Western Australia and the Commonwealth The Joint Committee that has
been considering the petition of Western Australia to secede from the Australian Commonwealth has concluded that though it is within the legal competence of Parliament to pass an Act of Seces- sion, such legislation would be contrary to constitutional practice ; and that, this being a matter affecting the status of the Commonwealth as a whole, the Imperial Parliament could only take action at the request of the Commonwealth as a whole: Therefore it would not be proper to receive the petition. That ruling averts many possible complications. But Western Australia's griev- ances remain, and they are very real, arising, as they do, from the position of an industrially backward country forced to submit to a tariff system which benefits her not at all. But the grievances have at least been ventilated in the most impressive possible manner, and it is very clearly incumbent on the Commonwealth Government to find means of remedying them.
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