SECESSION BILL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 17

SECESSION BILL

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PROPOSAL. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright PERTH, December 23. The Secession Referendum Bill passed the Legislative Council practically without amendment. A vote is to be taken at the general election of April 8, 1933.

For a considerable time there has been much dissatisfaction in Western Australia and Tasmania in connection with the disabilities which have resulted from the inauguration of federation, and there have been numerous movements designed to secure separation and a return to the conditions which obtained prior to 1901. Some time ago the Premier of Western Australia, Sir James Mitchell, declared his support of the movement, and the suggestion has received considerable support from all classes of the people. One of the principal grounds for dissatisfaction is traceable to the shipping restrictions, which place the primary producers of the West at a very serious disadvantage compared with those of the East, and there is a wide consensus of opinion that were Western Australia to revert to its original state of independence it would have an infinitely better opportunity of promoting its own interests and expanding its commerce. Even although the referendum should result in a vote favourable to separation, that would not mean an automatic parting of the ways, as the Federal Constitution makes no provision for such an eventuality, as in the case of the American Constitution, and it would be necessary that Imperial legislation, with an amendment to the. Constitution, should be secured before there could be any parting of the ways.