patriotic Parliament completing without any "scuffling on the steps of the temple"—to use his own phrase—the measures necessary for the stability of the Federation. He experienced a first Parliament in which party rancour was extraordinarily rife. He retired to accept a Federal judgeship, and Mr. Deakin (born in Victoria in 1856, d. 1919) took his place (Sept. 1903).
Mr. Alfred Deakin met the second Parliament of the Commonwealth in 1904 with his own following reduced, the following of the Labour party increased. In April 1904 Mr. Deakin went out of office and was succeeded by Mr. Watson. In Aug. of the same year Mr. Deakin gave his support temporarily to Mr. George Reid, and Mr. Reid's administration supplanted Mr. Watson's. This lasted through a long recess and a few days of parliamentary life, and in July 1905 Mr. Deakin came back to office with the support of Mr. Watson. Mr. Watson was at that time determined on resignation from political life as he could not keep pace with the extremist elements in the Labour party. But he was strongly convinced that a measure of tariff reform was necessary, and resolved to remain in Parliament until it was effected. The first Federal tariff had had to make concessions to Free Trade sentiment. The second tariff was completely protectionist, and introduced a new principle into Australian politics by granting a "preference" to British imports. At the third general election in 1907 the Labour party again improved its position, mostly at the expense of its allies.
Mr. Watson kept the leadership of the Labour party, and kept that party solidly behind Mr. Deakin, until the tariff was settled. Then he retired and Mr. Andrew Fisher took his place. Born in Scotland in 1862 Mr. Fisher was brought up as a coal-miner. He went to Queensland in 1885, entered the state Parliament and later the Federal Parliament. He had been included in Mr. Watson's Cabinet. Now, assuming the leadership, he very quickly gave Mr. Deakin notice to quit, and in 1908 formed his own administration. It lasted little more than six months. Mr. Deakin then formed a coalition with the remnants of the Free Trade Opposition, no longer led by Mr. George Reid but by Mr. Joseph Cook (born in England in 1860), and the Deakin-Cook administration came into office. One of its first acts was to send Mr. George Reid to London as a first High Commissioner for the Commonwealth; Mr. Reid, on assuming this office, accepteda knighthood. Mr. Cook, like Mr. Fisher, had been a miner. He entered the New South Wales Parliament as a Labour member, drifted away from his party and entered the Federal Parliament as a Free Trader. He now joined with Mr. Deakin to oust the Labour party from office, one ground of attack being their lack of proper sympathy with the cause of Imperial defence.
Australia's War Forebodings.—This was at the time of the European crisis over Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, when public interest throughout the British Empire was being stirred over the question of maintaining British supremacy at sea and of strengthening the hands of the Imperial Government in view of increasing international complications. New Zealand had promptly offered to provide a "Dreadnought" for the British navy. It was objected that Mr. Fisher had not done likewise. He claimed that his Imperial patriotism was not wanting, but that in his judgment more useful action could be taken by hurrying on with the creation of an Australian navy. This navy, he stated in a despatch to the British Government, would be organized and controlled by Australia in times of peace, but on the outbreak of war would automatically pass to the control of the British Admiralty. Amid bitter party wrangles the third Australian Parliament closed its life in Jan. 1910.
The general election of 1910 resulted in a victory for the Labour party under Mr. Fisher. The party captured a working majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The decision which gave Australia's destinies completely into the hands of the Labour party (and that not the Labour party of Mr. Watson, but of Mr. Fisher—much more of a "party" man) was influenced very largely by negative considerations. The people disliked deeply the coalition of Mr. Deakin with Mr. Cook, who had before seemed to represent absolutely irreconcilable ideas in politics; and a vote for the Labour party was in many cases a vote of non-confidence in the coalition rather than actually an endorsement of Labour policy. An indication of this fact was given a little later, when the Labour Government (May 1911) submitted to a direct poll of the people certain amendments of the Federal constitution, without which it could not carry out its Labour policy. These amendments sought (a) to give the Commonwealth Parliament full power to legislate with respect to trade and commerce instead of the limited power it had under the constitution (the limitation stood in the way of Federal legislation dealing with the conditions of labour); (b) to give the Commonwealth Parliament full power over all trading corporations; (c) to give the Commonwealth Parliament specific power to deal with the wages and conditions of labour and with labour disputes; (d) to give the Commonwealth Parliament power to deal with all combinations and monopolies. A further proposed amendment of the constitution was to give the Commonwealth Parliament power to declare that any business was a "monopoly," and, following such declaration, to acquire it, paying on just terms for any property used in connexion with it. By a majority of about 250,000 votes in a total poll of about 1,155,000 votes the people declared against these amendments of the constitution. Thus a Labour Government was left in office without power to carry out its Labour policy.
The Fisher Government soon cleared itself very completely of any suspicion of a lack of earnestness regarding the defence of Australia and the Empire. In 1909, whilst Mr. Deakin was Prime Minister, an Act of Parliament had been passed enforcing military training on all able-bodied male citizens. This enactment of universal service had not been opposed by the Labour party. Indeed their criticism was that the system proposed to be enforced was not thorough enough; and the Government of the day promised that an expert from Great Britain should be asked to report on the system. Field-Marshal Viscount Kitchener accepted an invitation to visit Australia, and his report came before the Parliament of 1910 with a Labour Government in power. That Government not only accepted all his recommendations but in some cases crossed his "t's" and dotted his "i's." There was established a system of universal training for military defence which Lord Kitchener guaranteed as adequate and which the Fisher Government enforced against various protests with a resolute courage. In the matter of naval defence the Fisher Government was equally firm in dissociating itself from any faltering policy. A Commonwealth navy came into actual being as a fleet unit in 1913 when the battle cruiser "Australia" ("Dreadnought cruiser" type) and the light cruisers "Melbourne" and "Sydney" arrived in Australian waters. The same year the King laid the foundation-stone in London of Australia House, the splendid headquarters of the Commonwealth High Commissioner. A further step in the organization of the new nation was the appointment of the Inter-state Commission which, under the constitution, has power to adjudicate on and administer all laws relating to trade and commerce. It acts, in a sense, as a commercial High Court. Among its powers is that of preventing any preferential or discriminatory rates on the state railways.
The general elections in 1913 were unfavourable to the Fisher Government, and Mr. Joseph Cook took office with a majority in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate. His Government kept office under very difficult circumstances almost until the outbreak of the World War. On July 30 1914 the governor-general dissolved both Houses of Parliament, and in the general election that followed the Labour party won a majority both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. A proposal to form a "national" Government representing all parties was not successful and Mr. Fisher formed his fourth administration in Sept. 1914. He gave up the Prime Ministership shortly afterwards to become High Commissioner in London and was succeeded by Mr. W. M. Hughes, his chief colleague. Mr. Hughes (born in Wales in 1864) on first coming to Australia was forced to many strange shifts to make a livelihood. But entering the N.S.W. Parliament as a Labour member of the "extremist" kind he soon proved himself to have ability and
