FOR AND AGAINST: Different Views
Extra Document 2

VICTORIA'S PREMIER IN FAVOUR

… After the most careful, earnest, and anxious consideration in this matter of great importance and vast magnitude; after placing the advantages against the disadvantages; after setting the losses against the gains, and the merits of the measure against its demerits, the doubts and fears he at one time entertained with regard to federating under this constitution had altogether disappeared, and he accepted it with all its risks and all its consequences. (Cheers.) There may for a time have to be some little extra taxation imposed, but for the benefits that would accrue to this his native land he was prepared to make that slight sacrifice. (Cheers.) He would, therefore, vote for the acceptance of the constitution, and would advise everyone else to do the same. (Cheers.) We were not handing our affairs over to a foreign body, but to the management of men chosen from amongst ourselves, and he had the utmost confidence and trust in them to do what was right and just to all the states. The people had a solemn duty imposed on them, and that was to vote for or against the constitution according to their views. None should be apathetic. All should record their votes, as 50,000 at least were required in the affirmative before the measure could be adopted. He believed when the vote was taken that there would be such an almost unanimous "Aye" as would clearly prove that Victoria was truly and honestly in favour of sweeping away all boundaries and barriers, and welding these great colonies into a powerful federation – a noble Commonwealth, under that flag which we all respected and revered, the grand old Union Jack. (Loud and continued cheers.)

Sir George Turner, speech at St Kilda, Argus, Melbourne, 14 April 1898, cited in Scott Bennett (ed.), Federation, Cassell Australia, North Melbourne, 1975, p. 89.