§ 30. “Shall take Effect.”
Another consequence and necessary incident of the Union is that the Constitution shall on the day so appointed “take effect” or come into operation. Here we reach the third and final stage in the progress of political organization contemplated by the Act. It clearly appears that the Constitution is something distinct from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is the community united by the Imperial Act. The Constitution provides the necessary machinery for the government of that community so as to secure its continuity, safety and development. The provision of Clause 3 that the Queen may appoint a Governor-General for the Commonwealth at any time after the issue of the Proclamation, and before the actual establishment of the Commonwealth and before the Constitution “takes effect,” is somewhat incongruous and looks like an interpolation out of harmony with the sequence of the other initiatory stages. It enables the Queen to appoint a Governor-General, not for an actual existent Commonwealth, not to fill an office created by a constitution actually in force, but for the Commonwealth that is to be, and in order to fill an office that does not yet exist.