The Press Thursday, April 22, 1926. The Commonwealth.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18672, 22 April 1926, Page 8

The Press Thursday, April 22, 1926. The Commonwealth.

A good deal has happened in Australia during the last twelve months to please those who dislike federation. There was the big deportation case following the General Election, with its baffling sequel in the High Court; there are the troubles of the "vassal " State " Tasmania, though that is not wholly a Federal story; and now as we write there is the legal conflict over working hours, the Statei of New South "Wales having passed a Forty-four Hours' Week Act which the High Court has found to be in conflict with a Federal award and therefore invalid. Mr Bruce has indicated that the question will be reopened by the Federal Parliament daring the coming session, but is the meantime the New South Wales Unions have instructed their members to ignore the Court and have set up a Committee to "consider the " best methods to be taken in order to " secure forty-eight hours' wages for "forty-four hours' work." It is plain enough also that a standard hours compromise would still leave many other causes of friction between the States and the Commonwealth, and that the removal of all of these would not prevent trouble between State and State. The Melbourne " Argus," for example, found it necessary recently to discuss the question of "Border Barbarisms" in connexion with railway control, and expressed the opinion that if the State Governments are not more prompt to abolish the " injustices and anomalies " which the crossing of a border so often involves the Commonwealth Government will have to assume full charge of all railway lines over the whole Continent. It may very easily happen—in the Riverina district it has happened—that the people near the border of one State can be most conveniently provided with .transport facilities by the Government of the neighbouring State, or, which > comes to the same thing, that a district may be refused a public utility by its own State and at the same time be refused the opportunity of joining the other State by which its needs are admitted and would probably be supplied. Victoria, for example, has just constructed a line to a district in Riverina which the Government of New South Wales refused to help on the ground that it was "practically Victorian;" and because an arrangement of this kind can be carried out only by special agreement with the home State (constitutionally), the newspapers have had a good deal to say in praise of such an example of neighbourliness. But the troubles of most railway lines begin after trains have been running on them, and it will be a politico-economic miracle if friction does not arise soon over control or rates. In any case the situation provides a standing opportunity for friction, and all that would be gained by changing the boundary line would be that this opportunity would ibe removed till the railway had been extended. The geographical situation is that there are portions of New South Wales which will always have their easiest access to the sea through Victoria, portions of Victoria which can most conveniently export their produce through South Australia, and so on, and it is obvious that the more States the Commonwealth has the more frequently these] problems will arise. There is therefore no hope of relief in the agitation for new States, even in this problem of railways alone, and transport is of course only one of the problems that the Commonwealth, after twenty-five yeara, is still struggling with.