New States Wanted

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1922, Page 1

New States Wanted

AGITATION IN AUSTRALIA

SYDNEY, AI ay 17. Renewed activity is being displayed in the agitation for the creation of vnr--1 ions new States in the country districts of the Commonwealth. Both in Queensland and Western Australia the formation of branches of the new States of Australia League lia< revied old hopes of State partition, bu it is in New South Wales that the movement received its chief support, and only this week an energetic campaign is being conducted by the NewStaters. They claim that New* South Wales provides the shocking example of the deliberate policy of centralisation against which the new* movement for I cutting up the States is aimed. The comparatively undeveloped condition of the Riverina on the New South Wales sides and the neglected and backward condition in contrast to the increasing population and enterprise along tin* Vie torian hank of the Murray, is attributed bv the new Staters to the refusal of the Mother State to. allow the trade to flow* in its patural channels southward. and the attempt- to drag it, w ith the aid of preferential railway rates to distant Sydney. The grievance of the Riverina, which has declared for independence, is claimed to he rivalled by that of Northern New South Wales, where, it is poined out. there are four magnificent ports, to which no produce ever goes from the interior, because the Sydney politicians have decreed that i! shall he carried hundreds of miles to Sydney. Tu Queensland a northern state is wanted and it is suggested that Western Australia, might he divided into three States. The J’rime Minister has, up to the present, been non-committal upon the subject of the merits of the claims, hut has gone so far in promising to support a movement for the submission of the question to the people.