Page:Advanced Australia.djvu/186

 which the producers of the rest of the continent are equally anxious to exploit; and her statesmen wish her to have time peaceably to assimilate her new-comers, and (probably) to attempt new loans. She fears neglect and mismanagement; though no mismanagement of the gold-fields, it is true, could be worse than that which has allowed the whole of the dividend-paying mines to drift into European ownership, while the wage-earning population are left mostly without homes, and must remit half their incomes to their families on "the other side." Finally, under the Commonwealth, South Australia could refuse to permit a trans-continental railway, which it has now become Western Australia's chief ambition to construct. British Columbia, under similar circumstances, made the Canadian Pacific Railway the price of her adhesion to the Dominion. The Government, and the party of the old settlers, with the exception of their leader. Sir John Forrest, who is bound by his pledges to the Convention, are undisguisedly hostile to federation, and here is a rough statement of its "advantages" by a Radical and Outlander member of the Legislative Assembly;—

"The advantages of Federation:—New South Wales gets the federal capital, the biggest political power, the control of all the inland navigation of Australia, and the abolition of all border duties for her sheep and cattle. Victoria gets the temporary capital, the second political pull, and a free market for all her over-glutted manufactures. South Australia gets the sole right of building a trans-continental railway, or of refusing the same right to any other State. Queensland keeps her black labour, and has a huge protected market for her sugar, bananas, coffee, and other tropical produce. Tasmania gets the free run of Australasia for her fruits and jams. Western Australia gets the right to extra-tax herself for five years, and to