Annotated documents on the making of the Commonwealth of Australia

Abstract

The 1890's saw a rapid development of the idea that the Australian colonies should unite for their mutual benefit« The idea was not new, however, as people periodically called for such a union for at least the forty years preceeding, but for most of the period 1850-1890 such advocates had little following among the population as a whole0 People were generally quite pleased with the self-government won for their own colony in the middle of the century, and were not prepared to give up the independence so recently achieved,, It was only as this view weakened that federation became a possibility, and the first section of this thesis investigates the main reasons for the break-down, of colonial opposition. Show more