The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1901. AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 168, 30 July 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1901. AUSTRALIA.

♦ In a very readable article, which Dr. W. H. Fitchett has contributed to the Daily Mail, he is tryiug to educa*e "public opinion" oi the greatness of Australia. He considers there is a deal of ignorance in reference thereto. He points out that Australian geo graphy c»n be adequately understood on'y by translating it into European, o-old-world terms. W«9t Australia alone, for example, is almost equal to Ohina proper; eightPortugals, or willnigh three Italies, might ba picked into New Sonth Wales. Even Vic-, taria is seven times the size of the! Netherlands; while Queensland is equal in area to all'the thirteen United Provinces that originally formed the United Statss, and successfully defied the England of George 111. Two of' the colonies taken together—South I Australia and 1 Western Australia—are equal to Russia in Europe. B it, Fay* ] Dr. Fitchett, the splendid'scale of Australian g-ography creates for the Commonwealth Parli«Bieat a special safe of risks. It runs some p»ril to being skin by its own mere spaciousness. It is clear that the intellectual qua'i'y of the Parliament is likely to suft'-r from vast distances over which its repr. s«ntatives must be gathered. How can a Perth lawyer, with many clients, or a Brisbane merchant, with affairs of n great business on his brain, afford *o epend six monthsdoing p irliament work in Melbourne, or, worse still, in some raw and yet more remote ppot labelled a "Federal Capital" in New South Wales ? The geography of the Com : monwealth brings with it yes another peril, a peril intensified by the electoral methods adopted. At pres nt each S'ate votes as a single constituency in the election of its representative* in the S*nate, and some of the States employed tho same method in the elections to the House of Repreeentatives. Now, the acoustic propTfies of a Stite like Queensland, or West Australia, or South Australia, are quite too trying for any single human voice! How can a candidate make himself quite sulibla over an a'ea equal to three Spain?, or nearly five Frances ? A candidate, to have any chance under such conditions, must either ba a very prominent statesman, or a very lich man; or he must be the nominee r.f a party, or the protege of a great newspaper. Rumour has it that a wealthy man in one of the States spent £IO,OOO in contesting a stat in the Senate—and won it. Rumour, of course, talks-or rather whispers—in superlatives; but if only one-half the sum named was expended! in winning this seat, it constitutes a | record in Australian politics. How many men are there in the Common-' wealth who could, or would, f-pend | .£SOOO in contesting an election ? A' modes 1 ; and rising politician, who depends upon the per.-uasiveness of his own voice, or the excellunce of his own political ideas, for cap'living sn electorate sj spneious is a simpleton. A Rapacious picket, or a party ticket, or the patronage of a greit newspaper, must, under the new conditions, have authority they have never yet "BJoyed in Australian politics, and that prospect earrios with it forae unpleasant possibilities. If geography be dismissed, and on'y the Federal Constitution be taken in'o account, it is clear tbe Commonwealth Parliament has seme perils before it. It is at least ■ojsible that, in tho loDgiun, the State Parliaments may both outgrow and

outshine it. For it must \b& remembered th» Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth at one point inverts that of the Canadian Dominion. In Canada the functions of tbe States are exactly defined, They have no other functions than those given to them by the Cosstitution Act. They cannot grow. Everything not specifically reasrved to the State v;sts in the Dominion. To it b long all the nascent, unguessed, undefined of-, fices and powers of government. This gives the future to the Dominion. 1 But the Australian plan inverts that process. The Commouwealth is im-l prisoned within tjie four corners of a shoet of piper. II tha unspecified, unforeeen, unguessed functions of government a»d legislation belong to tbe States. They may expand by unconcious natural growth ; the Oommon•weiltb can only reeeive new functions by new and distinct gift from the States. And the States have already given too grudgingly. When put to the rough test of history and of affiir*, it may well turn out that the aiea of authority assigned to the Commonwealth is too narrow. Th-re is, perhaps, no responsible statesman in Australia who does boj wish that whea the Constitution was being framed, power in ampler meamre had b-en conceded to the Commonwealth Parliament. For what a situation would be creited if that Parliament, when put to the test, discovered it lacked sufficient power for its great task, and fouud the States unwilling to grant more ! If the Commonwealth Parliament be judged merely by itt politi.al probta:us and ps ibilities, it is a body upon which the cui'iosity and expectation of the civilised world may well rest. Consider what its first and preliminary task is. It baa to create, at a breath, a whola system of administration! It has to make its own precedents. It has not merely to invent a tariff, but to fuse six hostile tariff* into a common element, and evolve, out of them, a new and homogeneous tariff; a tariff which is to stretch ovar a continent, and suit all varieties of climate and all forms of industry, all diversities of interest! Hitherto the Customs House has been the symbol of disunion, the fountain of strife, betwixt tbe States. It has stood for all the separating forces that woik in Australian policies. It has been the weapon which thecalonieß have med like a sword against each other. It might easily, in t ; me, have called for tho arbitrament of tbe sword. The Commonwealth Parliamfn; has to invert all this. It has to make tbe Custom House the very menus of It is to be tbe common purse of all the States, th« cement holding them to gether. Ths duties in the Oomono - wealth tniff a-e threads out «f which is to be woven the girdle which h 1 Is the Stats together. But if the Commonwealth Parliament has some perils and grrat task-, ii has many happy eltmeors. It is born in peace. It is not like the United Statja, fused in the red furfeace of war, and shaped on its iron anvil. Nor has it, like the United Stitef, again, the black of slavery in its b'ord. It has on its side the sympithy of the civilised woi'd. It miy be said, perhaps, that Auitralii, with its aim .s6 measureless geography, is a vast but empty heuse. Taken by its human contents, it has a population less than that of London, scattered over an area nearly equal to tha whole of Europe. But let it be remembered with whit unmatched speed the colonies have grown! In 1810, Sydney Smith givp, in the Edinburgh Review, tbe statistics for Australia for 1788. Tbero were, tben, betwixt tha Leeuwin and what is now Brisbane, exactly five horned cattle, seven horses, twenty-nine sheep, seveaty-four bogs, and 1000 inhabitants. Not a sod of Australian soil had been turned by the plough sbaro ! Not a biick bad been shaped out of Autralian slay! Since then Australia has poured neirly £500,000,000 worth of gold into the world's treasury cbes f . It has constructed 13,000 miles of railway. It h»s spent on reproductive works more than £150,000,000. Its papulation has ri>en to over 4,000,000. It has built Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane. It has a public revenue of nearly £30,000,000; its annual exports and imports, taken together, exceed £140,000,000; its flocks and herds have grown into millions. Incidentally, it may be added, it has constructed a p«Wic debt of nearly £200.000,000! Dr. Fitchett concludes with the following eloquent prophecy : —What wil' Australia be at the end of another century? We shall certainly not reach by a.d. 2000 the population of 100,000,000 with which one panguine authority credits us ; but we shall b 3 a gre.it nation, with New Zealand—*be Great Britain of the South—as our ally, if not as an integral pirt of us, with the whole Pacific as our fisld. And we shall phy a great pvrt in history. The historian a em'ury hence will explore the antique records of Parliament whose first sittings took phce to-day, and will study the faded i photographs of members with curious interest. These wera the men, and thw the instrument, by which the first outlines of the gre-*t Australian i nation was shaped. j