788 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
of Australia in matters affecting the interpretation of the 
constitution of the Commonwealth or a state save where the 
public interests of some other part of Her Majesty’s Dominion 
were concerned. The proposal was unsatisfactory, and the 
retention of the full right of appeal or of appeal at the 
instance of the executive government was suggested instead. 
An application by the Secretary of State to the Chief Justices 
of the Colonies resulted in their pressing the desire for the 
retention of the appeal, while a conference of Premiers, while 
deprecating the change, thought change better than post- 
ponement of the Bill. Moreover, Queensland separated 
itself from the other Colonies and deprecated the exact 
wording of the Bill. A compromise was arranged limiting 
the withdrawal of appeal to cases concerning the relations 
inter se of the Commonwealth and the States, or of the several 
states, and permitting the High Court to allow an appeal in 
such cases. The Bill then became law as the Act 63 & 64 Vict. 
c. 12. At the urgent request on April 27 of Mr. Chamberlain, 
Western Australia hastened to join, a referendum giving 
44,800 for to 19,691 against. The federation took effect 
from January 1, 1901, the Governor-General being appointed 
in September 1900, after the issue of the proclamation of 
September 17, fixing the date of the establishment of the 
federation as January 1, 1901. 
The slow birth of the Commonwealth is indeed remarkable. 
The Colonies seemed destined for union : so much was shared 
in common, there were so few serious distinctions between 
the peoples, and religious animosity had no place at all in 
the Colonies. But defence was not urgent, and the local 
interests in trade tended to develop jealousies, of which 
the Queensland Railway Border Tax Act, 1893, preserves in 
its preamble a noteworthy example ; it recites the moneys 
spent by the Government of the Colony on its railways and 
on its establishing a steamer service with Great Britain, 
and then proceeds to denounce the other Colonies for 
adopting a differential tariff in railway rates in order to 
divert traffic from Queensland lines, and it enacted a tax 
of £2 10s. a ton on all produce conveyed across the border,