A STEP TOWARDS CONFEDERATION.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 16, 22 April 1867, Page 94

A STEP TOWARDS CONFEDERATION.

(Evening Mail.)

Anything that tends to unite the Australasian, colonies in one bond for purposes useful - to ail, is a step in the right direction, -because; their.combiued efforts to gain the object, whatever it i may be, are sure to,be attended with greater success than .the desultory, .aud* perhaps; conflicting, endeavors of seperate colonies, each relying on .its Individual power and influence in the old eoußtry, and actfng without consulting, its neighbors. We rejoice, then, -,to see that the Postal Conference at Melbourne has resulted in union for a desirable object, other that the settlement of postal routes and arrangemets. The Argus of 27th March contains the following account of an agreement arrived at by the delegates with regard to intercolonial law:—

During the stay in Melbourne of the gentlemen who came to represent the several colonies at the Postal Conference,' they held a meeting to consider the state of the law with respeet to the arrest in one colony cf persons guilty of offences in any other. The Imperial act at present in force only extends to treason and felony, and consequently offences cannot be arrested as soon as they pass the borders of the colony in which their transgression of the law lias been comittod. • Alter some consultation, it was mutually agreed that, a despatch should be forwarded by each Colonial government to the Imperial authorities, reqdesttng that a short act should be passed extending the provisions of the measure before referred to to misdemeanors.

Year by year there will doubtless arise many other subjects on which consultation and combined action may be requisite, so that we may reasonably look forward ere long to a regularly constituted Australasian Parliament with probably one of the Princes of the Blood Royal as Viceroy of the South.