Secession Issue in Western Australia

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 April 1935, Page 8

Secession Issue in Western Australia

NO FELONIOUS INTENT. HEARING OF PETITION J (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copvright.) LONDON, April 17. When the Western Australian secession inquiry was resumed, Professor ,L 11. Morgan, counsel for the petitioners, said that Mr. Wilfred Greene, K.C.,, counsel for the Commonwealth Government, had got the whole situation out of perspective when he claimed that the granting of the petition would destroy the Commonwealth. "It would not destroy or kill the Commonwealth, to use his lurid metaphor,” Professor Morgan said. "We have no such felonious intent. We are not seeking to commit political homicide, nor is the imperial Parliament going to commit political suicide. We are not trying to destroy the Common'wealth, but merely asking the Imperial Parliament to put it beyond the power of the Commonwealth to destroy us. This committee would be undertaking the gravest responsibility and would create a precedent of the most serious nature if it reported that the petition was not proper and that it .be,not received.” Professor Morgan said that if the committee allowed the petition to be received Parliament might hold it dangerous to grant it, "but at least,” he said, "you would have met Western Australia to the extent that you hoard her case. If she is turned away I don’t know what the result may be.' I can. conceive that certain things might happen in Western Australia *tha4; would, shake the Federation to its foundations., That is why I think the Commonwealth singularly unwise in opposing the reception of the petition.”