ned, like Newfoundland, a
unitary State directly subordinate to Great Britain. Nor, in the matter
of relations with the Mother Country, were the federating Colonies
merged so completely in the Commonwealth as the Provinces of Canada in
the Dominion. The Canadians had not only to construct the Dominion
Constitution, but new Constitutions for two of the federating
Provinces--Ontario and Quebec--and it was natural, therefore, that they
should identify the Provinces more closely with the Dominion. The
Australians, having to deal with six ready-made State Constitutions,
left them as they were, subject only to the limitations imposed by the
Commonwealth Constitution. One of the results is that the State
Governors are still appointed directly by the British Government, not by
the Commonwealth. This constitutional arrangement, however, has no very
practical significance. The right of appeal direct from a State Court to
the King in Council, without the intervention of the High Court of
Australia, remains, as in Canada, the only direct link between the
individual States and the British Government.

The Federal tie between the States and the Commonwealth, as defined in
the Act of 1900, is looser than that between the Provinces of Canada and
the Dominion, and bears more resemblance to the relation between a State
and the Federal Government of the United States. As in that country and
in Switzerland, residuary powers rest with the State or Canton
Governments, not with the Federal Government.

The South African Union of 1909, comprising the Colonies of the Cape of
Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, had a
Federal origin, so to speak, in that the old Colonies agreed to abandon
a great part of their autonomies to a central Government and
Legislature; but the spirit of unity carried them so far as almost to
annul State rights. The powers now retained by the provincial
Legislatures are so small, and the control of the Union Government is so
far-reaching, that the whole system is rightly described as a Union, not
as a Federation. The Provinces, which are really little more than
municipalities, have no longer any relation except in remotest
constitutional theory with the Mother Country, their Administrators are
appointed by the Union, and, unlike the Provinces of Canada and the
States of Australia, they have not even an internal system of
responsible government.[77] No direct appeal lies to the King in Council
f