STOUT'S ADDRESS TO THE COMMONWEALTH.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 7 January 1901, Page 4

STOUT'S ADDRESS TO THE COMMONWEALTH.

A high Ideal Required.

[per PRESS ASSOCIATION. —COPYRIGHT.]

Sydney, Tin’s Day. Stout said the Commonwealth must proclaim to the people of Australia that its Government is absolutely free and recognised no distinction in creed or nationality—a government under which there is equality before the law suffused with fraternity. He did not envy the pioneers of Australia or the builders of the Commonwealth, hut he envied the young Australians who have had a constitution created for the whole of this vast continent. The new Ministry had an exceedingly arduous task before it, and will have to get rid of provincial feelings which exist, and will exist for years to come. He expressed tho hope that the Commonwealth Government would attain to a high position among the governments of the world, and that it will show that it is ever keeping before it not merely commercial greatness, not merely increase of population, but that it is keeping before it what should ho the ideal of every government: “ The host race and best breed of men imbued with a higher conception of life and conduct than has ever yet obtained in any Democracy.”