FOR AND AGAINST: Regional Differences
Extra Document 2

WESTERN AUSTRALIA AND SEPARATION

Efforts are being made in various quarters to awaken, with a fierce jolt, the residents of Perth-mantle and the country districts to the dangerous nature of the Separation movement. It is pointed out that, if the Eastern Goldfields obtain separation, Fremantle will be superseded by Esperance, the farmers will lose their goldfields market-because separation for the mining centres means federation for them also, and consequently an import tax upon W.A. produce – and Perth commerce will have a large undefined hole knocked into it. Should separation occur all these pleasant things will undoubtedly occur. But whether separation will, or will not, become an accomplished fact, is not to be easily determined at the present stage. One thing is certain however; if the goldfields adhere resolutely to their present programme, they will assuredly be lost to West Australia. There is no use shutting one's eyes to this fact. It has been said that constitutional difficulties stand in the way of separation ... Provision is made in the [Western Australian] Constitution Act for the subdivision of the colony, and if goldfielders are determined, they can effect a subdivision.

Moreover the territorial and political difficulties which are alleged to stand in the way of separation are no less mythical than the constitutional bogey. As for the Imperial authorities, they are scarcely likely to refuse to grant a prayer for separation. In the first place the petition will be a powerful one, containing probably 40,000 signatures. In the second place, separation for our goldfields will mean the advancement of federation, a scheme that the Home government desires to see accomplished. In connection with this latter consideration it may be added that the applicants will have the moral, and perhaps the active, support of all the Eastern governments. What power could the miserable six-family Perth regime exert against such strong forces? That our goldfields will, if they insist on it, become a separate colony may therefore be at once believed, seeing that neither constitutional nor Imperial nor any other difficulties stand in the way.

Geraldton Express, Geraldton, 5 January 1900, cited in Scott Bennett (ed.), Federation, Cassell, Australia, North Melbourne, 1975, p. 240.