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Tottering but Free
Chapter 2
Forrest retired after the failure of the cause of Federation to unite the Australian continent, and began a successful career writing a set of bestselling memoirs. He was succeeded by George Leake, who pledged to continue Forrest's cause of improving infrastructure. To placate residents of the goldfields who had supported Federation, Henry Gregory, a miner, was appointed his deputy and also Minister for Mines.
Across the Indian Ocean war was brewing with the Boers. They were stout, independent farmers that were fervent defenders of their own freedom. Leake, while publicly encouraging young men to enlist, was less than enthusiastic about the war in private. His diaries unearthed after his death disclosed his reluctance to let Protestant Christians fight each other. Nevertheless 2000 Western Australians from all parts of the state enlisted, which was enough to form an infantry regiment. This regiment, the 1st Western Australian Infantry, played a key role in attacking the South African Republic from the east and suffered 148 dead and 340 injured. Enlistments trailed off, but conscription was narrowly averted after this regiment showed superior performance against Boer "commandos'" harassment of British troops. In 1901 they were sent home to a well-deserved rest, and received a hero's welcome.
Leake passed the Tertiary Education Act, establishing a University of Western Australia in Perth. The pipeline supplying water to Kalgoorlie was finished under his rule, as was a tramway system connecting Perth with Fremantle. In 1904, Leake was defeated at the election by the new Labor Party, who appealed to workers by promising to introduce woman suffrage, prohibition, and an eight-hour law. Henry Daglish became the new prime minister. This angered mining interests who cobbled together a party called the Conservative Party to contest the next elections. Leake was elected leader of it to boost its chances of being elected.
The 1907 elections were the most contentious the colony had seen since the convention. Daglish accused Leake of being a "miner's sycophant", while Leake shot back by saying Daglish "roused the rabble against this colony's institutions". The election was carried on Leake's promise of subsidies for wheat farmers. Thanks to malapportionment, while Daglish won the popular vote, Leake had a majority in the legislative assembly.
Now returned to the premiership, Leake passed the colony's first immigration law to restrict potential Labor voters from moving into Western Australia. Non-whites were forbidden under all circumstances, while Europeans and Americans were subject to a quota of not more than 1000 per year. British subjects were subject to a quota of 3% of Western Australia's population: engineers, professionals, and farmers were encouraged to immigrate, but miners and unskilled workers found it difficult to move in.
1910 was a rematch of 1907. Daglish ran on a plank of implementing tariffs on foreign wool and wheat, and removing all restrictions on immigration save for the ban on non-whites. At Coolgardie where the two campaign trains happened to meet, Daglish famously questioned Leake, "Sir, is it free goods or free men?" This was swiftly adopted as a campaign slogan. An independent movement, the Populist Party, managed to carry Albany on a platform of introducing a minimum wage. Its leader, Edward Barnett, charged the Labor Party with "betraying the basis of all free government, the free people of Western Australia." In the end, a hung parliament was produced, where the Populists carried the balance of power.