peculiar local history had fostered the development of local interests, prejudices, and jealousies which had to be taken into account.

Resort was therefore again had to the system of government called "federal government," which was based on the existence of two governments, the one a central government, the other the state government. Again also the attempt was made to fix the positions of these two governments and determine their relations to each other by the process of the enumeration of the powers of one of the governments concerned.

Notwithstanding the peaceful character of the union, perhaps in some measure because of that fact, state pride was strong enough to secure the adoption of the American principle that it was the powers of the central government which were enumerated, while it was the powers of the state governments which were reserved. But local and state pride having thus been satisfied, those responsible for the drafting of the Commonwealth of Australia Act proceeded to include within the powers of the new Commonwealth government some powers which, according to the British North America Act and the American Constitution, particularly the latter, are to be exercised only by the states or provinces.

In other words, the Australian conception of the extent of power which, under the local conditions existing in 1900, should be vested in the central government, is a much broader one than that adopted in the American and probably as well in the Canadian constitution. The greater economic and social unity of the country, which was due partly to its historical development and partly to the fact that the art of communication was more highly developed in Australia in 1900 than it had been in the

United States in 1789 or in Canada in 1867, made it desirable, if not necessary, to give to the new Commonwealth government of Australia wider powers than were recognized in 1789 as possessed by the United States national government, or were granted in 1867 to the Canadian Dominion government.

It will be remembered that the Constitution of the United States gives to the national Congress power to regulate only such commerce as is carried on with foreign nations and among the several states. The Commonwealth of Australia Act, while giving to the Commonwealth Parliament similar powers over "trade and commerce with other countries and among the states," adds specifically powers over most of the means by which commerce is carried on, such as banking, insurance, bills of exchange and promissory notes, and incorporation of companies, whether these means are employed in foreign and interstate commerce or not. This power of the central government is therefore wider than that of the United States national government, although it may not be any broader than that possessed by the Canadian Parliament.

In other respects, however, the power of the Australian Parliament is broader than that of the Canadian Parliament or the American Congress, since it includes complete control over both marriage and divorce.

Whether the power of the Australian central government is wider on the whole than that of the Canadian central government it is difficult to say. But it may safely be said that both the Australian and the Canadian parliaments have greater powers than the United States. Congress. A hundred or more years of economic development, particularly in the domain of transportation,

have thus caused the evolution of a wider conception of central power.

The method of enumerating powers, which as we have seen is the method adopted in the Australian constitution for the determination of the position and relations of the two governments established, has led, as would be expected, to the necessity of providing an authority for the decision of the question whether the provisions of the constitution have been observed by either the central or the state parliament in the exercise of its powers of legislation.

The Australians were unwilling to follow the plan adopted in Canada of submitting such questions to the final decision of the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council. Regarding such questions as peculiarly Australian in character, they wished to have them decided in Australia. It is the High Court of the Commonwealth of Australia which has the final power of decision in these cases. In other words, the system of the United States has been adopted which, as has been said, intrusts the decision of these cases to a tribunal of the central government, whose powers are under examination.

Somewhat the same difficulties have been found in Australia to be incident to this method of enumerating the powers of either one of the governments provided in the federal system, as have been experienced both in the United States and in Canada. Much litigation has resulted. Nice and close questions are continuously being raised. The law is very uncertain. And no one who is not technically qualified, and who has not made an exhaustive examination of the judicial decisions on the constitution, which are sometimes contradictory,

can speak with any degree of certainty as to the actual powers of either the central or the local government.

The experience of all of the three countries, which have attempted in this manner to distribute the powers of government under a federal system, would seem to prove that this method of enumerating the powers to be intrusted to one of the two governments in such a system must have as one of its necessary incidents the establishment of a judicial tribunal for constitutional interpretation. The grant of such powers of interpretation to a judicial body would, however, seem practicable and advantageous only in the case of peoples whose sense of legality is highly developed, peoples among whom there are judicial traditions of long standing; peoples, finally, who as a result of years of experience with their courts have great confidence in judicial integrity and wisdom, and on that account are willing to accept their judges' decisions on questions which are often political rather than judicial in character.

VII

THE SOUTH AFRICAN UNION

NT

INE years after the establishment of the Australian Commonwealth, the same general problem which the United States, the Canadian Provinces, and the Australian Colonies had attempted to solve was presented to the South African colonies of the British Empire.

The European colonization of this part of the world was originally begun by the Dutch, who used the Cape of Good Hope as a place where they might refit and revictual the ships employed by them in the East India trade. During the Dutch occupation there had been a considerable immigration into the colony from Holland. The Dutch population was also augmented by quite a number of French Protestants-the Huguenots-who had fled from France in order to escape the persecutions inaugurated in the reign of Louis XIV. The French Huguenots amalgamated with the Dutch, and under the name of Boers their descendants devoted themselves for the most part to agricultural and pastoral pursuits and solved such labor problems as presented themselves by enslaving the native black population, without whose labor it would have been difficult if not impossible for the country to prosper.

In 1806, as an incident of the Napoleonic wars, the