67. Australian Emblems.
| Victoria. | New South Wales. | Western Australia. |
In 1865, when Colonial Navies were first established, the vessels of war maintained by the local governments in Australia were authorized to use the blue ensign, with the seal or badge of the colony in the centre of the fly,[187] and thus the escutcheon being transferred from the centre of the Jack to the centre of the "fly," was given another position, and the local stories of the Australian colonies, which established these fleets, became embodied in the British blue ensign.[188]
A similar privilege, although they are not commissioned as vessels of war, was afterwards extended to the "fishery protection" cruisers of Canada, so that these and all other vessels which are owned by the Government of the Dominion carry the blue ensign with the arms of Canada in the centre of the fly.
Authority was also given to all these vessels owned and commissioned by the colonial governments to fly a blue pennant of the same shape as that of the British navy (Fig. 22, page 108), with the white ground and red cross of St. George at the head, but having the fly blue instead of red.[189]
By such successive steps the Imperial idea became attached to one of the ensigns of the British navy.
From the plain white escutcheon in the centre of the colonial Union Jack, 1701, to the special emblem in the fly of the colonial blue ensign, 1865, was a long way, but other steps were yet to be taken.
The vessels owned by the governments of the colonies had thus been given their special British Union flags, but provision had not been made for those owned by private citizens. The plain red ensign has, by authority of Queen Anne, become the national right of all British subjects on all lands as well as on all seas. As the colonies developed in native energy so their merchant shipping increased, and in recognition of this advance, and in order that their ports of origin might be made known, all colonial-owned merchant vessels were accorded, in 1889,[190] the right of wearing, together with the red ensign, an additional flag on which might be shown the distinguishing badge or insignia of their colony, similarly as under James I. direction had been given to raise the separate national Jack of England or of Scotland at the same time as the King's Union Jack. In order to prevent the possibility of mistakes in identification, it was further directed that any flags of this character were to be made in such a way as not to resemble any of the existing flags of the Royal Navy.
In some of the Australian colonies local flags of excellent design had been devised, but these additional flags of entirely separate design were not all that could be desired, for while the special local flag might give expression to the local patriotism represented, there might come with it also an idea of separation, and it did not succeed in expressing the dominant and prevailing sentiment of allegiance to "One Empire, One Flag."
It fell to the lot of the statesmen of Canada, who do not seem to be behindhand in developing new and imperial ideas, to suggest (1890) another step in the history of the ensign.