318
AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
ustralian
[November 12, 1906.
apologists for Sir EDWARD GREY, these unchanged. Without desiring to pose as varying accounts do not seem to us tu indicate any policy of vacillation on his part, but are simply the reflection of the accounts as rendered to him from agents on the spot whom he is bound to trust.
We
Daily Press, 3rd November.) There are men who say that Australia will one day surely declare her independence of Great Britain, and figure amongst the nations as the United States of Australia. The people are even said to be ripe for rebellion now, and lack rather the power than the will to cast loose the mother country's leading strings. This is most probably exaggerated. It is evident that before there can be the United States of for entering the federation was the privilege of | patent to all, the Chinese Government
Australia, there must be a strong sub- stratum of unity linking together the people of those states. News comes that this is far from being the case at present. Federa- tion sounded fine, and gave rise to mors dred of brotherhood than Nature is ever like
permit to come true. We read that legislature of Western Australia has passed a resolution in favour of secession from the Union that was heralded with Buch trumpetings. So if there be one state against another on the matter of insular federation, we may take it there may be as many Australians who will cling to one flag-the British as there are colonials who have lost all respect for the untion of their origin. The writer of an article in the Singapore Free Press avers that the native born population of the State was bitterly opposed to Federation, but were outvoted in a manner
to be presently explained. It is worth noting, meanwhile how instinctively men can cling to existing dividing lines, even though evidence on evidence, and argument on argument, be advanced to prove that, unlike the walls in honeycomb, these divisions make for io- dividual weakness rather than for collective
C
proportionately high, as the Customs' tariff | the nominal change in the title of an old made the competition of the other States established firm, the principles and practice virtually prohibitive. Immediately after Federa- of the old institution remaining perfectly tion there set into the Western from the other States, and the scare thereby markets an inrush of fruit and dairy produce created among the local producers may well be imagined. Every device of ingenuity was used to thwart the exporters from "the ot er side," and on the flimsiest pretexts consignments of fruit to Fremantle were condemned by the inspectors as being infected with the codlin moth and the fruit fly. Part of the price which the Eastern States paid to Western Australia imposing for five years a sliding scale of Customs duties on all goods imported from the sister States; but now that that period has expired, the local growers have become fully alive to the blow dealt to their interests, which from the first they had the sagacity to perceive would fall upon them."
question of overcoming the dividing wastes, But we have already mentioned the larger We are now told that the recent secession is due to the transcotinental railway agitation; that Western Austra ia was per- suaded into f-deration with promises of such a railway; which promise is apparently viewed by the Federal Government as tqu large an order. How much sentiment is worth when it seems to conflict with busi- ness may be guessed from the further allegation that it is the large shipowners of the Eastern states who have advanced the to connect and unite all the members of the strongest opposition to any railway scheme
federation. These bave for years enjoyed a monopoly of the carrying trade between Adelaide and Fremantle, especially since the latter supplanted Albany as a port of call for mail steamers.
No sort of senti-
mental satisfaction could compensate them for the loss of that traffic. What will
are
not committing any breach; of ex- pediency, in again mentioning what is included, of the declining personality of
Sir ROBERT HART. It is clear to all that under the most favourable conditions that statesman cannot be expected to continue much longer at the helm of affairs, and it is no unkindness towards him personally that prompts the repetition of the state- ment. We have consistently alluded to the fact that the especial weakness of Sir high office be held for so many years with ROBERT HART's personal presidency of the
distinguished honour to himself, and benefit to China, was that with a defect in his miuds of history, he had been throughout character common to many of the great
bis career jealous of any possible successor; and that many of the ablest men in the service despairing of any recognition of their fituess, one after another resigned their Like many other minor defects of character this feeling of jealousy connection with it. has developed with growing years, and at the moment is perhaps his predominant passion. Unfortunately, too, the gentleman whom he has selected as immediately next
to himself in the service has not the
confidence of the outside world, nor is he, seemingly, a persona grata with the powers
strength. This instinct of exclusiveness is a happen as a result of Western Australia's in Peking, and both these circumstances
force that idealists rarely reckon in although the world has seen many great federations or attempted federations break up and fail. In the case of Australia, it is alleged that native born West Australians, if left to
follow their inclination, would have played
a lone hand' in relation 10 the rest of Australia but, as the result of a referendum which was forced on the Premier by popular clamour, the strangers within their gates outvoted the natives, and so federation came to pass. The strangers had flocked to Western Australia where the gold-bearing areas of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie had but lately been discovered. The exodus of these adventurers was so large that the Eastern States, and especially Victoria, then suffering from the disastrous consequences of the land boom, were being steadily drained of their population. The
sympathy of these outsiders was all with the places of their origin and therefore with
Federation."
There is a natural division as well as a sentimental one, between Western Australia and its Southern neighbour, a two thousand
mile belt of sandy desert, and so far the Federal Government has neglected to bridge it with a railway that would have put the
"
A
states more in touch with each other. sea voyage has heen and is yet necessary. Those who saw the advantages of federation apparently failed to see how to make it secure. They permitted to grow up in the isolated west an oligarchy of old settlers who prospered exceedingly under the operation of a protective Customs' tariff." They offered, indeed, rather an amusing object lesson, which we dare not venture to say whom it would
most tickle, Mr. CHAMBERLAIN's followers or the Free Trade party. As cited in the special article quoted, it can be applied either way.
"For the most part they grew wool for export, and fruit and cereals for home consumption. How much the West Australian orchardists throve may be gathered from the frat that the retail price of apples was, before Federation, as high as 1s. 6d. per lb. The price of wheat was
independent attitude no one seems to know, but the newspapers appear inclined to minimise the importance of such behaviour on the part of the youngest representative becomes at once ridiculous if the Imperial government in the Union. Its heroic revolt
is an essential
Government chuses to ignore it, and the other states seem glad that there is an Imperial Government to appel to. It is the spirit of the incident that interests us must, as bearing on modern tendencies. We do not need Professor DICEY to tell us that "geographical propinquity of true federation, although it is well to be reminded of the antithesis, that geographical remoteness is a condition anterior t in difference or worse. In plain language, to feel neighbourly they should be neighbours, and the sooner the Federal Government uakes a start with the transcontinental railway, the sooner it will be free of these mimic rebellions. But it needel the Lab ur party, and its treatment of Queensland over the labour question t prove the disconcert.
fact that we may sometimes have too much of such good things as federatiou.
THE INSPECTORATE GENERAL
OF CHINESE CUSTOMS.
(Daily Press, 5th November.). Much unuecessary mystery is evidently being thrown about the position of the Foreign Customs establishment in China, and the attitude of the British Foreign Office thereupon. One day we hear of Sir EDWARD GREY as having made up his mind to insist on the Chinese Government giving proper guarantees for the con- tinuance of the establishment on its old lines with the authority of the INSPECTOR GENERAL unimpaired, and the next it is reported that the Head of the Office is quite content with the new arrangements, holding that they are merely equivalent to'
have combined with the growing spirit of discontent prevalent throughout the Empire, to make the position of the Inspectorate General particularly assailable. There is
110 reason to doubt that the British
Foreign Office is quite aware of the import-
ance in the interests not ouly of foreign trade and foreign responsibilities, but in the safety of China herself, of maintaining the office intact, us one, above the ordinary vacillation of party. Did China really understand her owu best interests she would, did such an organisation not already exist, set herself to its construction, as in Austra
ia the deficiencies of party management of railways led all parties in the dia es to agree to the necessity of this department of state being placed above party considera- tions, and handed over entirely to outside control. Such was the original conception of the constitution of the office, and such ita administration continued to be up till, recently, so long, in fact, as Sir ROBERT
l'be
HART's personal administration continued uninterrupted. We are casting no reflection on Sr ROBERT HART personally, nor do we suggest that his individual powers have at all weakened; the very fact that he has arrived at an age when statesmen usually find it consonant with the best traditions ot their offices to retire has a deeper signifi cance than the momentary fituess. chief danger is not loss of capacity, but the incilement the positio affords to intrigue from without, and this danger of course wilt now increase the more rapidly with in- creasing years. It is advisable that the selection of a successor should be a work of deliberation and not left to the chance choice of a moment, when not the best, but the momentarily antiest will be hustily thrust u to all a gap. It seems evident that from some optimist quarter Bir EDWARD GREY has been soothed into taking a super- ficial view of the gravity of the case, and
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