time to time as the necessity arose. Mr Service is still living in Melbourne, but he has reached a very advanced age, and is in feeble health. During my stay in Victoria he resigned his position as a member of the Legislative Council, the only political office which he still held. Whatever ground there might have been for his hope that the Federal Council would grow into federation, it never had a chance of fulfilment; for the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, after actually proposing the resolutions upon which the Council was founded, came to the conclusion that the body proposed to be created was too weak to be of any practical value, and he did not submit the Bill to his Parliament. With New South Wales standing out, any scheme for federating the Australian Colonies would be a failure. That Colony never was represented on the Federal Council, and, though the Council is in existence to-day, and has held eight sessions (in 1886, '88, '89, '91, '93, '95, '97, and '99) successively, at which matters of intercolonial import have been discussed, it certainly has held out no promise of supplying the place of a more complete federation. New South Wales, New Zealand, and South Australia at first declined to join. The last-named colony sent delegates to the session of '89. But the Federal Council is, and would in any case have remained, a purely deliberative body, without any funds at its disposal, or any power to put its resolutions into force. It can only recommend certain proposals for the adoption of the various Parliaments. At times, however, its united representations to the Home Government have had great weight, and have effected good in matters of Australasian interest.
Sir Henry Parkes, one of the most prominent and picturesque figures in Australian history, was the promoter of the next important movement towards federa-
