Page:Advanced Australia.djvu/201

 rivalry of separation, who shall measure the achievements which may be accomplished by your united efforts? You will be greatly strengthened for defence, your trade will grow by leaps and bounds, common credit will sensibly lighten the public charge, all petty jealousies will disappear. Time would fail me were I to attempt to enumerate the advantages certain to accrue in the near future from federation. I rejoice that the closing stage of my public life has been associated with a movement which, as far as in me lay, I have earnestly strived to help forward. It has had from Lady Brassey and myself the heartiest good wishes. Unless it had been so, I should have been no fitting representative of the Queen and her people in the United Kingdom. All your hopes for the future are fully shared in your old Motherland, and as in coming years you become in an increasing degree a powerful and prosperous State, the possession of a happy and contented people, supreme in these Southern Seas, there will be no envious feelings. Your own greatness will reflect glory on the home of your fathers, and there, as here, it will be said now and for all time and with a full heart, 'Advance Australia!'"

Compare with the above the following, extracted from a typical anti-federal lecture, delivered at Perth, Western Australia, June 29, 1899. The speaker, a man of the would-be professional politician class from New South Wales, and probably an agent of the anti-federal party there, alleged that "the strings of the movement were being pulled by Imperial Statesmen. It was easier to govern these colonies by one Governor and one Premier than through many Governors and Premiers. One head of all the defence forces would make insurrection or revolution more difficult, and independence, with a republican flag, practically impossible, and it would find another billet for a British aristocrat. Lord Brassey was of opinion that we should get a specimen of the royal blood imported, and he mentioned the Marquis of Lorne and the Duke of Fife, who have the good fortune to be married to British princesses, as likely for the post. This might add a glare of splendour to the Commonwealth capital, but would it especially benefit the people? One thing was certain, such a Government would render reforms in the direction of land nationalisation,