Western Australia The Cabinet of the Australian Commonwealth has been
happily inspired in meeting for the first time at Perth, the capital of Western Australia. If their visit results now or hereafter in a better relationship with that reasonably discontented State, it will be matter for general satisfaction within the Empire. Nobody wants to see the Australian Commonwealth broken up ; but equally nobody can expect it to hold together, while one of its members is made so much the doormat of others 'as Western Australia has been. Her case indeed does not stand alone ; Tasmania's is nearly as bad ; and even South Australia suffers by comparison with favoured Victoria and New South \Vales. The main mischief has been the..Federal tariff. Originally it was thought that the States of the Commonwealth might each have its own tariff freedom ; and if that idea had not been abandoned, the less developed States would have come off much better. But other concessions are iaissible as things now are. The State's petition to Westminster may yet have proved a turning-point, even though it could not be received.
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