808 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv 
arrived at without disregarding the scheme of Commonwealth 
legislation or the fundamental principles on which the 
Colonial Conference was based. The decision of the Secre- 
tary of State was not accepted by the States Governments, 
but the question could not be further pressed in view of the 
decision of the Imperial Government; the Imperial Con- 
ference objected apparently to allowing their presence, and 
the States Premiers were not invited in 1910-1. 
A good deal of misunderstanding, however, arose out of 
the constitution of a conference secretariat by Lord Elgin, 
as the result of the Conference of 1907; it was thought in 
Australia that some inroad on the powers of the states was 
contemplated, but a protest from New South Wales brought 
so emphatic a disclaimer from the Secretary of State that 
the matter dropped. The secretariat indeed was not 
concerned directly with the states at all, but with the 
Commonwealth and other Dominions represented in the 
Imperial Conference. 
The question of the mode of communication has also been 
hotly contested with regard to the matter of honours, the 
States Governments claiming that their recommendations 
should not be known to the Governor-General, and still less 
to the Commonwealth Government, while on the other hand, 
the Secretary of State has insisted on the position of the 
Governor-General as representing the whole of Australia. 
For the time being a compromise has been reached by it 
being arranged that the recommendations of the States 
Governments and the States Governors are submitted to 
the Governor-General for his personal information only. 
This question is only part of a larger discussion as to the 
communication of dispatches to and from States Governors 
to the Governor-General, a subject on which no final settle- 
ment has vet been reached.2 
+ Especially at the Sydney Conference of Premiers in 1906 ; see Harrison 
Moore, Commonwealth of Australia,® p. 350. 
* State Governors send copies to the Governor-General of dispatches 
touching on federal interests, for his personal information and that of his 
ministers (Moore, loc. cit), and copies are sent to him from the Colonial