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The Proposed Federal Council-
The Times devoted a leader on the 20th
nit. to an ckaiuinalion of tho proposed
Federal Council, and arrives attain Conclusion
that its powers will have to becnlargcd,
and more especially (hat its numerical
weight will have to be increased.
Apropos of the latter question it
remarks:— ‘ Jt is incredible Dial
Australasia will consent to give the
charge of legislating on the numberless
matters in which colonial relations
overlap or jostle to 15 or 1C persons. The
Federal councillors will be equally disinclined
to accept the tremendous responsibility
for such oligarchical legislation
and conscious of the difficulty of carrying
the concurrence of huge collections of
humanity with decrees about their ecu*
cerhs promulgated by a handful of
delegates. The draughtsmen of the
scheme have been tempted by a sense
of the facility of pushing questions
through a small conference of men understanding
one another, aud too few to
squander their energies and temper on
controversial eloquence, to overlook the
danger of reducing the number below the
exigencies of au adequate representation
of the diverse sections of a vast and
various nationality. 3:iftecn might not
be too few for a Supreme Court of
Justice or for a Supreme Executive. The
number is not enough for fln assembly
which is both to deliberate and to legislate.”
The Spectator believes that the provision
that has been made that the acts of
the Council will not be binding upon
colonics which have not invited those
acts, or which have not subsequently
agreed to accept them, will prove a source
of weakness. It espressos tho opinion
that either the whole Federal Council
Bill will be redrawn in the ColouialOfliee,
or that a power of extending its own
functions, with the assent of a majority of
the colonies, will be vested in the council.
The Sf. James' Gazette warns politicians
who imagine that by encouraging the
colonies to federate they arc shifting from
Great Britain some of the burden of
empire, that it is more Ilian likely that
a federated Australasia will be even more
troublesome than the Australian colonies
arc singly, and will certainly command
more attention to its demauds.
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