Page:Speech by Sir John Forrest - Western Australia - 1900.pdf/17

 friends they have left behind them. (Applause.) There is another reason, too. The population of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie will be doubled when we get the great water scheme up there—(applause)—and I would like to know then, whether they would be content to remain out of the Federation of this continent. ("No," and applause.) Be sides the public opinion throughout Australia and the Empire will exercise an influence upon us, and in my opinion we cannot help joining soon, if we do not join at the present moment. (Applause.) I am quite positive of this—that the new population that has come to the colony, especially those on the Eastern goldfields, will never be content to remain out of the Federal Union. The second reason is that it will be to our advantage to join now rather than in a few years. In our own interests, in the interests of this colony, we cannot afford to stand aloof. Our interests demand our presence in the Federal Parliament. I should like to know the position we should be in if we were out of Federation when some great question affecting us was being discussed in the Federal Parliament. Our interests would have no one to look after them; we should be absolutely sacrificed. Supposing it were proposed in the Federal Parliament that Port Darwin should be made the "gate of Australia," and that the railway should be extended from South Australia northward, and from Queensland across by the Gulf of Carpentaria into Port Darwin. We should be left out. Fremantle would no longer be the "gate of Australia." If that proposal were made—I do not say it would—who would be there to fight our battle? We would be absolutely powerless to influence any great question connected with the national life or interests of Australia. What influence would we have in Australia? We would have none, and none beyond. Even if our population should increase to a quarter of a million or more, what influence would we have in the counsels of the Empire? I would like everyone in the colony to look these facts straight in the face and then say which is best: Federation, with three and a half or four years' full protection for our farmers and manufacturers, equal representation in the Senate for all time, and more than our share of representation in the Lower House at the start; or to remain out of Federation and take the risk of joining in a year or two, with no assured representation in the Senate, with no protection for our industries, and, what is worse than all, internal dissensions and discord rampant mean while throughout the colony.

Can we afford to remain out in these circumstances, and have no voice in moulding and fashioning, in its early days, the foundations on which the Federal structure is for all time to rest? My opinion is that we are too mixed up with the future of the people of Australia to take such a course, (Applause.) "Our fate with theirs, for good or ill, are woven threads." (Applause.) I should like to say to you, to-night, that all through these years, since the matter came into the region of practical politics, I have had my periods of doubts, and anxieties, and fears on this question, and I would be wrong if I were to say that I have none left still. There are, no doubt, great difficulties ahead for us and probably for all the other colonies of Australia. Whether we are in Federation or not, we shall have plenty of difficulties to confront. In reading the controversies that are taking place in the Press and on the platform over this question, one is almost inclined to think that it is a discussion on the great principles of freetrade and protection over again. Notwithstanding all my anxieties, I think we shall be doing right to take the risk, (Applause.) I think, too, that it is wiser and better for us to associate ourselves with the higher, broader, and nobler ideas of greatness and Empire rather than with those of parochialism and isolation. (Applause.) I have no fault whatever to find with anyone who thinks otherwise in this matter. I hope everyone in the colony will read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and judge for themselves, and whichever way they may cast their votes—should they be my closest and most intimate friends—I would never think the worse of them for holding a different opinion to that held by me on this important question. (Applause.)