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August 27, 2007
The passage below is from an essay by Andrew Inglis Clarke entitled ‘The Future of the Australian Commonwealth: A Province or a Nation?’ (circa 1902-3) Clarke is arguing for the political autonomy of a federated Australia as a distinctive nation:
If the thirteen original States of the Anglo American Republic had remained appendages of the British Empire until today the distinctively Anglo American nation which occupies the territory included in the forty two states which stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific would never have existed, and its distinctive contributions to the social and political ideals and progress of the human race would never have been included in the records of human achievement. So also if the Commonwealth of Australia remains forever an appendage of the British Empire, a distinctively Australian nation will never contribute its distinctively national ideals and achievements to the history of the world, because so long as it remains in that position it will never reach that maturity of national life which can never be attained without a realization of national individuality which is essential for the full consciousness by a community of its capacities and opportunities.
Political autonomy means political independence and separate sovereignty. That meant arguing against the British imperialists.
And he does:
When the advocates of a perpetual union between all the parts of the British Empire employ the word federation todescribe a union which shall continue the present paramount legislative power of the Imperial Parliament and the disallowing prerogative of the Crown in regard to he legislation of all the subordinate Parliaments of the Empire, they make a total misuse of the word federation as a recognised term of political nomenclature and thereby unconsciously conceal from themselves the true character of the imperial organisation which they contemplate. The patriotism of the advocates of the perpetuity of the empire and their desire to see its power exerted for the highest welfare of all its parts is admitted unreservedly. But it does not follow that a true Australian patriotism should prompt the people of the Australian Commonwealth to see the highest ideal of their country’s future greatness and welfare in its continued existence as an outlying province or part of a world wide empire, however powerful and glorious that empire may be, and notwithstanding that as such province, or part of it, the Commonwealth would have a legal voice in the Councils of the Empire in regard to everything that affected Australia interests. The position of the Australian people in such a case would not be that of a nation in the complete possession and exercise of sovereign power, and it is only in the complete possession and full exercise of sovereign power that any community can find the realization and expression of a distinct and integral national life.
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