The merits of having a new capital hewn out of the unpopulated wilderness as against having the capital in an existing city were tossed about by delegates in the Adelaide and Melbourne constitutional conventions of 1897 and 1898 with wonderful Victorian language:
Joseph Abbott (NSW): I think that the position of New South Wales is exactly the same as the position of the state of New York, the capital of which is Albany. The capital of the state of New York contains 91,000 inhabitants-that is, the legal capital of the state of New York-but the city of New York, with Brooklyn, which forms part of the same city, contains 2,500,000 inhabitants. Wherever you fix the capital of Federated Australia, I feel sure that the facilities of trade will fix the capital where those facilities are the greatest, and I am not at all concerned as to where the capital will be fixed as a matter of law, because I know where it will be as a matter of fact. As there is no other city with the facilities of Sydney, the capital will, de facto, be Sydney, although it may, de jure, be in Western Australia. I think it is a small thing to quarrel about, or devote our attention to at present. Representing New South Wales, I am perfectly prepared to leave it to the Federal Parliament to determine where the capital of the Commonwealth shall be.
Then there was this exchange:
Joseph Carruthers (NSW): We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that very good argument may be used against having the federal capital dissociated from those centres of trade and commerce and culture which exist in Australia. I, for one, look at the example which the United States has afforded us as one not worthy of being copied – to establish the capital almost in the wilderness, away from where commercial men, professional men, men of education, are wont to congregate, away from where their business keeps them together, and to set the affairs of the State, forsooth, to be conducted in some far distant place, where there are not those surroundings of civilization which tend to make life pleasant or to make society happy. I think that one of the results of establishing the capital of the United States at Washington, has been largely to divorce from political life some of the best elements of the community. We do not want to copy a mistake of that character. Let us contemplate for one moment the establishment of a federal capital, as has been proposed in some places, in the interior of Australia. There are many who advocate its establishment there on the ground that it will be easily defended.
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