Chapter IX
THE NEW COMMONWEALTH
THE question of most interest to the English visitor to Australia at present is that of the proposed federation of the colonies. Founded at different times and under different circumstances, the colonies have no political bond of union other than the common one which binds them to the Motherland. When I was passing through the colonies there seemed to be every probability that the great work of bringing them together in a federal union was nearing completion. An inquiry into the origin of the movement; the difficulties that have beset and delayed it; and the means by which those difficulties have so far been overcome, and the hopes of the promoters of the movement raised, is one that I, who take an interest, like the rest of us, in political topics and in the development of the great British Empire, most naturally made. An epitome of the result of my inquiries will, I hope, prove of interest.
There are so many things which favour a federation of the Australian colonies that one wonders it was not accomplished long ago. The difficulties which have encumbered similar movements in other parts of the world are many of them quite absent from the Australian problem. The people to be united are of the same race and tongue. They are sprung from the same source, and enjoy the same free institutions. Geographically, they are all united, and the political lines which divide them are still merely abstractions set out on a map. They are all, with the
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