Editorial:
Our "finest hour". Commemorating Federation

The commemoration of the founding of the Australian Commonwealth 
(Federation) one hundred years ago has come and gone. Few will be any the 
wiser about the circumstances and issues that brought Federation about. The 
politicians trotted out a string of platitudes to serve their immediate 
interests. Howard, continuing his theme of Australia being the greatest, 
said: "Australia is one of but a handful of countries that has remained 
continuously democratic for 100 years". Few people were in the park to 
witness the official re-enactment.

For Australia's first one hundred years the individual States were governed 
as colonies by British appointed administrators. Each was separate both 
politically and economically. Each legislated its own laws for what it saw 
to be in the interests of the State's ruling elite which was closely 
connected to the British establishment.

Slowly the economies of these colonies expanded. The original Aboriginal 
occupants had been dispossessed of their land which was divided up among 
the conquerors. Roads were being built. Trade expanded, not only with 
England but between the States as well. Each State, however, imposed its 
own customs tariffs which restricted trade and stifled the enrichment of 
the emerging Australian capitalist class. Australia's overwhelmingly 
British immigrant population started to think in terms of running its own 
affairs. America's European settlers had gone down the same path but had 
had to wage a war of independence to win their freedom from British 
colonialism.

A rather motley band of Australian politicians emerged who took up the same 
demand. Their solution was not a war of independence but the establishment 
of a compromise Federation of the States while remaining tightly tied to 
Britain's apron strings.

It is only now, one hundred years later, that the struggle to finally cut 
the knot of British tutelage is being waged in the form of the campaign for 
a Republic. Even this will not limit or eliminate the influence of British 
investment capital.

The new Australian nation was to be thoroughly capitalist, contenting 
itself with the adoption of Federal legislation that unified certain 
aspects of Australia's economic and social conditions in the interests of 
the capitalist class as a whole.

This process of unification is still going on with the States screaming 
every time they think that their state rights are being infringed by a 
centralising Federal Government.

Unlike other British colonial possessions, the British Government was 
prepared to compromise and grant a measure of self-rule. Why? Australia was 
mainly peopled by the sons and daughters of Britain. Unlike most other 
British colonies there was no large indigenous population to worry about 
and the theory was that the Aborigines were going to die out anyway.

Britain saw the Australian Commonwealth as a supplier of raw materials for 
British manufacturers and also as an Anglo-Saxon base which could assist to 
keep order for Britain in her Asian colonies. Even before Federation, 
Australians responded to the call for horsemen and foot-soldiers to help 
Britain seize the wealth of South Africa from the Boers, the Dutch 
colonialists. This was done to the beating of drums and by whipping up a 
nationalistic fervour.

The difference now is that British dependence has been replaced with a 
cringing dependence on the United States.

The Howard Government is beefing up our military forces, beating out a 
nationalistic tune, raising fears about "the rim of instability to our 
north", about creating "security" and "stability" in our region. These 
phrases are merely a cover for the reimposition of a new form of 
colonialism on all Asian countries. In the march organised in Sydney in 
connection with Federation the military contingent was by far the largest.

Federation was a necessary step in the consolidation of Australia as an 
independent nation but it was only a small step. Australia's "finest hour" 
lies ahead. It is not to be found in our participation in the various dirty 
imperialist wars into which our craven politicians have dragged us.

Our "finest hour" will come when Australia really becomes an independent 
nation, enjoying friendly and peaceful relations with our neighbours, and a 
country which provides for the well-being of all its citizens.