THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1002, 17 December 1910, Page 4

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

_ The fact that tho referendum idea is to play a very great part in the development of tho British political situation makes specially interesting the campaign "in Australia upon the referendum that is to bo taken, on April 2G next. Tho Federal Government, under the authority of Acts passed-by its caucus majority, proposes' that the Constitution shall be so altered as to transfer to the Commonwealth powors that at present a,re in the hands of tho States. If the proposals aro carried tha Commonwealth Parliament will be able to make any laws relating to trade or commerce, whethor inter-State or of a purely local nature; it will take complete: possession of the function of passing laws dealing with wages and conditions of employment; it will have complete control of all corporations; and, finally, it will have tho power of regulating monopolies, and of combating monopolies by nationalising any industry which a majority of tho House may call a monopoly, whether it really is a monopoly or not. : The opponents of these sweeping changes in the Constitution have already begun thoir task of educating the nation to say "No," and there is every promise of a violent and bitter conflict. At the. head of the opposition to the 1 Government's schcmc of poisoning the young Constitution is Mr. Deakin, 'who has . laid the foundations of his carhpaign in a remarkable manifesto to the people of Australia.

"Your rights and liberties, labour and property," he says to the people, "are at stake." Afte r stressing the fact that the delimitation of the Commonwealth's and the States' respective powers and functions was completed only ten years ago, he observes that "admirably adapted to our general circumstances as our Constitution is, it also contains ample provisions for any re-adapta-tions necessary by our growth. There is a wide margin for amendments capable of meeting all our needs, as they arise, without impairing its main principles." The secret Labour caucus, however—the Government, of course, cannot act without the orders of the caucus— proposes, not to givo a natural and healthy assistance to tho Constitution, but to recast it, to load it with new and destructive principles. Mb. Deakin contends that the proposed amondmonts destroy tho Federal principle and defeat the development of- local self-government. This, to outside observers, is much the strongest argument that can be brought against tho Caucus proposal. In New Zealand, as in most democratic countries, the mass of the people are realising, what of course is known to all students of political principles, that one of tho greatest evils of democratic government is the tendency towards centralisation and tho paralysis of local government and activity. There is nothing in the least now about this truth—it was old when Mill demonstrated it at length in his Representative Government- But tho proposals of the Australian Government aro vidious in nearly every respect. They are vague and indefinite; four of them, as Mr. Deakin puts it, are "handcuffed together" so. that the electors are not allowed to discriminate between them in voting.. Apart altogether from tho intrinsic vioiousness of some of the proposals—for exaan-

plo, the proposal that 'the_ Federal Parliament may nationalise anything that, a majority may choose to call a monopoly—thoy amount to the crippling of the High Court, which, a3 Mn. J. Cook has said, is "the umpiro of tho Constitution and the protector of State boundaries." The powers which the Government is seeking are without precedent in the United States, in Canada, or in any similar Federal Government. They will inflict quite as much harm upon Australia, if they are granted by the people, .as corresponding powers would inflict upon the Empire under a Federation.