied until the foundations of an Australasian Empire were securely laid. So firmly did he believe that the people of New Zealand were prepared to sink their national identity in this Imperial scheme that he intimated in very clear terms that his Ministry would stand or fall by the resolutions of the Conference. Since his return to New Zealand he has found that the public sentiment runs strongly against the idea of an Australasian federation so far as New Zealand is concerned, and he has so far submitted to the inevitable that he is quite prepared to fling the resolutions on the table of the House, and allow them to shift for themselves. The great mistake he has made, however, is that, by his unauthorised and rash proceeding, he has compromised the interests of the colony over the question of annexation, in which we are to some extent interested. If the delegates had confined themselves to the simple question of annexation to the British Empire of certain unclaimed territory, success might have been reasonably expected. But the Conference fell into the trap of the Colonial Ofiice by going outside the terms of its commission and authority, and now stands in this position, that if the different Legislatures fail to endorse the proceedings of the Conference, Lord Derby will have sufficient reason for declining to move at all. It has been said that Lord Derby's refusal to submit the Bill to Parliament until the Colonial Legislatures had acquiesced, showed a feeling of indifference or hostility to what had been done at Sydney. This, however, jis going too far. Lord Derby's decision to await the initiative of the Legislatures was simply an act of prudence which any statesman of ordinary caution must have adopted. When he finds that the Legislatures are not unanimous and most of them lukewarm, he will be able to refer to the fact as a justification for not proceeding to annex territory. Coming back to the dangers of Federation, we we find the Melbourne papers frankly confessing that the movement finally involved the virtual extinction of the national sentiment in the individual colonies. This admission shows how Jesuitical was the speech of Sir Frederick Whitaker when he attempted to show that we should part with no privileges in coming under the operation of the Bill providing for a Federal Council. The Melbourne Leader sums up the position accarately. It says : " The simple fact, we believe, is that everyone is anxious to see New Guinea and the smaller islands annexed or secured from settlement by French convicts, and everyone is prepared to accept Federation as a means of accomplishing this if it cannot be done in any other way; but a great many politicians shrink from certain possible consequences of Federation. Federation may mean a great deal more than appears on the face of the draft measure constituting a Federal Council. When representatives of the colonies once meet together no one can doubt that they will aim at extending their own powers and at dealing with questions which are only covered in a vague way, or not even covered at all, by the statute calling them into existence. It is conceivable, for instance, that the other colonies may unite to regulate the labor traffic of Queensland, or that a petition from the people of Riverina praying for severance from New South Wales may be favorably received by the Council, and pushed with all its influence at Home. These are general grounds why the colonies may in some instances feel a little shy before they commit themselves to a union from which they cannot honorably withdraw. Beyond this we must take the feeling of local politicians into account. Sooner or later the Federal Council is likely to dwarf the different local legislatures, and to reduce all but the very foremost

politicians in the different colonies to comparative insignificance. Fox* instance, if a war should break out we can hardly doubt that a Federal Pouncil would be entrusted with the care of providing for the general defence of the colonies. Sir John Robertson, who dislikes Federation because it would bring him into closer connection with Victoria, has always admitted that in this particu- | lar case union would be desirable. It is easy to see that a representative Assembly, entrusted with the right to raise and remove troops and to provide for their support by general taxation, would spring at once into something like the position of the American Congress. Federal union means then that State rights are to be reduced and local politicians dwarfed." This statement of the position represents the dangers we shall have escaped, if the Premier's proposal be met, as we expect it will be, by an immediate negative on the part of the Assembly.