938 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV 
In Canada opinion seems on all sides completely opposed 
to measures like the referendum ; it has never been seriously 
proposed as a solution for deadlocks between the Upper 
House (which is limited in point of members, and cannot 
therefore be swamped) and the House of Commons, and 
when proposed for the purpose of reviewing measures of 
Parliament in the case of Ontario in 1905, the Premier 
emphatically declined to have anything to do with it on the 
ground that it was inconsistent with responsible government, 
a fact which can hardly be disputed.t 
It may not be out of place to observe that the referendum 
in both Canada and Australia has been quite unable 
normally to secure adequate voting on the part of those to 
whom it is submitted. Thus, even in the case of the refer- 
enda for the establishment of the Commonwealth Govern- 
ment, when the utmost efforts were made to arouse the 
interest of the electors, the vote was about 50 per cent. of 
the possible voters, considerably less than the average vote 
at ordinary elections. This result is presumably due to the 
difficulty of interesting electors in ‘matters comparatively 
abstract when divorced from personalities, and it should be 
noted that the first three referenda held under the Commeon- 
wealth Constitution Act took place simultaneously with 
the general elections, so that almost necessarily a com- 
paratively large vote was secured. The referenda which took 
place in April 1911 showed that in the absence of the excite- 
ment of a general election large numbers of voters cannot 
oe induced to vote, and that they found it difficult to under- 
stand the issues. There are few figures available of the cost 
of a referendum, for the reason that most Commonwealth 
referenda have been held contemporaneously with a general 
election, so that no separate figures of cost could be obtained, 
but a preliminary vote of £40,000 was placed on the Common- 
wealth estimate for the referenda in April 1911, and the cost 
was about £50,000. 
It may be added that for constitutional purposes referenda 
without statutory authority are useless. In South Australia 
under a resolution of the Assembly of Dec. 22, 1898, a refer- 
endum was taken in April 1899 to ascertain the views of the 
electors on the extension of the Council franchise to all 
householders as provided in the Assembly Bill of 1898. The 
votes were: for, 49,208 ; against, 33,928; informal, 11,015; 
61-78 voted, but the affirmative vote did not result in any 
concession then by the Council. 
! Canadian Annual Review, 1905, Dp. 266.