There are many reasons for and against the federation of Australia. These reasons will be conveyed in this essay. Before the federation Australia consisted of six colonies of Britain. Before 1872 the British colonies had nothing to do with each other, although a telegraph linked the colonies and the idea of being “Australian”. By the 1890’s songs and poems were being written to celebrated a nation and the idea of becoming a federation was becoming much more popular. There were many fears in Australia and that the colonies will be attacked by neighbouring countries. Other fear like the big colonies like New South Wales and Victoria will dominate the smaller colonies like South Australia, which had only been less than 50 years old. Mark Anderson and Paul Ashton (Historians) support this. There are many reasons for the federation, which will be looked at later on. These are some of the reasons against the federation of Australia. …show more content…
Which of most of them saw themselves as British citizens who just lived in separate colonies. They were then not motivated to create a new nation. Also the New South Wales colony feared that if Australia were to federate the government would relax on immigration laws and allow more non-white people in. Many of them argued that they were better off remaining a white colony on their own. They were also jealous that the colony of Victoria would get the capital city (Melbourne).
Another reason, which delayed the Federation of Australia was that, the economy will fall and many things will become more expensive and taxes will become higher. Also that it will be too expensive to set up a new government and that new government will become too expensive too