FEDERAL UNION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1725, 20 September 1862, Page 5

FEDERAL UNION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

The following is the report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly appointed to consider and report upon the subject of a federal union of the Australian colonies: —

Your committee having learned that the Australian Governments are desirous of obtaining a conference of colonial delegates at Melbourne during the present year, on the question of a uniform tariff, we are of opinion that such a conference would afford a suitable opportunity for considering the larger question of Australian federation.

For five years past, negotiations on tbis project, initiated by the parliament of Victoria, have been pending between the colonies, awaiting, apparently, only such an occasion as the present to proceed from negotiation to action. Your committee therefore recommend to your honourable House that communications may be opened with the Australian Governments, requesting the delegates about to be appointed may be empowered to take this subject into consideration, and be clothed by their respective Legislatures with the necessary authority for this purpose. The number of delegates formerly adopted was two from the Assembly and one from the Council of each colony, and this arrangement seems still to be in all respects a suitable one. The only duty such a conference could be expected to undertake would ba to deliberate and report, leaving the colonial Parliaments to deal ultimately with their recommendations as they might deem fit. If the suggestions of your committee should be adopted by your honourable House, we further recommend that it may be immediately communicated to the Legislative Council, and if it should receive their assent, that the Chief Secretary may be requested to convey the decision of the Victorian Parliament to the Australian Governments for their consideration.

Your committee urgently advise that the present opportunity may not be lost. The condition of the world, and danger of war, which to be successfully met must be met by united action; the hope of a large immigration, which external circumstances so singularly favour; the desire to develope in each colony the industry for which nature has best fitted it, without wasteful rivalry; and the legitimate ambition to open a wider and nobler field for 'the labours of public life, combine to make the present a fitting time for reviving this project. It is the next step in Australian development. In the eyes of Europe and America, what was a few years ago known to them only as an obscure penal settlement, in some uncertain position in the Southern Ocean, begins to be recognised as a fraternity of wealthy and important states, capable of immense development; and if our current history and national character are in many respects misunderstood, we shall perhaps best set outselves right with the world by uniting our strength and capacity in a common centre, aD( * f ° r common purposes of undoubted public utility.—Melbourne Argus, August 18th.