Excerpt from The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth: A Chronicle of Contemporary Politics, 1901-1910 Yet, if history is philosophy teaching by examples, it must surely be desirable that the record of those examples should have the chance of verification before the distorting influence of subsequent events has, blurred their outline, or minimised their importance. The setters-forth of those facts, the hodmen of literature are not without their value to the philosophic historian, who, in another century, may seek to work out the harmonious relations of cause and effect in con nection with national development. The narrative in the following pages will be but as an Oft told story to the readers Of to-day; but, by its concentration and consecutiveness, it will help to focus in their minds the sum of what has been done, and what has been left undone, by the Commonwealth Government in the days of its infancy. I hope it will be found not altogether useless in the present, as well as in the future. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.