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.
John Forrest (WA): Too hot.
Carruthers: I do not say that all propositions in regard to this Constitution emanate from within the walls of this chamber, but it has been seriously proposed that the federal capital should be established in the interior of Australia.
Forrest: Only by lunatics.
Carruthers: We can imagine, then, the establishment of the Federal High Court there, because it will have to hold its chief sittings in the federal capital. You will require a bar to attend there, and I undertake to say that almost for a century to come the leading members of the bar will be found practising their profession in the capital cities of the various colonies, and for litigants to engage a bar to attend to their cases in some distant so-called federal capital will mean to penalize litigants to an enormous extent before the Federal High Court. Again, take the class of men who will be eligible for election to the Federal Parliament which must sit in that federal territory. Men must go far away from their homes, far away from the society they are accustomed to.
Forrest: That must apply to some, any way.
Carruthers: It will not apply to so large an extent.
Forrest: If it sits at Sydney it will apply to all the Melbourne people.
Carruthers: Not to the same extent. I can assure the honourable member that the ground can be largely cut from under his feet in that respect. If it is in federal territory away from these cities it conveniences no one; it inconveniences every one. You will be largely handing over politics to political adventurers if you isolate the Federal Parliament from all the populous centres of Australia. You will not find men largely engaged in commerce, men largely engaged in professional pursuits, men who have large interests to look after in the various centres-you will not find these men willing to give up a large proportion of their time each year to go into the wilderness of Australia. Sir John Forrest says that the same thing will apply if we have the capital established in any leading city.
Forrest: Why not?
Carruthers: It will apply to some extent, but not to the extent that it would apply in the case I have just cited. Nearly all men engaged in mercantile pursuits or commercial pursuits can to some extent be conducting their business in whatever city they may be, can establish a branch business there.
[The High Court now does many hearings between cities by video conferencing.]
John Downer (SA): I have no fear of the dangers which the founders of the American Commonwealth anticipated through the federal capital being a central city. We can understand very well in this Convention that there was no reason for it. The Convention has met in Adelaide, it has met in Sydney, and now it is meeting in Melbourne; and I would like to ask any honourable member whether the locality where the meetings of the Convention were being held has had the slightest effect on the mind of any honourable member? It may have been beneficial. The changing of the locality is distinctly beneficial, because we have seen in many instances that the removal of honourable members from the more immediate influences that ordinarily surround them has developed a breadth of view which the limitations of home might have prevented.
Forrest: I should very much like to see a new city erected in some suitable place, where we could all go in summer. It ought to be a cool place; indeed, the coolest place in Australia. It ought to be a place where we could build a federal city, looking forward with great ideas in our minds to the future. It ought to be a place where a city could be laid out which would be the admiration not only of the present but of future generations. I cannot help remembering that the lands of this territory, in the early days of the Federal Constitution, would be a source of great revenue. I should like to see it inserted in the Bill that the federal area should not be less than 100 square miles. No doubt, as Mr. Carruthers has said, such a federal territory might cause inconvenience at first, but this inconvenience would disappear as time went on. It would, no doubt, be inconvenient for the Sydney people to come to Melbourne, for South Australians to go to Sydney or Brisbane, or for the Western Australian representatives to come to the east. But these difficulties we have foreseen from the beginning, and I do not think they would get greater, but less, as time goes on.
Patrick Glynn (SA): Many writers have said that as the result of having Washington away from the direct influence of the public, and away from the opportunities which would be afforded to politicians of mixing with the professional, literary, and other classes, Washington has become the centre of political cliquism and a good deal of corruption.