NINETEENTH STUDENT SESSION AT THE ADMINISTRATIVE
STAFF COLLEGE, MT. EL! ZA VICTORIA
8TH MARCH, 196+
Speech by the Prime Miriter,_ the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies
Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen:
The other day, having let myself in for this, I was interviewed by Charles Booth and Ragnar Garrett and I said to them, " What do you want me to talk about, because everybody knows that businessmen know all about politics and that politicians know nothing about business. It seems to me to be an unfair distribution of virtue, but everybody understands that this is the case."
" But," I said, " there is one thing that I must say that most businessmen, and, I am almost prepared to think, most politicians, know nothing about and that is the true problems of running a federal system of government."
I thought I would like to talk to you a little about
it because, make no mistake, however effective you become in
business administration, you will constantly be barking your shin
against problems of government what government ought to do this
what government has the power over this matter; and what government
has the power over another. This is a problem that bedevils
the scene in Australia. it is very little studied. I wonder how
many people who are here tonight have read the Commonwealth
Constitution in the last ten years? Not too many. Not too many.
I think they do a little more reading of the Constitution in the
United States of America. I am not sure" I think they like to
re-read the Declaration of Independence because there is a fine
bravura quality about it somewhat detached from life but very
exciting. In Great Britain they know nothing about Constitutions;
they have none. They are in a magnificent position. " The
Constitution of England as the great French wit said, " Elle
n'existe point".
And it's true. Parliament has all power and may exercise it. The United States of America has a Federal Constitution
of an orthodox kind. So have we, not inconsiderably modelled on
the American one. Canada has one of a rather different kind but
still it is a Federal system. South Africa has provinces as well
as a inion, but it is not a federation of a country in which no
problems of power in relation to the national government or the
parliament can arise.
Well, the world goes on. In Great Britain and I've told them this I am not talking behind their backs; I made a powerful speech to them on this across the table at the last Prime Ministers' Conference. I told them: " I think you gentlemen
have had an immense experience in writing federal constitutions
you know nothing about trying to make one work." And that's true,
because in my own time, as in my current term as Prime Minister,
Itve seen a Federation established in the West Indies and I've seen
it broken up. I've seen a Federation established, the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and a few months ago it was broken up.
It resolved into its constituent parts. And it is only a few months
ago, relatively, that we were all meeting about and discussing the
Common Market the European Commrion Market and I was being told
by very distinguished English statesmen: " Of course, wo don't
want to go into a European Federation; what we are contemplating
is a kind of confederation" you see. I said to them, " Yes I
know the meaning of the woras, but do you realise their implications?"
I will say a little nore about that in a momentø So you see, here we are in Australia with a federal system a federal
system in which power is divided and divided according to a very precise specification in Section 51 of the Constitution, all the
powers specified going to the Parliament of the Commonwealth, all ti-xe ones not mentioned remaining with the States, the sovereignty
of Government belonging to the people of Australia and being exercised as to part, and as to the more important part, of
reality by the Commonwealth Parliament and Government and as to the residue by the State Parliaments and State Governments.
Now that is a very simple definition of our system of federation. You will be surprised to know how little understood it is. It is certainly not understood at all by the people who were talking rather glibly about a European federation.
As I say, I will come back to that because it is, I think,
interesting. But let us stay on the home ground for a while.
Here we are, we have powers specifically given to
the Commonwealth, enumerated, set out, you may read them all in
Section 51 of the Constitut4on, and the ones that are not there
belong to the States, Indeed, most of those that are there can
be exercised by the States unless the Commonwealth exercises thorn,
because few powers are exclusive to the Commonwealth like customs,
bounties, excise, defence ( for all practical purposas); these
are powers given to the Commonwea2 th exclusively, but all the
other powers or most of the other powers are concurrent powers.
We have a power of taxation. Well, so have the States not at
the moment exercised, but not for constitutional reasons. There
aro a lot of concurrent powers, but the Constitution itsclf
solved that problem by providing that where the Commonwdealth
exorcised a power and made a law in a particular field which was
a valid lathen any State low whiich was inconsistent went by
the board. In other words, it established the paramouLntey of
Commonwealth law on items within Section 51 of the Constitution.
Now, I mention this to you because I think it ought to be compulsory reading for all people who aspire to debate these matters to read Section 51 with some care to see what powers are given to the Parliament of the nation. If you were
in my place, you would go around Australia, you would receive representations, deputations of all kinds from people wrho say,
" You know, we are coming to you with thiis, because this is a
matter of great national importance. If it is a matter of
national importance then of course,' 1 the Commonwealth ought to
do something about It," 1 Lnd I say, " Wll, I ama sorry. Our
Constitution doosntt soy that the Commonwealth Parliam. ent is to
have power to pass laws about all matters of national -importance.
It has power to make laws about thtirtyeight specified matters
and no others." They say, " Oh, well, that is a legal quibble."
Now, let's beware of this. This idea that you just make a good
goneralised statement that " this is of great national importance
and therefore you follows in the Commonwealth ought to be doing
something about it", is not only stupid but disastrous. You
know, Itve been in smaall shires in Australia, small towns in
Australia and have had the local worthies say to me, " Look, we
must have a better water supply in this town. It is going to
cost œ C150,000, It's of immense national importance. It will
improve Lthe health of this district and therefore make a contribution
to the health of humian beings in this nation and therefore
to our capacity to defend it in the event of war." Now this is
superb, isntt it? ( Laughter) This is superb, this is the way to
eliminate the Constitution and with it, eliminate all troubles.
Of course, life is not like that, nor is the Constitution.
Now, this is worth thinking about. There is an
awful lot of nonsense talked about the Federal system of Government and a good deal talked in our country. Federalism,
as a great writer once said, is legalism and we can't get away from it. If you are going to divide by a Constitution the powers
of the national Parliament and the powers of State Parliaments,
then it is quite clear that there must be somebody who will decide
whether the boundaries have been overstepped. If you left it to
the Commonwealth Parliament to say, " Well, in our opinion, our
powers extend to passing this law," then we would have complete
unification in Australia in a generation. Therefore there has
to be an umpire and the umpire is the High Court, just as in the
United States, the umpire is the Supreme Court of the United States.
Its function, or one of its functions, and its most important
function, is to pass on the validity of laws made by the Commonwealth
or made by States in order that these constitutional
boundaries shall not be overlapped. Now this is, I thinkr
inevitable. It gives rise to all sorts of bitter arguments
along lines like this: " What are these people doing? They
are trying to control the progress of events." They're not.
They are just trying to do their duty, just trying to exercise
the judgment that they are bound to exercise as to the validity
of some law made by some Parliament in Australia.
Now, our great-grandfathers or our grandfathers, as the case may be, who wrote the Constitution originally, did a remarkable piece of work. At this point I want to warn you
against another fallacy. Every now and then, I am told by
somebody probably somebody engaged in State politics, and I
was once myself " You know, you are only here, you'ro only in
existence, you the Commonwealth, because we, the States, created
you. We made a bargain with each other and we conceded certain
powers to you and kept the rest to ourselves. You beware."
Well, that is, of course, unhappily untrue. The Constitution of
Australia wasn't made by any of the six Colonial Parliaments at
all. It was the product of a series of popular conventions which
contained in some instances very well known members of State
Parliaments but contained a groat number more people who were,
fortunately for us, well furnished with learning and scholarship
on constitutional matters and they had a great deal of moeeting
and convention; they had two or three referenda in the nineties,
and finally, the people of Australia voted for what some of the
people of Australia not any Colonial Parliament had decided
was a good thing. WIhon the people had voted for it off went
the leaders of the Convention to London to present the new draft
Constitution to the Government of the United Kingdom which then
annexed the Constitution as a schedule to an Act of the Imperial
Parliament, as it then was, and it became law. It became law in
the short run because it was an Act of the Parliament of Great
Britain. It became law, of course in substance, because it was
the act of the people of Australia. It is well to have this in
mind: The sovereignty was in the people; the sovereignty wasn't
in six Colonial Parliamonts, although each of then was a completely
self-governing colony, like the Colony of Victoria,
Now I mention these facts to you because there is
a fallacy which is constantly being promulgated here that you
will come up against time after time and that is that Australia
consists of six sovereign States. I hear this constantly every
time there is a Premiers' Conference. It will be one of the
red-letter days in my life if each Premier doesn't at some stage
utter this piece of nonsense: " Of course, you must remember, we
are a sovereign Stato," So there are six sovereign States;
I don't know where the Conr,-onwenlth cones in because if we have
six sovereign States what sovereignty is loft for the nation.
It's absurd. The sovereignty inures in the nation in the people,
Some of the sovereign powers are exercised by the Coimlonwealth
Parliament and Government; some of the sovereign powers are exercised by the State Parliaments and Governments. Don't let any of us be under any misapprehension about that matter. There is a division of sovereign powers and each of us exercises his bit of sovereignty within the limits of the Constitution of the nation.
I don't know how long it is since you gave yourself
the pleasure of reading about the events that led up to the
American Civil War, but they are very well worthwhile recalling
in this field. When I was a boy, I thought the Civil War was
about " Uncle Tom's Cabin" you know, that sort of thing......
and the good man and the bad man and some little wretch being
taken over the ice on the river, You know, it was a terrific
affair, " Uncle Tom's Cabin", and peGple were brought up to
believe that this was the whole outfit about which the American
Civil War was fought. It wasn't. The Southern States in the
United States took a very strong view that they weren't going
to be dominated by what they regarded as the hard-faced
professionals from the North and therefore they tended to be,
in a very acute sense, " states righters", as we would say, and
they would keep on saying, " But we are sovereign States." The very phrases were used.
And they had the view that if they didn't like what the North was doing it might be on Negro emancipation it
might be on anything, and they didn't like it then all they
had to do was to secede because, being sovereign, they could
exercise their own sovereignty by departing from the Union.
You see? This was a very widely-held doctrine0 This was the
doctrine about which Lincoln conducted his famous debates and
which he challenged and ultimately defeated. Are we all
sovereign? May we secede? And the answer to that was: No.
Your sovereignty is now merged in the sovereignty of the
Federation. You are not able to secede. You can't restore your
own sovereignty by your own act. This Federation is a compact
which binds everybody, and therefore this is an indissoluble
Federation. In our turn, we said so. You may see it in the
preamble to the Commonwealth Constitution " one indissoluble
Federation".
But in America, it hadn't been so stated; but
essentially, of course, if the Federation were to mean anything,
to have any existence and any future in the world and any
service to the people, it had to be indissoluble and that was
what the Civil War was about basically, that was what it was
about.
A very great Englishman named Bryce who wrote what
is still the classical book on American Federation he wrote
it back in the nineties, quite true, but he wrote it with full
knowledge of all the events leading up to the Civil War
pointed out that what the Civil War really achieved was to
settle this argument once and for all and to establish quite
plainly that the sovereignty was the sovereignty of the nati. on
and that no State was sovereign in the sense that it could
conduct its own affairs to the point at which it seceded.
The State of Western Australia in a rather frolicsome moment - what, how many years ago? - had a Secession Movement. Well, it was good clean fun and, you know. it did no harm.
They carried a referendum to secede from the Commonwealth and
then the next time there was an amendment out to increase the
powers of the Commonwealth Parliament, my good friends in
Western Australia and I admire them for it voted for it,
( Laughter) This is very satisfactory: Well, we would like to
be out, but if we can't be out, we would like you boys to have more power. The secessionists carried their case to the House of Lords. Well, it was quite hopcless, I was in London at that
tine and, really there was nothing to argue about. It had long
since been established that there is no sovereignty in that sense
in some part of a federation nor is there any right to secede
from the total body. And its important to remember that.
I recalled it, to my own satisfaction at any rate when I was in London last year or was it the year before? Ilve
forgotten now discussing the Common Market..... Now, of
course, the Common Market argument ran high and hot and had a
variety of aspects. I don't want to talk to you about the
economic aspects of it because they have been canvassed to and
fro all round the world. But one of the things that became
involved in this was that I think at least five of the Continental
countries were looking forward to having a European Federation.
Le Grande Charles doesn't believe in it. ( Laughter) He said with
great vigour that this was to be an association of people, an
association of States, but it was not to be a federation. And
he was right from my point of view, as a matter of intellectual
reasoning, to deliver his veto.
I've not the slightest doubt that he was right, and I tried to make this understood in London. I said, " You keep
on telling me that you don't want to be in a federation but you want to be in a confederation in other words, you want a fairly
loose association of States but you want to have a few things established at the centre about which you agree a common code
on so-and-so, certain tariff rules which apply to everybody, a very considerable bureaucracy in the middle which deals with a
mass of economic and sometimes legal and sometimes financial
matters this is what you want, and you think that that means
that no problem of a federation arises, but I am bound to tell
you this, or remind you of this, that there is no example in
history, in modern history of a confederation which didn't either
break up into its constituent parts or become a federation, with
the consequent loss of sovereignty in the constituent members
I don't want to be too technical about it but this was vastly
important.
The same Bryce pointed this out in words that are quite modern, sixty or seventy years ago, that in a federation
itself there are two impulses going on we see them in Australia.
We've all seen them. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we
all know a great deal about them. There is the centrifugal
force tending to drive them apart I haven't seen that operate
so much in Australia and the centripetal force that brings
more and more centralisation of authority and centralisation of
power, so that unless we all watch it, some day it will produce
complete unification. And there is no escape from this. No
confederation, no association of states in the history of the
world ever stood still. It will become closer or it will become
more remoteo We've seen it become more remote in the West Indies
very quickly so that there is no federation there at all today.
We've seen this separatist idea, the centrifugal force, operate
so swiftly in the case of the African countries that Nyasaland is
now an independent country Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia
still have some vastly complex problems to deal with.
And in the case of Europe, this must have been the
same thing. This puzzles me. I couldn't make them appreciate the
fact that once they cor. mitted themselves to something that was
organic, something that was structural in their relations with
European countries, however valuable a lot of arrangements of a practical kind, a pragmnatic apprcach might be, that the moment
they went in for anything structural, they would find that they
were well on the move to having a Europe. an Federation,
Now, it may be a very good thing to have a European Federation. I don't sit in judgment on that matter. This is not my immediate business. All I want to say is that if there is a European Federation, Great Britain won't be a sovereign State any more than Victoria is in Australia for the reasons that I have given you. It will be a constituent member of a highly legal structure in which there is a division of sovereignty according to the rules set out in the agreement and therefore it would be, I thought, rather hard to have Great Britain as a non-sovereign state but as a member of the European Federation, coming along to have conferences with soy, Ghana, as a fully self-governing state, Similarly with Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand Canada and Great Britain the only non-sovereign body. It didn't appeal to me very much.
And of course the answer always was: But of course,
that's the last thing we want and that's the last thing we are
after. To which the reply had to be: But how do you know whoere
you can stop the process, because if you establish what De Gaulle
calls the " association of nations", " the society of nations", it
will either become closer and begin to look awfully like a
federation or it will grow more remote and Europe will go back
into the old whirlpool of historical hostility. And do you
know let justice be done the great De Gaulle...., it is always
possible and in fact sometimes agreeable to disagree with him about
tkiis or that arnd he is not one of the great constitutional
scholars of Lhe world, but he is a very great man and he has
seen with completely clear instinct that if he wants France to
be a great powerful independent nation, restoring its glories in
the Western world he can't allow it to become a mere province in
a larger organisazion, He is quite happy about having Italy and
the Benelux countries coming along and playing along, getting
together for economic purposes, financial purposes but for'
political purposes, for anything tb~ at will impair the sovereignty
of France no. In other words: I think he is one of the
statesmen in Europe who has understood that the federal idea
produces problems which can't be solved by a few casual remarks
in an armchair, which have to be studied, which have to be
experienced so that you not only know them in theory as I have
had to know them as a lawyer, but as I have had to know them by
touch, in having to deal with the particular problems that emerge.
You know, on the whole, I think that Australia has
managed its federal system pretty well. I think there is a good
deal of nonsense talked of a " states rights" kind. I have said
something about that -that it iJs " flim flam" and by the way.
But on the whole we happen to have managed the business in
Australia by doing one or two sensible things, one of them quite
illicit. Shall I tell you about the illicit one first? Yes,
I knew that would have an instant appeal to you, you captains
of industry, ( Laughter)
Now here is a great continent in which all the highest
concentration of development is down here in Victoria or over there
in New South Wales or now, to an increasing extent, in the south
of South Australia yet also in which up North, where you have
so many growing things, are the large beginnings of what will be
an immensely larger mineral industry in all its forms. Northern
development is more than a political cliche; it is something
that represents one of the great problems in Australia. How can
the people who live, and live well and prosperously in one
relatively small section of Australia do something to increase a development elsewhere? Now, you, m ay say to me, " Well obviously something ought to be done, somctinrg ought to be done to give an incentive ( thatl the modern word) to people to go and adventure their capital in the north and go into those remote places and look for minerals and search for oil and do all these things, that are wonderful things for this country,," And of' course the incentive obviously is to make some discrimination in their income tax.
People say to me-. " Why? Why don't you relieve of'
all tax people who are earning their income beyond a certain
parallel in the country?" And I say, " A jolly good idea, but
grandfather didn't think so." Because grandfather put into the
Constitution a provision that no law may be made by the Commonwealth
of taxation or briefly, of money, which discriminates
between one State and another or between one part of' a State and
another. You can imagine the old gentlemen doing it, canv't you?
They sit down there. They've got six reluctant colonies who
think that on the whole 1. t wouldn't be a bad idea to have
Federation. Not flogged into it by a war, as the United States
was by the War of' Independence but a conscious effort of reason and persuasion. But, at the same time, they were all colonies.
Down in Victoria, of coursa, we are the broadestminded
of people, and I am perfectly certain of their saying,
" Well, of course, we are going to get mixed up with those scomps
across the Murray; we must be very careful; we must preserve
ourselves as far as we can. And you get some of these rather odd
provisions, in the Constitution about uniformity, It's uniformity
mad. We are uniformity mad in Australia. Unless somebody gets
exactly the same deal as somebody who lives 2,000 miles away, there
is something wrong, This is awful nonsense.
This is a country which can be developed only by encouraging the unorthodox, by encouraging non-conformity, by encouraging inequality I don't mean to the point of injustice
for that is a different matter. But why should everything have
to be ironed out in this fashion. But they did it, and therefore
we cannot, by a taxation law, provide a rate of tax in Queensland,
in the Commonwealth which is not to apply equally all over
Australia. And in legal truth I don't want this to be used
agdnst me if it comes before the High Court as it will no doubtwe
can't apply a rate of taxation north of lownsville which is
smaller than the rate of taxation south of Townsville, all other
things being equal, because of this wonderful anti-discrimination
provision in the Constitution. So all I can say is, that it was
done by the Commonwealth Zone A, Zone B and there are many
happy or unhappy taxpayers in the north of Western Australia, in
the Northern Territory in the north of Queensland who secure an
advantage from this,, Ll I want to say is, I think it is quite
illegal. We have rested on the very com., fortable proposition -that
nobody outside of an asylum is likely to challenge it,, ( Laughter)
But now, that is just a single example of what I am really getting at over this matter in that I believe that a
national Government could do far more for the development of
these parts of Australia, crying aloudfbi' development, if it had
eqbcate powers of discrimination and were not bound by these rather
antiquated ideas that you must have uniformity and that means that
whatever the law is, it has to be the same at Weipa as it would be at Mount Gambier,
This is very foolish, looking at it with the eye of history and certainly foolish if one tries to look at it with anything like the eye of statesmanship, But I mention it to you because a lot of people will say to you Why don't they do
so-and-. so7 Wñ y-donyt : Loy dc sometiliirg aboit -it? ' Jall, if they
had had to sit down as frequently as I 11ave had to do and say,
" By Jove, I would like to do so-ar d-so,, I think this is a splendid
idea. How can we work this one out so as to dodge the Constitution?"
This is a health-~ giving exercise0 I don~ t have any objection to
it, I think it is a highly moral. undertaking, not irmoral, After
all, mest people I think dodge as much income tax as they can and
as long as it is within the law it is right, but it is a great
pity. I think that rmore and more, as we go on, we will be
thinking about our constitutional powers -not in relation to a
lot of these matters that get discussed on political platforms,
most of which I can assure you are completely trivial from the
constitutional point of view and trying to make a Federal system
with its written Constitution flexible enough to serve the
interests of a country that is growing at almost an explosive rate.
This is the great problem of federal governrment. I've had a long
experience of it. Ilve seen it from both sides, In a manner of
speaking, I suppose I have got sorme expert knowledge on this
matter and I still find it one of the most teasing things in the
world,
I will just add one thing because time goes on,
I have to be in Sydney tomorrow. We have a meoting next week of.
the Loan Council. The Loan Council consists of the State Treasurers
who are usually the State Premiers and the Commonwealth Treasurer
who is the Chairman, and I attend and by an act of grace on the
part of the others who attend, I am allowed to speak when I vwant
to. That is the Loan Council. The Loan Council. was set up under
the Financial Agreement and the Financial Agreement was authorised
by one of the -few ameondments ever made to the Commonwealth
Constitution. The Loan Council was established to do one thing,
one thing only,
There had been great confusion up to that time
New South Wales was borrowing at 5 1/2 per cent, and some other State wanted to borrow at per cent. Well, there was a great deal of conflict and competition in the markets and then if one
State looked as if it might default, this affected the credit of
the other States who wanted to raise money on the market. This
became a terrible problem, particularly as we had one or two rather
adventurous State Premiers in those days. And so the Financial
Agreement was made and the Loan Council established,, And the
function of the Lean Council is to decide how much mioney can be
borrowed for a public works programme, how much money can be
borrowed at reasonable rates and conditions. That's all,
In the old days when the Loan Council decided that,
the meeting adjourned with suitable compliments. When I was first
a member of the Commonwealth Goverrnment, I was Attorney General,
I used to attend the Loan Council meetings I don't knew in what
capacity. Still there it was, and in looking back on it now, it
is hilariously funny. This is back in 1935-6-7-8, you know,-not
all that long ago, The Commonwealth Bank used to underwrite the
loan programme, And the Commonwealth would get from the States
what their estimates were and their loan works programme. As a
rule, it was about œ 19M, or 20M1. for the whole lot and,
metaphorically though not actually, the Commonwealth Bank sat with
a Governor who was in the corner of the room and the Premiers
would have a magnificent debate and beat it up by half a million,
It might be œ_ 19 then it must be Z20M and then somebody got a
run on and thought it ought to be œ C22M because his State wanted
miore and then the Prime Minister, Mr, Lyons, would say, " Well01,
letts adjourn for half an hour" and you would go around the corner,
so to speak, and have a word Lind come back and say, " No, the banks will underwrite 20 Million Pounds. And œ 20M. it was. And everybody
went away, Th e money was in his pocket because it was underwritten
by the central banks.,
Well, of course, today we talk in programmnos at
Loan Council meetings of about œ 300M. and they are always too
snall, so I gather. But we don't sit down now and say how much
money can be borrowed on reasonable rates and conditions because
until the last two years that would have meant that we would have
decided that the limit was œ 60M, or œ 70M. because that was about
what the market would yield over a period of years œ 80M. perhaps,
sometimes a œ 100M. with a bit of luck, and we developed a new
techniqueo
We, the Commonwealth want now to satisfy ourselves
that in physical terms the performance of the loan works programme
is a feasible one and if that cones out at œ 300M. and if our
estimate of what the loan market will produce is œ 150M., then
we have got into the habit of saying, " Well, we think you need
this programme, we think that these works must be done for the
purposes of economic development and we will therefore raise what
we can on the market and we will supplement the market return out
of the Commonwealth Budget. We will advance the money to you to
make up the short fallo" This honourable occupation, painful
occupation, ran us up over a period of about ten years to
something over œ 600 or œ 700M, and it is one of the beauties of a
federal system that having done this, having either stepped up
the taxation or jacked up the taxation in order to provide these
vast sums of money, I was always able to attend something or other
and hear my State colleagues denouncing the Commonwealth for its
miserable attitude towards taxation and demanding that it be
reduced, ( Laughter) I don't know whether that's a warning to
business managers in esse or a warning to politicians in posse
( Laughter) but it applies equally to both. These are complex
matters. I think that it is remarkable how far accommodation
has been worked out so that the strict letter of the Constitution
hasn't prevented certain really material economic development.
That's one of them. The Loan Council business has been made to
work for the good of Australia though it is quite different from
the one which was established by constitutional authority. It
is not illegal but it is a voluntary affair, and it works, and it
works to the good of the people of Australia.
But don't let it be thought and don't let it be
said that every problem which crops up in Australia is one which,
because of its importance to somebody is one that belongs to the
Federal Government or Parliament because I am a very great
believer in the Federal system. I believe in the division of
power. Butyoucan't really be an understanding, intelligent, devoted
federalist unless you know what the federal system is, unless: you
know that there is a division of power, that there are some things
that a government may do one government and some things that
it can't. And I think that if we increasingly clarify our minds
on that, we will have less confusion, get rid of a lot of avoidable
bad temper and irritation and sometimes hatred by realising that
we are all the servants of the one sovereignty and of the one
people, that each of us has his allotted task to do and ought to
do it within the rules laid down for playing of the game,
Now, Sir, I have spoken too long, I am going to leave after a little while and go to bed and make a powerful speech, I hope, to the graziers in Sydney tomorrow. Therefore, I will shut up and sit down, but if anybody has a simple question that he thinks I can answer I will be glad to have a shot at it.