FOR AND AGAINST: Regional Differences
Document 5

Focus question
FerQ5 According to J. Mather, why will Federation be good for Western Australian farmers?

FREE TRADER IN FAVOUR (WESTERN AUSTRALIA)

If the Federal or National movement receives a set-back at the hands of the electors of this colony on Tuesday next, it will be largely due to the fears created in the minds of the farmers and manufacturing classes by the anti-Federal advocates. With an inaccuracy that is almost sublime the farmer has been told over and over again Federation means ruination to his industry, and that with intercolonial freetrade he cannot hope to compete with the farmers of Eastern Australia. The one idea that has apparently never struck those advocates of provincialism is that at present the export trade of Australia of purely agricultural products is very insignificant. That it is for many years to come to be greatly in excess of local requirements is extremely doubtful, and for this reason: During the past ten years Australia has experienced an almost unbroken period of commercial and industrial depression. This has operated on the farming industry in two ways. Firstly, industrial depression, by reducing the purchasing power of the consumer, contracts the home market. It may be safely said that the great bulk of the wage-earning classes – that is, the consumer, on whom the agriculturalist [sic] depends for the disposal of his products – has not averaged more than four days a week full time or pay during the period mentioned, and as their purchasing capacity is entirely regulated by their incomes, the restriction of the home market by this cause must be at once apparent to even the anti-federal mind. Secondly, industrial depression, in Australia, at any rate, always causes a mild boom by sending people on the land. Thus, combined with a restricted home market, we have increased production, resulting in an export trade. Under-consumption through the above causes, and not over-production, has been and is the difficulty from the farmers' point of view. Under Federation the conditions immediately alter, for with protection against the outside world, industrial development gives place to depression, and all the surplus labour of the colonies will be in demand at possibly and probably higher remuneration. Capital and population will be attracted to the Commonwealth, and stability will characterise the thousand and one industries established and to be established that will mark our national progress. The result of this inevitable commercial and industrial activity will be an ever-expanding home market, which will at once check and soon abolish the export of agricultural products. At present large quantities of grain get into the Australian market from New Zealand, California, and other foreign countries. A protective tariff will give this trade to the local producer, and thus operate in making the home market better. I contend that the above conclusions are reasonable and fair, and instead of the Western Australian agriculturist being handicapped with undue competition, everything points to the betterment of his condition and the expansion of his market under the Federal system. If there is one class in this colony that should welcome Federation more than another, it is the agriculturist, who in a year or two will overtake local demands, and must find an outside market. That Australia, with her magnificent agricultural possibilities, will ultimately develop a large foreign export trade goes without saying, but this is a question of time, of gradual growth. The home market for years to come will be sufficiently expansive under Federation to occupy the attention of those at present engaged in that industry ...

Jas. Mather, letter to West Australian, Perth, 28 July 1900, cited in Scott Bennett (ed.), Federation, Cassell Australia, North Melbourne, 1975, pp. 231-2.