780 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV
A Federation Bill was introduced into New South Wales by
Mr. Parkes in 1867, but did not receive the royal assent.
Foreign relations also caused anxiety : in 1870 Mr. Gavan
Duffy induced Victoria to appoint a Royal Commission which
suggested the remarkable and absurd scheme that the
Mother Country should give the Colonies rights of treaty-
making, and that it should secure for them a position as
neutral sovereign states! The idea was a singularly inept
one, and was justly derided by their opponents at the time.
Attention was, however, drawn to the new policy of France
in transporting criminals to New Caledonia which began in
1864, while transportation ceased in Western Australia in
1867; Fiji was annexed to please Australia by the Crown
in 1874, and created a Crown Colony, while in 1878 an agree-
ment saved what remained of British interests in the New
Hebrides. The intervention of the United States became
marked in Samoa in 1875, and Germany was also active in
these islands. In 1880-1 a conference at Melbourne, and
later at Sydney, marked a real advance towards agreement.?
In 1883 the desire for union was strengthened by the question
of New Guinea. The Government of Queensland purported
to annex the island, and when the act was disavowed the
Secretary of State pointed to federation as a means of
strengthening the Colonies in their desire to obtain the control
of the Pacific. This was followed, through the exertions of
Mr. Service, Premier of Victoria, by the conference at
Sydney of November 1883, which was the first to consider
federation. It included representatives of New Zealand
and of Fiji, beside those of the six Colonies, and decided in
favour of a Monroe doctrine for Australia, protested against
the introduction of convict labour, and asked for the annexa-
tion of New Guinea, and the securing the control of the
New Hebrides. This conference decided to promote a Bill
' Victoria Parliamentary Papers, 1870, Sess. 2, ii. 247. There was no
second report. The idea was revived in 1911 by the Volksstem in South Africa,
* New South Wales Legislative Assembly Votes and Proceedings, 1881,
i. 329. Victoria (Assembly Votes and Proceedings, 1880-1, iv. 459), Queens-
land, and New Zealand would not accept a Federal Council then.
