Australians have been asked on several occasions since 1901 to alter the constitution, which is of course instrument of the Imperial Parliament. Except in quite unimportant directions they have invariably returned a negative answer. The idea has recently taken form that it would lift. constitutional amendments out of the stuck of party politics if the procedure adopted in the original framing of the constitution were followed and popularly elected conventions called to decide what amendments are necessary.
Parliament has been promised the introduction of the necessary Bill to give effect to this idea that is to provide for the election of delegates and fix the general scope of the convention's powers. It is altogether too dangerous to provide for the popular election of delegates, and then throw the constitution to them to ravish. In these days of Sinn Feiners, Revolutionaries and an indifferent proletariat it is not in.possible to visualize the _breakaway of Australia from the Empire by a sort of coup d'etat, unless proper precautions are taken to see that the true voice of the people is expressed.
Whether Parliament will ever get to the stage of providing for a convention, before the general elections, due about December, 1922, is rather doubtful. The Labour Opposition is opposing the holding of the Convention on the Brounds of economy, but a sounder reason lies in the fact that the Constitution itself provides the method by which amendments may be effected. Clearly any decision by a convention must eventually run the gauntlet of the procedure laid down, and duly embodied in the Imperial Act of Parliament. Should the idea of an advisory cur vention be persisted in then we may expect several wide-reaching alterations to be projected.. For instance there is a very considerable area, some 70,000 square miles or thereabouts of the pick of south-western New South Wales, and Victoria is working up a strong agitation for its transfer to Victoria, or its election into an entirely separate State. The northern portions of New South Wales are also agitating for a Separate government, influenced no doubt by the overwhelming control of the present State government by the huge voting preponderance of Sydney, Newcastle and the Maitaland and Wollongong coal fields. Queensland is always simmering over the idea of dividing itself into three separate States. Australia generally will not assent to the election of new States unless it is accompanied by a considerable curtailment of State "frills," which means the transfer of many State powers io
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.