Focus question:
TaQ7 Compare the following two documents. What is expected to be the effect on commerce of removing tariffs:
(i) in Victoria?
(ii) in Western Australia?

MELBOURNE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

... with the union of the colonies a new era would open to the trade and commerce of Australia, which was only too sadly hampered by the barriers which ignorant jealousy had erected between the colonies, and the traditional energy and ability of the merchants of Melbourne might then be relied upon to restore to the city the preponderance in trade which its geographical position insures to it under conditions of intercolonial freedom...

Mr R. J. Alcock, President, Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, Age, [Melbourne], 29 April 1898, cited in Scott Bennett (ed.), Federation, Cassell Australia, North Melbourne, p. 81

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER OF MANUFACTURES

… the terms on which Western Australia was asked to federate were not equitable and just for this young colony. Their infant industries would not be able to compete with those in the East under intercolonial freetrade. He maintained that under Federation the price of goods to the consumer would not be cheapened, and urged the necessity of having manufactories in the colony to provide avenues of employment for the rising generation. He asserted that Federation would not affect the cost of living, but that it would lead to a reduction of wages to the level of the Eastern States. The manufacturers were not going to run away if Federation were carried, but the ultimate result must be the extinction of the local manufactories.

Cr E. J. Bickford, President, Western Australian Chamber of Maufactures, West Australian [Perth], 13 July 1900, Cited in Scott Bennett, Federation, Cassell Australia, North Melbourne, p. 232.