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 Minister, no one paid the slightest attention to him except a Roman Catholic priest in Dublin, who composed and sent out a highly patriotic national song, entitled "Advance! advance Australia!" Yet, as one can well imagine. Sir Henry Parkes was able to show his fellow-colonists many reasons why such a local federation should at once take place. He pointed out that there were now three parliaments, where, owing to the agency of the electric telegraph, one would be quite sufficient; and this is a point that goes straight home to the tax-payer when the M.P.s receive a yearly stipend. He asserted that instead of three separate costly Civil Services, one could be established, which, by providing really high prizes to exceptionally capable men, would attract the best-trained intellects both of Australia and the mother country; and at a saving of a quarter of a million of money. He grounded his reasons for this by no means violent change on the highest considerations of statecraft. Could these three colonies be welded into "one powerful British state," he argued, "there would be a noble field for statesmanship, if the statesman could be found to occupy it. Sufficient immunity from the petty details of administration would