ARGUS EDITORIAL

The Federal Parliament of Australia will be opened to-day by the Heir to the throne in person, and thus the vision of united Australia becomes an accomplished fact. It is good for the world, good for the empire, and good for ourselves that this dream has been realised. It is good for the world that a White Empire should grow up in these Southern-Asian seas, as a counter-balance to the great Asiatic empires of China and Japan, with all their mysterious possibilities. The coloured races were fast creeping down the Malayan peninsula and isles, and it is well that Australia is occupied beforehand by a united people, who will maintain for Europe its civilisation here. Our unity is good for the British Empire, for it is a long step towards that Imperial federation which will be the consolidation of the empire's power. Some of us who take part in the rejoicings of the week may live to see the larger union accomplished, the British people possessing the one Parliament and the one Customs law, as well as the one Sovereign, the one literature, and the one flag. It may be the happy fortune of the Duke of Cornwall and York, who opens the first Parliament of Australia, to open other Parliaments in which all parts of the empire will be directly represented. We sincerely hope that this honour will fall to His Royal Highness. No Emperor of the old world, no Caesar, no Alexander, could even imagine so wide a sovereign sway; no Czar, no American President can hope for a realm so wide extended as that which a federated Great Britain will fuse into a whole. And the union of Australia brings Imperial federation close to the line of practical politics. It is the next stop.

The union of Australia is good for ourselves. It confirms our allegiance to the Crown. It gives us a place and a position in the world. It means all the difference between our taking the wrong road, the downward road, and the right or upward path. These colonies might have remained apart, and become small, bickering, and ridiculous states, such as the colonies of Spain and Portugal have become. No one expects Peru or Chili or Venezuela or Ecuador to play a part in the world. They fight amongst themselves. They are to be pitied, it may be, but assuredly not admired. It may be that we could not sink to the level of the South American republics, and yet a paltry fate was not only within the bounds of possibility, but was a very present danger. A paltry jealousy between the colonies was growing up. Bitter tariff hostilities were being eagerly promoted, with disastrous consequences, and the bitterness of the strife was sure to increase as time was allowed to roll on. These and all other similar perils have now been set aside, and it is a happy necessity of our new position that our people will have a wider vision than before, a greater ambition and nobler aims … We have an enormous territory which we can people with the one race, under the one law; which can never have a foe on its borders, for it is guarded by the "inviolate sea." We can and we ought to develop here one of the highest civilisations of the world. To this great task our Federal Parliament has to devote itself almost from the very start, and we have to hope that it will be equal to its opportunities.

Argus, Melbourne, 9 May 1901, p. 5.

The Royal Visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York was an occasion that prompted an outpouring of loyal Imperial sentiment. Celebrations were meticulously organised and, in Melbourne, featured parades through streets lined with purpose-built arches.