FOR AND AGAINST: Regional Differences
Document 9

Focus question
FerQ9 What does Tasmania have to gain from Federation, and what will Tasmania lose if it does not enter as an original state?

VIEW IN FAVOUR: HON. SIR E. BRADDON, PREMIER OF TASMANIA

Electors of Tasmania-

On the 3rd prox. the opportunity will be presented to you of casting your vote for Australian Federation, and so helping forward that great movement which, if reason prevail, will make this small colony an integral portion of a nation and a sharer in all the advantages that will flow to every province united under the Constitution Bill in the Commonwealth of Australia.

An Australian Nation.
You are asked, by voting "Aye", to give up provincialism for a broader national life. You are invited to seize all the benefits that will be secured to you by free markets within the Commonwealth: by the establishment of manufactures in our island, whose water power and climatic advantages are certain to attract capital from less favoured parts of Australia and elsewhere; by the increased demand for labour that would spring from our industrial development, and the improvement in the general well-being that would come of the fuller employment of advantages that are now largely neutralised by intercolonial tariffs and our isolation.

This Federation would give us also such security against hostile aggression as must be hopelessly beyond our reach if we attempt to stand out of the union. Tasmania is more vulnerable to an enemy, more tempting to an attacking foe, than any part of Australasia. But if Tasmania became part of the Commonwealth the whole strength of the Commonwealth forces would be available for Tasmania's protection in the hour of need, as for the protection of any other Australian state that might be threatened …

Tasmania Outside the Ring.
If you fail to carry by a sufficient affirmative vote the bill that will be submitted to your decision on the 3rd prox., and if, as is most probable, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia do carry it and become federated, what will Tasmania's position be? She would be then a small fragment of that outside world against which the Commonwealth would set up its Customs barriers. The market of New South Wales, now free to us, would be barred against us by the federal tariff, and instead of that wider market which intercolonial free-trade would give for our fruit jam, timber, oats, hay, straw, potatoes, woollen manufactures, etc., we should have a market even more restricted than that which now blights many of our industries …

Cannot Stand Alone.
Those who oppose Federation admit, for the most part, that if the colonies of Australia federate Tasmania must join; that she cannot stand alone – 175,000 people against 3,500,000. But I would urge you to consider how illusory is the free and easy statement made by such opponents, that if Tasmania does not join now we can do so at a later period. Tasmania can enter now (i.e. by the vote to be recorded on the 3rd prox.) as one of the "original" states, with all the privileges conceded to original states under the Constitution; she can claim as of right equal representation in the Senate – i.e., the six members given to New South Wales, Victoria, or any other original state; she can claim five representatives in the Lower House instead of the three to which she would have been entitled if the proportion of one representative for every 50,000 inhabitants had been adhered to for Tasmania and West Australia, as it was for the more populous colonies.

The Penalty of Rejection.
If Tasmania fails to pass the bill on the 3rd prox., and seeks to enter the Federation subsequently, she will have to bargain for that which is now hers by right, and equal representation in the Senate would probably be sought in vain, for one of the strongest features in the opposition waging in New South Wales and Victoria against the Constitution is that by equal representation the smaller states are unduly favoured.

Remember that the Senate will exist for the representation and protection of states rights and states interests. It is our right to equal representation in the Senate, and the certainty that the Senate will safeguard the smaller states, as much as anything, commends the Constitution to me. Do not imperil that safeguard by a delusive hope that you may obtain it at any time your convenience may require. Rather than take the more prudent course – vote for the bill, so that if the Australian colonies federate under it we can come in. If those colonies do not adopt the bill Tasmania will have committed herself to nothing by passing it…

Launceston Examiner, 28 May 1898, cited in Scott Bennett (ed.), Federation, Cassell Australia, North Melbourne, 1975, pp. 110-12.