800 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
That appears to me the obvious meaning of s. 3 of the Act, 
which declares that on and after a day appointed by pro- 
clamation ‘ the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South 
Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her 
Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia 
have agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be united 
in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Common- 
wealth of Australia’, 
On that day Australia became one single entity, and no 
longer six separate states in the family of nations under the 
British Crown, and the external responsibility of Australia, 
except in regard to matters in respect to which a later date 
was fixed by the constitution, vested immediately in the 
Commonwealth, which was armed with the paramount power 
necessary to discharge it. 
The consequence is, that in respect of all matters declared 
by the Constitution Act to be matters of federal concern, 
the immediate responsibility to His Majesty’s Government 
rests upon the Federal Government. Whether the Federal 
Government and Parliament make special federal provision 
for the discharge of any part of that responsibility, or are 
content to leave it for the time to the state machinery already 
in existence, is entirely a matter of internal arrangement, 
and does not warrant His Majesty’s Government in ignoring 
the fact that in the creation of the Commonwealth Parliament 
has, in compliance with the will of the people of Australia, 
devolved the responsibility upon the federal authority. 
The sphere within which His Majesty’s Government 
should communicate with the Federal Government is co- 
extensive with the responsibility and power of the Common- 
wealth. There does not appear to be anything in the 
constitution which would justify them in limiting it, as 
contended by your ministers, to matters connected with 
departments actually transferred, or matters upon which 
the Commonwealth Parliament has power to make laws, 
and has made laws. Nor can I accept the view that in all 
matters not connected with departments transferred to the 
Commonwealth, or upon which the Commonwealth Parlia- 
ment has not legislated, the relations which existed between 
the States and the Imperial Government before federation 
have been preserved by the constitution. 
The powers of the states have, it is true, been preserved, 
but the immediate responsibility to His Majesty’s Govern- 
ment for their exercise in federal matters has been transferred 
to the Commonwealth.