By a subsequent enactment another point was added to the star, making a star of seven points,[195] one for each of the States, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, and one for the Territories of Papua and Norfolk Island; but the rest of the ensign remained the same as previously.
Thus was formed the Australian ensign (Pl. [IX.], fig. 2).
The Union Ensign of the Dominion of New Zealand contains in the same way the Union Jack in the upper corner, and a southern constellation of four stars in the middle of the red fly (Pl. [IX.], fig. 3).
As the separated colonies of South Africa are now joining together in a union Parliament under the Union Jack, we may expect another Union Ensign to be added to the galaxy of these loyal union and native ensigns.
Like the expansion of the British Constitution to patriot governments beyond the seas, so has come the extension, step by step, of the old union flag to the newly-created Dominions. As the spirit of that constitution has been adapted to the local circumstances in each, so the red ensign with its Union Jack, which is the embodiment of the power and glory of the British nation, has been emblazoned with the local fervour of each young and growing people, who, ardently loving their new land, yet stand unconquerably in union with the Motherland, and rejoice at seeing their own emblem set upon the mother flag. Each such flag tells us its grand story in a way that a national flag ought to do; for the red ensign of the homeland, with the sign of the colony added to its folds in these far-off lands, signals to the beholder that it is an Imperial Union Ensign of the British Empire.
These are the union ensigns of the self-governing Dominions of the outer Empire, which have been adopted in succession in each, as a Union Parliament for their Dominion has been created, to embrace the several Provinces or States of their continent, and endowed with powers from the Union Parliament of the Parent Realm.
As in the sixteenth century the forces of the Percys raised the cross of St. George in their ensign (Pl. [III.], fig. 1), to show that of whatever district they might be they were all Englishmen, so the younger nations of the Britains over the seas raise the Union Jack in the upper corner of their Dominion Union Ensigns to tell that their bearers are all Britons, sons and daughters of the Family, loyal to the British Crown.
When the Canadian sees the union crosses displayed on his Canadian ensign, or the distant brother colonist on that of his colony, it speaks to each, not only as his own native flag, but yet more as his sign of brotherhood in an empire wider than his own home, broader than the continent on which he lives, for it is the visible evidence of his citizenship in the Empire of Great and Greater Britain.