78¢ THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART IV
agreed that an Imperial officer should inspect the military
forces of Australia. Then trouble began, for Sir H. Parkes
withdrew from the arrangements for the visit, and eventually
the Imperial Government sent out ir 1889 their own officer,
Major-General Sir J. Bevan Edwards, who inspected and
reported on October 9, in effect urging federation for defence
reasons, This served as a text to Sir H. Parkes, who was
now fired with a fit of federal enthusiasm, and a conference
of accredited delegates was held in February 1890 at Mel-
bourne to pave the way towards federation. It was followed
by a conference! at Sydney in March-April 1891, which
passed resolutions laying down the basis on which federation
must proceed. It was agreed that only so much power was
to be handed over to the federal body as was necessary for
the purposes of federation ; that no state should be divided
without its consent ; that there should be free trade through-
out the states, and that there should be one customs tariff,
and that military and naval defence should be a federal
matter, and committees were appointed to draft a federal
constitution which now forms the basis of the Constitution
of the Commonwealth of Australia. It was also agreed
that the procedure to be adopted was that each Parliament
of the Colonies should consider the draft Constitution, and
if three accepted it the Imperial Government should be asked
to enact it for those which accepted it. But there was
unexpected delay in carrying out the scheme. In New South
Wales Sir H. Parkes found himself in political difficulties,
and, though he managed to carry on for a time, his resignation
was succeeded by the advent to office of Mr. Dibbs, who was
rather in favour of a union, and suggested in 1894 a scheme
to unify the Colonies of New South Wales and Victoria,
' Seven delegates from each Colony were sent (three by New Zealand)—
asually five of the Assembly and two of the Council—under the authority
of local Acts passed in 1890 (in Western Australia in February 1891).
* Mr. Reid condemned the draft for the excessive powers of the Senate
and the omission of any provision rendering essential responsible govern-
ment. Queensland, Western Australia, and New Zealand did nothing, Cf,
Jenks, Government of Victoria, pp. 389-96, who advocated the abandon-
ment of responsible government (cf. pp. 375-84).
