Barton government

The background to the Barton government saw the six British colonies of Australia vote to federate as one Commonwealth. Sir Henry Parkes was among the leading voices calling for Federation and had kick-started the movement with his Tenterfield Oration of 1889:[2]

Australia [now has] a population of three and a half millions, and the American people numbered only between three and four millions when they formed the great commonwealth of the United States. The numbers were about the same, and surely what the Americans had done by war, the Australians could bring about in peace, without breaking the ties that held them to the mother country.

Known himself as the "Father of Federation", Parkes would die before the project was completed. Shortly before his death in 1896, Parkes called on Edmund Barton to take up the struggle of leading the push for Federation. Barton in turn announced:[3]

There is one great thing which above all activates me in my political life, and will activate me until it is accomplished, and that is the question of the union of the Australian colonies.

After a series of constitutional conventions and referendums, the colonies agreed to federate as a new "commonwealth": the Commonwealth of Australia. The Constitution of Australia, with its provision for the foundation of a bicameral Australian Parliament, was endorsed by the Imperial Parliament in Britain and signed into law by Queen Victoria. Lord Hopetoun, a Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria and a former Governor of the Colony of Victoria, was selected as Australia's first Governor-General, and the appointment of the first Cabinet was put in train.

The new Parliament quickly moved to restrict immigration to maintain Australia's "British character", and the Pacific Island Labourers Bill and the Immigration Restriction Bill were passed shortly before parliament rose for its first Christmas recess. Nevertheless, the Colonial Secretary in Britain made it clear that a race based immigration policy would run "contrary to the general conceptions of equality which have ever been the guiding principle of British rule throughout the Empire", so the Barton government conceived of the "language dictation test", which would allow the government, at the discretion of the minister, to block unwanted migrants by forcing them to sit a test in "any European language". Race had already been established as a premise for exclusion among the colonial parliaments, so the main question for debate was who exactly the new Commonwealth ought to exclude, with the Labor Party rejecting Britain's calls to placate the populations of its non-white colonies and allow "aboriginal natives of Asia, Africa, or the islands thereof". There was opposition from Queensland and its sugar industry to the proposals of the Pacific Islanders Bill to exclude "Kanaka" labourers, however Barton argued that the practice was "veiled slavery" that could lead to a "negro problem" similar to that in the United States and the Bill was passed.[3]

The restrictive measures established by the first parliament gave way to multi-ethnic immigration policies only after the Second World War, with the "dictation test" itself being finally abolished in 1958 by the Menzies government.[8]

The occasion of the first federal Budget saw the Protectionist supporters of the Barton government clash with the Free Trade Opposition led by George Reid. The Customs Tariff Act took some five months to debate, until finally receiving Royal Assent in September 1902. In the end it was less protectionist than the standard set in the new State of Victoria. The new federation had to establish uniform customs duties and end the trade barriers which had existed between the colonies.[3]

Barton travelled to Britain for the Coronation of King Edward VII and the Colonial Conference of 1902 where he came up against the push for "free trade within the Empire".

In 1902, a historic law granting women's suffrage throughout the Commonwealth was enacted[5] entitled the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902. Prior to Federation, women had already gained these rights in South Australia and Western Australia.

Prior to Federation, Britain's Australian colonies had dispatched forces to assist Britain in the Boer War in South Africa. Britain sought further forces from the new Commonwealth, and Barton secured the agreement of the new Parliament, though Australian Federal forces did not reach South Africa until the final stages of that war. Barton was an Imperial loyalist, and represented Australia at the 1902 Coronation of Edward VII. Whilst in Britain, he was honoured with the title Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Michael and St George (KGCMG). He also secured support for an expanded British naval squadron at Sydney which would assist with training a local force and lobbied fort preferential treatment for Australian trade within the British Empire.[5]

Barton received congratulations from the Pope on the tolerance shown to Catholics within Australia, and Barton in return offered assurances that this would continue. The exchange prompted "strenuous disapproval" in the form of a petition from some thousands of Australian Protestants.[3]

Towards the end of his term in office, Britain and Japan concluded the Anglo–Japanese naval agreement, for which Barton managed to secure the approval of the Australian Parliament and the gratitude of Japan in the form of the Order of the Rising Sun First Class.[5]

One of the most important issues dealt with by the new parliament was the establishment of a High Court. The Judiciary Act 1903, enacted in August, established the High Court of Australia with three, rather than the five judges originally proposed. On 24 September 1903, Barton resigned as Prime Minister, to accept appointment to new Court, together with Cabinet colleague Richard O'Connor.[5] The gifted constitutional scholar Samuel Griffith became the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and was instrumental in the shaping of Australia's legal system.[9]