The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1934. POLITICAL DIVORCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 307, 28 December 1934, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1934. POLITICAL DIVORCE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

The number of parties who go to be married with divorce as a way of escape in their minds can only be conjectured. -. The way, however, is there. It is not so with States. A union of States is regarded from the outset as indissoluble, and there is no provision for contracting out. Often a dissatisfied party has had to take up arms to regain its freedom, and the Civil War in the United States is the classic example "of the assertion of the right to secede, and the denial of that right, to the extreme limits of force, by the majority. The question has been much discussed in Australia of recent years, and it 's now brought prominently before the Empire and the world by the petition to the British Government that the Government of West Australia has ceremoniously dispatched. The petition" is the outcome of a popular vote that gave a majority for secession. The crse set out is based partly on legal and piU'tly on economic grounds. West Australia did not- come into the Federation very willingly. It was not until after the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act had become law in 1900, that a referendum | of electors in the State was taken. By a majority of more than two to one they voted for inclusion in the Commonwealth, but of the 45,000 votes cast in the affirmative, 20,000 camc from the goldlields electorates, where the population was largely composed of persons from other States and abroad. The Commonwealth Constitution lays it down that the union is* indissoluble, but West Australia claims that the Commonwealth Government, by its treatment of the State, has rendered the contract null and void, and therefore secession is legal. Australia is governed, so the advocates of secession say, in the interests of the Eastern States, and particularly the cities there. West Australia, essentially a primary producing State, has-been sacrificed to the desires of eastern manufacturers. These and other disabilities, coupled with geographical isolation, have, it is contended, reduced the" State to a condition of financial helplessness, and the only remedy is to return to the self-government of forty years ago. The Commonwealth Government, however, does not admit that it has broken the contract. On the contrary, it contends that the tariff has benefited West Australia, and it points out that Commonwealth assistance to the State increased from 34 to 74 shillings a head in 13 years. It'would be extremely difficult to convince any tribunal that for such reasons a contract of union should be set aside. Moreover, the whole trend of British Imperial policy is to interfere less and less'with the internal affairs of the Dominions. The Commonwealth Constitution provides for amendment either by the Imperial Parliament or by the Federal Parliament, but the latter is definitely opposed to secession, and under the later Statute of Westminster the Imperial Parliament, apparently, may legislate for the Dominions only with the advice and consent of the Dominion, concerned. It is significant that "The Times" not only considers the case for secession weak, but says that if the State did withdraw there would be'an immediate movement in the southern goldlields areas for re-inclusion in the Commonwealth. It is probable, indeed, that the Perth authorities realise that there is little or no prospect of their petition succeeding, but they consider it necessary, in order to satisfy public opinion, to carry to the limit the protest against the Commonwealth's government of their State.