The Prime Minister has been visiting Western Australia, and, while there, has made a definite statement as to the proposals which he will lay before the Inter-State conference. But unfortunately he had already said that he intended to lay the Government's proposals before the State Cabinets, in order that they might discuss the matters, and come to the conference fully seized of the facts, and in a position to deal with them without further reference to their colleagues who were not present. This decision was applauded, but Mr. Bruce made his Perth speech so quickly after the despatch of his proposals to the States that he is being subjected to the accusation of taking the public into his confidence before ever the State cabinets hive had the promised opportunity to consider them. This point must be bor n mind. Endowed with little'experience the Prime Minister has blundered, and already the press and the amateur critics are busy tearing to pieces the propositions the full arguments for which have not yet been made public. Mr. Bruce has only dealt with three matters, namely, finance, industrial legislation and the break of gauge, and in each case he is being violently attacked by the very newspapers to which, in the ordinary course of things, he would have looked for support. One Melbourne daily declares that his financial proposals: are amateurish, crude and faulty; another that his industrial. proposals are ultra vires of the constitution; while his idea of reducing the break of gauge difficulty by building a short cut line from the terminus of the transcontinental—somewhere in South Australia—right through to a point south of Brisbane thus saving 500 miles but practically cutting out Victoria, except as a feeder of the East-West line, has naturally been received in Melbourne with the strongest denunciation and contumely. But Mr. Bruce has said that the policy of his Government largely depends upon the adoption by the Conference of the proposals he is placing before it. From present appearances the conference will reject at least two parts of his policy, and the third will be declared impossible constitutionally. The Perth speech has put all the elements hostile to the Government in a state of joyous activity, while the friends of the. administration are either doubtful, or at best waiting for the additional information which will justify support.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.