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Separation for Federation
 By
1899 many goldfields' residents were frustrated. The refusal of the conservative
Legislative Council to pass a Constitution Bill to enable a general referendum
antagonised them even further. Angry with the reluctance of the Premier
to support a vote on Federation or to confront the Legislative Council,
and fuelled by years of resentment at the Forrest Government's treatment
of t'othersiders, separatist feelings present since the mid-1890s resurfaced
and gained fresh momentum.
 With
backing from prominent federalists like John Kirwan,
the editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner, a meeting was held in Coolgardie
on 13 December 1899. Representatives from municipalities such as Kanowna,
Kalgoorlie, Boulder, Coolgardie, Southern Cross and Esperance joined with
delegates from the Chambers of Mines, the Federal League, the Australian
Natives' Association, the Trades and Labor Council, the Australian Workers'
Association, the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie Stock Exchanges, and a number
of workers' associations. The delegates voted 60 to one in favour of forming
a Reform League resolving
"... as all other constitutional means have been tried
and failed, the only course to redress the grievances of the eastern goldfields,
especially in the matter of Federation, is to take advantage of the power
given under the Constitution Act of 1890, and to petition Her Majesty
the Queen for separation from the rest of the colony of West Australia,
for the establishment of responsible Government therein, and for becoming
part of the Australian Commonwealth."
Within months the Reform League had collected a petition with tens of thousands of signatures calling for the creation of the colony of Auralia.
A similar move to separate from Western Australia was undertaken at a meeting at Albany on 28 December 1899. As one Albany correspondent put it in a letter to the Kalgoorlie Miner, "The cruelty of the present West Australian government by its centralising policy is fast accomplishing that end, to make Fremantle roadstead into a harbour, and enrich a few Swan River parasites."
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