John Henry Want - Political Career - Upper House

Upper House

Want was nominated to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1894 and from 18 December 1894 until April 1889 (apart from 10 weeks in 1898) was attorney-general in the George Reid ministry. Want returned to politics partly because he wanted to keep the free trade party together and partly because he had always been opposed to Federation, and could carry on the fight better in parliament. He believed in the pre-eminence of his own colony, New South Wales, and he feared that under any kind of union it would lose its position. How strongly he felt can be seen by a quotation from one of his speeches: "I would rather see almost anything than see this hydra-headed monster called federation basking in its constitutional beastliness--for that is what it is--in this bright and sunny land. . . . I was the first public man to assert my intention of opposing to the bitter end any system of federation, because there can be none which would not involve the surrender of our independence and liberty." Want was still a member of Reid's ministry when Reid made his famous Yes-No speech on 28 March 1898, and could not understand how his leader could conclude without asking his hearers to vote against a measure which this very speech had shown to be "rotten, weak, and unfair". He resigned from the ministry a few days later, but joined it again in June after the defeat of the first referendum. Want left Australia on a visit to England in December 1898 and resigned from the ministry in the following April.