Gavin R. Putland,  BE PhD

Thursday, September 17, 2015 (Comment)

The day the deal was done

On this day in 1900, the Commonwealth of Australia became a done deal:

Victoria R.

WHEREAS by an Act of Parliament passed in the Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Years of Our Reign intituled, “An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia,” it is enacted that it shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the Privy Council, to declare by Proclamation that, on and after a day appointed, not being later than One Year after the passing of this Act, the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia:

And whereas We are satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto accordingly:

We, therefore, by and with the advice of Our Privy Council, have thought fit to issue this Our Royal Proclamation, and We do hereby declare that on and after the First day of January, One thousand nine hundred and one, the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Given at Our Court at Balmoral, this Seventeenth day of September, in the Year of Our Lord One thousand nine hundred, and in the Sixty-fourth Year of Our Reign.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.


[First posted 2013, abridged 2015.]


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