Born to be mild, part 2       Part 1

The only external "enemy" that did bring the colonies together was England herself, NSW and Victoria putting aside their differences in 1877 to field an Australian XI against England at the MCG, the first cricket Test ever played.

The 45-run victory by Dave Gregory's team gave the unification movement just the fillip it needed and within six years, a Federal Council of Australia – a council of colonial governments – was formed.

Granted, it was little more than a talkfest, a toothless tiger in which NSW refused to participate. But at least talk of federation was no longer confined to idle musings in the parlour over an after-dinner port.

It was not until October 24, 1889, however, that a galvanising moment occurred. It happened, of all places, in the small NSW northern border town of Tenterfield.

Sir Henry Parkes, then premier of NSW, had stopped there on his way back to Sydney after visiting Brisbane to discuss Federation with Queensland's political leaders and, moved perhaps by the rousing reception he was given by the townsfolk, shared with them his dream of a united Australia.

The time was ripe, he said, for the talkfest to stop and for a potent national government to be formed, one capable of mobilising an Australian armed force, one with the authority to impose a uniform railway gauge on the unruly colonies.

The "Tenterfield Oration" electrified the colonies and earned for Parkes the overblown and, many historians would argue, undeserved title of "Father of Federation".

Deserved or not, it had the effect four months later of bringing together representatives of seven colonies – New Zealand included – which agreed in principle to come together as a Federation.

In March the following year, parliamentary delegates from the colonies gathered in Sydney to flesh out the bare bones of the "in principle" agreement. Among the seven NSW delegates sent to the conference was Barton, whose impressive performance in defusing disagreement about the proposed powers of the Senate was to set him on the path to becoming, just 10 years later, Australia's first prime minister.

His first stroke of luck came when Tasmanian Andrew Inglis Clark, regarded by Professor Peter Botsman as Australia's Thomas Jefferson, took ill with the flu and had to withdraw from a cruise up the Hawkesbury River on the Queensland Government steamboat Lucinda as a member of the small party commissioned to draw up a draft Constitution.

And so all the accolades fell to the then Queensland Premier Sir Samuel Griffith, South Australian Charles Kingston and Barton for drafting what was to become, with a few amendments, the Australian Constitution. Yet, says Botsman, of its 126 sections, Clark's work before and after that famous cruise made him directly responsible for 88. Sadly, it went unrecognised – which explains why all those who sailed on the Lucinda had a suburb of Canberra named after them, while nowhere is the suburb of Clark to be found.

With the hard work of drafting the Constitution completed, the road to nationhood now seemed open. It was to close abruptly, however, as the colonies were hit in the early 1890s by a depression so severe that, in the long history of this land, only the Great Depression 40 years later would cause more misery.

Queensland was plunged into arguably its most tumultuous period, with the great shearers strike of 1891 prompting workers to again raise the Eureka flag; and again armed troops were sent in by the government to quell the uprising. Passions were running high and in the turbulent aftermath of the burning of the Dagworth station woolshed, Banjo Patterson put pen to paper to write the stirring words of Waltzing Matilda.

The Australian Labor Party was formed at Barcaldine and for seven turbulent days in December 1899, Queensland enjoyed the distinction of having the world's first Labor government.

Amidst all the upheaval, thoughts of Federation and constitutions and national governments were pushed momentarily off centre stage. Yet there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come and it was not long before unification was back on the "national" agenda.

Besides, as businesses around the country were wiped out by the depression, the realisation began to dawn that the best way for the colonies to weather the storm was to combine their resources, strengthen their economies and, as a Commonwealth of Australia, set about attracting more overseas investment.

MARCHING as one . . . onlookers hang off the parapets of the
Treasury building in Brisbane to catch a glimpse of the parade held
to mark Federation on January 1, 1901.

Even then, Queensland did things its own way, boycotting the 1898 vote. With its sugar industry heavily reliant on Kanaka labour, the northern colony had serious misgivings about the "White Australia Policy" component of Federation and it was not until the other colonies sweetened the deal financially that Queenslanders went to the polls.

Not all Queenslanders, however. Indeed, it was anything but. For starters, Queensland's 215,000 females were denied the vote, so too all Aborigines. And of the other races, only the richest Indian and Chinese merchants were eligible to vote. What's more, a six-month residential qualification meant that Queensland's large itinerant workforce – shearers, canecutters and navvies – also were denied.

That meant that out of a Queensland population of around 482,000, fewer than 70,000 were granted a say on whether Queensland was to become a state in the new Commonwealth, a homogeneous white vote for an homogeneous white land.

The Brisbane Courier campaigned heavily for the "Yes" vote, posing the question in its editorial: Will Queensland declare herself unworthy of Australian nationality?

In the end, however, the vote was tight, 38,488 in favour, 30,996 against. According to Professor Fitzgerald, it was only the lie Britain's colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain told to north Queenslanders, that their best chance of forming a new state of their own was if Federation went through, that swung the vote in favour of Queensland becoming part of Australia.

Had Queensland held out, Western Australia almost certainly would have followed its lead. Counter-factual history is always tricky to argue but certainly it is intriguing to speculate where this continent would be today had Chamberlain told the truth and Queensland voted No. As it was, Queen Victoria had actually signed the documents granting royal assent to the new nation before WA belatedly decided to join the other five colonies.

Lyne soon found that he did not have support to form a government, thanks mainly to Barton's close friend and Australia's second prime minister, Deakin – an intriguing man who even while acting as attorney-general and later PM, continued to file anonymous reports as the Australian correspondent for the London Morning Post.

And so to January 1, 1901, when Barton and other members of his appointed – not elected – government were sworn in by Lord Hopetoun in Sydney.

Lord Hopetoun is cheered into Martin Place in Sydney during
the Federation celebrations.

His memory is preserved in the federal seat of Dickson.

The Courier's coverage of the celebrations described young men balancing Blondin-like on the parapets of the Treasury building in order to get a better view of the parade – the first recorded case of gambling at the future casino site – but it would have to be conceded that Queenslanders generally did not fall head over heels in love with the new nation.

"It was not a day for excesses of jubilation," The Courier reported, "when the joys of our natures find expression in cheering and wild delight. Not as some great victory on the field of battle or the relief of a beleaguered British garrison have we celebrated the union of Australia in one bond.

"We have argued the matter out, have thought it over, have decided after mature consideration that it was good and our keener enthusiasm found its expression when Queensland so splendidly decided at the ballot box for Federation.

"All that was left after that was the arrangement of details and the organisation of a function to show that we were not insensitive to the change of condition upon which we were about to enter."

No stirring patriotic themes to tug at the heart. It was all sober, serious and terribly pragmatic.

On the other side of the world, Private Victor Jones of Mount Morgan died this day, January 1, 1901, killed while fighting alongside the British in South Africa. Queensland, the first colony in the Empire to volunteer troops for the Boer War, had lost 28 of its 1124 men to that point, so Jones's death, the 29th, passed unremarked. He deserved better, for he was the first Australian ever to die in battle.

A mere 14 years later, many more Australian soldiers would share Private Jones's fate.

The place was Gallipoli. The date was April 25, 1915 – the day the political union of all Australians became a spiritual union as well.

REFERENCE SOURCES: Why are we celebrating? by Donald Horne and Helen Irving; The story of Australia's Federation by Leslie Horsphol; Australia's Yesterday, Reader's Digest; Professor Ross Fitzgerald, Professor of History and Politics, Griffith University and chair of the Centenary of Federation (Queensland)