combine colony against colony, or one group of colonies against another.
The delegates were elected by each colony, voting as one constituency. This plan enabled the predominant party in each colony to secure the whole of the representation, if the election were conducted upon party lines. Victoria was the only colony where this occurred, and all her delegates were elected by the Radical party. The relative strength of that party, as opposed to the Constitutional or Conservative party, was as six to four; but the minority got no representation at all. Such acknowledged political leaders as Sir Frederick Sargood, Sir Henry Wrixon, Mr Gillies, and Mr Murray Smith, were excluded in favour of much inferior men of the other political colour, and this weakened the Victorian delegation as compared with the other colonies. In the other colonies a fair representation of all parties was secured; Western Australia, however, as usual, taking her own line, and sending delegates appointed, not by the people, but by Sir John Forrest. In New South Wales strong feeling was roused against the candidature of Cardinal Moran, the Roman Catholic Primate of Australia. This incautious, though (to those best acquainted with Australia) highly significant step provoked a counter-combination, amongst the Protestants, which included the leading men of both political parties: and His Eminency was defeated.
The Convention met at Adelaide in March 1897, and Mr C. C. Kingston, the Premier of that colony, was elected president. An initial mistake was made in administering a snub to Mr Reid, and appointing Mr Edmund Barton, a delegate from the same colony, as leader of the Convention, to act as a Premier does in arranging and submitting business. Such an appointment was necessary, for there must be some recognised leader if confusion and endless debates
