COMMONWEALTH 365

latter, and the number of representatives from each State,
depend on the population. The House of Representatives can be
dissolved at any time by the Executive, nor can it last longer
than three years without an election. The Senate is a permanent
body, whose members retire in rotation; but if the two Houses
disagree, they may both be dissolved, and after a new election
a majority vote at a Joint Sitting, in which the Senate .woiild be
considerably outnumbered, decides the matter. As has been shown,
the powe^rs of the British Hous6 of Lords may be so used as to
require an election on an issue disputed between Lords and
Commons; the Australian Constitution gives definite expression
to this principle of appeal to the people. The two Australian
Houses have equal power, except over Money Bills; the Senate
can only make recommendations about these; it cannot originate
or amend.

The Coihmonwealth stretches over an area more than thirty
times that of the United Kingdom, yet contains less than seven
million people. Migration from Britain, which, from a glance at
the map and the figures of British unemployment, seems the
obvious policy, is difficult to arrange. Much of the unpeopled
space is barren through lack of rainfall, and though it might, at
great expense, be made more fit for habitation, it is hard to say
what population Australia could, under modern conditions,
support. As a producer of wool, she suffered severely from the
1932 slump, and is still suffering from the decline in Japanese
purchases of wool following the great military expenditure of that
country. Small numbers do not necessarily mean absence of
unemployment. The Empire Settlement Act, 1932, led to
co-operation between the Mother Country and the States of
Australia, as a result of which a limited number of people were
enabled to migrate with grants of money and land to help them.
In 1936, the Overseas Settlement Board was set up as a Depart-
ment of the Dominions Office to consider the whole problem..
If world economic policy can be framed so as to provide greater
•security against slump, it may be that migration, both to