Page 228 - Afrika Must Unite

EXAMPLES OF MAJOR UNIONS OF STATES 213

those subjects that are not withdrawn by constitutional defini­
tion. Nevertheless, the central authority is quite extensive,
ranging over trade, industry, criminal law, taxation, quarantine,
m arriage and divorce, weights and measures, legal tender, copy­
rights and patents, naturalization and aliens. The federal
principle of equal representation of the states is practised by the
election of six members from each of the six states to the Senate,
for a period of six years, half retiring every three years. Election
to the House of Representatives is on a population basis, with
not less than five members from each of the States.
If union did not bring to Canada and Australia, for example,
the tremendous surge forward that it gave to the United States
and the Soviet Union, it is because other factors were not equal.
Though Canada is considerably bigger than the United States,
her territory includes large stretches of wasteland where civilized
habitation has so far proved impossible. Australia, on her side,
has a great belt of arid country in the interior, and the population
is more or less confined to the coastal areas. Both Canada and
Australia are thinly populated and are encouraging a policy of
immigration from Great Britain and Europe.
Though both dominions remain tied to the British Common­
wealth, Canada’s contiguity with the United States has brought
her within the orbit of American monopoly capitalism, which
today has major investments in the growing Canadian economy,
to the chagrin of certain critics. Wool and gold helped to
accumulate early capital in A ustralia; but industrialization did
not really get under way on a large scale until fairly recently.
Here, again, American monopoly is sinking in its teeth. In
Canada, there is still a certain am ount of racial friction between
the French and English communities and this is aggravated by
the interference of the Rom an Catholic Church.
A federal form of government operates in Venezuela, and the
provision of the constitution adopted in 1936 vests legislative
power in a national congress of two houses: the Senate and
Cham ber of Deputies. It meets every year at Caracas. The
Senate consists of two members from each of the nominally
independent, self-governing states. This gives forty members,
elected by the state legislatures for a period of four years.
Election to the Cham ber is by direct vote of a suffrage limited to