Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/182

 select delegates to consider the necessity of a Federal Union and the best means of accomplishing it. I submitted the report and the resolution arising out of it to the Assembly, and carried them with general assent, and they were afterwards communicated to the Legislative Council, which concurred in them. We then communicated with the other colonies. In New South Wales a Select Committee of the Legislative Council, including some of the most experienced statesmen in that colony, reported on the question generally, and recommended that the method of proceeding suggested in the Victorian Report should be adopted. They sent their report to the Legislative Assembly requesting its concurrence. In South Australia Select Committees of the two Houses accepted the invitation of Victoria, and appointed delegates to attend the proposed conference. In Tasmania a similar course was adopted, and delegates were selected. This was regarded as a triumphant success, as we had obtained the assent of all the colonies possessing Responsible Government, for Queensland had not yet come into existence, and Western Australia was a Crown colony. But there was one fatal impediment to action. The Legislative Assembly in New South Wales had not responded either to our invitation or to that of their own Legislative Council. Mr. Cowper, the Colonial Secretary, was unwilling, as my friends informed me, to allow Victoria the initiative, and we were unwilling to begin with the aid of only two small colonies. My friends, Parkes and Butler, were of opinion that Mr. Cowper would not long be an impediment, and that it would be better to wait for his successor, and this was the course we took.

I applied myself early to the task of getting the public business conducted after the method of the House of Commons. Our Constitution required us to act under British standing orders until we had framed standing orders if our own. As men going to battle first sharpen their weapons, so it seemed to me our first duty was to make Parliament, which was the weapon whereby we must defend our liberty and prosperity, as effective as possible; but the Government, to whom these formularies were new, were impatient under what they regarded as offensive tuition, though it was in fact a simple insistence on the actual law.