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Aftermath
 Western
Australians woke up on 1 January 1901 to find themselves living in a State
of the new Commonwealth of Australia. Most people would have thought nothing
much had changed, but it is clear that the new national Parliament would
have powers and a status which would make it an attractive propostition
to prospective politicians. After ten years as Premier, John Forrest quit
the State Parliament to run for a Federal seat, where he would serve for
the next eighteen years. He clearly understood where future power would
lie.
 The
first decade of the twentieth century saw Australia's new political institutions
established. The Commonwealth assumed control of areas of government like
defence, customs and tariffs, as agreed by the original States. Where areas
of jurisdiction were disputed Australia's High Court usually took a non-interventionary
role. Yet there was a growing level of discontent
among Western Australians with the deal they had been given - a dissatisfaction
masked by an infusion of popular patriotism during the First
World War.
For nearly all of the first two decades of Federation, Western Australia
had remained as isolated from the Eastern States as it had always been.
 The long-awaited promise of a transcontinental
railway line was not met until 1917 when the first train
carried dignitaries like Sir John Forrest on the inaugural
crossing. Yet in spite of the line opening, rumblings of
discontent with Western Australia's position in the Federation, fostered
by its isolation, continued to be heard.
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