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Chapter LIV.
Federation Of The English Speaking Peoples.

The idea of federation had, long before "Locksley Hall" was given to the world, been conceived in the mind of Sir George Grey. He saw afar off the fulfilment of the promises made in the Holy Scriptures, that a day of peace should dawn upon the earth, when the nations should learn war no move. But believing, as ho did, that God, in His providential government of the earth, used human instrumentalities for the accomplishment of His purposes, Grey ever worked towards the first great step in a federation of the nations by striving for a federation of the English speaking peoples.

In 1890 he was requested by the Parliament of New Zealand to attend the meeting of the Federal Convention of Australasia in Sydney. He accepted the task thus imposed joyfully, and, though recently prostrated by sickness, was sufficiently recovered to attend the sibting of the Convention in March, 1891.

Accompanied by his niece, Mrs. Seymour George, and her eldest daughter, he left Auckland on February 26th in the Tarawera, which next day called at the Bay of Islands. Many years had elapsed since his last visit to this historic spot. His first welcome on arrival was given by a native, who claimed a friendship of thirty years. The Maori's appearance was not very prepossessing, and the fastidious page 426shrank from him, but the ex-Governor chatted with him most cordially.

Directly he landed Sir George Grey bought a number of ferns, and carrying them in his hands, walked to the little grave-yard where so many gallant officers and men were laid to sleep. His gift was destined for the grave of his old friend Tamati Waka Nene. Planting the delicate ferns on that hallowed spot of earth, he spoke to some of the Maoris who had assembled of the loyalty, bravery, and true heart of the friendly chief. Some time he paused there, with many pictures rising in his memory. And then, having left instructions that the grave should be attended to, enforced by his appeal to their memories of Tamati and of himself, he returned to the steamer and pursued his way to Australia.

His arrival in Sydney was marked by a very cordial reception. Nearly fifty years had passed since he had last trodden Australian soil. While entering the beautiful harbour of Port Jackson, his memory recalled that day (in December, 1837) when he had landed for the first time in Western Australia. In the fifty-three years which had intervened, a family of young nations had been born upon the Island Continent. Great cities had been built upon sites then lonely and untenanted. The few scattered hamlets of that early period had grown into mighty centres of population.

It was remarked by more than one Australian paper that Grey linked the present to the very foundations of Australasian existence. For, without doubt, he had met and known men who had taken part in the first settlement of New South Wales.

Many of the delegates were born in the colonies they represented at the Conference. All of them were familiar with the name and reputation of the veteran statesman who, after the lapse of nearly half a century, had thus returned to Australia. But few of them had ever before met him. Middle aged and grey-haired men, whose energies for a generation have been devoted to the advancement of the Southern Continent, were lisping their first words or crowing lustily in their cradles when Grey, having rendered such illustrious service to South Australia, sailed from Adelaide in 1845.

But there was one of the representatives of that colony at the Federal Convention who. could boast a personal acquaintance with the former Governor. Addressing Grey he said: "You do not page 427remember me, Sir George, but you form one of the most distinct of my childish memories. Fifty years ago I was present at a children's party you gave at Government House in Adelaide. There was a magic lantern entertainment, but I saw very little of it till you lifted me high in your arms and held me that I might get a good view."

In the discussions of the Convention, Sir George Grey was not always satisfied with the conclusions of the majority. Although the Convention was, on the whole, characterised by broad lines of policy, imperial considerations, and high principle, yet the greater experience of Grey made him fearful that the foundations of liberty would not be laid sufficiently wide or deep.

Amid all that was changed, he was still the same. The same purposes, the same hopes, the same earnest desire for the welfare of his fellow-men and the generations yet to be, were his as had strengthened him in the disasters and privations of his terrible exploration. And the same bright anticipations of the future filled his mind as when, upon his march from Shark Bay to Perth, he beheld in fancy the desert being changed into fruitful fields and the wilderness becoming instinct with busy life.

His ideas concerning Federation were not exactly similar to those expressed by many of the leading statesmen of Australasia. He did not believe in a hard and fast union, regulated by law, between States dissimilar in character, separated by great distances, and existing under different climates and conditions. He rather favoured a looser federation, which should leave each portion of the confederated States free to work out its own destiny and should yet enable all to join together for any great purpose; and so, in any crisis or sudden exigence, give to the whole that strength and solidity which springs from union.

He made no secret of his belief that confederation in Canada, in Australasia, in South Africa, were but steps in the progress of the great movement which should ultimately bring together the different branches of that family of nations which he had ever believed was destined, in the providence of God, to guide the races of the earth into the ways of righteousness and peace.

The likelihood of peace resulting from such a union of the English-speaking peoples was thus spoken of by Sir George Grey page 428himself:— "The state of the nations of Europe renders it necessary they should maintain large armies, thus diminishing their power to maintain large navies. If Great Britain was free from all European perplexities, she would have far greater means of maintaining a large navy if such a thing was necessary. The United States hardly require an army and navy, and her want for these will diminish every year. The united English-speaking people would require really no army if they were masters of the ocean, and they could without the least oppression or embarrassment maintain a navy which would render them supreme on the oceans of the world, and prevent the smallest possibility of sudden invasion or attack."

Sir George Grey had spoken with many Australians who were in favour of such a federation as he proposed, and held that, with a common language, a common literature, a common legislation, which it really is, and a common faith existing between all English-speaking communities, it was their duty to unite to give to the world at large the vast benefits which must spring from such a union,

Recognising thus the supreme importance of this crisis in the history of the Australian colonies, it was but natural that Sir George should desire the constitution of the confederated states to be as just and as liberal as possible. His intense longing to see the federation of his dreams established led him to refuse unconditionally a meaner substitute. Should this great and glorious opportunity to form a union of nations which might

"Serve as a model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time,"

be lost in the consideration of trivial details—nay, worse, actually debased into an occasion for stifling the popular liberties, and for laying the yoke of servitude upon the necks of these young communities? It should not be—not while he had the power to lift his voice in impassioned appeal against such an abuse of a heaven-sent privilege.

The veteran statesman would not passively consent to the adoption of measures whose inevitable result would be the direct antithesis of the objects which his life had been spent in promoting. His practised eye foresaw the future, either filled with ever-widening liberty and happiness, honour and prosperity for succeeding genera-page 429tions of the children of Australasia; or presenting a picture of oppression and self-seeking, which was hateful to his soul. If the inadequate proposals of the majority at the Convention were carried into effect, he could see that the coming years would bring evergrowing political inequality, with its inseparable evils, insecurity and decadence of the states. Gazing down this vista, his prophetic glance ran unchecked to the time when he should be forced to echo that sad epitome of noble hopes frustrated:

"Till the loathsome opposite
Of all my heart had destined did obtain."

Some of his ideas were naturally regarded by the majority as visionary and fanciful.

As the English Government had held him in the matters of the Dominion of the Southern Ocean and the confederation of South Africa to be a dreamer: as the Liberal party in England, headed by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, had impatiently chafed at his suggestions for emigration, tho consolidation of the Empire, and Home Rule for Ireland; as his opponents in New Zealand had taunted him with seeking to legislate for "the unborn millions"— so many of his fellow-workers in the Federal Conference feared that Sir George Grey was attempting to create an Utopia, and neglecting somewhat the practical solution of the task which lay before them.

The Convention had been sitting for a month when the clause relating to the qualification of electors came under discussion. The preceding clause of the Commonwealth of Australia Bill provided that "each State shall have one representative fov every thirty thousand of its people," qualified by the proviso that no State should have less than four representatives until its population reached the required numbers. On investigation it appeared that the voting powers were not uniform throughout the different colonies. The members of the House of Representatives in the Federal Convention were to be elected by each State in conformity with the usual method of election to the local parliament, the qualification of electors of members of the former chamber being in each colony that which was prescribed "by the law of the colony as the qualification for electors of the latter.

But here a grave injustice was apparent, for New Zealand and South Australia enjoyed the advantages of manhood suffrage, while page 430in most of the other colonies a system of plural voting gave the propertied classes a great and unfair preponderance of power. Their representatives were elected, not by a majority of the population, but by the votes of a wealthy minority. In some colonies where regulations existed to prevent an elector appearing at more than one polling booth to record his vote on the day of election, it was quite legal for him to vote by letter in any district in which he owned property. Thus one man might record fifteen or twenty votes. Sir George Grey knew from experience how little attention the just demands of a minority, fairly representing the people of smaller States, would receive at the hands of an overwhelming majority returned as the representatives of capital. Therefore he vehemently opposed a federation on such terms, and eloquently advocated the amendment of the suffrage in all the States, by removing the property qualification, and allowing each elector only one vote.

The conservative tendency of the Federal Bill was intensified (1) By the constitution of the Senate, which was to be elected by the members of Parliament, most of whom were returned under the system of plural voting, or nominated by successive colonial governments; and (2) by the appointment of a Governor-Genei'al with a salary of not less than £10,000, chosen by the Imperial authorities.

Sir George moved as an amendment to the last provision, that this great officer, whose salary would not be less, and perhaps far more than that of the President of the United States, should be elected by the voices of the four millions of people over whom he was to rule. In the course of his earnest speech, he said: "I ask is it just, whilst so many poor people have to be taxed to pay their share of that salary, to deprive them of the honour, and; I may say, of the just pride of themselves electing some worthy man, known throughout so great an extent of country as Australia, to occupy that honourable post, with the certainty that such an example will operate upon every individual of the community, stirring noble faculties in many men, giving hope, perhaps, to some thousand or more of the people that they may possibly attain to such an honour? Is it right to make the people pay such sums of money, and to deprive them of honours to which they ought justly and rightly to look? And when, as I shall prove by-and-bye, as we page 431go on with the Bill, each office is closed by some restriction or other to all chance of fair competition in the country, let us, at the very first, indicate in this clause, that this great office shall be open at all times to that man in Australia who is deemed the greatest, and worthiest and fittest to hold so noble a post, and to satisfy his fellow-citizens that they have wisely chosen one who will be an honour to the whole community. Can any of us believe that if at the time of the disturbances in the United States in regard to slavery, a man had to be chosen by the British Ministry of the day in London, there was the slightest hope that such a man as Lincoln would have come to the front to achieve the great and noble objects which he accomplished! I am sure the universal admission must be that there would have been no hope of such a thing. Yet from the forests of the United States, there came one who had been a mere splitter of timber, worthy, justly and rightly, to exercise the highest power for a time in the United States, and to accomplish the great ends at which he aimed. Are we in Australia to be told that we can find no man worthy to succeed to a post of that kind V"

The view taken by the majority that a Governor-General appointed in Great Britain would introduce an aristocratic element into colonial society, and that his chief obligations would be the performance of social duties, roused the spirit of the real aristocrat at such openly-avowed snobbishness. The meaning of the term "social duties" as used in this connection he confessed himself unable to understand. With deep emotion, he sketched a career—such as he knew more than one instance of—of a young girl, friendless and poor, by dint of ability and incessant toil distinguishing herself in the schools, and ultimately taking the highest honours which the universities had it in their power to bestow. Left a widow, with a young family, her days were spent in training her children to be an ornament and a treasure to the State. Was he to be told that this was not a performance of social duties? He continued:

"Considering the openings that would be given to every inhabitant of Australasia under such a system as I propose, with so many families as will necessarily do it, directing their every exertion and effort to raise up children worthy of the great opportunities laid open to them, I ask whether this is not to us a greater social page 432question than a few balls and dinners given at Government House, at which none but those in the immediate vicinity can be present? I ask what comparison in there between these two things—one great and far-reaching, extending to millions, the other a mere sham, as it were, representing what passes in another place, as if one were looking through the wrong end of a telescope at some procession that was going on? All matters connected with Government House are diminished here as compared with Great Britain and the influence exercised there. There it is the influence of a hereditary monarch descended from a long line of ancestors. There it is the influence belonging to certain professions—the array and navy—who look to receiving honour from the hands of such a sovereign. Here there are no ties whatever of that kind; and yet for a mere imaginary show, or what is called the performance of social duties—entertaining strangers, and also citizens immediately surrounding the vice-regal court, which are the only benefits that are absolutely gained.—all those benefits thab I speak of are lost."

The debate waxed warm. Sir George Grey was accused of disloyalty, of impracticability, of unmeaning declamation, of bringing his views forward too early, of having lost the proper opportunity of advocating them, of springing a surprise, of becoming tiresome by repeated allusions to the subject, and of many other misdemeanours equally inconsistent and irreconcilable. A division was called for. It was not the custom for the delegates to leave the chamber, but to repair to opposite sides, Quietly the most aged member of the convention turned, walked to one side of the hall, and sat down alone. All the other members of the convention, in a body, proceeded to range themselves opposite him. But at the sight of that calm, noble figure, that sorrowful bowed head, one representative of South Australia faltered, and after a moment's hesitation firmly retraced his steps and seated himself beside Sir George Grey. His example was instantly followed by another delegate from the same colony. And thus between two representatives" of young Australia—Dr. Cockburn and Mr. Kingston—supported on one side by a doctor of medicine and on the other by a Queen's Counsel, Grey found himself in a minority of three, while his amendment was rejected by thirty-five voices.

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Macaulay sang the story of "the dauntless three" who kept the bridge against the Tuscan host for the liberty of Rome in the brave days of old. The same spirit was displayed by Grey and his two companions as animated Horatius, when Spurius Lartius and Herminius took their stand by bis side and calmly defied the whole array of their foemen.