Shaping Nations: Constitutionalism and Society in Australia and Canada

2. Sister Colonies with Separate Constitutions: Why Australian Federationists Rejected the Canadian Constitution

2 Sister Colonies with Separate Constitutions: Why Australians Federationists Rejected the Canadian Constitution HELEN IRVING In the sequence of events in the last decade of the 19th century that led - inexorably now, it seems - tothefederation ofAustralia's colonies in 1901, one Canadian plays a small part. In early 1889, George Parkin, representing the Canadian branch of the Imperial Federation League, toured the colonies, bringing the gospel ofBritishsupremacyand imperial unity. The goal ofthe imperial federationists (who achieved only a shortlived and small following) was a federated Empire, with a central parliament in London, and member parliaments in each of the selfgoverning colonies. Parkin thought that Canada, having federated some 20 years earlier, had gone a good distance in preparing itself for this greater federal union, and he extolled the progress made in his own country in replacing provincialism with national feeling. He hinted that the Australiansmight takenote ofhis country's example.IntheAustralian context, this was a mistake. At the best of times, Australians were inordinately sensitive to suggestions that things were done better anywhere else. In the 1880s, this cultural reflex was especially strong, as emerging nationalism and growing resentment against Britain's colonial policy fed each other. Sensitivity over the failure to bring about the longsought union of the Australasian colonies was at its height. 28 SHAPING NATIONS Parkin's lectures, commented the Bulletin (that great journal of Australian nationalism, founded nine years earlier) were concerned only with the all round majesty ofeverything British,the surpassing smartness of the Canadians, and the phenomenal acuteness of Mr. Parkin himself. Parkin, it was reported, described his audience as British,provoking the cries of No, it's Australian.1 Even worse, he asserted that the inhabitants of a cold country, like Canada, are stronger and more vigorous than men of a warm climate like our own.2 The press was outraged. Parkin's talks were a failure. Imperial Federation, said the Bulletin, was an unsaleable drug in the Australian market.3 But Parkin's tour did have another effect. Around the time of the Canadian's arrival in Sydney, Sir Henry Parkes, that grand, inflated, many-times Premier of New South Wales, was in conversation with the Governor of his colony, Lord Carrington, after the weekly Executive Council meeting. ThetopicofParkincameup. Acutelyawarethat Canada had achieved in 1867 what he, Parkes, had first proposed for the Australiancolonies at an intercolonial postalconference inthat sameyear, the Premier was led to make a now famous boast. Canada had federated and he, Henry Parkes, could confederate these colonies within twelve months. Carrington replied: Then, why don't you?4 Parkes wrote immediately to the VictorianPremier, Duncan Gillies, proposing that they and other leading men should meet together in a ParliamentaryConvention ofAustralasia.Aperiod ofintense negotiations followed, resulting in the Australasian Federation Conference in Melbourne in February 1890, less than nine months after Parkin's visit. ThisConference concluded with acommitment toafurther meeting where a federal Constitution for the colonies of Australasia should be written. The Australasian Federal Convention met in Sydney one year later and concluded with a full draft Constitution Bill. That Bill ultimately served as the basis for redrafting a new and (with a couple of subsequent amendments) final Constitution at the second Federal Convention six years later.Thenew Constitution Billpassed successfully through a series of colonial referendums in 1899 and was transformedinto an Act by the Imperial Parliament the following year. The Indissoluble Federal Commonwealth of Australia was inaugurated on January 1,1901. The boasts ofa Canadian set theball rolling in 1889. But the example of Canada served another purpose for the framers of Australia's Constitution. This was established early in the proceedings of the 1890 Conference. Australia's Constitution-making began with an exploration of the range of existing federal constitutions: those of the United States, SISTER COLONIES WITH SEPARATE CONSTITUTIONS 29 Switzerland, Canada and Germany.Allhad some attractivefeatures. But one alone was a federation under the Crown. It was the very thing the Australians wanted to achieve. In this most fundamental respect, Canada's Constitution should have served as a model, if not a template. Some leading men at the beginning assumed that it would. In one of his preliminary communications with the Victorian Premier, Henry Parkes had written thatthe scheme ofFederalGovernment hehad inmind would necessarily follow close upon the type of the Dominion Government of Canada.5 At the Conference in Melbourne, he began by moving the resolution: That... thebest interests and...