This extract from a document written in 1902 by Major-General Sir Edward Hutton (the Commander of the Military Forces of the Commonwealth) for the Minister for Defence (Sir John Forrest) highlights the kinds of concerns that motivated Australians to want to federate.

Focus questions
DeQ12 Why are there growing concerns about activity in waters surrounding Australia?
DeQ13 Why is Australia's welfare thought to be dependent on what happens in the Indian Ocean, Northern Pacific and China Sea?

DEFENCE CONCERNS IN 1902

…The last six years have witnessed a momentous change in the balance of power in the East. The rise of Japan into an armed power of the first magnitude; the acquisition of Port Arthur [China] by Russia; the occupation of the Philippines, and of Guam (Ladrone Islands) and Tutuila (Samoa) by the United States; and of the remaining Samoan Islands and part of New Guinea, by Germany; and the annexation of Madagascar as a colony by France are facts of the gravest significance to Australian interests. The transformation of the United States into an oversea Power by her acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippines, the development of Japan, the evolution of China, the opening of a Panama Canal at an early date, and the movement of Russia towards a port in the India Ocean with her increasing interest in Persia, all point to the Indian Ocean, the Northern Pacific, and the China Sea as the probable scene of the future struggle for commercial supremacy. Australia cannot in such an eventuality remain unconcerned. It may be assumed, therefore, that Australia will determine not only to defend her soil, but to take steps also to defend those vast interests beyond her shores upon the maintenance of which her present existence and her future prosperity must so largely depend.

Two factors, therefore, may be considered as governing the future organization and administration of the Military Forces of the Commonwealth, namely:-

Extract from a minute by Major-General Sir Edward Hutton (Commanding the Military Forces of the Commonwealth) for the Minister for Defence (Sir John Forrest), 7 April 1902, cited in Gordon Greenwood & Charles Grimshaw (eds), Documents on Australian International Affairs 1901-1918, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1977, p. 117.