AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CII, Issue 11948, 20 July 1899, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION.

A most unexpected development in connection with the federal movement has arisen during the last few days. The prospect of a United Australia has appeared so certain of realisation that a number of people in our own midst have taken alarm at the possibility of finding their products met by a hostile tariff extending over the whole of the Australian, continent. Whether the alarm of the few is justified, or whether the majority of New Zealanders confidently expect that the policy of the united Commonwealth will be on the same lines of generous treatment as we have received from New South Wales, there is no question that the advance towards Australian federation has been watched in this colony with very general satisfaction. At this stage of the movement, however, surprising news of the disaffection of West Australia begins to reach us. The first evidence of this was the production in that colony’s Parliament of a return from the Government Statistician showing that West Australia would suffer a heavy financial loss by throwing in her lot with federation. This appears to have been merely a preliminary move on the part of Sir John Forrest, who last week proposed that the Commonwealth Bill should be referred to a committee of both Houses to report upon. At the conference of Premiers held at Melbourne in the beginning of February, Sir John, together with the other Premiers, bound himself to submit the amended Commonwealth Bill to the people, so that tills proposal to refer it to a committee is, as Mr Reid has warned him, a serious breach of his agreement. Mr Raid's protest, though it might have carried more weight had it come from someone who had not a year ago been guilty of an even more serious breach of his agreement, is fully justified, and the answer of Sir John Forrest leaves the point of it untouched. It is true that the Bill was not amended by its framers, though most of them thoroughly concur with its new provisions, but Sir John Forrest can hardly mean to claim for his own Parliament the same weight and authority as a conference of the Premiers of all the colonies. Fortunately, the attitude of the West Australian Premier is not to be taken as the attitude of the West Australian people. Curiously enough, West Australia, the last of the colonies to be granted responsible, government, has been burdened with an antiquated system of representation which is accountable for keeping Sir John. Forrest in office. The absurdity of the system is seen from the fact that 300 electors return four members, of whom the Premier is one, while the 14,118 electors in the.goldfields return only the same number. The bulk of the people are as warmly in favour- of federation'.-as .are-the. inhabitants of. New,

South Wales or Victoria, and if the other colonies unite, as they ‘'Till do even without West Australia, the incompleteness will be due not to the apathy of the people of the west, but to an illogical system of representation which allows a minority to defeat the wishes of the majority.