Old news from Armidale and New England

Monday 12 April 1920, The Mercury (Hobart)

A NEW STATE.

FEELING IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

SYDNEY, April 11.

At a meeting of the Tamworth Municipal Council, Alderman W. Green moved a series of resolutions supporting the idea of a new State in the northern portion of N.S.W., and pledging the council to start a public campaign with that object in view.

Alderman Green said the idea of forming a new State was justified by the continual neglect which that portion of N.S.W. had been subject to by Sydney, and the centralised system of government. The whole north was in a state of utter stagnation. For 40 years the people of Inverell and Glen Innes had been agitating for a railway line connecting the north-west with the northern railway system, and they were as far off from getting it now as ever they were. Another deplorable fact was that there was not a deep sea port between Newcastle and the northern border.

Alderman Brittain said it was about time they woke up and got out of the claws of the cityman, and gave the country industries a chance. Under the present centralised system they would never prosper.