WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 304, 22 December 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

(By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) Attitude With Regard to the Midlaud Railway Criticised.

(Received 9.19 r.m.)

LONDON, December 20,

. Tlie financial newspapers strongly condemn ihe action of ilic Western Australian Government in regard to the Midland railway, and say that such conduct would not be tolerated in countries such as the Argentine and Brazil.

The "Financial News" considers that the Western Australian Government is doing no good in abetting attacks on British capital, and that it is not safe to try this game with a city which manages to have the last word. The "Economist" and the "Statist ,, make similar comments. '[This apparently lias reference to the rival railway systems which are :it present agitating Soiuli find Western Australia. In sonic , of onr Interviews with Australian politicians nil long if was explained that it wns made v condition of Western Australia's entering the Commonwealth thai the preaf Trans-contineiitiil railway from Adelaide Ir> Perth should be constructed at the earliest possible date. Later on the Kings!nn Government in South Australia changed, and the succeeding Oovernment. scarcely Bt.rni!~i>r than Its Opposition, hedged h I unit the matter in favour of a proposed eonipat; , ", fostered by tlit; Opposition, which company intended to run a eiganlli , rallwfly from Ailelalfle to I'nrt Darwin through thi> centre of Australia. The basis of the company seems to he that of the one we in this colony have just disposed of—the Midland Railway Company of the South Island, after so inucli ffHevcnis litigation—a system of land endowment and tnffie monopoly, that is. Western Australia found cause for complaint l>eeance the Suuth Austra'ian Government for point , reason, delays or declines to give sanction to the construction of the W.A. railway through their country, such consent belntc necessary before construction can proceed. TU? Western Australian Government has evidently done something as a countercheck which the cable has not reported, and so evoked the wrath of the capitalist papers of England. British capital heinjr the sinew of war in the proposed company.]