+State Legislatures.+—­Even after federation the State Houses will still continue to touch at most points the daily lives of the people; they will merely be shorn of some of their powers and drained of some of their best leaders.  The fiscal issue, which has had great influence in deciding party lines in the past, will be removed from the arena of strife, leaving no other than an indefinite line of division into Liberals and Conservatives, which in practice tends to become a division into lower and upper classes.  This is the danger ahead; and it can only be avoided by the formation of strong party organizations appealing to all classes to work together for the general welfare.  Party government is just as necessary in State politics as in national politics.

The present position is intolerable; the disintegration of parties is so complete that there is not a responsible ministry in Australia worthy of the name.  Among the causes which have led to this deplorable state of affairs the present method of election is undoubtedly the most potent; it frequently happens that four or five candidates, representing as many groups, contest a single seat.  In Victoria, where the state of chaos is perhaps worst, the influence of the press, the existence of a strong Labour section in the Lower House, and the class character of the Upper House, representing property and capital, have been the principal contributing causes.

With the advent of federation a revision of the State constitution is widely demanded, and is likely to be conceded.  One of the first steps necessary to restore harmony must be reform of the Upper House by a gradual extension of the franchise and a lowering of the qualification, so as to ensure that elections are freely contested; it is its present unrepresentative character which gives force to the appeals of the radical press and intensifies class divisions.

The relation of State parties to the national parties is an important subject.  In the article from which we have already quoted, in United Australia, Mr. Deakin writes:—­“There cannot be a series of Liberal parties, one Federal and the others in the States, each going its own way.  There must be but one party, with one programme, to which effect will require to be given continuously in both the States and the Commonwealth.”  He therefore deplores that the Liberal party, together with its “left wing,” the Labour class, will be split on the fiscal issue.  “It is this apparently unavoidable rupture in the party,” he declares, “which endangers its prospects and presents an opportunity to the Conservative classes of either seizing or sharing an authority to which they could not otherwise aspire.”  If this means that the “Liberal” and Labour classes are entitled by reason of their numbers to a perpetual lease of power in both domains, there can be no more dangerous doctrine.  Parties should be decided by questions of progress and financial policy, and not on class lines; and since the State and Federal legislatures have separate spheres of action, parties should be separate also, unless, indeed, they are to be founded on corruption, as in the United States, where the same two parties control not only national and State politics, but city government also.