CHAPTER II 
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 
$ 1. Tur History oF FEDERATION 
TuE Constitution of the Commonwealth presents in all 
essentials a very different aspect to that of the Canadian 
Dominion. It is a constitution arising from different needs 
and animated by a different spirit. In the case of the 
Dominion there can be no doubt that much stress was laid 
on the advantages of adopting a system of polity which 
would strengthen the British power in North America 
against the United States ; the fact that the term kingdom 
of Canada could not be adopted has been long attributed 
to the wish of the Imperial Government not to annoy uselessly 
the republicans south of the boundary by insisting on the 
monarchical principle as being part of the Constitution of the 
Dominion! In Australia all was different ; there was no 
foreign pressure of a strong and somewhat jealous neighbour 
with alleged designs on the integrity of the Dominion ; if 
the echoes of the Russian war in the Crimea and the fear of 
Russian intrigues in Afghanistan in 1877-8 aroused for the 
time being a martial spirit among the people of the Common- 
wealth, there was not sufficient impetus in that to carry 
federation, and though no doubt the desire for a more 
effective defence played a part in the demand for federation, 
it would be idle to deny that the immediate outcome of 
federation was certainly not the increase of the strength of the 
military or naval forces, but rather their decrease at once in 
numbers and in efficiency. This is now being changed in its 
* Bourinot, Constitution of Canada, p. 47, n.; cf. also the annexation 
resolution in Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional History, p. 339 ; 
Pope, Life of Sir John Macdonald, i. 71, 72. For the history of federation 
in Australia, see Quick and Garran, Constitution of Commonwealth, pp. 79~ 
252; Harrison Moore, Commonwealth of Australia®, pp. 17-64. See also 
Egerton, Confederations and Unions, pp. 189-230.