Excerpt from The Draft Bill to Constitute the Commonwealth of Australia, as Adopted by the Convention of 1891 The object in view in the present publication is to present the draft Bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia in a convenient shape for reference, with such editorial notes as will enable readers, not accustomed to the study of Con stitutions, to make themselves acquainted with its provisions withoutmuch difficulty. The bill itself has been drafted with an evident desire to make matters as clear as possible to the general reader; but the language of the law is always more or less a foreign one to him and since the machinery of a Federal Constitution is necessarily complex in construction and intri cate in details, the most ingenious draftsman is liable to be misunderstood in his simplest clause. But an editor is at liberty to substitute plain English for terms of art, and to explain their meaning, when necessary, by a little commentary of his own. This is all that has been attempted on the present occasion. 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.