Part 6 (2/2)
In the meanwhile, the duties are to be collected by Federal officials, but will be those that are, or may be, imposed by the Parliaments of the several States. Upon the enactment of a uniform Federal tariff, all such State laws will thereby be repealed and ”trade and intercourse throughout the Commonwealth, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free.” The expenditure of the Commonwealth is to be charged to the several States in proportion to the numbers of their people, and any surplus of revenue over expenditure is to be returned to them in proportion to the amount of revenue raised therein respectively, subject to certain reservations and to the right of the Federal Parliament, after {222} the imposition of a uniform tariff, to prescribe the method of its disposal. The Federal revenue is to consist of customs and excise duties and of moneys raised by any other mode or system of taxation, but so that all such taxation shall be uniform through the Commonwealth. The Federal Parliament may also, ”with the consent of the Parliaments of all the States, make laws for taking over and consolidating the whole or any part of the public debt of any State or States; but so that a State shall be liable to indemnify the Commonwealth in respect of the amount of a debt taken over, and that the amount of interest payable in respect of a debt shall be deducted and retained from time to time from the share of the surplus revenue of the Commonwealth which would be otherwise payable to the State.”[2] Certain other legislative powers are vested in the Federal Parliament, which may concurrently be exercised by the several States, and in such cases Federal shall supersede State legislation. All subjects not exclusively vested in the Parliament of the Commonwealth, or withdrawn from the Parliaments of the several States, are reserved to, and shall remain vested in, the State Parliaments.
The authority of the Senate in regard to Money Bills formed the subject of much discussion, and was decided by a compromise which, it was hoped, would satisfy both those who desired to secure the {223} financial supremacy of the House of Representatives and the inhabitants of the smaller States, who would naturally struggle for the rights of the Senate in which they would be on a footing of equality with their more powerful neighbours. The views of the former were met by the provisions that ”laws appropriating any part of the public revenue, or imposing any tax or impost, shall originate in the House of Representatives,” and that ”the Senate shall have equal power with the House of Representatives in respect to all proposed laws, except laws imposing taxation and laws appropriating the necessary supplies for the ordinary annual services of the Government, which the Senate may affirm or reject, but may not amend. But the Senate may not amend any proposed law in such a manner as to increase any proposed charge or burden on the people.” The interests of the latter were safeguarded by the four succeeding sub-sections:
”Laws imposing taxation shall deal with the imposition of taxation only.
”Laws imposing taxation, except laws imposing duties of customs on imports, shall deal with one subject of taxation only.
”The expenditure for services other than the ordinary annual services of the Government shall not be authorised by the same law as that which appropriates the supplies for such ordinary annual services, but shall be authorised by a separate law or laws.
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”In the case of a proposed law which the Senate may not amend, the Senate may at any stage return it to the House of Representatives with a message requesting the omission or amendment of any items or provisions therein. And the House of Representatives may, if it thinks fit, make such omissions or amendments, or any of them, with or without modifications.”[3]
The executive authority of the Commonwealth is to be exercised by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, with the aid and advice of a Federal Executive Council. Considerable discussion took place at the Convention as to the relations which should exist between the Federal Executive and Legislature, some of the Representatives being in favour of the British system, others of the direct popular election of the head of the Government. It was finally agreed that the members of the Council should be chosen and summoned by the Governor-General, should hold office, during his pleasure, and should be capable of being chosen and of sitting in either House of Parliament. They are to execute the provisions of the Const.i.tution and the laws of the Commonwealth; to a.s.sume at once control of the departments of customs and excise, posts and telegraphs, military and naval defence, ocean lights and quarantine; and, until other provision is made by Parliament, to appoint and remove all other officers of the Government.
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The Parliament of the Commonwealth may establish a Supreme Court of Australia, consisting of a Chief Justice and not less than four other Justices, who shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and shall be irremovable except upon an address from both Houses of Parliament. The Supreme Court shall be a final Court of Appeal from any other Federal Court, which may be established by Parliament, and from the highest Court of final resort in any State; and may be invested by Parliament with final and conclusive jurisdiction in all cases upon which an appeal has. .h.i.therto been allowed to the Queen in Council, subject to the right of the Queen to grant an appeal to herself in Council against the judgment of the Supreme Court in any case which concerns the public interests of the Commonwealth, or of any State, or of any other part of the British Empire. The Parliament may also confer upon the Federal Courts, other than the Supreme Court, jurisdiction to deal, either exclusively or concurrently with the Courts of the States, with cases arising under the Const.i.tution or under any law made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth or affecting the Representatives of Foreign Powers, and with certain other matters including cases in which the Commonwealth is a party, or in which a Writ of Mandamus or Prohibition is sought against an officer of the Commonwealth.
As the powers of the State are to be substantially those which they possess at present with the {226} exception of such as are transferred to the Federal Legislature and Executive, it is only necessary to add that the Governors of the States are to be appointed in the manner which their Parliament may prescribe, but are to correspond with the Imperial Authorities through the Governor-General: that States are not to be subdivided nor deprived of any of their territories without the consent of their Parliaments; and that they are forbidden explicitly to raise or maintain any military or naval force, to coin money, or make anything but gold and silver legal tender in payment of debts, to make any law prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, or to make or enforce any law abridging any privilege or immunity of citizens of other States of the Commonwealth, or to deny to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Finally, it is provided that any of the existing Provinces that have not adopted the Const.i.tution may, upon doing so, be admitted to the Commonwealth, and that any law for the alteration of the Const.i.tution is not to be submitted to the Governor-General for the Royal a.s.sent until it has been pa.s.sed by an absolute majority of both Houses of Parliament, and has been approved by conventions of a majority of the States representing a majority of the people of the Commonwealth.
When the Const.i.tution Bill had been drafted, the next step should have been its reference to the Parliaments of the Const.i.tuent Provinces; but it was {227} not even introduced in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, or New Zealand. In Victoria it was pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly and forwarded to the Council, which pa.s.sed it subject to certain amendments which were never considered by the a.s.sembly; in South Australia it was introduced in the a.s.sembly, and was dropped; in Tasmania it pa.s.sed the a.s.sembly and was dropped at an early stage in the Council. This procession of failures caused the advocates of Federation to realise that there must be something faulty in the method of procedure, and to ask themselves whether it was reasonable to expect that fourteen independent Chambers, or twelve, if New Zealand be excluded, should be able to arrive at a uniform decision on so complicated and contentious a subject. It was felt, also, that the Parliaments had no popular mandate to deal with the question, and that, in the general apathy and absence of interest, the electors themselves should be stirred up by direct partic.i.p.ation in the movement.
Accordingly, Mr. Reid, the Premier of New South Wales, invited the Premiers of the other Australian Provinces to meet him at Hobart in January, 1895, taking advantage of the fact that four of them would be there in connection with the biennial meeting of the Federal Council.
The invitation was accepted, and a new scheme was devised of which the main principles were the popular election of delegates empowered to meet and frame a Federal Const.i.tution; the reference of the Const.i.tution {228} so framed to a plebiscite of the several electorates and its subsequent transmission for Imperial legislation. The Premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania accepted the proposal in its entirety; the Premier of Queensland agreed to it, except as regards the reference of the Const.i.tution to a plebiscite; but the Premier of Western Australia was unable to concur with the decision of his colleagues. Sir John Forrest did not believe that popular election would lead to the choice of the most highly trained jurists and financiers, who could alone frame a consistent and workable Const.i.tution, and he regarded as absurd the a.s.sumption that the average elector could give an intelligent opinion upon a measure of so complicated a character. There is much force in these objections; but it must be remembered that the former effort failed from its dissociation from popular impulse, and that the delegates would have the benefit of the work of their predecessors, which they would be bound to accept as the basis of their deliberations. As regards the plebiscite, it cannot have been expected that the vote of the bulk of the electorate would be more than an affirmative or negative reply upon the broadest issue; but, a.s.suming it to be necessary that the Const.i.tution Bill should in some manner or other be submitted for the judgment of each of the Provinces, the direct reference has the merit of being expeditious and conclusive and of avoiding the quagmire of Parliamentary discussions.
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Before proceeding to note the results of the resolutions pa.s.sed at the Premiers' Conference, it may be of interest to consider to what extent recent events have affected the status of the Federal Council. As has already been remarked, it has pursued a policy of self-effacement, and in spite of the increase in its numbers, it has never appealed to the imagination of Australians. It was undoubtedly dwarfed by comparison with the Federal Convention, which, indeed, decreed its contingent extinction, and it has, to some extent, been supplanted by the informal meetings of Australian Premiers which tend to become an annual inst.i.tution. At a Conference held at Sydney in January, 1896, the urgent necessity for Federation was again emphasised, and it was resolved that, pending its attainment, the military laws of the Provinces should be a.s.similated, and a cordite factory be established under State supervision. Resolutions were also pa.s.sed in favour of a Federal system of quarantine, the distribution of the cost of lighthouses on the basis of population, the extension to all coloured races of the provisions of the Chinese Restriction Acts, and non-partic.i.p.ation in the Anglo-j.a.panese Treaty. In this manner the Premiers, instead of referring questions to the Federal Council through their respective legislatures, decided, after personal consultation, upon measures which each would endeavour, in the common interest, to pa.s.s through the Parliament of his own Province. Other interprovincial conferences also {230} are becoming more common. The precautions to be adopted against the tick fever were discussed at Sydney in 1896, and a few months ago, earlier, several Ministers of Agriculture met the South Australian Minister at Adelaide and decided upon the advisability of uniform legislation which would promote similarity of out-put in the products of the different Provinces, such as frozen meat, b.u.t.ter, wine, and fruit, for which it was hoped to create a large market in England.
It has been argued that the growing realisation of the interdependence of the Provinces and of the material advantages accruing from combined action, will tend to hasten the advent of Federation.
The new proposals in that direction were favourably received, and the Legislatures of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania pa.s.sed the so-called Australasian Federation Enabling Act, in substantially similar form, upon the lines laid down by the Premiers.
The details of their scheme may be gathered from the princ.i.p.al provisions of the Victorian Act:--
”The Convention shall consist of ten Representatives of each Colony represented.
”The Convention shall be charged with the duty of framing for Australasia a Federal Const.i.tution under the Crown in the form of a Bill for enactment by the Imperial Parliament.
”Every Member and every person eligible for Members.h.i.+p of either House of Parliament shall be {231} eligible for Members.h.i.+p of the Convention as a Representative of Victoria. And any one hundred or more electors duly qualified to vote for the election of a Member of the Legislative a.s.sembly shall be ent.i.tled in the prescribed manner to nominate any eligible person.
”Every person duly qualified to vote for the election of a member of the Legislative a.s.sembly shall be qualified and ent.i.tled to vote for the election of Representatives of Victoria.
”The voting shall be taken throughout Victoria as one electoral district, and every voter shall vote for the full number of Representatives required, otherwise the vote shall be rejected as informal.
”No person shall vote or attempt to vote more than once at the same election of Representatives of Victoria.”
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