A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott

The three parties--The Barton Ministry--Reid and the Opposition--Watson and the Labour Party--The White Australia policy--Kanaka labour-- C. C. Kingston--Conciliation and Arbitration Bill--First Deakin Government--Watson Government--The Reid-McLean Government--Second Deakin Government--Retirement of Watson--Fisher leader of Labour Party--First Fisher Government--The 'Fusion' (Deakin-Cook) Government--Second Fisher Government--Cook Government--A ride for a fall--Dead-lock--Third Fisher Government--Hughes Government--The great European War.

Historical events, like mountain ranges, can best be surveyed as a whole by an observer who is placed at a good distance from them. Out of the welter of acrimony, stratagem, ambition, generous impulses, lofty aspirations, meanness, selfishness, patriotism, and all the other motive forces amid which the work of the world gets itself done, emerge at length clear to the view certain shining personalities, certain determinations fluent in consequences, which are the stuff of which history is made. Many people who made such noise while they strutted their hour become happily forgotten, and many events which were responsible for large headings in newspapers are seen to be of no particular importance. The student of the history of the first quarter of a century of the Commonwealth who enters upon his task a century hence will see things in different proportion from him who makes the attempt at closer range.