House of Representatives
31 October 1901

1^st Parliament · 1^st Session

PERSONAL EXPLANATION
MOTION OF CENSURE
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
ADJOURNMENT
- Fifth Victorian Contingent- Military
- Commandant - Supply of Leather - Secession of Queensland

Mr. Speaker took the choir at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 6644

– The honorable and learned member has dropped into an error in thinking that I wished to take any advantage of him. I stated that he had been supported by the Protectionist Union in the election for the Glebe.

Mr Wilks:

– That his how he lost the seat.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

– That is what the honorable member said last night. I read in justice to the honorable andlearned member the letter from the Union to him and his reply. I could not do more or less.

page 6645

MOTION OF CENSURE

Debate resumed (from 30th October), on motion by Mr. Reid -

) That this House cannot accept the Financial and Tariff proposals submitted by the Government -

Because they wouldplace the finances of the Commonwealth and the States upon an unsound and extravagant basis.

Because they fail to adjust the burdens of taxation and the advantages of the free list in an equitable manner, revealing a marked tendency, which this House regrets to observe, to press upon necessaries of life and appliances used in our farming, mining, and pastoral industries more heavily than they do upon many articles of luxury.

And because they would, in their operation, destroy the stability of the revenue by making imposts for national purposes a source of undue profit to a few individuals, and a few favoured industries, at the expense of the whole community.

That the foregoing resolutions be conveyed, by address, to His Excellency the GovernorGeneral.

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

– I trust that the few words I intend to contribute to the debate will be accepted as the opinion of a man whose desire is to see a Tariff constructed that will suit the whole of the requirements of the Commonwealth, and bear the least heavily upon theproducers. I am quite willing to admit that those honorable members who hold opinions different from mine on this all-important subject are equally honest in their intention to do likewise. I recognise the all-importance of this occasion when it is the desire of the members of this Parliament, if possible, to frame a Tariff which, wetrust, will last for some years to come. Accepting that as the intention of honorable members–

Mr Conroy:

– Never.

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

– Of course I cannot accept the opinion of one honorable member. I believe that the opinion of the majority of the Opposition is that we should endeavour to doso.

Mr Conroy:

– Not a Tariff in which such injustice prevails !

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I view the position to-day in just the same light as that in “which it appeared to me prior to federation. I recognised then, as I recognise now, that it will be necessary for us to have a Tariff perhaps somewhat higher than some of those which have hitherto been in operation in one of the States. I did not stand alone in that opinion. “When we were opposing the Federal Enabling Bills - and I say candidly that I opposed both - we had on our side, in connexion with the opposition to the first Bill, the leader of the Opposition, and the majority of honorable members who are supporting him. These honorable members pointed out that a higher Tariff would have to be imposed upon the imports into New South Wales, and their opinion was exactly the same as our own. Before, however, the second Bill was submitted to a referendum of the people of New South Wales, many of these honorable members altered their opinion and supported the second measure, although it did not differ in its financial aspects from that which was first submitted. I now tell these honorable gentlemen with all candour and all respect that, if I could believe that the State to which I belong had been placed in a bad position by joining the Federation, I should not take any responsibility myself, but should throw it upon those who upon one occasion pointed out the dangers that were to be apprehended, and on the second occasion lulled the fears of the people, and asked them to join the Federal Union. These are the men who must be blamed if blame is to be attached to any one. I do not go so far as to say that the State of New South Wales will suffer to the extent that some honorable members predict. I had other reasons for opposing the Federal Constitution, which I shall not disclose now. The position in which we stand to-day is that we have a Tariff before us which is intended to provide for the wants of the whole of the States of the Commonwealth. I am not altogether satisfied with it, but up to the present time, although I have listened anxiously, I have heard nothing proposed by the Opposition that could take its place. I admit that during the late, federal elections the free-trade party - as we knew them in New South Wales - acknowledged that it would be necessary to impose customs taxation ; but they indicated that their taxation would differ in its incidence from that which they expected to be proposed by the Government. That is the position that they then assumed, but we have not had any form of taxation suggested by any one who has spoken on the Opposition side - in fact, we have heard nothing but declamation against the way in which the Tariff now before us would press upon the producing classes. The Baily Telegraph, a free-trade journal in New South Wales, has . proposed a Tariff which, in my opinion - bad as this Tariff may be - would in some respects press more heavily upon the producing classes of the Commonwealth. If we take another organ which has supported their policy, a paper called Ova- Country, we find that whilst they have declaimed against the duties on tea, coffee, chicory, and cocoa, their own proposal is to derive an average revenue from these articles of at least 4½d. per lb. I am willing to join hands with the members of the Opposition if they will join with me in lightening the burdens upon the people ; but at the same time I recognise that a purely revenue Tariff of the old free-trade type would involve higher taxes upon the articles which cannot be produced within the Commonwealth than upon those which could be produced here, so as to insure revenue easily. To say that that form of taxation will press less heavily upon the people is to tell me something that I cannot understand and cannot agree with. I cannot conceive how a purely revenue tax upon those things which cannot be produced within the Commonwealth is going to lighten the taxation upon the poorer classes of the community. The members of the Opposition who have come from New ‘South Wales have accepted ‘the position that the Tariff must necessarily be protective in its incidence, and I should like to quote a passage from a manifesto that was issued by the right honorable member for Tasmania, Sir Edward Braddon. The right honorable gentleman put the position very clearly when he asked the people of Tasmania to join the federation. The statement I am about to quote was not made during a public speech, but is taken from a carefully considered manifesto published in the two leading newspapers in Tasmania on behalf of himself as the Premier of that State. He pointed out -

What will Tasmania’s position be ? She would he then a small fragment of that outside world against which the Commonwealth would set up its Customs barriers. The market of New -South Wales, now free to us, would be barred against us by the Federal Tariff ; and instead of that wider market which intercolonial free-trade would give for our fruit, jam, timber, oats, hay, straw, potatoes, woollen manufactures, &c. , we should have a market even more restricted than that which now blights many of our industries. Whereas, New South Wales now imports large stocks of wheat, duty free, from India and San Francisco to replenish her stores, and so reduces her demand upon Australian granaries, she will under federation only receive that foreign wheat on payment of duty, and by so much the wheat exporting States will be protected. So will they be against New Zealand………..

If that was the position at that time it is equally the position to-day. A great deal has been said in the course of this debate by way of comparison between the various States. I do not propose to follow the example of other honorable members in this direction, because I think that such comparisons are not only unreliable, but distinctly unfair. I have lived in Australia long enough - all my life - to know that to compare the populations of the various States from time to time affords very little guide as to their relative prosperity. Rushes of population take place from State to State as gold-fields break out, and men follow them up in order to take advantage of any temporary improvement. That condition, I believe, has obtained in every State of the group. I refuse, therefore, to follow in the footsteps of some honorable members who have indulged in the practice of pitting one State against another. It is not to the advantage of federal union that we should set State against State at this particular juncture. Some honorable members who represent New South Wales have been called the enemies of that State because they have freely criticised its position under a free-trade policy. I have too much respect for New South Wales to compare such a large State with any of the small States of the union. All my life I have been associated with the industrial classes, and I think I can fairly claim to view this question from their standpoint. To my mind the ultimate emancipation of the working classes does not depend upon the fiscal policy of Australia. At the same time I freely admit that the fiscal system which we adopt must exercise a potential influence upon their position, whilst we live under present conditions of trade and commerce. But that they can get absolute emancipation from the adoption of either one policy or the other I absolutely deny. It has ever been my endeavour to secure the best possible conditions from the employers of labour for the working classes generally. In this connexion I have assisted to pass many reforms which impose certain conditions upon the employers of New South Wales. How, therefore, can I consistently advocate the throwing open of our home market to the employer of sweated labour abroad? I have always been, from the workman’s standpoint, a protectionist, and I should not be logical if I did not protect the producers of this country generally against the unfair competition of foreign countries. That is the position which I take up in regard to this Tariff. I recognize in it many items with which I cannot agree, and it will be my duty to assist, as far as I possibly can, in the reduction of those imposts which, I think, will press most heavily upon people who have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. I believe that the Government will have to go short of the amount of revenue which they estimate is required for the needs of the various States, but we shall be acting wisely, if, instead of attempting to return to them the amount of Customs revenue which they have hitherto received, we permit them to make up their deficiency by other taxation. I think that they can perform that task better than can this Parliament. I have already said that the workman’s emancipation does not depend upon the adoption of either one fiscal policy or the other. I believe that he can be boiled by the importer just as readily as he can be roasted by the manufacturer. Prom time to time during this debate our attention has been drawn to the British worker, whose condition has been cited as one to which the workers of other countries might well aspire. It has been urged that fiscal freedom has practically emancipated the British workmen, and that they can win their strikes, when, according to to the leader of the Opposition, the workmen in protected countries never win a strike. All my life I have lived in a free-trade State. I have engaged in a good many industrial troubles from time to time, but even there I have had to contend with the same difficulties as those which confront the workers in America, which has been held up as the country wherein times of industrial trouble the soldiers are called upon to preserve order. But I have met the soldiers in a freetrade country. I have seen them with their cannons and small arms.I have also beheld an army of police, which by the way, the workmen view with infinitely more distrust than they do a regimental corps. I merely emphasize this point to show that the same conditions prevail in free-trade countries as obtain in protectionist countries. Indeed, all my reading of the progress of the workmen in other countries does not enable me to conceive of any civilized people who have descended to the depths of degradation which have been reached by the people in the midland counties of England. My reading has not been confined to the works of those who may have been biassed in their judgment. I have carefully studied the works of those who have investigated the position in England, and I defy any man to affirm that any condition could be worse than that which obtains in some of the manufacturing centres there. On the other hand, we are told that much the same condition of things prevails in America. I admit that perhaps in the manufacturing centres of America some of the evils which I mentioned do obtain. In this connexion I wish to quote* not an American, but a representative of the British artisan, who made a thorough research into American conditions. I refer to Mr. H. J. Pettifer, the secretary of the Workmen’s Association for the Defence of British Industry. The extract, which I wish to read, is as follows : -

Last night the executive committee of the Workmen’s Association for the Defence of British Industry held their first meeting since the return of their secretary from the United States. That gentleman gave at considerable length his experience of that country, where he addressed thirty large meetings. Amongst other things, he stated that it was very hard to make American working men believe that their English brothers had any voice in the government of this county, as the first question ho was invariably asked was, “How is it possible for English working men to have control of the laws that regulate the Tariff, and yet continue to admit the productions of other countries duty free ? “ This was a question which he was unable to answer. He said he did not believe the Sackville incident had much to do with the result of the presidential election.

After this secretary of British workmen had made this tour, and addressed 30 large meetings throughout the States-

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Secretary of what 1 British workmen ?

Mr WATKINS:

– The Secretary of the Workmen’s Association for the Defence of British Industry.

Mr FOWLER:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– It is a sham working men’s organization - a pettifogging protectionist association. There is no such bond fide society in Great Britain.

Mr WATKINS:

– It is most remarkable that every quotation made by those who differ from the honorable member for Perth is questioned. I recollect that in the case of the quotations given by the honorable and learned member for Indi exactly the same doubts were expressed. Every authority is bogus and a sham, even if it be a free-trade authority, if it does not agree with the opinions of the honorable member. At any rate, this man went to America as a free-trader, and gave a faithul report of the condition of affairs.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Does he say he went to America as a free-trader 1

Mr WATKINS:

– He was a free-trader before he went. Perhaps honorable members would be satisfied, if I gave them a quotation from Morley or John Ruskin as to the condition of the people. The report from which I have quoted proceeded -

He also gave the average earnings of twenty girls taken haphazard from the wage-books of Goff and Sons’ braid works, Pawtucket, R.I., showing that they average 35 dollars per month, or 35s. in English money per week, these young women being able to earn enough in one week to keep themselves in board and lodging over three weeks. He also stated, on the authority of Mr. Conat, superintendent of Messrs. Coates’ thread works in the same city, that they paid double wages in their American factory to what they paid in Paisley, Scotland.

I have another authority here as to whether some of the people of England are not even now beginning to see that they are being pushed out of the markets of the world, particularly out of their home market, by other countries. In the last issue of the Contemporary Review, an article by Mr. E. Cook deals with the question as follows : -

In our ambition to be the cheap John of the world, we have developed some of our resources abnormally and neglected others. To foster foreign trade we converted a large part of our island home into black country, we have been prodigally wasteful of our mineral resources, and have neglected our agriculture. In striving for foreign markets we have neglected the best market in the world - the home market - and left ourselves miserably dependent on the foreigner. This is really incipient heart disease of the Empire.

At a meeting of the collective Chambers of Manufacture of England recently, the Nottingham delegates submitted a motion with a view to the consideration of the present industrial position of the old country. That motion was not proceeded with, because some of the delegates were afraid of the dislocation of trade temporarily, but all the delegates admitted that the Nottingham representatives were correct in their contention that something should be done, and advised that the motion should be introduced later on. In my opinion, as I stated before, the salvation of the working man does not altogether depend on the settlement of the fiscal system. In the discussion of that question we have to take a hand, but Ave have to be guided, not only by what is best for ourselves but by what is best for the whole of the producers of the different States which comprise the Commonwealth. We have no right at this juncture to advocate a Tariff which will suit one State alone - we have no right to consider the interests of one industry and neglect others. I will go so far, by way of admission, as to say that we have no right to give consideration to the manufacturer and neglect those who engage in natural production. We must strive to study the interests of all alike, and endeavour to settle the Tariff on a basis satisfactory to all concerned. If I am asked to believe in a revenue Tariff, I say absolutely - “ I do not.” I do not believe in obtaining much revenue through the Customhouse, because I am with those who advocate direct taxation, if direct taxation is practicable. But it would be a vital mistake for the .Federal Parliament to propose direct taxation at the present time, because, in my judgment, we could not deal out justice to the various States - we could not tax them in a fair proportion per capita. A better way would be to dispense with, or reduce a number of the revenue duties, which in many cases are imposts on the raw materials of manufactures, and leave the States to make up their deficiencies by way of direct taxation after we have left them with a shortage. As one who believes in, and has from time to time endeavoured to extend trades’ unionism, I am not afraid of carrying the principle to its logical conclusion. I hope the final arrangement of this Tariff will be of such a nature as to give some inducement to production in the Commonwealth, as against the importation of goods manufactured by cheap labour elsewhere. I have never been able to see the difference between attempts to keep out the black man, and attempts to keep out goods made by the black man in other parts of the world ; and, in advocating protection for the working man, I have always been prepared, as I am prepared now, to go to the logical conclusion. I am not with those who believe in a protective Tariff at the Customhouse, but who do not attempt to protect the working men within the Commonwealth. We ought to go in the direction of uplifting the people who work in our midst, but, on the other hand, in attempting to impose conditions on employers, I am prepared to go to the extent of saying that we ought to protect the latter from unfair competition which comes from abroad. If we are to provide a market for the producers of the Commonwealth, we must, at least, look after the home market. That is the view which I hope honorable members on both sides of the House will take in dealing with this Tariff. I hope they will see that it is their duty to fix, if possible, a Tariff which will suit the requirements of the people who inhabit the different States.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– A high or a low Tariff?

Mr WATKINS:

– A low Tariff or a high Tariff might be particularly bad or good for the people of the country ; it all depends upon the manner in which the imposts are arranged. I have stated that I am in disagreement with the Government in the incidence in some respects of the proposed taxation. We were told by the honorable member for Parkes that we could have a low Tariff, but I did not hear him state that he was prepared to let the different States go short : which meant that while he would have a low Tariff, he would practically knock out the free-list altogether. Now, sir, I believe that the problem can be solved, and I am prepared to take a hand in_ solving it. I am prepared at least to fix a Tariff that will, as far as lies in our power, suit the different producing interests of the whole Commonwealth of Australia. Because I desire, as I think other honorable members desire, that the Tariff framed at this juncture, should be the settled policy of Australia for a considerable time to come. I have always thought, and think now, that what this country wants is a settled fiscal policy. It was the idea of those, who promulgated federation that such a result would follow ; and I hope that when this Tariff is determined it will be one that will bear equally upon all classes within the Commonwealth and that it will remain the settled policy of the country.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The wish that has been expressed by the honorable member who has just resumed his seat is one which I think might’ be very well echoed by all sections of the House. That is, that whatever policy is finally determined upon in connexion with the Tariff, that policy, for a considerable time at least, shall be the fixed policy of Australia. Nothing can do more harm than a continuous tinker^ ing with Tariffs. Nothing can be more injurious than the upsetting of business by unnecessary legislative interference- Therefore, I hope that both sides of the House will join with me, and with the honorable member for Newcastle, in that particular wish. One thing that has struck me more than any other, in connexion with this debate, is the wonderful earnestness with which honorable members on both sides have addressed themselves to the subject matter of it. Whatever may be the verdict of history on the ultimate result, credit must at least be given to honorable members for the careful preparation of their utterances, for their earnestness in advancing, their arguments, and their industry in collecting their facts. Further; I believe that honorable members on both sides have been honest in trying to arrive at a proper conclusion. I am not one of those who would suggest that a man who is in opposition to my views takes up that stand because it suits his pocket or his politics. I prefer, to believe that he is guided by honest purposes, and is really endeavouring to do what he conceives to be right and proper1. One other result which must inevitably follow- from this debate is, that though some honorable members will have gone- from this side of the House, others will have come over from the Opposition. Speaking as one of those who sit behind the Government, and support them, I am strongly of opinion that it will be all the better for the Government’ that the debate has taken place ; because I’ am inclined to think that the views of honorable members who sit together after the division will be much more in accord than they were prior to the division. Those whom we have lost from this side will find greater sympathy and support amongst those with whom they are about to sit, and those who come to us will find honorable members behind the Government more in accord with their opinions. If no other result followed, that at least would be a good one. The honorable member- for Flinders, who has announced that he will take his seat with the Opposition after this debate- is- concluded, has told us that he leaves the Government party because he is a moderate protectionist. He lias assured the House that he has had numerous letters from persons throughout his constituency, congratulating him upon the step he has taken. I have no doubt that it is true. I fancy that if I were to make up my mind to go over- to the opposition side at the conclusion of this debate, I should receive quite a number of letters from persons who would be delighted to find that I had changed my views. But I am afraid that those letters would not befrom people who voted for me at the last election,, and I very much doubt whether the letters received by the honorable member for Flinders- were written by electors who voted for him. I should like to direct attention to the state of affairs existing in the electorate of Flinders- at the time the honorable member was seeking election. It appears from the press that the honorable member stated on the 7th March - I quote from the newspaper which favours his side, the Argus - that he made the following, statement -

I belong to a third party, who want moderate protection of from 20 to 22 per cent, to protect those industries that are worth protecting.

– Will the honorable member add that the Clarion’s cure is pure socialism 1

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I desire also to quote from the Sydney Daily Telegraph of the 14th instant. It is a free-trade newspaper, but it reprints an article from the London Daily Mail, under the heading, “ American Invaders in England - What is their Secret 1” The article is as follows : -

We have lost or are losing some trades directly through bad legislation. The tobacco, printing, and electric industries are instances of this. Once Ireland had flourishing tobacco plantations. These were purposely killed in order that the tobacco industry in om- then American colonies might be fostered. Our erstwhile colonies are now a rival nation, but the revenue restrictions still make tobacco growing here practically impossible. There is no reason, climatic or other, why Ireland to-day should not produce great tobacco crops. A short Act of Parliament fostering the home growth of tobacco by a simplification of the collection of duty, and a rebate or even temporary remission of taxes on tobacco grown within the Kingdom, would create a new industry in Ireland at a bound. Some of us would, as a matter of taste, prefer the leaf of the nicotine grown in Kilkenny to Schleswig-Holstein cabbages doctored and browned in Hamburg.

That is a very strong statement, and it shows that even in Great Britain, despite what has been said by the honorable and learned member for South Australia, Mr. Glynn, there are persons who advocate a protectionist policy. By the way, that honorable and learned member, in order to confute something which was said by the honorable and learned member for Indi, quoted from Professor Davidson as follows: -

It is idle, and worse than idle, for it raises false hopes, to point to the weakening of free-trade sentiment in the United Kingdom.

The honorable and learned member should have read on a sentence or two, and he would have found these remarks exactly following what he read : -

It is within the limits of human possibility that in some constituencies a majority could be found for protection against goods made in Germany and elsewhere ; and in other places a candidate who declared in favour of a reenactment of the Corn Laws might be victorious. But these two wings of a possible protectionist party cherish contradictory ideals, and would fall out as soon as they came to practical legislation.

Mr Glynn:

– The honorable member might finish the paragraph while he is about it.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I think the duty of” finishing the paragraph lay rather with the honorable and learned member for South Australia, Mr. Glynn. My point is that he read one sentence only from the paragraph which suited his argument, and that the balance of the paragraph’ which I have read goes to prove that there are protectionists in the mother country divided into two wings, and that if these two protectionist wings could only be united they would be a very substantial factor in the politics of the old country to-day. It is simply because they happen to be in different camps, and because of the impossibility of uniting them, that the protectionist cause does not make greater progress in Great Britain.

Mr Glynn:

– It shows that the protectionists were touching the colonial trade, and that thev were prepared to retaliate.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member’s interjection goes to prove that he knew all about the case, and did not give the House the benefit of his knowledge. Arguments have been adduced in reference to the relative positions of the factories of New South Wales and Victoria, and figures relating, to these factories have been given over and over again, until I think honorable members are tired of them ; but there is one aspect of the question which has not been touched upon in my hearing. Whatever may be said as to the aggregate number employed in the factories of the two States, and I do not now propose to discuss that phrase of the question - something must be said as to the divisions of that aggregate. If honorable members take Mr. Coghlan’s grouping of the industries of Australia - he divides them under three heads, “domestic,” “natural,” and “competitive,” - they will find that the number of hands employed in Victoria in competitive industries is 41,175, and the number employed in New South Wales competitive industries is 25,887, a difference of 15,000 - not a difference of” only a thousand or two, as some honorable members will have us believe. It must be borne in mind, too, that Victoria has a smaller population than New South Wales, and has been working under conditions which in many respects have not been at all favorable. The fact is, that protection is responsible f6r the larger number of hands employed in Victoria, and we are proud of it. The greatest compliment which could be paid to Victoria is the abuse which has been heaped upon her by those who have decried her. May I quote from another New South Wales authority? It would appear, notwithstanding the self-satisfied manner of those who have spoken on behalf of New South Wales in this debate, that that State is not so marvellously prosperous as they would have us to believe. I find from the annual report of the New South Wales Government Labour Bureau for the year ending 20th June, 1900, that, since the date of the founding of the bureau - between 1892 and 1893 - there have been registered no fewer than 81,889 unemployed persons, while work has been found for 96,044 persons. The figures seem contradictory, but the answer is that in some cases employment has been found for men more than once. These figures show that a very large number of adult males - persons who ought to be bread winners - have been out of employment in New South Wales during the last few years. The report says -

Notwithstanding the many we have sent to work, and the large number of young men we have sent to the warsin South Africa and China, there does not appear to be any appreciable difference in the number of unemployed.

I naturally expected that the official who made that statement would endeavour to suggest a remedy for the evil of which he complains, and I was not disappointed. What is the remedy that he suggests for this tremendous evil, an evil which the leader of the Opposition said, when he launched a successful want of confidence motion some years ago, he would cure in 24 hours? Notwithstanding that statement, over 81,000 unemployed persons have been registered in the State, and the official at the head of the bureau reports that there is no appreciable diminution of the number. The remedy he suggest was this -

What is wanted most in these colonies is the promotion and establishment of large manufacturing industries, where the youth of Australia could be trained in all the art and science of manufacture. Thousands of youths annually leave our public schools and entering the path of manhood, and seeking some calling whereat to make a living, have at -present little open to them except i he professions, which are not within the reach of thousands, orclerical labour, which is already overdone. Manual labour is open only to the physically strong, and in this the supplyfarexceeds the demand. If we had large manufacturing industries, our young men could be trained and employed, and I have no doubt thousands of them would make their mark in the multiplicity of avenues these industries would open up.

The Australian native is not wanting in brain power or ambition. This has already been shown by the superiority he has established in not only the science of sport and athletics, in courage and endurance, but also in learning and culture. And if in these, why not in the arts of manufacture.

It is to be hoped that the policy under federation will bring into existence a large field for the employment, opportunity, development, and expansion of the best talents of our brightest native Australians.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The superintendent of the New South Wales Labour Bureau was a protectionist Member of Parliament, who lost his seat, and was then given his present position.

Mr Thomas:

– He used to be the secretary to the Protectionist Association.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I suppose he was appointed to that position to silence him ; but he has not been silenced, and he speaks the truth.

Mr Conroy:

– He was appointed by a protectionist Government which he had supported.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The honorable member seems not to be aware that 81,889 represents the number of. times for which application made for work, not the number of persons who made the application.

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– Some men have been registered twenty times.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I understood that there were no unemployed in New South Wales; that in free-trade they had a panacea for all ills, and that if the whole Commonwealth were under free-trade employment would be found even for the unemployed in hitherto protected States ; though how, I do not know, because I am unable to understand how more employment can be found where half the work is done outside the country than where the whole of it is done within the country. A favorite answer to the statement that more hands are employed in factories in Victoria thanin New South Wales is, that if it is true, these hands are mostly women, and no credit should be given to the policy which finds them employment. There are two answers to that rejoinder. The first is. that, as compared with New South Wales, Victoria has industries which must employ women. The shirt-making industry in New South Wales employs scarcely any one ; but in Victoria it is a very large and flourishing industry. The other answer is that the tendency all the world over is to employ women in factories. It is an unfortunate tendency perhaps, but it is none the less true; and even in older countries, in free-trade Great Britain itself, the tendency has been to increasingly employ women in certain industries. To quote from Mr. J. A. Hobson, on The Development of Modern Capitalism, I find that the following facts are elicited : -

In 18.51 the males in the textile and allied industries numbered 462,400. In 1891 they had gone down to 430,500, whilst females had increased from 472,100 to 585,600 in the same period. In the dress industries the males had decreased from 397,500 in 1851 to 353,800 in 1891, whilst the females had increased from 47.1,200 to 681,300. The total figures for all industries show that while male labour had increased 50 per cent, in 50 years, female labour had increased by over 200 per cent, in the same period.

So that there is a double answer to the statement that Victoria employs more women. The first is that they are employed in an industry which is peculiarly a woman’s industry, and the second is that, the world over, the tendency is to increase the employment of women, and in a greater ratio than that in which men are employed. I have been a little amused, in listening to the speeches of some of the champions of a revenue Tariff on the other side, to find how widely they differ as to what they want. The right honorable member who leads the Opposition tells us in a breath that New South Wales does not want any of the proposed Tariff, that she desires to sweep it away ; but the honorable member for West Sydney has said - “ If we are to have this Tariff, let us fix it for ten years, so that the people of New South Wales will get as good a show as the people of Victoria.” One man says - “ We do not want it at all.” But the other says - “ We must have it fixed for ten years, if it is to be carried into effect at all.”

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– We want a referendum first.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The statement as to the fixity of tenure preceded the statement as to the referendum, and I think that that condition was made rather to save the former statement. I now propose to answer the kind of challenge which was thrown out to me with respect to an interjection I made during the speech of the leader of the Opposition. I interjected that Great Britain had been losing for years to Germany the major portion of her colonial trade, and that statement was rather contemptuously set aside by the speaker. I propose to show by official documents how that trade is going.

Mr Conroy:

– Is the honorable member going to take the whole of the trade or only certain lines ?

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I am going to take all the trade with the colonies. The first quotation I shall make in support of the argument I propose to adduce is from an English blue-book entitled, Report on a Visit to Germany, with a View of Ascertaining the Recent Progress qf Technical Education in that Country, being a Letter to His Grace the Duke qf Devonshire, ICQ. It is signed by some very prominent English free-traders, who were members of a commission, including Sir Philip Magnus, Mr. Gilbert R. Redgrave, Mr. Swire Smith, and Mr. William Woodall. It was published in England in 1896.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– What the honorable member is going to read was written 25 years ago.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member can have the document in his hand afterwards, and he will find that it is dated 1896. It is not the Technical Education Commissioners’ report, but a letter written as the result of a visit made some years after that document was prepared. The letter is signed by those who formed a portion of the commission. Speaking of Germany, the writers say -

In certain of her industries, on the occasion of our first visit, Bavaria was still, so to speak, in her infancy ; now we found large and populous factories, employing thousands of workpeople, where formerly there were workshops with but a sprinkling of artisans. Where once she relied upon machinery imported from England, now she produces a steadily increasing quantity of that required for the home trade, and finds new markets in other hinds. Her railway system has been greatly developed and extended, and the disadvantage of her inland position and her comparative remoteness from colonial and other markets is, to some extent, compensated for by very low railway rates for raw materials.

Her brilliant achievements in the field of chemical industries have encouraged her to establish well-equipped electrical laboratories, and to develop the practical teaching of physics with the view of assisting the electrical trades, which are comparatively of recent growth. Twelve years ago the commissioners had to report that the facilities for practical laboratory instruction in electrical technology scarcely existed, or were of the most meagre kind. At that time, nowhere in Germany was to be found so well equipped a laboratory for electrical engineers as at the Finsbury Technical College. Now, there are no laboratories in England which can compare in the detail and completeness of their equipment with those we visited at Darmstadt and Stuttgart ; and no facilities exist for original and independent research in physical subjects to be compared, with those afforded at the Imperial Physical Institute at Charlottenburg.

That quotation shows that in the domain of practical business experience the Germans were carefully preparing to get these markets. That they did get them I shall unmistakably prove.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– By scientific education.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– By scientific education. That was one of the means by which they got ready to make an assault upon British colonial markets ! Protection first, education afterwards ! The last quotation I propose to make from tire letter is as follows : -

It may be noted also that as in England certain power looms were employed in the making of common goods for Germany, so the German manufacturers, aided by protective duties, first used their English looms for the manufacture of these common goods for themselves from yarns imported from England. The competition at the outset was met by efforts on the part of our English manufacturers to overcome the Tariffs by still further cheapening this class of goods, a competition which in most instances they were compelled to relinquish. The Germans, however, no longer confine themselves to the manufacture, for export purposes, of one class of goods ; and it is now in the better kind of fabrics that, helped by their schools of design, and by weaving and dyeing schools, and by their intimate study of the methods of commerce, they are destined to become our most serious competitors.

That is the statement of some English freetraders who had formed part of a commission on technical education - to inquire into the methods for bringing English manufacturers and artisans up to the highest standard of techanical education. These quotations from this most recent report show how Germany prepared her citizens and paved the way for the capturing of the colonial markets of the world. How have they done so? I asked the Customs department to prepare for me some figures as to all British colonial possessions and the increase of German trade. I am not going to quote all the figures, because they would be wearisome, but I shall take two or three cases in point to show how my statement can be borne out by facts.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The honorable member is going to relate these, I suppose, as the sequence of cause and effect ?

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– Exactly. The statement furnished to me by the Customs department shows the value of goods imported d directly into British possessions from G er many in certain years. I take India as a case in ‘ point. The value of goods sent direct from Germany to India in 1877 was £9,000. In 1887, ten years later, the figures had risen to £160,000, and in 1896 to £2,353,000. So that in twenty years there was an increase of direct trade with India from £9,000 to £2,353,000. Take Canada, as affording the next example. Twenty years ago the country had a direct German trade of £77,000, whereas the trade now amounts to £1,250,000. Twenty years ago the direct German trade with Australia amounted to £9,800, whilst to-day it reaches the large amount of £1,574,000. Thus it can be seen that the German trade has been increasing with these three countries at a very great rate indeed, and what is true regarding Australia, Canada, and India, is equally correct in the cases of the Cape, the Straits Settlements, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Of course it may be objected that although the German trade has increased in that way, so, also, has British trade increased, as the population of the British possessions has become larger. I anticipated that objection, and I asked the Customs department to supply me with figures on that head. I have not been able to get the statistics for India and Canada, but fortunately I have secured them so far as they relate to Australia. The return shows that while in 1887 the direct export trade from Great Britain to Australia amounted to £20,000,000, it was in 1896 £19,000,000 or £1,000,000 less. During the period from 188 7 to 1896 the percentage of increase in the German trade with Australia was 134 per cent., whilst the percentage of British decrease was 5-l per cent. Thus the German trade has enormously increased, whilst the trade of Great Britain, with her own possessions, has decreased, and I think these figures prove conclusively that the interjection I made was hot beside the mark, but, on the other hand, was justified.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The unfortunate thing about it was that the honorable member gave his reason first, and stated that the increase in German trade was due, not to the Tariff, but to scientific education.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I said that the increase of trade was due to protection ; as one of the methods of fostering local industry in Germany is by means of fiscal protection. The industries of Germany have been brought into existence by the fiscal policy of that country- they have been further assisted by a splendid system of technical colleges, and as a result her manufacturers now export their goods to every market in the world, and have practically captured the major -portion of what used .to be British trade with British possessions.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The honorable member did not read that from the book.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– That is the argument to be deduced from the statements contained in the book, and from the figures supplied by our own Customs department. The honorable member for .Parramatta made one statement about myself, regarding which I wish to say a word or two. He said that even the honorable member for Bourke was in the old days a free-trader and, he believed, an ardent single taxer. May I take this opportunity of saying that I have never, during the whole course of my political life, been a free-trader or a single taxer. It is true that I have been, as I am still, for certain purposes, a great believer in the taxation of land values, but I challenge the honorable member to show, or to get any one to support his contention, that I have ever been anything else but a protectionist, as far as fiscalism is concerned. If the honorable member looks up the reports of the debates which took place in this House in connexion with the discussion of the Victorian Tariff, he will find that I have always voted for protection, and supported that policy.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I know that the freetraders put the honorable member into Parliament.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– It is a peculiar thing that in Victoria it is the protectionists who are land taxers, whilst in New South Wales it is the free-traders, or, at any rate, some of them, who advocate that form of taxation. Whilst I have challenged the honorable member to prove his statement regarding myself, I may point out that it is singular that the honorable member should be open to criticism upon the very point upon which he has attacked me. The honorable member - I will not say wilfully or designedly, sought to damage me with my constituents by endeavouring to make it appear that I had once been a free-trader, and was therefore not to be relied upon now as a protectionist.

Mr Conroy:

– I thought that statement had been withdrawn ?

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– No, it was not withdrawn, but, on the contrary, when a denial came from a friend of mine on this side of the House, the honorable member for Parramatta persisted in saying that his statement was true, and that he had authority for it. Now I will tell the House what the honorable member himself said, before he became a free-trader, about the awful effects of free-trade.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Is the honorable member going to read that letter again ?

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– I am going to quote a portion of it. It is a very good letter, and is a magnificent tribute to protection. The honorable member in this letter does not tell us of what he had learned or heard, but of what he had actually seen during a trip to England from which he had just returned. Speaking of the unemployed in England, in answer to some other correspondent, he wrote -

Re unemployed of .England, your correspondent thinks there maybe 70,000. I am perfectly sure he is under the mark. The unemployed in England at this moment are considerably over 1,000,000. But, .sir, the number of unemployed is not the only index of free-trade disaster.

This comes-from the honorable member who now says that free-trade is going to rid us of our unemployed. He does not now speak of free-trade disaster ! Perhaps there is a reason we have not yet heard. He says further -

The figures re pauperism in England are misleading. Nearly the whole industrial population of England are at this;moment living livesbordering on the verge of starvation.

Mr McCay:

– Was it true 1

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– It was true at that time, which was one of the worst periods of depression Great Britain ever passed through.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member, in his letter, continues as follows : -

Let me give one more fact to show what is transpiring every day in free-trade England. A large colliery owner has just put down a large -shaft at a cost of £80,000 ; he had to sink 80 yards through a loose sand bed, and had to line it with tubing. He had large iron works of his own in the vicinity of the shaft, yet notwithstanding, he imported the whole of the tubing from Belgium at a cost of 18s. per ton cheaper than he could produce it at his own works, and when spoken to by some of the workmen, who at that time were working two days per week, he complacently remarked that he was buying in the cheapest market as. a free-trader ‘should do.

Buying in the cheapest market, whilst there were over a million people unemployed in England; whilst, according to the honorable member, the whole population of England were on the borders of starvation. The honorable member proceeds as follows : -

Now according to the free-trade theory of exchange he had to sell as well as buy, which fact simply means that he had to pay for the iron he bought in Belgium. What did. he pay for it ? Why, sir, he mode the fact of his having bought from Belgium a lever by which to wring from his workmen a reduction of 10 per cent. This is how free-trade is constantly paying for imports.

Taking 10 per cent. off the worker. Does the honorable member for Parramatta propose to pay for imports by reducing the wages of the workmen in New South Wales and the other States 1 He says that that is what is done by free-traders. He says that that is what they do in England. He continues -

She sells her flesh and blood, and “pulls off the last pound,” for imports she can herself produce. How are we paying for our imports at the present time ? Simply by selling our credit at an enormous sacrifice, as well as our raw materials, at a dead loss.

Is that the way in which New South Wales is keeping up her industries and her credit? Is she “ selling her credit at an enormous sacrifice, and sending away her raw material at a dead loss?” The honorable member adds -

According to the free-trader, we are doing grandly if we can sustain our credit in a foreign land. It does not matter that our mechanics are compelled to take pick and shovel as long as they keep doing something to sustain our credit in England.

I do not know whether the honorable member still maintains that attitude. He admits by interjection that what he says was true then, but he does not admit that it is true now.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I was as ignorant then as is the honorable member now.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member admits that it was true then. I will prove that it is equally true to-day.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Later on I will prove that the honorable member is a free-

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member for Parramatta will find that a very difficult task. It is quite true that at the present moment Great Britain is, perhaps,busier than she has been for many years past. That circumstance, however, arises out of the enormous amount of money which is being expended as the result of the war in South Africa. But, notwithstanding that Great Britain is busier to-day than she has ever been before, it is significant that her export trade is gradually going down. I have just had handed to me two cablegrams which appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of 9th March and11th March of this year. The first one reads as follows : -

The Board of Trade returns of the United Kingdom” under free-trade,” for the month of February, 1901, as compared with the same month of 1900, shows that the value of the exports decreased £2,182,394.

The other cablegram reads thus -

The trade statistics of the United States for the past three years have been most remarkable, and those for 1900 were the most remarkable of the series, as an excess of exports was then recorded of £132,395,743. These returns cover merchandise only, and the exports, which in 1895 were only £168,271,467, were last year £301,522,374, or 80 per cent. larger.

One would imagine that facts like these would appeal to those who say that they were ignorant once, but are not so ignorant now. The reasons which support me in continuing a protectionist, notwithstanding the proof which I hear is to be forthcoming

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The honorable member “ turned dog “ on the men who put him into Parliament.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I must ask the honorable member to withdraw that statement.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I withdraw it.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– The honorable member for Parramatta says that I “turned dog “ upon the men who put me into Parliament.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The statement has been withdrawn, and cannot be referred to.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– It may be said that I have “ turned “ upon those who put me into Parliament. I wish to say that those who put me into Parliament first are among my strongest supporters today. When I had the misfortune, or good fortune perhaps, to lose my seat at the State elections the same men who formerly returned me to the Victorian Parliament, not only rallied around me, but did their best in other ways to secure my election to this House. So far from having lost friends, I have more friends in the Bourke electorate to-day than I have ever had in my life. I still continue a protectionist, because I desire to see the industries of the

Commonwealth developed under that policy which seems to me to offer the only rational way of developing them. I hold the home market to be the best and most profitable market. Industries have been developed under protection that could never have been developed otherwise. By this system we can attract capital and population to a greater extent than we can do by sending out for one-half of what we require to other countries. If Australia needs one thing more than another it is population. We desire to lighten our burdens, to add to the volume of our trade, and to develop our great natural resources. We can best do these things by means of a large population, and population will flow to us when we offer it sufficient inducement. The greatest export of Britain to-day is the export of human beings. We want some of that export to come here. The way to encourage it to come here is to open up avenues of employment by developing our natural resourCeS. Apropos of this matter, what does Mr. J. S. Larke say in a lecture delivered before the New South Wales Chamber of Manufactures in February of this year 1 He says -

Iron is the secret and source of manufacturing success. There was a time when all the iron Canada used came from Great Britain. It is not so now. Some ten years ago the Iron and Steel Institute visited the United States, and many of its members came into Canada. The secretary - reputed one of the cleverest statisticians of England, a high authority in the iron trade - made a speech in Ottawa, in which he was reported to have said - “ Canada professes great friendship for England, and great loyalty to the Empire, but she nas put on heavy duties on the importation of English iron, and that is not in keeping with her professions.” On reading- that speech, the next morning I said to some members of the Institute whom I met : - “Has that secretary of yours gone through the United States with his eyes shut ? Anybody but a fool must see that to-day it is not a question whether we shall get our iron from England or not, but whether we shall take it from the United States or make it ourselves, and Canada has decided to make it herself.” As I have stated, practically all the iron and iron products imported into Canada, came from Great Britain. Fifteen years ago, of the imports of pig iron, 70 per cent, were still from Great Britain, and 30 from the United States. Ten years after, and the proportions were 16 per cent, from Great Britain and 84 from the United States. Railway supplies in 1884 from Great Britain 80 per cent. , from the United States 10 per cent. ; in 1889 it had become 6£ per cent, from Great Britain, and 934 per cent, from the United States. Take castings and forgings ; once it all came from Great Britain ; last year there was only 24 per cent, from Great Britain, but we received 974 per cent, from the United States. Great

Britain is no longer the iron king, and the supremacy of British engineering establishments and ship-yards is threatened.

That is from the report of a lecture delivered by Mr. J. S. Larke before the Chamber of Manufactures, Sydney, on the 27 th February in the present” year. He says that iron is the secret and source of manufacturing supremacy. Have we any iron in Australia, and shall we develop the industry 1 Do not the Ministry propose, by a system of bounties, and by other means, to put the secret and source of manufacturing supremacy on a fair footing in Australia ? Do the Ministry not propose to develop those very industries which are to contribute so largely, I trust, to the manufacturing supremacy in the southern seas of the Commonwealth of Australia t I believe that under protection in Australia, we can do what has already been done, according to Mr. Larke, in Canada and the United States ; we can produce our own iron, and gain some of the secret and source of manufacturing supremacy. I believe, further, that it is our duty to afford encouragement, not only in respect to iron, but in respect to every other portion of our great natural inheritance. Believing that can be done by the means I have indicated, I stand here more confirmed than ever in my ‘protectionist convictions. I am satisfied personally - I was never more so - that if this Tariff be fixed for seven or ten years - as the honorable member for West Sydney desires,, we shall find very great impetus indeed given to every kind of industry in Australia ; and that, so far from one particular State monopolizing industries, each State will develop its own particular and peculiar resources with advantage to all the others. Our home market will have been secured to us ; our added population will have come to find employment in industries, and will found homes here, thus adding to our numerical strength and to our commercial status. This is the true path to that nationhood, to which we have all been looking forward, but which we have as yet only on paper. Australia, to reach and to enjoy her manifest destiny must develop her own resources, must ‘ find employment for her own people, and let the rest of the world look after its own concerns. Our duty is to ourselves, and we can do far better by employing the whole of our own people, and by importing nothing, than by employing one-half of our people, and giving the rest of our employment to the outside world.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I should like to offer a personal explanation in regard to the interjection I made on the question whether or not the honorable member for Bourke was a free-trader.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Thehonorable member can make an explanation if it refers to his own speech, bub not if it merely refers to an interjection.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The whole matter has arisen out of my speech, which was in reply to statements made, in the first instance, by the honorable member for Melbourne Ports. I should like to say that I do not approve of honorable members endeavourng to show inconsistency on my part by referring to ancient history, and fishing up an absolutely foolish letter, which has already been read four times to the House. It was in reply to that letter that I made some reference to the fiscal change on the part of the Prime Minister, and also on the part of the honorable member for Bourke. If I have misinterpreted or misrepresented the honorable member, I am very sorry ; but my remarks were based on statements made by Mr. J. F. Hassett, who resides in the electorate of the honorable member for Bourke, and who has written the following letter.

Mr Kingston:

– I rise to order. Should not the honorable member for Parramatta be confined to explaining something in which he has been misrepresented? Is the honorable member not now attempting to make a second speech for the purpose of casting reflections on the previous speaker ?

Mr SPEAKER:

– I understand that what the honorable member for Parramatta proposes to do is to explain a statement he made in his own speech relative to some opinions held some time ago by the honorable member for Bourke. So long as the honorable member for Parramatta confines himself to explaining the reason why he made that statement in his speech, he is within the standing order which gives the right of explanation.

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

– Mr. Hassett supported the free-trade candidate at the last election.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I should think he did, after the manner in which the honorable member turned round on him. Mr. Hassett’s letter is as follows : -

Dear Sir, - In reply to your inquiry, I beg to state that Mr. Hume Cook did not proclaim himself as a free-trader or a single-taxer when first elected to Parliament, but he did lead myself and others who were mainly instrumental in securing his election to believe that he was one.

Mr McCay:

– Is that the sort of authority on which the honorable member makes assertions against an honorable member’s character?

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr Hughes:

– Was it not £500,000 ?

Mr THOMAS:

A member moy speak to any question before the House.

And concludes -

But not otherwise.

According to that standing order, as I am now putting the question to the House, “ that the words proposed to be added be so added,” the only debate that could take place would be on the one issue whether or not a direct tax, in the shape of a land tax, should be imposed in the Commonwealth. Standing order 263 says : -

An amendment proposed should be disposed of before another amendment can be moved ; after all the amendments have been disposed of the main question as amended, or otherwise, should T>e forthwith put. ;So that, at the conclusion of the debate, if I confined the discussion to the question before the Chair, I could not permit the leader of the Opposition to speak in reply, or allow any honorable member who has not spoken on the main question to address himself to it. I should be compelled, on the Amendment being negatived, to put the main question forthwith. Under the circumstances I have decided to permit the debate on the main question to continue on the part of those who have not yet spoken. Such honorable members will also be allowed “to address themselves to the amendment as a cognate subject. Honorable members who have already addressed the House upon the main question may speak again, but their addresses must be confined strictly to the question whether or not a land tax should he imposed in the Commonwealth. I think that this course will best conduce to the convenience of honorable members, and that it will be in accordance with the forms of the House.

Mr BARTON:
Minister for External Affairs · Hunter · Protectionist

– I would be the last in this House to call into question the opinion you, Me. Speaker, have expressed, and, indeed, as far as I am concerned, I have no necessity to appeal to the indulgence of the House. I have spoken on the main question, but I have no intention of adding to the length of the debate, which has been very much prolonged, in view of the necessities of .the country. Even if I did not doubt my right to speak on the main question again, I should in any case confine myself to the amendment at this late stage. Indeed, I have very little to add. An additional satisfaction to me, in my retrospect of this debate, has been to find that I have . not been one of the longest, but one of the shortest speakers. Therefore I do not intend to impair the pleasure of that retrospect by speaking for more than a very few minutes. Having to deal with the amendment alone, I am confronted with this position - that it was not only the policy of the party which sits with me when we went to the country, that at any rate for the present, the revenue of the Commonwealth must be raised wholly from customs and excise duties, but this view was - if not at first, at any rate later on - supported by the leader of the Opposition, with whom, therefore, in this respect, I and those who sit with me are quite in unison. It is far from my mind to lay down the proposition that at no time will a land tax be necessary for the purposes of the Commonwealth. It was a wise foresight that in the drafting of the Constitution subsection (2) of section 51 was made so wide. It includes the whole ground of taxation so long as that taxation does not discriminate between States or parts of States. Therefore, the Commonwealth has the power to impose taxation of any kind, whether direct or indirect, so long as there is no unjust discrimination about that taxation. The amendment therefore cannot be quarrelled with on that ground. Nor can it be quarrelled with in any other way except in regard to the position which I put forward, and the inherent merits of land value taxation to which I do not think it necessary to address myself to-night. On the other grounds of tone and temper the amendment has been put forward very calmly and very ably. Without any long argument as to the necessity of raising a revenue adequate to the needs of the States - I do not say adequate to their demands - I merely say that I still hold the opinion, which I think was held by all parties when we went to the polls, that the revenue must be raised by customs and excise, and that it must be sufficient in its returns to prevent undue embarrassment to the finances of the States. As we know, the provisions of the Constitution render it necessary for the Commonwealth, during the bookkeeping period, to return to the respective States all that has been spent in the transferred services, less the expenditure in those States, and theirper capita share in the new expenditure of the Commonwealth. That necessity - as is evidenced by the figures of the Treasurer, which, however much they may be quarrelled with in respect to their accuracy, have been compiled with the very greatest care - establishes one thing very clearly, namely, that there is a certain ratio between the returns yielded by any Tariff imposed by the Commonwealth, which necessitates that some States shall receive more than they need, if it is to be recognised that we are to return to the remaining States something within a measurable degree of what they need. To that measurable degree we must come for the safety of the Commonwealth, not taking the course which the honorable member for the Barrier advocates of raising the Commonwealth revenue without paying any regard to the necessities of the States, but having in view the fact that any result which causes an undue and perilous embarrassment to the States, or to any one of them, reacts with immense force upon the credit of the whole Commonwealth.

Mr Watson:

– Do we not force them to levy direct taxation if we fail to impose it ourselves?

Mr BARTON:

– That is for them to decide. I was going to say that that is the position to which I still adhere, notwithstanding my honorable friend’s arguments. We cannot support this amendment, because the Government and the Opposition parties were united in indicating that the revenue of the Commonwealth must, at any rate, at this stage of our history, be raised from customs and excise, and because it is the bounden duty of the Commonwealth to guard against the possibility of any serious embarrassment to the States. If it does not do so, it abandons its position of trustee to the whole of the States during the bookkeeping period, and it can only abandon its trusteeship at its own peril, because the impairment or ruin of the credit of one State would impair that credit which we must maintain for the nation as a whole. That is a result which we cannot permit to be brought about. Therefore, taking it for granted that it was the consensus of opinion on the part of the Government and of the Opposition that the whole of the revenue of the Commonwealth - at this stage, at any rate - should be raised from customs and excise, I say that that revenue must be such as toprevent any undue embarassment to the States. Let us go a point beyond that. There is another aspect of this duty of preserving the credit of the States. We have so to adjust the burdens of taxation as to leave to them the capacity to raise for themselves any shortage which may be imposed upon them as the result of the operation of our Tariff. It is impossible- as has been indicated - to frame any Tariff which will supply to all the States–

Mr SPEAKER:

– I wish to point out to the Prime Minister that the amendment does not necessarily involve the raising of any less sum than is suggested in the Government proposal, and therefore the question of whether or not funds should be provided to a greater or less extent for the States, is hardly within its scope.

Mr BARTON:

– I was going to urge that this tax is submitted as a part substitute - as the honorable member for the Barrier put it - for the duties proposed to be raised by customs and excise. It involves the question in itself of whether it is an efficient substitute - efficient for those needs which all parties recognise must be satisfied. That is the whole extent to which I wish to go. It is important that in raising our revenue we should not, to any degree that is not positively and absolutely necessary, trespass upon any taxable capacity of the States which might enable them to supply any shortages that result from our Tariff proposals. I do not wish to advert to those proposals any more than to point out that it is impossible to satisfy the greatest needs of the States, because that would involve an unheard-of revenue being raised from the source I have indicated. The course, therefore, which is possible and practicable is the medium course, which may leave some shortages. Without going over the old ground, or traversing the old figures,, it will be clearly seen that those States which will be left with shortages by this Tariff must have a field of taxation, from which to put their finances in a proper position. If the field is trespassed upon as is now proposed, by so much is it rendered more difficult for each State that is short to preserve its solvency and its credit. That is, I take it, the whole point involved in the amendment. We are not concerned to dispute that land taxation may sometimes be necessary. There are those of us who, if we look into this matter, must foresee that in some of the States, at any rate, a greater degree of internal direct taxation is necessary. The sole reason is that the whole of the ordinary powers of taxation provided by Customs and excise are given to the Commonwealth, and the States cannot, as States, have any voice as to how those powers shall be exercised, and if the result of the unaided exercise of our rights, which are the rights of the whole Commonwealth. leaves the States with a shortage, then to enter on the other field of taxation - one that belongs to us as much as to the States, but one which morally we ought to leave to the States as much as possible - would impair their credit and their ability to satisfy the needs of their own Treasurers. It is not for us to say that in this or that State there is extravagance. We are not here to rectify the internal finances of the States, but simply to return to them, subject to the needs of the Commonwealth, as much as we can in order to prevent their being placed in an improper position. If the States choose to “ outrun the constable,” and to enormously increase extravagant expenditure, so that anything in reason the Commonwealth Government do is not sufficient for them, it must be their responsibility to make up the balance. But even if the Governments and the Parliaments of the States do not recognise their duty, we have. still to remember that the solvency of the States is the solvency of the Commonwealth, and, therefore, we should not subtract from them any reasonable field of taxation by means of which they can rehabilitate their finances. If, having that proper field, the States do not choose to resort to it, that may be their mistake, but it is not our business to interfere. On the other hand, if the Commonwealth Government, having the main sources of revenue, resort to other sources and take it out of the power of the States to rectify anything that needs rectification, then we begin to be chargeable, because we have entered on a domain which at the present time we ought to leave to them, in order that their individuality as contracting States may be maintained in full strength. No one desires that the States should become crawling dependents, on the Commonwealth for grants ; we donot want anything of that kind to occur. The position, as I pointed out, is a temporary one. It will exist, at any rate, during the bookkeeping period, and it may existlater. The movements Of trade which will follow the abolition of the Inter-State barrierscannot be foreseen. We can only make the best attempt that our present knowledgeopens up to us to provide for the contingencies of a few years, but the position of the States financially will probably differvery much from the position in which they stand now in relation to each other. TheStates which at present have the greatestconsuming capacity may tend to equality, and those with less consuming capacity may make some advance to their level. All these are matters which must be observed and watched ; and it may be that at the end of a few years weshall find ourselves in a better position tosay what should be done in regard to direct taxation. But the needs of the States compel both parties to take the position that the Customs and Excise shall be, for the present, the sole source of revenue. We are pledged to that course on the Government side of the House, and honorable members on the opposition side are similarly pledged, so far as the voice of a leader can represent the voice of a party. I take it that that pledge was given on the considerations I have pointed Out, which apply to the finances of the Commonwealth irrespective of free-trade and protection, and apply as much to one party as to the other. Under these circumstances, therefore, without expressing too much opposition to land value taxation, which, as I say, the necessities of the Com.monwealth itself may some day render necessary, I point out that as the necessities of the Commonwealth do not at the present moment render such taxation necessary, it is better to leave the States in possession of that confidence and security which they will have when there is this source of revenue tomake up for possible financial necessities. Having said that, I do not think I need prolong the debate further than to say that I shall not find myself in a position to vote for the amendment.

Mr CLARKE:
Cowper

Mr CLARKE:

– This is taken from a pamphlet which was sent to me, I presume by the friends of the honorable member who made the speech -

I have stated the case with regard to New South Wales, but New South Wales will have to make a sacrifice more or less. You cannot expect to convert five other colonics to your fiscal system because you intend to federate, and we New South Welshmen must make some compromise, so long as it is not disastrous in regard to this fiscal matter, or we cannotfederate at all. The more clearly that is seen, and the more people begin to realize it, the less dissatisfaction will there be when the federation comes about ; because you must recollect this, that this is one of the most difficult federations that has ever taken place in the world, notwithstanding all the difficulties of Swiss and Canadian federation. We have here five or six large, unwieldy states in this great island continent of Australia, separated sofar from one another that there is the danger in the early periods of our federation that certain contingencies may occur which will strain that union to the very utmost.

Those contingencies are very close, if they are not actually present.

Therefore, it is an absolutely necessary condition precedent that, in all matters that affect the industrial life and the pockets of the people, they should know clearly and fully the bargain that they are about to make. Now, I say most unmistakably, in spite of all these difficulties, that union is worth the price. And, speaking as a free-trader, and without any disrespect to others, I believe that the way of looking at the Tariff of the future, when we come together as one great Australian people, will be far higher, more national, and broader than we have looked at that question in our isolated communities.

I am sorry to say that that has not come true.

If we do not have free-trade with the outside world, we will have free-trade among ourselves; and, as population increases - although probably not to such an extent for many years as in the United States of America, we will have the same great factor which we find there, and which, to a certain extent, has kept protection from its evil effects, the fact that although they have protection against the outside world, they have a world in themselves in which trade is absolutely free.

Those are sentiments with which we can all agree. This address was given after the meeting of the Convention at Adelaide, and I believe that at the time the honorable member was a member of the Convention. At the conclusion of his remarks, referring to the finances, he said -

The actual position is this : That in some of these colonies - and the delegates speak with all the knowledge and experience of their people, gained by their political position - that there is no means of forcing direct taxation any further than it has gone. It is a very unfortunate thing torus in New South Wales, because you willclearly see that if there is embodied in this Constitution - as there is in the draft Bill up to the present time - a clause by which a certain surplus must be returned, a surplus based upon present actual conditions, it means that you must, whether you like it or not, create a Federal Tariff to bring in a certain volume of revenue. And what does that mean for us ? It means this - that New South Wales, if she joins this union,must agree to the re-imposition to a large extent of customs duties, whether they are purely for revenue or for protective purposes, which will be going back upon her present system of free-trade. There is no use shutting your eyes to that fact. People will say that we can create a Tariff which is not protective, but only revenue producing. I would like to ask the common sense of Australia whether, when six colonies joined together, and five are of one fiscal character, the sixth is likely to produce any effect upon that character when numbers are against it ? I say all this, not because I want to say anythingagainst federation, but I say we want to go into this federation with our eyes open.

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– That is quite consistent with the present opinions of the honorable member for Wentworth.

Mr CLARKE:

– If it is, I ask what justification had he in stating the other night that the Prime Minister had been false to his pledges ?

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– Because this is not a compromise Tariff.

Mr McCay:

– Does the honorable member call it a protective Tariff?

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Yes ; it is a Victorian Tariff.

Mr CLARKE:

– I wish now to read art extract from a speech delivered by the honorable member for Wentworth when the federal elections were on, and I quote from the report of the Sydney Morning Herald,. because that is a newspaper which I believe the free-trade section of the State of New South Wales regard as their organ, and one which, I am glad to say, deals fairly with these matters. In its issue of 30th January of this year, the Herald reports the honorable member as saying -

He was a free-trader, and was not afraid to say so.In this his first public address he intended to deal almost entirely with the fiscal issue. If he thought it was his duty to support Mr. Barton in his policy he would have done so. He was not a follower of Mr. Barton, however, for he had always been an extreme free-trader.

Upon those remarks, the Herald published the following leader : -

The distinct issues in the election are freetrade and protection, Sir W. McMillan told the electors of Wentworth the other evening, and this straight-out declaration helps to still further define the lines on which our representatives in both Houses of the Federal Parliament will be chosen.

Could any statement of the issue be plainer ? Referring to the leader of the Opposition in a leader published on 5th February, the Herald says -

Mr. Reid was in his old form on his old platform last night, when he came forward as federal free-trade candidate, for the district which em”braces East Sydney, and free-trade leader of the . campaign now begun. It has been foreseen so long that the real issue of the first federal election must be under which Tariff the Commonwealth shall exist, that the question is by no means raised now anew.

I wish now to read an extract from the same paper, published on the 7th February last -

If there is any meaning in plain words, the fiscal intention of the followers of the Federal Ministry should be sufficiently clear from the remarks of Mr. Wise and Sir William Lyne, as we gave them 3’esterday morning.*

The utterances of Mr. Wise do not bind the Ministry. We know that their Tariff will be protective in character, however. Sir William Lyne has much more advanced views on this Tariff question than Mr. Wise. While that gentleman was explaining his views in one column yesterday morning, Sir William was reported in the adjoining column as frankly telling the people of Adelong that our industries must be protected.

What was in Sir William Lyne’s mind - and as a Minister he is in the confidence of the Federal Cabinet - was clear enough when he told his hearers at Adelong, that under a free-trade Tariff they could only raise five millions, while it would be necessary to raise eight and a-half or nine millions every year.

Here is a leader which appeared in the Herald the morning after the speeches delivered by the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General in the Sydney Town Hall-

After last night’s meeting the Federal Ministry stands before the electors as committed to protection.

Mr. Reid has so far succeeded that he has drawn from Mr. Barton almost as explicit a declaration as could be expected, and one explicit enough for the free-traders of Australia.

Mr. Barton said, in so many words, that the first concern of the Government in its fiscal policy is revenue, and the next moderate protection to maintain the industries of Australia.

He would not offer a remark as to the nature of the duties, because any disclosure of that kind would defeat the object of securing revenue.

At the risk of wearying the House I must quote another passage. I refer to the report of a speech which was delivered by the honorable member for Wentworth, at Randwick, and which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, of 26th February, 1901. Honorable members will remember that the federal campaign was then at its height : - lt was said that some of the opponents of freetrade were not sufficiently clear in their views. People were told that Mr. Barton was not sufficiently definite. He believed that Mr. Barton was as definite as he could possibly be.

That statement was applauded by the audience.

The people knew one thing from Mr. Barton and that was that he (Mr. Barton) was a protectionist. That was enough for a free-trader. How could Mr. Barton be more definite when he did not know the composition of the Houses of the Federal Parliament. If Mr. Barton got a majority of five it meant a moderate dose of protection, if a majority of ten it would be a much stronger protectionist still ; and if the majority was 25 would Mr. Barton be the master of the situation ?

Those were the sentiments of the honorable member for Wentworth at that particular time. What were his sentiments here the other night when he delivered himself in this way -

The constituencies had been badly used. They had been misled, and Mr. Barton was a renegade from the principles be laid down at Maitland.

What do honorable members make of that % When I see honorable members opposite adopting these tactics, and changing their opinion upon this question to suit different sets of circumstances, I am led seriously to think that the policy adopted by the Labour party of sinking the fiscal issue has a good deal to recommend it. It is not that I have lost faith in the efficacy of a good fiscal policy, but tha’t I have an abhorrence of honorable members who adopt this opinion to-day and another to-morrow for party purposes. I think the future of the Commonwealth and the question we are now discussing are matters which are too serious to be trifled with in this way. I think the discussion of this question should have been on a very much higher plane ; and that we should have risen above the tactics that I am sorry to say prevail in the State of New South Wales. Of course, I have no means of proving it, but I can well imagine that some of those who are howling so much about the Tariff proposals are electors who voted against federation. They are adopting the “I-told-you-so,” and the “ what-did-I-tell-you “ attitude, just as some of the journals in Sydney that stone-walled federation are now pointing out to the electors that they had sufficient foresight to show them what they might expect. I think the people of New South Wales were not left in any doubt as to what federation would mean for them. They were told by those opposed to the Commonwealth Bill, as well asby those who supported it, that it meant increased taxation.

An Honorable Member. - Some told them that it meant an expenditure of 2s. 6d. per head.

Mr CLARKE:

– That sum was mentioned as the new expenditure involved in federation. I do not think that the new expenditure involved in federation amounts to 2s. 6d. per head. So far as I know, the people were never told that the increased taxation due to the alteration which would be brought about by the adoption of a uniform Tariff would amount to only 2s. 6d. per head. When the statement was made that federation would cost the people 2s. 6d. per head the expense referred to was the expense connected with this Parliament, and any new expenses which might be due to the accomplishment of federation. There is an endeavour now - and this is where the press in Sydney is so very unfair - to make the people of New South Wales believe that the new expenditure involved is going to cost them 22s. 6d. per head, when we know that, in reality, the cost of the departments transferred, and which had been previously carried on by New South Wales is included in that estimate.

Mr Fuller:

– Does the honorable member believe that New South Wales would have come into the union if the people had known of this Tariff ?

Mr CLARKE:

– I can go so far as to say that when New South Wales has lived under this Tariff for three years, she will be very pleased that she is in the federation. Every new system of taxation creates an outcry. I know that there was a sufficient number of people in New South Wales who were opposed to the Commonwealth Bill itself to make a huge outcry against any form of taxation, no matter how light it might have been. And when a large body of people like that is led by - what shall I say, a capable leader - by a leader as glib of tongueas the right honorable theleader of the Opposition, it is capable of swelling its ranks, and of causing a very large section to appear to be dissatisfied. But I undertake to say that when the people of New

– A great deal has been said about the desirability and undesirability of the policy of protection. In dealing with a matter of this kind, we should take into consideration our surroundings and our conditions. I am not one of those who believe that we can have a golden rule or policy applicable to all countries, irrespective of their conditions. I am inclined to think that England, for instance, acted wisely in adopting the policy of free-trade up to a certain point, but in my opinion she has pursued that policy to too great an extent. I should like to quote a passage or two from a book by a very learned author. I select this work for the reason that it is of recent date, and because the writer does not appear to have extreme views on either one side or the other. There are one or two paragraphs only in which the question of freetrade versus protection crops up. I refer to a work on political economy by- Charles S. Devas, examiner in political economy at the Royal University of Ireland. At page 24:4:, the following passage occurs : -

If we have rightly apprehended the nature of international trade and its advantages, the question of what is called free-trade versus protection ought to be easily determined ; not indeed the question whether any particular country like Germany or New South Wales should adopt any particular policy, but the general principles which each can apply to the particular circumstances of his own country, protection for the present purpose means the giving home producers an advantage over foreigners, either by taxing the foreign produce as it comes into the country, or by giving the home exporters a donation (a bounty) in addition to what they can earn commercially.

Now the following are valid reasons for protection, not anywhere, but wherever the conditions exist that render them applicable.

First reason. If a country lacks certain industries for which it is physically suited, say the manufacture of woollen cloth, leather, and pottery -

I think all these conditions are present here ; the iron industry, for example, is one that we have often talked of, but for which nothing has been done - and is supplied with them from abroad, a protective duty levied on the importation of these goods will call into life the manufacture of them at home, and utilize the productive power of the country. True that the encouragement of these industries will be ipso facto a discouragement to the production of those goods, say oats, butter, and live cattle, that were exported to pay for the woollens, leather, and pottery. But our hypothesis is that the new industries ave “suitable.” Hence the diversion of national industry will result in a larger net return after the first difficulties are got over, the workmen collected and trained, the kindred and auxiliary trades set up, industry properly localized, and on a scale large enough to allow the full application of concerted labour and the advantages of the law of increasing returns : moreover, a secure body of customers acquired (business connexion), and the ria inertiæ rolled away by the expectation of certain profit.

I do not wish to quote the whole of this article; it would be rather tedious to honorable members. The second reason given by the writer, applies particularly to our present conditions -

If an existing industry, really suitable to a country, is threatened with ruin b)’ foreign importations, it is plain from the foregoing reason that such industry should be protected, but not plain how such a case could occur. 19 o 2

Honorable members will notice that the writer is very impartial, and it was for that reason that I selected the article.

For the vin inertia is here on the side of the home producers, the difficulties of change lying with the foreigner. Yet in two ways at least the case could occur. First through the action of misdirected consumption, explained in the first book, by which good merchandise is driven out by bad, solid and suitable home goods may be supplanted to the public loss by flimsy, showy, unhealthy foreign goods, unsuited to the climate and circumstances ; and the increased exports of some other merchandise to pay for these new imports, is no adequate compensation, and the natural industry is diverted from move to less advantageous production. Secondly, as Professor Sidgwick has pointed out, an extraordinary temporary advantage in production possessed by a foreign country, may destroy or- greatly injure a suitable home industry ; and then when that great advantage is past and gone, the cost of restoring the lost or lessened home industry may far outweigh that previous gain of the cheap imports.

We might easily imagine such a state of things coming about here if we failed to protect those industries which are established. I have heard honorable members in speaking of certain industries which have been pretty well established, say that if they could produce an article and sell it at as low a price as the foreign-made article, they would no longer need protection. I think that is a fallacy, because if the protection were removed, the foreigner would at once send his importations into the country, and, by cutting down prices, even by selling at a loss, wipe out our industries. The third reason is given in these terms -

National safety may require the home production of all the requisites of warfare, and such measures as may avert the risk of an enemy beingable, by shutting off the importation of food or some other necessary, to starve their opponents into submission.

The writer goes on to reason in that way how necessary it is for the purpose of national safety that a protective system should be adopted ; and then he gives a fourth reason, as follows : -

Social harmony is a good of incalculable value : its injury is, among other things, one of the greatest injuries to national wealth. Now, under certain circumstances, protection may be needed to prevent changes in the national industry, and a consequent break up of a happy and harmonious constitution. A secure and steady market may be essential to an organised industry, and to the proper insurance of the poorer classes. Hence the apparent loss by the exclusion of foreign goods may be outweighed by the real gain of steady habits, sober profits, and mutual goodwill.

I agree with the honorable member for Newcastle that a policy of protection in itself is not sufficient to improve the state of the labouring classes. I admit that we must go further, in order to elevate the workers, and that protection is but the first step. Speaking about the necessity of protection as a means of national safety I should like, with the indulgence of the House, to quote an article from the London Daily Mail, which was reprinted a little while ago in a Sydney paper, and which draws attention to the decline of agriculture in Great Britain -

A disquieting document is the report of the Agricultural Committee on National Wheat Stores. The witnesses examined, with only one Or two exceptions, agreed that the dependence of the nation on seaborne supplies of breadstuffs demanded serious attention, and the adoption of Some precautionary measures.

Mr., W. J. Harris estimated that in May, 1895, there was not more than seven weeks’ supply of wheat mid flour in the United Kingdom, “and probably not so much.” Mr. Procter stated that “ we want 500,000 quarters of foreign wheat to keep us going a week,” and added that then (May, .1897) he did not Suppose we had more than six weeks or two months’ supply.

Our dependence on foreign importation is shown in the following table : -

The committee state that they are profoundly impressed by the evidence given as to the immense importance of Government wheat stoves as an essential item of national defence, and they are unable to conclude that the stores would have any material effect on the interests of agriculture or of the corn trade.

They recommend that the Government should be most strongly urged to obtain the appointment, as soon as possible, of ,1 Royal commission, to include representatives of agriculture, the corn trade, the shipping, the Navy and the Army, so as to conduct an exhaustive inquiry into the whole subject of the national food supply in the case of war.

In a leading article on the 28th October, the Sydney Morning Herald refers to the state of agriculture in Great Britain in these terms : -

The recently published official returns of the Board of Agriculture in England point to a steady and serious decline of the agricultural industry in the mother country. Within the last quarter of a century the wheat area has decreased by one-half, and within the twelve months an area about equal in extent to the county of Middlesex has disappeared from wheat cultivation. Although some of the causes of the falling off may be of a temporary character, the facts seem to point to the conclusion that there has been a steady decrease in wheat cultivation, which is not likely to be arrested. The stock statistics point in the same direction. In sheep the decline is very great, and the outlook for the agricultural industry is serious enough.

– That may be so, but considerations other than suitability, such as the cost of carriage, or something of that sort, might have induced them to make the change. I know that in New South Wales, imported timber is used for purposes for which it is not so suitable as our own hardwoods, and that this has had the effect of displacing our hardwoods. I know the hardships and privations which are endured by timber cutters. It is hardly fair to these men that an article which they can assist in producing should be discarded to their detriment in favour of the use of a foreign article merely for the purpose of allowing a ring of Sydney importers to grow rich by this trade in imported timber. I do not say that there are not purposes for which the imported timber is superior to our hardwoods. But at the present -time the imported timber is put to uses in respect of which it is not superior, but decidedly inferior. I come now to that despised commodity in regard to which there’ has been much sneering by honorable members opposite. I refer to the duty upon eggs. I venture to say that if those who sneer at this commodity were to visit some of the farming constituencies and to ascertain the low prices which the farmers have been receiving for their eggs, they would be very much surprised. As a matter of fact, the Sydney market has been supplied by the importation of eggs from China. We keep the Chinaman out, but we do not object to receiving eggs from him. During 1900 we imported 606,000 dozens of eggs valued at £23,000 and exported only 32,000 dozen, valued at a little over £1,000. There was thus an excess of imports over exports upon this one line representing a value of £22,000. A great proportion of these eggs came from China. I venture to say that the duty which it is proposed to levy upon eggs will be very acceptable to the farmers of the whole of New South Wales. The farmers’ wives devote their spare time to this industry, and it is a matter of considerable moment to them that they should have a market for those eggs. I could enumerate other articles which the farmers produce, such as oats, onions, &c, and prove that new South Wales under free-trade is absolutely unable to supply its own requirements, and has had to import largely from abroad. According to letters which have been received from the South Coast, we have now an opportunity of starting a business in condensed milk. Surely honorable members will not deny that such an industry would be of immense advantage to the farmers throughout the whole of these States. I know that the free-trade representatives of the South Coast district of New South Wales used to vote faithfully for the retention of the duties upon cheese and butter in the State Parliament.

Mr.Fuller. - Why, in 1889 three out of the four free-trade members voted against them.

Mr CLARKE:

– In 1895, when the present leader of the Opposition was revising the New South Wales Tariff, the only free-trade representative of the South Coast recorded his vote in favour of the retention of the duty upon butter. In regard to every other commodity he was a freetrader. The same thing occurred in regard to a representative of the Newcastle district. That honorable member was in favour of a duty upon biscuits and candles because there were biscuit and candle factories in his electorate, but in regard to everything else he was a free-trader. These are facts which cannot be denied. A great deal has been said about the sugar industry, and the leader of the Opposition, in his opening speech, intimated that he would have dealt with that industry in the same way as the Government propose to deal with it. I am pleased that the Ministry have grappled with this question, and have decided upon giving a preference to sugar grown by means of white labour as against that grown by black labour. I am glad to find that the cost to the consumer has been very little increased by the new duty which has been imposed. I was told on Monday that the Colonial Sugar Refining Company had increased its price by £2 a ton. I visited two retailers and found that in some of the leading houses in Sydney the 70-lb. bag of sugarhad increased in price by only1s. 3d. That is equal to £2 per ton. I also ascertained that the 4-lb. packages of sugar, which are sold by the small retailers, have increased in price from 9d. to 10d., or1/4d. per lb. I have been informed that some of the country storekeepers have increased the price of the bag which was formerly sold at 13s. to 20s. Whether that statement is true, I am not in a position to say. A great deal has been said about the boot trade in Sydney. Let me tell honorable members that as the result of the introduction of this Tariff it is the intention of the boot manufacturers of Sydney to increase the wages of their employes from to-morrow by 10 to 15 per cent., all round. It is also intended to improve the oldwoollen mills, which have been lying idle at Parramatta for so many years, and to resume operations there. I do not know whether that is a bad sign.

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– Why should it remain idle, when factories in Tasmania send their wool into New South Wales?

Mr CLARKE:

– The honorable member may answer his own enigmas. I wish also to touch upon the iron industry, about which so much has been said in New South Wales, but so little has been done. I wish to show that the prestige which Great Britain had in the iron industry is fast slipping away from her. Mr. J. S. Larke says -

In 1873 England produced more than half the iron of the world. In 1888 she had increased her production from 5,000,000 tons to over 8,000,000 torts, but her output was only one-fourth that of the world. To-day she was exceeded in her iron and steel production by the United States and Germany. The great competitor of England in the future would be the United States.

I do not wish to detain the House much longer, but I felt that in addressing myself to this question I had a public duty to perform. If we approached the question in a better spirit, we might deal with it much more satisfactorily. I hope, in fact we are assured by the Treasurer, that he is prepared to consider amendments in the Tariff ; and if, instead of beating the kettle drum outside and making a noise about the Tariff, we were to approach the question, as we ought to do, from a national instead of from a party stand-point, our efforts would Vie much more likely to be successful. The leader of the Opposition foresaw a good while ago - so far back, at any rate, as 1899 - that the Tariff which would be adopted or proposed by the Government of the Commonwealth, would have to be of a protective character. So far-seeing was the right honorable gentleman, that he took occasion at Wellington, in New South Wales, to go through a little rehearsal in anticipation of a political drama, though that drama never came off, owing to a slight political accident. The leader of the Opposition is recorded as having said at Wellington, on the 19th June, 1899-

He did not know about becoming a protectionist, but had got broad enough in his mind mow not to have only one idea.

It had taken the right honorable gentleman years to get broad enough for that.

It had taken him years to get broad enough for that. Seven years ago he used to walk -into the old man “ Parkes” like a tiger, because lie was still a fanatical free-trader ; but, as a man grew older, and got responsibilities, he got more broad in his opinions, and saw things a little more in their true proportion. He had now more than one idea. Where he used to have room only for the one idea of free-trade, he never used :to think of anything else now he thought of national union.

The right honorable gentleman did not say protection, but we can well see what he iliad in his mind when he made that speech. It was one of those speeches which we know so well in New South Wales, and which are delivered preparatory to the performance of a little political somersault. That somersault, however, was never performed, and now he stands on the Opposition side, and in vigorous terms condemns the Government for carrying out the policy which he himself would have had to introduce. I have said all I wish to say on this question. Much more might be said, but I feel that I have, at any rate, given voice to the sentiments and feelings of those whom I represent. Free-trade farmers there may be in my constituency, but they are few and far between. I am quite sure that the Tariff which has been introduced by the Government, while a Tariff for the farmers of my constituency, is also a Tariff which, with a little modification, will meet the requirements of the people of the Commonwealth. I wish, before concluding, to make a personal explanation. During the first part ofmy speech, I referred to an honorable member who had stated outside the precincts of the chamber that Ministers had been approached and bribed in a corrupt way to introduce this Tariff. At the time I asked the honorable member whether he was going to repeat the statement in the House, and he said he was. However, I have since had an opportunity of seeing the honorable member, and he assures me now that the remark was made jocularly. Had I not believed at the time that the honorable member was serious, I should not have mentioned the incident in the House, and, now having received an assurance that the remark was made jocularly, I regret very much having made any reference to the matter.

Mr A PATERSON:
Capricornia

– Looking over some statistics lately I was rather startled to find that in one leading State of the Commonwealth there are no fewer than 1,157 people blind of an eye. On turning over the next page of the statistics I found the still more extraordinary fact that in the immediately adjoining State there are 1,164 people blind of an eye. I would not for worlds divulge the names of those States. It would be difficult enough for clear, wideeyed men with perfect sight, to look at all sides of a sexagon, and they cannot do it without shifting their stand-point. How, then, can we expect one-eyed men to do such a thing ? This Commonwealth has six sides, represented by the six States, and in order to get a true appreciation of the position we must look at them all. It appears to me that this debate is very much like a duel between New South Wales and Victoria. I am, I believe, the first Queenslander who has spoken on the subject, and we, who represent the other States, can, it appears to me, look more dispassionately on the position. We have 119 prejudices, np partialities. We do not trouble our heads where the federal capital is to be, because we know that it cannot be in our States. It does not hurt our self-love to hear Victoria praised, as she well deserves to be praised, for the wonderful development of her dairying and farming industry, or her wonderful position in regard to gold-mining ; nor are we jealous when we hear of the extraordinary expansion of the commercial industries of New South Wales. All States now belong to the Commonwealth. We can make ample allowance for New South Wales when we consider her large areas of barren country, and how much of her good lands are locked up in the hands of a few squatters. We are also prepared to make generous concessions to Victoria on account of the terrible disaster of the land boom, which, by the way, I do not think has been sufficiently taken into account in comparing the two States. What we do rejoice in is that now the Commonwealth embraces all the wealth, all the talents, and all the skill of all the States. A little while ago, we were cousins, often unfriendly, always suspicious. To-day we are partners, brothers, seeking for a common good. Yesterday we were six insignificant streamlets, meandering each our independent way. To-day we are a mighty flowing river, destined, I -hope, to fructify and bless the world. It is too early yet to call ourselves a great Commonwealth, but certainly we have great possibilities. Whether we shall achieve greatness depends on the wisdom that we shall write into our laws, and the justice with which we shall administer them. In considering this question of the Tariff, I do not wish to disparage Victoria, because I can say this honestly - that Victoria has done far more good to my State than have all the other States put together. I have the highest admiration for the Melbourne men in particular. I do not think that any one, however prejudiced he may be, can live in this city for any length of time, without admiring the noble buildings, the spacious streets, and the grand ideas of the Melbourne men. I have been in the habit of travelling every year for years past from the north down to Melbourne, and, because I have travelled with my eyes open, I have been compelled to notice changes which have come during that time. People who live in their own State and never go out of it, do not get an idea of the changes that take place by reading books or newspapers. But when one sees with ones own eyes the progress or the retrogress of a place, it inspresses itself upon ones mind in such a way as; no book or newspaper can do. It is necessary for me at this time to make one comparison - between the two cities of Melbourne and Sydney. I shall only make one,, and then I shall have done with it. I choose the cities of Melbourne and Sydney for this, reason - Melbourne I take to be the exponent of protection, the stronghold o£ the manufacturer ; Sydney I take to be thechampion of free-trade, the citadel of theprimary producer.

Mr Higgins:

– No, of the importer.

Mr A PATERSON:

– Well, the importer. I will take it either way. I wish to call the attention of the House to a. few statistics ; and those are all thestatistics I am going to quote. They aretaken from Coghlan and Mulhall. I believein MulluM as sincerely as does the honorablemember for Gippsland. In 1899, theofficial capital valuation of Sydney andi suburbs was £87,464,000. At the samedate the capital value of Melbourne and. suburbs totalled £60,626,915.

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– Twice the area of: Sydney !

Mr A PATERSON:

Mr A PATERSON:

– That raises another question. I do not like to differ from the honorable member for Gippsland, but of course these statements have to be met, otherwise they may do a great deal of harm. In contrasting trade with agriculture, the honorable member said that trade did no good in a country. This is surely an extreme view. Would the honorable member take up the position that it would be better for Birmingham to tear up her streets and to plant turnips, or for the people to sow potatoes on the Broomielaw of Glasgow 1 The tiling is preposterous ! We must not only grow produce for our people, but we must have places in which they can live and in which they can carry on their manufactures. I was the more suprised at the honorable member’s statement because this is a manufacturer’s Tariff. People upon both sides hold extreme views. No argument would convince me that wheat, under equal, conditions, would be more productive in a protected than in a free-trade State. If it were urged upon me that a free-trade cow gave more butter than any other cow, I should simply, say, with brutal frankness, “Don’t be a fool.” Nature has no revenue Tariff rains or protective sunshine. Its rains fall alike upon the just and the unjust, entirely irrespective of political opinions. “I wish to say a word or two about the profits of importers as compared with those of manufacturers. I do not know sufficient about this subject, perhaps, to pose as an authority. I merely wish to observe that I have never known any purely commercial ring to stand. All the powerful monopolies are those of manufacturers. The manufacturers by combining can control the sources of mechanical production and hold the markets and the public at their mercy. But no importer can do that, because any man in the street with £1.00 can directly oppose him. There is no protection to the importer. Therefore it is the height of absurdity to compare the profits of the importer with those of the manufacturer. I do not speak without some authority. Honorable members will recollect the great wheat corner in which Mr. Leiter lost some millions of money. Fortunately he had a rich father-in-law who stood by him, but the money was lost, anyhow, because he could not corner the wheat. Why 1 Because there was too much wheat in the world, and too many people were willing to risk their money in attempting to corner Leiter ! Thus, instead of the latter cornering the wheat market, the wheat market cornered him. I remember the great McEwan iron ring being formed in Glasgow, when one bright summer’s day at three o’clock eleven of the biggest firms in Glasgow closed their doors. That was a deliberate attempt to corner the iron market, but owing to the longheadedness of other men who were there they were not able to accomplish their end. The sugar ring, which was created a few years afterwards, also failed in the same way. I do not believe that any corner can be made by importers that will last. I certainly do not believe that such corners can be created in Melbourne, where there are so many sharp people about, though, of course, the formation of occasional rings cannot be pievented in the case of manufacturers. I come now to the great American problem, which is the hardest nut that free-traders have to crack. America has high exports, low imports, and increasing wealth. How are these facts to be explained ? To start with, we must know something about the country. Any one who has lived for a time in the various countries of Europe knows what a traveller the average American is. Every American of any standing in business considers it absolutely necessary for his commercial education that he should travel through Europe. They all do it. They do not manage it for nothing. They do not travel second or third class. They travel like princes, and spend their money like dukes. More than that, the American woman gets her dresses from Worth in Paris, or some imitator of Worth. The extravagance of the American woman is notorious. It has been so great, owing to the vast wealth of some of the American heiresses, that many silly-headed women of other countries have been ruined in attempting to copy their example. Incredible sums of money are spent by the Americans in their travels, their dress, their residences, and their sports. Only the other day it was cabled all over the world, as an extraordinary fact which was perfectly unprecedented and entirely unexpected, that the wife of the President of America spent only £60 a year upon dress. The Americans were so astonished about the matter that they could not help telling every one. The newspaper men, who know everything, got hold of it, and considered it so extraordinary that they immediately sent the news flying all over the world. It must also be remembered that the Americans spend a greatdeal of money in investments. They own newspapers in London, they have invested millions and millions sterling in buying up steam-ship companies ; they are in numberless commercial businesses, and they are now attempting to compete with English tobacco manufacturers on the latter’s own ground. Although these amounts represent millions and millions sterling they are not sufficient to account for the difference. I will tell honorable members what I believe does account for it. Owing to the American policy of levying duties, it is to the direct interest of every importer to undervalue his imports, and he does that.. That can easily be understood, because it is in accord with human nature. But if we were to tax exports, what a difference ! Thescale would be entirely the other way. I am not speaking without knowledge, because I remember - and no doubt some Victorian representatives also remember - the case of a .Flinders-street house 25 years ago. I saw the police attempt to get into a warehouse in Flinders-lane - I am sure the honorable member for Mernda remembers the occurrence - and I saw a Customs officer with blood flowing from his head, he having been knocked down with a bludgeon of some kind. That case disclosed scandalous under-val nations, which had been going on for years, and by which the State of Victoria had been robbed of thousands of pounds. Nobody knows of these things better than the Melbourne merchants ; and that is not the only scandal, or the last of the kind. Now, as to the pauperism and distress which are said to exist in England, of which we have heard very harrowing accounts - I have noticed that while some of the speakers are from England, a great many others have never been in that country, and it is astonishing how much these latter honorable members know about the state of affairs at home. 1 suppose we all agree as to the veracity of the Ago newspaper, and here is an extract from an. article by the London correspondent of that journal, dated the 27th of September last -

There is a curiously large proportion of London paupers who live well beyond the average span of life. A short time ago half a dozen lively centenarians were counted among them. Perhaps their tenacity is due to the regularity of their habits and the severe simplicity of their food, since doctors say there are virtues in these things. And this leads one to fear for the health and prospects of longevity of a certain male pauper, who, by a strange and amusing chance, is just now the sole inmate of a work-house at Bermondsey, a south-eastern suburb of London. There are no fewer than 28 officials to look after him - a master, a matron, a medical officer, two chaplains, and over a score nurses and other attendants ! If he were to take his discharge, the whole staff would be out of employment. It is to their interest to make him entirely at home and contented, but in their zealous anxiety they may overdo it. And the worst of it is, that the old fellow himself seems to over-look this aspect of the case. It was reported at the last meeting of the local board of guardians that he was enjoying the situation immensely.

That is the other side of the question as presented by the Age. We will now take the Argus. We have heard some horrible tales about miners’ wages at home, but commercial men know what amusing nonsense all these tales are. England was never so prosperous as she is at this moment, and there is not much in the contention that the prosperity is due to the war, because there has not been much improvement since hostilities began in South Africa. The extract from the Argus is as follows : -

At the Berlin Mining Conference in 1894, the Northumberland miners presented the following comparative statement of daily wages paid to miners in different European countries : - England, 6s. to (is. Gd.; Belgium, 2s. Od. to 2s. 8d.; France, 3s. (id.; Austria. 2s. 8d. ; Germany, 3s. to 3s. (id. - The Times, January, 1896.

Lamendin, French delegate to the Miners’ Congress in Berlin, said on his return : - “The English miners were absolutely indifferent to the miseries of the miners on the Continent, because they did not experience them themselves. The economic conditions in England were infinitely better than those affecting the Belgians, the Germans, and the French. In truth, the English could afford to scorn the discussion of the minimum wage question, because they literally dictated their pay themselves.” - Standard.

Everybody knows that that is the absolute truth. How can any reasonable human being explain the immense immigration of foreigners into London on any other grounds than that better wages are obtained there ? It is utter nonsense to talk about the better wages in any other country. Then as to the comparative wealth of Great Britain and the United States, the honorable member for West Sydney stated that in Great Britain 2 per cent, of the population of very rich men hold 66 per cent, of the national wealth. But in the United States 014 per cent. - that is one-seventh of 1 per cent. - hold the enormous proportion of 58 per Cent, of the national wealth. A nice sort of democracy, to be sure ! Is that the example we are going to follow *1 And the fact I have stated does not represent the worst. Rockfeller takes the share of nearly 100,000 men, and there are eight or ten men who have not far short of Rockfeller’s wealth. The honorable member for West Sydney has the clear perceptive eye to see the unmistakable drift of democracy when corrupted by immense aggregations of wealth. What is the use of talking about average wealth anyhow ? If one member of this House owned £742,600, and the rest of us poor mortals had only £100 each, Mr. Coghlan, or even the illustrious Michael Mulhall, would make it appear on paper that we were worth £10,000 each. How ridiculous ! But I fear that such an argument would not suffice to stave off the services of writs by stupid, unsympathetic tradesmen. This reminds me of a speech which was made in the city of Melbourne by a well-known auctioneer at the height of the land boom. He stood up in a public building in this great city, and said - “ Oh, it does not matter whether property is sold at a loss or not ; it only passes from one hand to the other.” He did not consider that a great part of the money was recklessly spent in bell-toppers, champagne, carriages, and splendid furniture, while much of it also went away into other countries. But I think that auctioneer knows now, and that he will not speak in such a strain again. Now I come to the kernel of the whole question. What is the avowed object of protection ? Is it not to provide employment and to keep up wages ? Has protection accomplished these objects in this or any other country ?’ The poor half-timer cries, from the bitterness, of his soul, “ No “ ; the manufacturer says, “ Yes.” Then what is meant by this fuss about wages boards? The leader of the Opposition has said that wages boards-, are the absolute corollary of protection ; and I agree with him. But supposingthe wages boards fail to secure theseends - what is the next coronary, I pray ?; It is to strike at the root of the evil astraight, direct blow, and let the nation* take over all those industries which ask for high protection and work them for the common good. That would be a real Com- mon wealth, not a sham protected Commonwealth. We could make a very fair start with such glaring monopolies as nails, cement, salt, and perhaps hals.

Mr Wilks:

– And starch.

Mr A PATERSON:

– I think starch is out of it this time. I am no revolutionary, and I am opposed on principle to all fiscal protection - indeed, to all protection except that of public health and morals, and purity of race. But if honorable members opposite persist in subsidizing manufacturers unjustly and illegitimately, and only city manufacturers at that - not the poor struggling manufacturers in the country - if they persist in doing this at the expense of the masses, I say that it is simple justice that the masses should divide the profits, or share the losses if there are any. That, to me, appears to be an argument con.clusively and absolutely irresistible. It will be said that this idea is visionary and impossible. But I reply that it has been done. Prance has enjoyed an annual revenue of £12,000,000 of money out of her tobacco monopoly, and I know that Spain for many years enjoyed a very handsome revenue from the same source - though I am afraid she does not enjoy very much now. I think that if this alternative were submitted to these beneficent manufacturers, not in Victoria alone, but throughout the whole of Australia/ - because they are all “ tarred with the same brush “ ; Victoria is not a bit worse than the New South Welshman, and the New South Wales manufacturer is no better than the Victorian - their claims would be speedily reduced to something like equitable dimensions, and we should secure a fairly honest and satisfactory Tariff.

Sir LANGDON BONYTHON:
South Australia

– I do not intend to detain the House more than a few minutes. I propose to follow what I regard as the very excellent example set by the honorable member for Northern Melbourne. I had intended to go somewhat fully into the history and the relative merits of protection and freetrade, but I feel that at this stage, after all the speeches which have been made, anything of the kind would be out of place. It would be the repetition of very much more than a twice-told tale. But in spite of all that has been said and written on this subject, there seems to be. much misconception, and in quarters, too, where one would least expect to find it. The Tariff introduced by the Minister for Trade and Customs has come in for some condemnation, but it should not be forgotten that any Tariff introduced by the leader of the Opposition would have shared the same fate, with possibly this difference - that the outcry would have been more pronounced, because, as honorable members will admit, it is the revenue lines of the present Tariff to which the greatest exception is being taken. The hard fact which cannot be shirked is that the sum of £9,000,000 has to be raised.

Mr Wilks:

– £8,000,000.

Sir LANGDON BONYTHON:

– I maybe wrong, but sometimes it appears to me that there are people who actually believe that somehow the leader of the Opposition could raise the money necessary for the Commonwealth and the States without any one having to pay anything. Well, I know that the right honorable member is clever -very clever indeed - but of this I am quite sure, that when he takes £9,000,000, or even £8,000,000, as the honorable’ member for Dalley suggests, out of the pockets of the people of the Commonwealth, they will know all about it, and will think no more kindly of him than they do of the Minister for Trade and Customs at the present moment. During the course of the discussion which has taken place we have heard some very admirable speeches. I honestly believe that the debate, both as regards character and tone, is one that would have done credit to any Legislature in the world. But, at the same time, Mr. Speaker, I must enter my protest against this perpetual wrangling between New South Wales and Victoria. I am not specially interested in either State, but I am very much interested indeed in the Commonwealth of Australia. There have been many references to prices under protection and under free-trade. I do not for a moment assert that the manufacturer, given a free hand, would extend to his customer too rauch consideration ; but, at the same time, I fearlessly assert that the importer is not always the embodiment of righteousness. That I may illustrate this point is one of the objects for which I have risen. In the year 1885 ploughshares were imported into South Australia to the value of £11,288. A duty was imposed, and the imports were reduced until in 1897 the totalvalue was only £474. But in the meantime an industry had grown up, and the exports of plough shares represented £3,920. In the following year the exports rose to the sum of £7,277, and this amount roughly represents the annual exports since. I can imagine that I hear some one saying, “ Oh, but what did the poor farmer pay for the coddling of this industry.” That is precisely what I want to tell honorable members. Before the duty was imposed - and it was a duty of 15 per cent. - the farmers paid for cast-iron plough shares of English manufacture 16s. per dozen. From that time until now, there has been a gradual reduction in price going on, until the present price in the Adelaide market is 10s. per doz. But the locally made article is sold for 8s. per dozen. Now, it occurred to me that when I made this statement some gentleman from the other side of the House, in perfect friendliness, might say, “ That is your statement of the case ; but had we some one who knew something of the other side, he might put it differently.” Under these circumstances I telegraphed to Mr. William Copley, one of the most respected and best known farmers in South Australia. Mr. Copley is at the present time a member of the House of Assembly, and has twice been a Minister of the Crown. This is the reply I received from him -

Have just received you r wire aski ng for some particulars re South Australian plough shares. Speaking from my own experience, they now give general satisfaction, more especially the cast shares. I have used them about sixteen years. For the first three or four years the chilling was not as well done as in the imported, but now they are quite equal, and thepriceis9s. perdozen retail as against 14s., the price of the imported a few years ago. Of course the importers say the price would have gone down without local competition, but I venture to doubt that. At any rate I know what the prices were and what they are now.

This letter was written from Parliament House, Adelaide, and Mr. Copley adds in a foot-note -

I have just spoken to Mr. Cummins, one of the members for Stanley. He and his brother are large farmers. He quite agrees with my favorable opinion of the local manufacture.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Are they free-traders? Sir LANGDON BONYTHON. - I have referred to this matter in order to show that the imposition of a duty on a farming implement does not necessarily mean adding to the cost of agriculture. I cannot say that I am personally very pleased with the Tariff. I am not sure that it is equitable, and I shall reserve to myself the right to endeavour to amend it in committee, so that it may be improved as much as possible. It appears to me that it is too burdensome as regards the working classes ; and I shall be glad to see such an arrangement of duties as will put the producer in the best possible position. At the same time I realize that the Treasurer must have the money required by the Commonwealth and the States, and therefore there is no use in putting duties on articles that are not of general consumption. There is, Mr. Speaker, an epigram which seems to me to have some sort of application to the present occasion, and it might inspire certain gentlemen to accept the inevitable in connexion with this Tariff. The epigram was written by Horace Smith - not Sydney Smith, nor even Bruce Smith, but still a very distinguished member of the famous family. This is what the epigram says, and I am sure when the Honorable the Minister for Trade and Customs hears it he will commend it to the serious consideration of the members of the Opposition -

Let this plain truth those ingrates strike

Who still, tho’ bless’d, new blessings crave ;

That we may all have what we like,

Simply by liking what we have.

Mr O’MALLEY:
Tasmania

– I won one election in South Australia, and I suffered defeat on the second occasion. I may be defeated again, but it does not matter, because .1. shall always be in some Parliament. Lookin i’ at the other side of this question, is it not a fact that Australians always defer to anything foreign? Is it not a fact that the people of Australia reverentially defer to every English authority ?

– I had expected that the honorable member who has just spoken, would have attempted to show some connexion between his speech and the condition of the working classes, or the conditions which protection are likely to bring about for the benefit of working men in general. I am reminded of a little incident that occurred, where two men had a very strong argument as to whether it was better to live under a free-trade flag or a protectionist flag. After they had very nearly come to blows, they thought it would be a wise thing to ask their third mate what his views were. “Well,” said the mate, “I have worked in a free-trade country, and I have worked in a protectionist country, and whether under free-trade or protection, I have had to work mighty hard for the few shillings I got every week,” That just about sums up the whole question of free-trade and protection. What is the good of telling us about the deplorable condition of the working classes in England ? Do we not know that the same kind of thing exists in America today 1 Does the honorable member mean to tell me that either free-trade or protection has anything to do with the condition of the working classes 1 I listened patiently for nearly three weeks to try and get some information which would show that either fiscal policy materially affects the condition under which the working classes live. But, as a matter of fact, whether we go to a free-trade or a protectionist country, we find that competition for the right to work and earn sufficient wages to live is becoming more difficult. We are living to-day under a system by which we produce for profit and not for use. The consequence is, that whether in free-trade England or in protectionist America, 77 per cent, of the workmen who reach the age of 65 have to seek pauper relief. That is a fact which is stated by every statistician of importance in every community. No doubt there have been some eloquent and able speeches delivered in the course of this debate. I naturally thought that some of those who take such a strong and earnest interest in the questions involved would have given us information to show the connexion between the fiscal policy they advocate and the condition of the working classes. But, as a matter of fact, not one honorable member on either side has shown that connexion. I am prepared to admit - though I have not gone into the matter sufficiently to discover it for myself with any degree of satisfaction - that there may be circumstances which enable the working classes to benefit from free-trade conditions in certain countries, or from protectionist conditions in other countries. But let me say this - and I say it not only to honorable members who are present, but with the wish that it may go forth to the workers of Victoria and New South Wales - that people who work for their living have very little hope in regard to improving their condition from either the one policy or the other. There are other economic causes outside of fiscal laws that affect the condition of the working classes. I have just said that we are living under a system by which we produce for profit and not for use. We are also living mder a system in which the means of production are greatly in excess of the demand for commodities. The honorable member for Darling pointed out the other day that under our factory system, and owing to the introduction of machinery, we have been enabled to socialize our production and to produce so rapidly and in such a perfect manner that I suppose it ma)’ be said that goods can be turned out at almost a minimum of cost. But the moment we begin to exchange our commodities our social system fails. Every one who has had anything to do with commercial life knows that as soon as one particular line in an industry has had a run, the whole of the manufacturers in that industry start to produce it at an enormous rate. The result is that we have over-production, whilst at the same time there are thousands of men, women, and children going hungry and in want of food, clothing, shelter, and all other necessaries of life. It is an extraordinary thing that the very moment our factories are producing in excess of the requirements we are precipitated into the midst of a crisis, and. that is the very moment when thousands and thousands of people are thrown out of employment, and misery and destitution reign throughout the country. These economic conditions require more weighty and deeper consideration than has been given to them during this debate on free-trade and protection. I had intended to go into the subject thoroughly as far as I was able, but I am not going to waste the time of the House in a way that a number of other honorable members have done. I say that with all due respect to them ; but I certainly think that a great number of the speeches that have been delivered could have been condensed into something like one-third of the time taken. Having said so much, I will just touch upon one or two matters of importance to which I think attention should be directed. There is the question of direct taxation, which has been brought forward by the honorable member for Barrier. I am in thorough sympathy with that proposal. I think we should have some system of direct taxation which will get at those people who are best able to bear a fair share of the obligations the State lays upon its citizens. Something like 80 or 85 per cent, of taxation through the Customs falls upon the working classes. That is a state of affairs that ought not to exist, but which is maintained by the conditions of our society. Under the Tariff of the Government, the wealthier classes will not pay their fair share of taxation. It will be argued that the duties will fall evenly upon all consumers. But that is not so. All may be equal as far as the payment of taxes is concerned, but one class of those who pay the taxes receive no benefit from them, whilst the wealthier classes or those who have the control of the means of production, reap the advantage of an unearned increment which they have done nothing to create. It should be the duty of this Parliament to introduce such legislation as will break clown the monopoly enjoyed- at present by these controllers of the means of production. One of the first monopolies to be broken down is that in connexion with large agricultural estates. Take in Queensland the magnificent country represented by the honorable member for Darling Downs. There will be found some pf the finest agricultural country that exists in any part of Australia, and what is it used for at the present time ? Hundreds of thousands of acres there were handed over at a nominal sum originally of about half-a-crown an acre. It is country upon which people from all parts of Australia would be glad to settle, but they cannot settle upon that magnificent country simply because it is locked up in the possession of huge landed proprietors. I say that if it was.only for the purpose of breaking up these huge landed estates, it would be a good thing for the Government to introduce some form of land taxation. I do not say that a land tax should be the only form of direct taxation. I think that other forms should be included, such as an income tax, a property tax,, and an absentee tax. By that means we should get at the people best able to bear taxation, and the masses of the people would in that way be to some extent relieved of its burdens. Under existing circumstances, however, while I am entirely in accord with the amendment proposed by the honorable member for the Barrier, I should like to suggest to -him the advisability of withdrawing it. There seems to have been a fight between the two parties in the House, the free-traders and the protectionists. If they like to wrangle and fight it is their own business, and we have no cause to complain, but under the circumstances I think the honorable member for the Barrier would be wise in withdrawing his amendment so as to permit of a clear-cut issue being decided upon the motion moved by the right honorable gentleman who leads the Opposition. If, however, the honorable member persists with his amendment I shall support him if he takes it to a division. There are one or two other matters on which I should like to touch. The Treasurer referred to Tasmania and Queensland as two States likely to be deprived of a certain amount of revenue, owing to the reduction of taxation upon certain articles. The people of Queensland will have less drawn from them by way of customs duties to the extent of some £207,000 ; and in Tasmania the revenue derived from customs duties will be less by some £135,000. I point out, however, that the people of Queensland will not be a bit worse off under this Tariff, because this amount of £207,000 will be still left in their pockets. Queensland is actually losing nothing under the Tariff, but I admit that it may be necessary for the State Government to make some other arrangements to secure that £207,000 of revenue.

Still, I do not think it is going to affect Queensland, which, in my opinion, is one of the richest States in the group. The time is not far distant when she will have a population, if not equal to that of New South Wales or Victoria, then very nearly equal to it. The possibilities of Queensland are, I believe, greater than those of any of the other States. She has an enormous amount of territory as yet practically untapped. She has some of the finest grazing land in any part of the world, and she has an enormous extent of agricultural land unsurpassed in any of the other Australian States. Then the mineral resources of the northern portion of Queensland are far above those of any of the other States, with the exception, perhaps, of Western Australia. In view of these advantages, I do not think there is any cause for the Treasurer, or any one else, to surmise that Queensland, in not getting this £207,000, is going to be landed in utter ruin. Last year she had a deficit of about £500,000, and the Treasurer looked upon it as of so little importance that he would not even propose any substantial additional taxation.

Sir George Turner:

– Is he not floating Treasury bills to meet it 1

Mr MCDONALD:

Mr CONROY:

– It is a great pity the Prime Minister did not make it more clear to the people of New South Wales that they were expected to make all the sacrifices, and that the other States were not expected to make any sacrifices at all. If a low Tariff would conduce to more rigid economy on the part of the States Governments, I should hail with joy as low a Tariff as could possibly be framed. I admit there is difficulty in the way of the Federal Government imposing direct taxation, because we must leave some means open to the States of obtaining revenue by direct taxation. I should like to see every individual in the State, even the humblest, contribute his share of taxation, because each taxpayer would then know exactly what he was paying. The Government unduly hampered the finances by taking over the Postal and

Defence departments, and their mistake in doing so is going to be felt by every Federal Government for the next ten years. There is no reason whatever why those departments should have been taken over. The first work that should have been done was to bring forward the necessary machinery Bills before the introduction of the Tariff. Instead of that, look at the time that has been wasted.

Mr Kingston:

– Being wasted !

Mr CONROY:

– That is a correction which I do not feel called upon to quarrel with just now, but that is the fault of the Government itself. In consequence of the taking over of these departments, the Government will have to create a works department. This will involve the employment of an additional army of civil servants. When civil servants are doing necessary work, they should be well paid for it, and there should be a sense of security in regard to the positions they hold. But I do not believe in creating unnecessary work. The honorable member for Gippsland went so far as to urge, as one argument in favour of protection, that the home trade is four times more valuable than foreign trade. That can be shown clearly to be not the case. If the home trade were more valuable, no one would trade abroad with his goods, because the risks attending foreign trade are greater than those attending home trade. Adam Smith, in the infancy of scientific knowledge upon the subject 130 years ago, fell into the same error as the honorable member for Gippsland, and it shows that that honorable member is 130 years behind in his knowledge. To carry out the honorable member’s argument to its logical conclusion, it is clear that as what we are seeking to do under the Federation is to increase the wealth of the community, it would be an advantage to continue the Inter-State duties, because the trade done in each State would be four times more valuable than that between any two States. A very simple way, also, of increasing the wealth of Victoria, if the honorable member’s contention is correct, would be to divide it into ten districts, with a separate Government for each, because, as the trade between two persons in each of the subdivisions would be four times as valuable as trade between them and anywhere else, the sum total of the trade of Victoria by this simple method of subdivision would be increased 40 times. Assuming that the trade of Victoria at present is £20,000,000 a year, we might by so subdividing it and granting a Constitution to each subdivision, raise the trade to £800,000,000 a year. In the same way the trade between two Wesleyans should be four times as valuable as that between a Wesleyan and a Presbyterian. I have only reduced the argument to this absurdity to show how ridiculous the original statement was. I was referring to the vehicles imported into New South Wales, and the damage done there by imposing a duty of 20 per cent, on the raw material. I said there were practically 1,600 hands engaged in the industry, but I did not at the same time touch upon the effect of the Tariff upon saddlery ware. I ask, in reference to that industry, how has the Prime Minister carried out his Maitland promise, that there -should be no wanton destruction of existing industries 1 I admit that in regard to many Victorian manufacturing industries, he has tried to cany out his promise, but with regard to industries in the State from which he comes he has pursued the opposite course. The raw materials used in the manufacture of Saddlery and harness amount in value to about £90,000. I have tried very hard to separate the various items that come under the heading of raw material. The value of raw material directly stated is £49,000, but taking into consideration all the other items that must be taken into account the total amounts to something like £90,000. I will assume, for the sake of argument, that the total is only £80,000. In order to prevent the importation of £1 7,000 worth of saddlery, the profits on which if made up Would not exceed £3,000, the men engaged in the affected trades have to pay 20 per cent, duty on £80,000, or some like £17,000 altogether. It is an unalterable law that i.fie price of an article cannot be increased w without lessening the demand for it. Wages are not increased simply because the price of hh article is increased, and I would remind the honorable member for Bland of the economic fact that when prices are raised 20 per cent, there is an absolute depreciation of the wages of the people to that extent, unless their wages are increased correspondingly.

Mr Watson:

– Would not the Tariff proposed by the honorable and learned member have the effect of increasing prices 1 I

Mr CONROY:

– I do not think the honorable member was present when I explained it. I have pointed out already that, so far as 3,000,000 of the people are concerned, a Tariff of £7,000,000 is all that is required, on the Prime Minister’s own statement. Therefore we should not go above that amount. After all, on whom do the taxes fall 1 Why is one class of taxation called “ direct,” and another “indirect?” The term “indirect taxation” is another name for “protection.” It means the collection of a tax from one man, in the certain expectation that he will collect that tax from other individuals. As a matter of fact, not only the amount of the tax, but interest in addition is collected. That is why it is said that indirect taxation is one of the most wasteful forms of raising money. When I look at the Tariff papers, and see that the Ministry estimate that they will raise only £92 by means of the duty of 1½d. per lb. on biscuits, I feel that I may well ask why the tax is imposed, unless it is to allow certain manufacturers to form a ring, and raise prices against the public. If there is no revenue to be derived from it, why should the duty be raised to ld. per lb. 1 The public may well ask - “ Who are the men engaged in the biscuit trade 1 The firm of Arnott and Co., of Newcastle, in free-trade New South Wales, has been doing a very large export ‘ trade, with a duty of only £d. per lb. on biscuits. Last year that firm did a very large trade with South Africa, and was able to do it owing to the abolition of the duties on such articles as currants, which are used in certain classes of biscuits, and the very low duty on sugar.

Mr Watkins:

– Is the honorable and learned member aware that it was a duty of Id. per lb. on biscuits that first enabled Mr. Arnott to get on his feet 1

An Honorable Member. - No

State, the manufacturer of pianos has got on very well without the aid of any duty whatever. Why should £3,000 be put into the pockets of this particular manufacturer just as directly as if he were allowed to collect it from the individuals themselves’? Here, again, the fact must be remembered that he is a great friend of the Prime Minister. The public of New South Wales will want an explanation in regard to the duties upon biscuits, twine and yarn, soap, pianos, and a good many other articles which I have not time to discuss just now. I should like further to point out that these duties lead to the creation of trusts. In Victoria there is a nail and barbed wire factory. Of what possible benefit can the imposition of a duty upon these articles be to the bulk of the people 1 These wages are paid out of money collected from the people, and unfortunately the money does not go directly into the pockets of the workers, but has to ‘filter through the manufacturers. But if a policy be framed for advancing the interests of individuals as against the interests of the nation, no wonder we find men eager and willing to take advantage of it. Are we not entitled to say that the protection of the Australian Paper Mills Company and of the proprietors of the strawboard mills is unjust to the great bulk of the people 1 Then the American Tobacco Trust will doubtless, as time goes on, under this Tariff reduce their expenses of management by closing up their factories in Adelaide and Melbourne, and conducting their business entirely at their factory in Sydney. The difference between the excise on leaf and the duty on imported tobacco means thousands of pounds to the consumer, and no one can for a moment contend that it is right that this company should make such enormous profits in consequence of the Tariff. If the policy of the Government be right, why not make tobacco factories a State industry ?

Mr Tudor:

– Would the honorable member support such a proposal ?

Mr CONROY:

– I would be in favour of such a proposal in the case of tobacco, and if the proprietors of the tobacco factories are protectionists, they need not be* given any compensation, because they will know that the “money is still in the country.” I have already referred to the two reaper and binder factories in Victoria, which are combined, or, at least, form a ring pledged not to sell below a certain price. If the

Government had said that this was a revenue Tariff, I might have urged that they had overstepped the bounds, but when they declare their proposals to mean protection, we are entitled to know what particular classes of manufacturers are given the right to levy money on the bulk of the people. The more of these rings there are created, the more difficulty there will be in getting rid of them, and with a Commonwealth containing over 4,000,000 of people, these rings are given greater power than ever they had before. Even the proprietors of the three candle factories are under an agreement to charge certain rate3, and the advantage of a duty is given to this industry, although the estimated revenue is only £403. I admit that sometimes the money does not go into the pocket of the manufacturer, owing to bad machinery and wasteful management, which tend to reduce the profits, but as population grows, the manufacturers are given an increased advantage. Although the duty on sugar is not to be collected until the 1st June next year, the price of this commodity has been raised by £2 per ton ; indeed, the honorable member for South Sydney, who is a large jam manufacturer, declares that the price has been increased by £2 10s. per ton, so that the effect of the duty has been to put large sums of money into the pockets of the shareholders of the Colonial Sugar Company. I should like to know why a company with a capital of a million of money should be allowed to collect money from the public in this way 1 The duty puts £450j000 into the pockets of its shareholders. I am told that some of the rich lands of Queensland may go out of cultivation if these duties are not imposed. How can they be rich lands if they cannot be cultivated without the benefit of a tax on the rest of the people of Australia 1 What would the farmers who live on the potato lands near Warrnambool say, if they were told that they might levy a tax for their own benefit upon the people living .in the mallee 1 I am glad to say that amongst a great many of the people in the sugargrowing district of New South Wales it is coming to be recognised that they ought to be thankful for the rich lands on which they live, without seeking to tax their poorer neighbours. The policy of the leader of the Opposition, so far as concerns the reduction of the sugar duties, was a blessing in disguise to the farmers in the Richmond River district. It directed their attention to dairy farming, and has increased the wealth of that district tenfold. Sugar is the raw material for many of our natural industries. It is the raw material for the jam trade which has sprung up in recent years, until we are now exporting tons of jam and preserved fruit.

Mr Ewing:

– Mostly pumpkins !

Mr CONROY:

– We hear that our jams bear favorable comparison in the eyes of the world with those produced in other countries. Orders are being received for them from all parts of the world. But this duty on sugar is going to increase the cost of producing jams, and will consequently injure the trade. This will bring about diminished employment and lower wages. Duties like this injure the whole community. If the people of England had listened to some politicians in 1845 and 1846 her duties would have been retained. Their argument was that if they wanted revenue they must keep up high duties. They would not believe the political economists who told them that the lower the duties the greater would be the revenue, because the greater would be the demand for the articles ; and so far from the bulk of the people being out of employment, and a condition of misery existing, it would tend to sweep all that awa)-, because the greater demand for the articles would increase the demand for labour. I mentioned that if the wages of men were not increased 20 per cent, the effect of this Tariff would practically be to diminish their wages by 20 per cent. It is true that in the case of two staple necessaries of life, meat and wheat, the injury that protection does cannot be felt to the fullest extent. I concede so much to the protectionist. When a statesman like Sir Robert Peel came into power he was willing to be guided by the teachings of science, and how clearly the result proved him to b’e right. From 1836 to 1846 the revenue in England was falling off by from £500,000 up to £2,000,000 a year, the people in hundreds of places were starving, and the metal heaps at Leeds, which were given to men to break up, had increased to 150,000 tons. One honorable member opposite told us during this debate that Lord Salisbury had become a convert to protection, but what the Prime Minister of England did say on the subject was that the people must not forget that now the amount of direct taxation equalled the amount of indirect taxation, and that any further increase of taxation must be an increase all round. I find that on 2nd May, 1894, he said “ Protection is dead and cannot be revived,” while on 10th March, 1897, he said - . “I do not doubt that free-trade is the policy for this country, and which this country will continue to pursue.” Could there be any stronger declaration ? We expect to lose on this division, but I have no hesitation in saying that if the voice of the people of the Commonwealth could make itself heard - and I trust that it will yet have an opportunity of doing so, because the Tariff has to go before another House - it would be found to be with us. The silent forces which make for freedom will triumph in the end as surely fis good conquers evil. There will yet be found on the part of the people an insistence, not for taxation, but an insistence that whenever any taxation is to be imposed it shall be borne fairly by us all in proportion to our means. I admit that the proportion of direct taxation which can be raised in a new country like this is not what could be raised in an old country, but it will yet be far nearer than anything the Ministry has proposed. S01 ar as they are concerned the amount of direct taxation which will have to be imposed will be something like 15 or 16 per cent. The only State which has made an approximation towards the equalization of taxation is New South Wales. It imposes direct taxation to the extent of 29 per cent. In a new community it is impossible to carry out the theoretical idea, nor would direct taxation be correct, to my mind, if it were excessive. But the relative proportion in which direct and indirect taxation should be borne is far from finding a place in the proposals of the Ministry. I trust the people will learn this great lesson, that no taxation will be for the benefit of the people ; that every penny that is taken from the productive power of the country means so much diminished employment, and consequently general deterioration. So far from advancing the interests of the wealthy classes, it is to their own injury, and their selfishness in avoiding their fair share of the public burdens unduly depresses the masses, and widens that gulf between rich and poor, which all earnest men wish to see narrowed.

Mr. BATCHELOR (South Australia).In the jaded condition of the House at this hour of the morning, I feel that perhaps I ought to apologize for addressing members even for the few minutes that I intend to speak. My only reason for rising is that so far I have not spoken on Tariff matters in this Parliament. I did not speak to the address in reply, nor have I given any indication of my views on the fiscal question. The debate has been unprecedentedly long, and I am afraid honorable members must have concluded that it has been somewhat wearisome. Perhaps, however, it has had some educational effect. Let us hope that it has. I am rather afraid not only that the greater part of what has been said during this debate has been irrelevant, but that the mass of matter, having very little relation to the real question before us, which has been put forward, clouds the issue, and prevents the people from obtaining a fair and definite conception of the real principles at stake. We have had a mass of statistics quoted, giving comparisons between the positions of New South Wales and Victoria. We have had a great many recriminatory expressions used by honorable members on both sides of the House, but certainly to a far greater extent by those on the opposition side.

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– No.

Mr BATCHELOR:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– If the honorable member is as fair and candid as he is usually he will admit the correctness of my statement. Scarcely one honorable member has referred to New South Wales throughout this debate, except in a courteous and fair manner. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that expressions have been used with reference to Victoria which seem to me, as one of the representatives of aa outside State, to be of an unnecessarily offensive character to Victorians.

Mr Wilks:

– The honorable member must have misunderstood them.

Mr BATCHELOR:

– I do not say that the honorable member has been guilty of that kind of conduct, and I am not refer- ring to him. A great deal of what I refer to had no relation to the question of free-trade or protection, and it was unnecessary to drag it in. I think that its introduction has been a disadvantage. We want to build up in this Parliament some national sentiment. We do not want to be carping continually at States represented by honorable members holding views different from our own. I said just now that most of these comparisons had very little relation to the question at issue, and I think honorable members must agree that very little can be proved by statistics. Much depends on the circumstances, and we cannot get similar circumstances in all the States, ‘ so that the statistics which have been quoted are of no particular value. For instance, if we consult Coghlan in order to ascertain which of the Australian States have shown the greatest progress during the last 20 years, and the best conditions for labour generally we find, strange as it may seem, that they are those States which have had a nominee Legislative Council - New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, and, for some little time, Western Australia. But how absurd it would be to argue that therefore the high road to prosperity is to have a nominated Legislative Council. Yet, such a conclusion would be quite as logical, though it is so absurd, as some of the arguments which have been used in this debate. Like the honorable member for Darling, I am quite convinced that fiscal policies have not a great deal to do with the conditions prevailing in various communities. Only one inference, I think, can be drawn from the general statements of the conditions prevailing in various countries. One broad fact is to be learned from looking at contemporary history, and that is that all the nations which have built up industries to any considerable extent have done so under a system of protection, and that every nation but one - Great Britain - which has practised protection has stuck to it. Notwithstanding ‘the fact that all the offshoots of Great Britain were trained in free-trade views, and had a natural love for British ideas, in every case but one they have adopted protection, and not thrown it over. Surely we can conclude from that fact that high national prosperity is certainly not incompatible with a protective policy 1 It is idle to suggest that Australia will not progress under a protective system, when we see that all nations except Great Britain have done so. It certainly must be admitted that all the great statesmen of the world are not located in Great Britain, New South Wales, and Turkey. And arguing from that fact, surely there must be something more in this system than our free-trade friends are prepared to admit 1 If we admit that there are some statesmen outside Great Britain, New South Wales, and Turkey, are we to conclude that in those countries which have adopted protection the people are more easily cajoled and imposed upon than are those in other countries 1 I do not think that that contention can be sustained. Taking an historical view, all the arguments certainly make for protection. I do not wish to say for a moment that nations are prosperous or the reverse because of protection or free-trade : I do not believe it ; but at least it can be said that protection is certainly compatible with a very high state of prosperity. Comparisons have been drawn between Victoria and New South Wales by the free-trade party to the advantage of the latter State. Had New South Wales been compared with New Zealand or Queensland or any of the other States, quite the reverse result would have been shown. What particular value is it to draw a comparison between New South Wales and Victoria, when if it were drawn between New South Wales and Queensland, or New Zealand, or other protectionist communities, quite a different result would be shown as regards conditions of life and general prosperity’ It has not been shown, though a great deal of time has been devoted in the attempt, that in free-trade countries better conditions prevail for the workers than in protected countries. An attempt has been made to show that the conditions in England are very much better than those in the United States, and that the conditions in New South Wales are very much better than those in Victoria. But the country in which the general conditions of life are best, and certainly where the agriculturists are most prosperous, is New Zealand, a most highly protected community. So that a very high state of agricultural prosperity can exist under a protective policy.

Mr CONROY:

– No doubt, but surely it is at the expense of the farmer 1

Mr BATCHELOR:

Mr BATCHELOR:

– Anybody can be an importer, but importing does not bring out the skill and business faculties of the people to the extent that manufacturing does. At the risk of repeating myself, I must again say that the whole trouble about this Tariff is raised in connexion with the revenue items, and not in connexion with the protective items. If the leader of the Opposition had had to bring in the first Tariff for Australia, it would have been the very best thing that could have happened for the protectionist cause. In such a case, freetrade and the name of the leader of the Opposition would have been associated with duties as high, if not higher, than those proposed in the present Tariff, and such a policy would have simply added to the cost of living, without causing the employment of a single additional person or giving any corresponding benefit. Had the free-trade party introduced a Tariff on the lines they must have followed in order to carry out their theories, pilingeven heavier burdens of taxation on such articles as tea, coffee, kerosene, and blankets, it would have been the very finest thing that could have happened for the protectionist cause. I admit that I am dissatisfied with the Tariff in regard to the revenue items, because all my political life I have been fighting against the taxation of such articles ; and when I have an opportunity to vote in favour of the importation of the necessaries of life as cheaply as possible, I do not intend to neglect it. What is more, I find from the speech of the honorable member for South, Australia (Mr. Poynton) that, though he is classed as a revenue tariffist, he is going to do the same. I am glad to hear that the honorable member and I will be voting on the same side on that question, as we have done in the South Australian Parliament upon similar questions. Under the circumstances, I am compelled to vote with the Government rather than with the Opposition, who can offer me no relief in the direction in which I think relief is required. The Opposition offer only destruction without relief. That phrase is the watchword that should be printed on the banner of the free-trade party in this connexion. On the other hand, although the Government, I admit, oppress the people to a considerable extent by revenue duties, they do not add to the difficulties of the people by bringing about the displacement from employment of large numbers of workmen. That is certainly what would happen if the Opposition were successful. As to the amendment of the honorable member for Barrier, I have at his request to ask for its withdrawal. He has had to leave earlier than was expected, and has, of course, paired; but he finds that there is such a general feeling amongst? honorable members on both sides - some of whom are favorable to his proposal - that it would complicate the present issue, and he has come to the conclusion that it would be undesirable to press it to a division. As far as I am concerned I think he is wise in doing so. Had he pressed the amendment to a division I should have voted for it, though I think the better plan is for the Commonwealth Parliament to leave the imposition of direct taxation to the States. We can bring about direct taxation if we desire it without imposing it ourselves. If we do not give the States a surplus sufficiently large to enable them to carry on, they will be compelled either to make great reductions or to impose direct taxation in any form they like. I certainly think that some proposal for direct taxation is necessary to make the motion of the leader of the Opposition complete and definite ; but under present circumstances it is just as well that the amendment should be withdrawn. I therefore ask the permission of the House for its withdrawal.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr PHILLIPS:
Wimmera

– At this late period of the debate, and early hour of the morning, I should not have troubled the House had it not been that in certain quarters a doubt has been expressed as to how I shall record my vote in connexion with the motion of censure proposed by the leader of the Opposition. I rise more for the purpose of removing that doubt than for any other reason. Why such a doubt should have been expressed I know not. At the election I stood as a supporter of the Barton Government. I was opposed by one of the high priests of the free-trade democratic league, which did all it possibly could to secure my defeat. A section of the press that has devoted a considerable amount of attention to me during the last three or four weeks, on that occasion placarded its columns with my name as a high Tariff candidate. Yet within the last week or two they have stated that I should be false to my pledges if I voted with the Government on this occasion. In support of what I now state, I may add that some little time before the day of nomination there were three candidates for the Wimmera seat in the field in the interests of the Barton Government. I thought it was inadvisable for the three of us to stand, and brought about a conference, the result of which was that an arbitration committee was formed. One member of that committee was the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, and I was chosen as their candidate. That, I think, proves that knowing the policy of the Government I was their candidate, and I have broken no election pledge. I desire to draw attention to a quotation from the first speech I delivered in connexion with that election. The speech was circulated throughout the length and breadth of the Wimmera, and every elector in that district got a copy of it. I am reported to have said in that speech -

The most important question the Federal Parliament would have to deal with was that of the Tariff. It was now resolving itself into a fight between the advocates of free-trade and protection, but many of them overlooked the fact that a certain amount of revenue had to be raised for the working of the Commonwealth. Clause86 stated that on the establishment of the Commonwealth the control of duties, customs, and excise passed to the executive Government, and clause 87 stated that for a period of ten years, or till such time as Parliament otherwise provided, of the net revenue not more than one-fourth should be applied to the Commonwealth, the balance to be paid to the respective States. It would take £8,500,000 to provide the necessary revenue of the Commonwealth and return to the States the three-fourthsproportion they were entitled to. That revenue could only be raised through the Customs. He supported the policy of Mr. Barton, whose Government he was prepared to follow. Mr. Barton’s motto was, “Revenue without destruction,” which meant that, while the whole of the revenue would be raised through the Customs, the duties would be such as would enable consideration to be extended to the industries that have been built up under the protective policy. If there was any shortage in the Customs revenue it would have to be made up by a land tax, which, of course, he (the candidate) or any farmer would not for a moment approve of. If an all-round revenue duty were imposed it would mean that the present free list would be taxed. In that list were a considerable number of articles in daily use amongst the producers, and he would be no party to have those articles taxed. This list included kerosene, and other oils, corrugated iron, manures of every kind, cream separators, traction engines, reapers and binders, wine presses, sewing machines, sheep shearing machines, safety matches, posts and rails, brown rock salt, wool packs, and a large number of other articles. He thought it would be recognised than Mr. Barton’s was the proper policy to adopt, as under it they would protect established industries, and retain the free list in the interests of the producers. If there was any shortage in revenue, the only power the Federal Parliament would have would be to impose a land tax. (A voice - And why not?) Because there were about 400,000 people around Melbourne, who would escape scot free if that tax were imposed. (Loud applause). He was also prepared to consider protection to natural industries. He could assure them that if they returned him as their representative, he would honestly support the policy of the Barton Government, which would sweep the polls in Victoria. He did not consider that it was a question between the two leaders of free-trade and protection, so much as a question as to who should obtain supremacy in the Federal Parliament. He held that Mr. Barton was entitled to that supremacy.

Those were my pledges at the election time, and I state to-night that I consider this motion has very little to do with the Tariff. It is only an attempt by the Opposition to secure the Ministerial benches, and they are prepared to take every advantage, and to get there if they can by any means. The night after I delivered the speech to which I referred I spoke at Donald, and from the report of that speech, appearing in the Argus of 7th March, I quote the following : - ‘,Mr. Pharez Phillips, M.L.C., the protectionist candidate, addressed the electors of the Wimmera. He announced that he was a supporter of the Barton Government, and explained the reason he had turned f 101n free-trade to protection was that sufficient revenue to cany on the Commonwealth Government could only be obtained by a protectionist policy. He, however, was in favour of the present free list, and no duty should be placed on these articles. He did not believe in woman’s sum-age, and would not support Mr. Barton in that polio)’. The present fight was not protection versus free-trade, but whether Mr. Barton or Mr. Reid should be leader, and he would support Mr. Barton’s claims. A vote of confidence was carried.

I think these quotations clearly prove that by voting with the Government on this occasion, I do not violate any election pledge, on the ‘contrary, I redeem my plegdes. I recognise that I was returned as a consistent supporter of the Government, and I am so. While making this statement it does not follow that I agree entirely with the Tariff proposals which the Government have submitted. I certainly disagree with very many of their proposals as contained in the Tariff. It will be observed that during my election campaign I pledged myself to the retention of what was called the farmers’ free list. I find that that list has to a very large extent been interferred with by the present Tariff proposals, and when we get into committee I shall take advantage of the invitation of the right honorable the Treasurer. The right honorable gentleman, in speaking the other night, said -

I am not going to say that this Tariff is perfect. I admit, in the light of the. information I have received since it was submitted, that in contains many blemishes which we are prepared to rectify. If the information for which we have asked from those interested shows us that we have made a mistake in regard to any particular article, and that what we propose is likely to injure any industry, we do not intend to continue to do wrong merely because we have done so up to the present. We are perfectly prepared to ascertain the views of the various parties interested, and then, if we think it wise, to modify or alter ally of the anomalies which may possibly exist.

There are many anomalies in the Tariff, and I shall take the fullest advantage of the invitation held out by the Treasurer to endeavour to rectify them when we get into committee. I desire to draw the attention of the House to a list that appears in the columns of a morning newspaper which has been vainly endeavouring to snare the farming support. This list appeared in the columns of the Argus of 9th October, under the large heading “ Rough on the Farmers.” It professes to set out the duties the farmers must pay, and contains 74 items. The inference intended to be drawn was that the whole of those items were used exclusively by the producers, but the writer was extremely unfortunate in his collection, because, after a careful analysis of the items, I find that there are only seven that are used exclusively by the producers. Those seven items are agricultural implements, mould-boards, plough-shares, ploughplates, horse-works, reapers and binders, and reaper and binder twine. The Argus published the Federal Tariff in regard to those articles, hut omitted to place beside it the old Victorian Tariff. The omission may not have been intentional, but it looks remarkably like it. I am inclined to think it was an attempt on their part to gull the farmers. The duties on six out of the seven articles which I have enumerated are the same as under the old Victorian Tariff, while in regard to the seventh there has been a reduction of 10 per cent. The duty on horse-works under the Victorian Tariff was 25 per cent. ; under the Federal Tariff it is 15 per cent. It is stated that reapers and binders are to be taxed to the extent of 15 per cent., but the Argus omitted to mention that this duty is conditional upon the establishment of a factory within the Commonwealth. On the day following the publication of this list, I met a representative of one of the largest agencies for reapers and binders in the Commonwealth. I brought this duty under, his notice, and inquired whether it would not pay his firm to establish a factory here. He replied that if they had the whole of the Australian trade to themselves it would not pay them to do so. I think it was the leader of the Opposition who said that reapers and binders could be purchased for about £30. That statement is “correct. Some two or three years ago, however, the price was 55.

Mr Kennedy:

– That was the price last year.

Mr PHILLIPS:

– I purchased one myself some three years ago, and paid £55 for it. Some four or five weeks ago, however, I bought a machine of the same make for £30. The cause of the reduction is that the ring which existed amongst the importers here has been broken up. The reapers and binders for which we had to pay £55 a year or two ago can now be obtained in Victoria at prices ranging from £27 to £35. The leader of the Opposition forgot to mention the price of the reaper and binder in New South Wales. A machine of exactly the same make as that for which I paid £30 in Victoria cannot be bought in New South Wales to-day for less than £48.

Mr Conroy:

– The same reaper and binder 1

Mr PHILLIPS:

– Yes. I am in a position to substantiate my statement. The ring has not been broken up in New South Wales, and it continues to keep up the price.

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– The ring cannot last while it is possible to buy the machines for less in Victoria.

Mr McCay:

– But it is impossible toobtain a machine in Victoria for delivery in New South Wales.

Mr PHILLIPS:

– A few days ago, I wrote to one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural implements in Victoria, the Braybrook Implement Company Ltd., and inquired what they were charging for their machines in New South Wales. I received the following reply : -

Yours of the 25th inst. duly to hand this morning, asking us to supply you with a price list of the above company’s implements and machinery for New South Wales and Victoria.

In reply, we herewith forward you half-a-dozen circulars with prices attached, from which you will note that these are all quoted free on trucks, Braybrook Junction, and there is no differencemacle for implements going into any particular State, the customer paying freight and charges at the other end.

I do not approve of these composite duties. Now, I desire to give an example of the benefit conferred by customs duties so far as one particular section of our producers is concerned ; I refer to the fruit-growing industry, and particularly to that branch of it relating to the preparation’ of dried fruit. We have a most successful fruit-growing settlement at Mildura, in my electorate, and I have a few statistics here that will show what protection has done for the dried fruit industry. Mildura was brought into existence some fifteen years ago as the result of the Victorian protectionist policy, and is now one of the most thriving settlements in the State. The fruit-growers there have 9,000 acres under fruit cultivation, and in 1S9S the value of their products amounted to £64,866 ; in 1S99, to £72,302 ; in 1900, to £93,504, and in 1901, to £113,000. The population of Mildura at the last census was 3,329, and the production per head of the population, including every man, woman, and child there, amounted to £40. The capital expended on the settlement totals £819,000. The Chaffey Brothers’ Company expended £407,000 ; £52,000 has been expended by the water trusts, and the settlers have laid out £360,000 in the improvement of the 9,000 acres they have under cultivation.

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– They robbed me of £200.

Mr PHILLIPS:

– I have not the slightest doubt that Mildura will become the sultana producing centre of the world. I am creditably informed that the world’s production of sultanas amounts to only 17,000 tons, and that all of this particular class of fruit comes from Arabia and the Levant. The production of this particular raisin at Mildura amounted last year to 10S tons. The great advantage Mildura possesses over any other part of the world is that the raisins can be dried by natural means, whereas in the Levant and Arabia they have to bo dried by means of kilns, which deprive them of their brightness, and some of their weight. There are no sultanas in the world equal to those produced at Mildura, and, without doubt, before many years a very great proportion of the world’s supply will come from this settlement, which has been built up under protection. I am quite prepared to admit that the producer does not derive all the benefit he might under a protective policy, but he does enjoy some very great advantages. In 1889 the Victorian Parliament remitted no less than £1,642,611 to the producers of the colony in the form of capital that had been advanced to them, and interest that had accrued in connexion with water and irrigation trusts. £330,748 was remitted to the settlers in the Wimmera. Not only that, but the Government have now started the construe tion of waterworks for the benefit of settlers in the southern portion of the Wimmera, which are estimated to cost £234,428. The State Parliament of Victoria has placed a sum of £25,000 upon the Estimates, in addition to the £50,000 which they had previously provided for the purpose of making up the deficiency in the railway revenue caused by a reduction in the cost of carriage of the farmers’ grain to market. Another £20,000 has been expended in my district by way of mallee road grants. One of the latest of the concessions which have been made to the producers has reference to thecarriage of manures, which are now being conveyed by the Railway department at a loss. The manure traffic upon the railways is destined to be a very large one. Throughout the whole of the northern portion of Victoria quite a revolution is taking place in connexion with drilling and manuring. When speaking of the duty upon agricultural implements I omitted to mention that I shall endeavour to obtain a remission of the duty upon seed drills. I understand that only one factory in this State manufactures these drills, and that its attention is not confined exclusively to their manufacture. This factory also turns out harvesters and other machinery, so that it will not be injuriously affected by the remission of this particular duty. To give honorable members some idea of the extent to which the seed drill will be used in the near future, I may mention that in the small town in which I live no less than 120 drills have been sold this year. Each drill represents an average use of 10 tons of manure. I trust, therefore, that I shall have the assistance of honorable members in obtaining a remission of the duty upon seed drills. It has been said that the producer derives no benefit from a tax upon produce such as onions, wheat, eggs, oatmeal, &c. In this connexion I should like to read a clipping from the Age of yesterday, having reference to the effect of the Tariff upon the exports of New Zealand. It is as follows : -

A comparison of the cargoes shipped to Sydney from New Zealand by the Westralia on her last few trips gives an idea of the effect which the

Federal Tariff is likely to have on New Zealand’s exportation.? to Australia. In September, 906 tons were taken from New Zealand, consisting of 577 sacks of oats, 75 sacks of wheat, 7,245 sacks of potatoes, 26 sacks of peas, 563 bales of hay, 120 cases of bacon, 64 cases of cheese, 129 bales of flax, 86 casks of tallow, 19 sacks of hides, 11 bales of hops, and 62 tons of sundries. On the present trip, the first which the Westralia has made to Sydney since the Federal Tariff was announced, she carries only 730 tons, including 7,353 sacks potatoes, 43 sticks peas, 9 cases bacon, 9 cases cheese, 60 bales tow, and 10 tons sundries. Not a sack of oats, wheat, barley, flour, oatmeal, malt, seed, or hides is on board ; nor is there a ease, bale, or cask of tinned milk, hay, flax, hops, twine, skins or tallow. But for the potatoes there would have been only 62 tons of cargo in the ship’s hold, instead of the usual 730 tons.

– We have taken their means of financing themselves away from them, now that we have taken away their Customs revenue. Not one of the States would have entered the Federation if they had been told what the honorable member now advocates.

Mr BROWN:

– We have taken away a part of their previous means of financing in consequence of the consummation’ of federation, but the States still have large powers of taxation which they can exercise. My opposition to the Commonwealth Bill - an opposition that was consistently carried right through the different referendums - was largely based upon the financial weakness that I saw in the Constitution, as well as upon the undemocratic methods adopted for bringing about alterations of the Constitution, and allowing the people to adjust the Constitution to their own requirements. I placed those issues clearly before my electors, making no secret of my opposition. I believe that had others who are now singing out about the system been as faithful to their trust to the people as I and a few others were, the Constitution would have been rid of those blots that are found in it to-day. My complaint against the Government is that they have adopted this wrong basis. They are intensifying and perpetuating the evil by constituting themselves taxgatherers for the States, and making the States dependent upon the Commonwealth for their ways and means of finance in years to come. I simply wish to indicate the foundation principles upon which I took exception to the methods of taxation adopted by the Government in the formulation of their Tariff proposals. I thoroughly believe that the functions of government are to bring about the best social and moral conditions for the community. I do not believe that the Government is constituted merely to collect taxes, to expend money on public works, and to maintain law and order in a community. I believe that where the functions of government can be used to make the condition of the people better and more humane, and to elevate the community, they should be so used. I know that in the great political struggles that have taken place, and are taking place to-day, there is a difference of opinion as to the extent to which governmental interference should be carried, and as to the extent to which it is possible for the functions of government to assist in improving social conditions. Whilst I recognise that the welfare and prosperity of the community are largely affected by questions of taxation and methods of government, I believe that the powers of government can be advantageously used in other directions, and that if they are not used in the direction of bringing about better social conditions, the Government are responsible for the unsatisfactory conditions which remain. I consider that the fact that we have in the community an increasing wealthy few on the one hand, whilst on the other hand we have those who toil from daylight to dark under conditions that are as hard as it is possible for conditions to be, is the outcome of bad legislation in the past, and. of the operation of our form of government. Where we find that the legislation passed has failed to bring about, proper social, conditions it is our duty, if we are loyal to our humanity, to remedy its defects. This is where I differ to some extent from some of my protectionist friends and from some of my free-trade friends. My protectionist friends seem to think that we shall have reached the millenium if we get an ideal form of protection ; and some free-traders think that all that is desired is an ideal form of free-trade, and that then everything will be just as it ought to be. I do not believe that. I believe there are other matters we shall have to deal with in our legislation and in our administration of the government with which we are charged, and that we must deal with them upon proper lines before we can bring about the improved social conditions we aim at. I have to make my choice as to which of two systems will be most conducive to the reforms in the direction I consider legislation should take in order to attain that ideal - whether a system of freedom of commerce or trade, or a system of restricted commerce and restricted ti-ade. I have no hesitation in arriving at a decision, and as the outcome of the best intelligence I can bring to bear upon the question my decision is that while I will not say that advancement or good -social legislation is not possible under a system of protection, I do say that the experience of the past is that protection is the mother of monopoly, and that monopoly is responsible for the existing unsatisfactory social conditions. On the other hand, a system of freedom of commerce assists in bringing about reforms, and placing them on a sound basis, and that is why I favour that system. Any one who has supported any line of reform, will know by experience that he has to meet the opposition of those whose interests are against reform. Adam Smith says that-

A Member of Parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening monoply is sure to acquire, not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with the order of men whose numbers and works renders them of great importance. If he abuses them, and still more if he have authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction and personal insult, and sometimes from a real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.

Mr BROWN:

– I think the Treasurer has made the Tariff very much higher than the requirements of the Constitution demand, and I want to reduce it to that point at which it will fit in with the demands of the Constitution. We are told that this is a composite Tariff. It is neither a free-trade nor a protectionist one, but a mixture. We understood all these financial difficulties when we entered into federation. We understood them when we entered upon our first federal elections, but we were given to understand that the Tariff proposals would be of a reasonable character. That they would not run into extreme protection, nor could it be of that free-trade description which would have been possible had not those provisions obtained. I remember that, at the time when parties were being formed, the leader of the Government delivered an address at Bathurst which, whether he so intended it ornot, certainly the press and the people took as an indication of the political lines which he proposed to adopt in the impending campaign, and the keynote then sounded to the electors was not to vote on the question of protection or freetrade, but to make the one cardinal principle of the elections the defence of the Constitution. What they were to defend it against was not made very clear, but apparently what was aimed at was that not a man who dared to oppose this model onstitution, who dared to think that it contained a Braddon blot, or any unworkable bookkeeping provisions, should find a place on the floor of the first Federal Parliament. The Prime Minister, in formulating his policy, had to deal with taxation proposals, and I find that at Maitland, where he issued his manifesto, he said -

I have not come here to conduct a protectionist campaign, though, under other circumstances, I should have been prepared to do so.

Again, in the Sydney Town-hall, he said -

We must have revenue, and it could be raised by neither a prohibitionist Tariff nor a free-trade Tariff.

Then, at Brisbane, he said- -

The difference between their policy and that of the other side was only a thin veneer.

And again, at Maitland, he said -

Shall we pile the duties on the cottager and the artisan ?

His very able and worthy lieutenant, the Minister for Home Affairs, in a political address, is reported to have said -

He could only call it criminal to raise the fiscal question now, when the very Constitution itself rendered free-trade or protection alike impossible.

In the course of his address, according to the press, that Minister very freely admitted to the public that the Federation could be financed in accordance with the Constitution upon a Tariff of from 10 to 15 per cent., and it was generally thought that he voiced the intentions of the Government. It was further considered that the freetrade leader could not bring in a Tariff which would be very much lower than than. And this pointwas very often raised - where was the line of demarcation between the two parties led by these two worthy political warriors. But it was contended by the free-traders that the Tariff introduced by this Government would, in addition to being a revenue Tariff, have a strong protectionist complexion, and that to that extent it would be distinguished from a Tariff designed for purely revenue purposes. We now have the Tariff. In the course of this debate it has not been denied that as far as it was possible for this Government to do so, consistently with getting the amount of revenue they aimed at raising for the purposes they have taken in hand, they made the Tariff as protectionist as it is possible for a Tariff to be made.

The Minister for Trade and Customs is reported to have said, in his opening address -

This is a protectionist policy. We were sent here by the people to support that policy, and we place it before you with the force of our majority behind us.

No declaration could he more definite than that, and it is on these grounds that we must consider it. Rightly or wrongly, the people of New South Wales consider that they have a “ legitimate grievance against the leader of the Government in not taking them more completely into his confidence prior to the elections, and telling them the kind of Tariff he would introduce. Prom the platform utterances and from the manifesto of the Prime Minister they were led to suppose that it would be a revenue Tariff. By the observations I have read, they were led to suppose that it would not be a protectionist one, and, consequently, would not have the burdensome provisions to them which it possesses. 1 am borne out in this contention by no less an authority than a gentleman who discharged the duties of chairman to the Prime Minister’s election committee at Maitland, Mr. W. R. Thompson. When the character of the Tariff was made known to Mr. Thompson, he is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of 11th October to have said -

In his opinion the implied promise of Mr. Barton in the Maitland address was not carried out.

We, the members of the laundry trade in meeting assembled, view with surprise and indignation the excessive duties (nearly 190 per cent, in some instances) about to be levied on laundry supplies, which represent the raw materials used in the laundry trade. Whilst strongly protesting against such prohibitory duties, we cannot too highly condemn the cunning and shameful act of putting on the free list articles that are well-known to be extensively adulterated in the locally-manufactured laundry supplies.

In regard to the effect of this Tariff upon the producers, the farmers, and the miners, I wish to point out that a number of interesting interviews with members of the State Parliament of Victoria have recently been published in the Argus. The opinions of these gentlemen are, I think, entitled to some consideration, because unquestionably they speak with authority upon this matter. Mr. Foster, who represents Gippsland East, says -

This Tariff will play the mischief with country industries. The producers feel that they are being heavily taxed for the benefit of the big cities. The mining industry will feel the stress most.

Mr Salmon:

– And that honorable member supported the high Tariff in 1895.

Mr BROWN:

– Well, he has learned a lesson since. The mining industry will feel the effects of this Tariff most acutely. It is. essentially a “ poor man’s “ Tariff, not in the sense that the poor man escapes taxation, but that he bears the burden of it. Mr. Cullen, who represents Gunbower, is reported to have expressed himself as follows : -

I have had a good opportunity of ascertaining the views of the producers in my district in regard to the Tariff. I find there is a unanimous and strong feeling against it. The farmers feel that the duties on machinery, timber, iron, and twine are most unfair to them.

Mr Phillips:

– Why did not the Argus state all that Mr. Cullen said ?

Mr BROWN:

– I wish it to be underStood that I am not reading all that appeared in the Argus. I am merely quoting extracts from that newspaper in confirmation of my contention that this Tariff presses unduly upon the farmers and the workers. Mr. Graham, who represents Numurkah, says -

Although my district has been looked upon as protectionist, there is a very strong feeling against the duties which the farmers will De called upon to bear under the present Tariff. When on the public platform, in connexion with the Federal Constitution referendum, I stated that an Australian Tariff, which imposed heavy duties upon the producers, would at once convert this class of the community into free-traders. This prophecy is already coming true. Farmers who have been consistent protectionists in my district are beginning to have strong leanings towards free-trade. The protection which has been afforded the farmer under the Tariff is only in name.

Mr. Nichols, who represents Gippsland West, says

I have just returned from a visit to the principal centres of my electorate. I find that there is a remarkably strong and unanimous feeling against the Tariff in the ranks of the producers. They feel that the extra taxation which they will be called upon to bear is most burdensome.

Mr. Oman, who represents Ripon, says

The dairymen object particularly to the tax on timber for butter-boxes, and also to that on Salt, which will add greatly to the cost of production.

Mr McCay:

– Read all that Mr. Oman Says.

Mr BROWN:

– Certainly. I have no objection to acceding to the honorable member’s request. That gentleman continues -

The raw material taxes, hitherto almost unknown in Victoria, are strongly objected to, and complaint is made at the reduction of the Victorian free list. The producers, however, realized that they would have to share the cost of federation, and they are willing to do so. It is unquestionable that the producers throughout Victoria will have to pay more in taxation under this Tariff than they had previously-;

A great deal has been said about the admission of raw material. But what is one man’s raw material is another man’s manufactured article. The sugar growers of Northern Queensland want a duty on sugar because it is a manufactured article, but when the product comes to New South Wales or Victoria, and is used as a constituent in jams and preserves, it is a raw material. In New South Wales, .with all the great possibilities and natural opportunities for the production of fruits, which have been taken advantage of by farmers there on an extensive scale, no jam or preserve manufactures worthy of the name were carried on while there was a duty of ?5 per ton on sugar.

Mr Kennedy:

– In New South Wales they are not intelligent enough to give a rebate, as in Victoria.

Mr BROWN:

– It was only when a reduction in the duty was made that the jam manufacturers were put on their feet, and to-day they can hold their own against protected Victoria.

Mr Kennedy:

– Is there not a difference between a log of timber and a butterbox?

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Chair, chair !

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The honorable member for Parramatta has two or three times had his attention called to the fact that he does not obey the order of the Chair. I must ask him to do so now, and not to interrupt other honorable members, who are simply interjecting, while he himself speaks across the floor of the House.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I have to apologize, Mr. Speaker, but, rightly or wrongly, I think I am called to order much more frequently than are other honorable members.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I must ask the honorable member to withdraw that remark. If the honorable member is called to order more frequently than other honorable members, it is because he transgresses more frequently.

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I apologize, Mr. Speaker ; I suppose I must, as it is parliamentary.

Mr BROWN:

– The next gentleman who was interviewed was Mr. Duffus, of Port Fairy, and what he said is reported in the Argus -

Among the farmers in my electorate there is a very strong feeling against the Tariff - so strong, in fact, that if my constituents were called upon to vote for or against federation at the present time, I feel certain there would be a large majority against it. While almost everything required by the farmers, both in their homes and for the purposes of their occupation, will be increased in price by the duties proposed, there are some articles in regard to which the burden will press with particular severity. Binder twine is one of these. Owing to the heavy crops taken from the land in the Port Fairy electorate generally, a greater quantity of binder twine is used per acre than in most of the agricultural districts, and for that reason the effect of the duty will be felt to a much greater extent. There are many other articles, necessary to agriculture, upon which imposts have been placed which will decidedly handicap the industry. People in the city have no idea how hard the farmers already find it to make both ends meet, and if they have to face a large increase in the cost of production their condition will become really desperate. The dairymen are also complaining bitterly about the duty upon butter-box timber. Notwithstanding the attempt made by Sir George Turner to remove their apprehensions on the point, the fact remains that the largest firm in that part of the country, after having given quotations for the supply of butter-boxes to the dairymen prior to the introduction of the Tariff, have since cancelled all their engagements.

Mr. Ewen Cameron, of Portland, says

Timber duties will affect an important industry in my constituency. The Portland Freezing Works of necessity use an imported timber for the packing of their tinned produce.

Then we have Mr. Brown, of Shepparton and Euroa -

The Kingston Tariff will load the people of the State with a burden that no one ever contemplated. The farmers consider that the scientific method of taxation is by raising revenue through the Customs, but in such a way that a man pays for what he consumes - the man who consumes little pays little, and the man who Consumes much pays more.

Mr. O’Neill, of Mandurang, writes

– But the farmers no doubt expected that under the Commonwealth Tariff they would be relieved of some of the burdens from which they suffered under the Victorian Tariff. Mr. G. Mitchell, of Talbot and Avoca, writes -

Producers and workmen with four or five of a family are looking for considerable relief in the direction of cutting down the duties on the necessaries of life, especially those on sugar and kerosene. I believe the unanimous feeling is that the tax on tobacco is unjust.

Then we have Mr. Holden, of Warrenheip, who says -

On the whole, the country people complain about the Tariff. The duty on timber affects them particularly. On butter-boxes alone it will mean a charge of ?300 per year in a factory whose weekly output is from 15 to 20 tons. These factories are owned by the producers themselves. Galvanized iron is another item which the country people use largely. Kerosene, too, is much used in engines for driving separators and chaffcutters, because hitherto it has been more economical. There have been many complaints from miners that almost everything used by them is taxed. The necessaries of the poor have been hit heavily. Luxuries should have been taxed more freely before the articles used by the working classes were trenched upon. The duties on reapers and binders and reaper and binder twine are another great tax on the producers.

Mr. Irvine, in reply to a toast, made the following statement.

Mr Salmon:

– He may be looked upon as the only authority among the lot !

Mr BROWN:

– I am glad the honorable member accepts my estimate of this gentleman -

He could not help referring to the great burden that it was proposed to place upon the people of this State as part of the whole of Australia. Without going for one moment into the question of free-trade or protection, he would say that the attempt to obtain the enormous sum of ?9,000,000 through the customs and excise duties from a population of three and a half millions was a task never before undertaken in any country. It would impose a burden too great even for this prosperous country. Though average incomes might be larger, the taxable power of a new country in which so much had to be spent upon reproductive agencies was even less than that of older countries. The imposition of this huge burden of taxation could only be done by crushing down the vitality of the producing energies of the country.

That is a very strong indictment against the Tariff.

Mr Salmon:

– From an unsuccessful free-trade candidate ! 19 s

Mr BROWN:

– I had it from the honorable member just now that Mr. Irvine was the best authority in the crowd.

Mr Salmon:

– It was sarcasm !

Mr BROWN:

– Whatever he may be on other matters, he is certainly an authority on the incidence of this taxation.

Mr Salmon:

– He is a single taxer.

Mr BROWN:

– I do not know of any attempt in the history of taxation to raise such an enormous amount of money from such a small population as is proposed by the Government. I also have here an expression of opinion from a Mr. McKenzie, who is likewise a State member. He said -

He was bitterly disappointed with the Commonwealth Tariff as submitted to the people. If the Tariff had been promised in the Maitland speech, Mr. Barton would not now be in office. The Maitland speech had been departed from, and the Tariff was a breach of faith with the people. The result would be a rapidly diminishing revenue. The Tariff was wrong in principle, and could not be improved upon by meddling with it. He considered the Government had broken faith with the people, and the people should pass judgment by removing it from office at the earliest opportunity.

As soon as this Tariff was submitted, these manufacturers held a meeting and decided amongst themselves that they must advance the price of their boots to compensate them for the extra money which they had to pay for their raw material which comes into the country. If the theory of the Minister for Home Affairs is correct, then this taxation is not paid by the boot manufacturers, and should not be passed on by them to the consumer, but is paid by the producer of the export. But I think that, as in a good many other cases, when it comes to the working out of the theory, it must give way before actual, practice. I shall leave the different theories which have been advanced by the previous speakers with these brief criticisms. There has been a great number of figures quoted here about the relative positions of New South Wales and Victoria, to show the advantages of one Tariff as against another. If certain figures can be produced which tell in favour of Victoria it is claimed that it demonstrates that the Tariff which obtained here was superior to that which obtained in New South Wales, and viae versâ. There may be some truth in this contention, but I freely admit that the mere setting opposite each other of tabulated sets of figures, and attempting to prove from them a theory is very unreliable ground to work upon. There are other factors which play an important part in determining any conclusions which may be arrived at, and unless weight and consideration be given to those factors there is the possibility that figures used to prove a certain thing do not do so at all. But on both sides it is generally admitted that fair deductions may be drawn from a comparison of the increase of population, and making certain allowance from the relative increase and prosperity of the manufactures in the States, the wages which are paid and the conditions under which labour operates, I find from Mr. Coghlan’s invaluable statistical work, The Seven Colonies, that the increase of population between 1851 and 1860 was 123,097 in New South Wales, and 398,753 in Victoria; that between 1861 and 1870 New South Wales showed an increase of 45,539, and Victoria an increase of 38,935; and that between 1871 and 1880 New South Wales showed an increase of 109,341, and Victoria a decrease of 12,672.” The table from which I am quoting shows distinctly the excess of immigration over emigration, or the reverse, as the case may be. Whilst Victoria started with a lead of something like 200,000 in the shape of an increase during the decade from 1851 to 1S60, she showed a decrease, during the decade from 1871 to 1880, of 12,672. New South Wales, during the same period, showed an increase of 109,341. Therefore, whatever advantages may be claimed for the system of protection, it must be admitted that in the case of Victoria it did not operate to increase the population at anything like the same rate as in previous years ; whilst the opposite principle of freetrade did not operate against New South Wales, inasmuch as the increase of population in that State during these decades was substantial. Prom 1881 to 1890, New South Wales showed an increase of 164,205, and Victoria gained in population to the extent of 112,097. Coming to the last decade, from 1891 to 1899, New South Wales exhibited an increase of 30,225, but the population of Victoria decreased by 1 27,2121. Coghlan sums up the position thus : -

If the results for the last nine years be compared, it will be found that Victoria lost 127,221. by excess of emigration, while on the other hand Western Australia gained 112,689 persons during the same period. South Australia also lost to the extent of 1,933. The remaining colonies all gained slightly. Dealing with the year 189!), the exodus from Victoria was sufficient to more than counterbalance the arrivals in all the other colonies, so that for the first time in the history of Australasia there was displayed the remarkable fact of the departures exceeding the arrivals.

Notwithstanding the fact that from the very foundation of the colonies up to 1899, there had been a gradual increase in all the States, and the population of the Commonwealth had been considerably added to by excess of immigration over emigration, in 1899 the tables were reversed, and the Commonwealth showed an excess of emigration over immigration. That is to say, it lost a proportion of its population, and was on the down grade. This retrograde movement in population was almost wholly attributable to the State of Victoria. Victoria more completely than any other State had adopted the protectionist policy of taxing out the goods of the foreigner for the purpose of finding increased work for her population ; and it must be a matter of very grave concern to staunch protectionists in Victoria to find that in spite of all their efforts their State is almost entirely responsible for this retrograde movement. On the other hand, New South Wales, notwithstanding her free- trade policy, contributed her fair share towards the increase of the population of the Commonwealth. In the year 1899, according to Coghlan, Victoria had 3,02-7 separate factories, whereas in New

South Wales there were 2,912 ; or a difference in favour of “Victoria of over 100. There were employed in Victorian factories 44,041 males, and in New South Wales factories 47.063. In the Victorian factories there were .16,000 females employed, against 8,000 in New South Wales. Coghlan sums up the figures relating to this subject as follows : -

Compared, with other colonies the proportion of factory hands who are women is larger in Victoria. There, out of 57,433 hands in 1889, 8,327, or 14 “50 per cent, were females, while in 1899, of 06,070 hands, Ki, 029, or 26 ‘7 per cent., were females.

In 1S89, prior to the great financial crisis, when things were prosperous throughout the whole of Australia, Victoria had 3,000 factories, and New South Wales had the same number. Victoria had 49,000 males employed, or 7,000 more than New South Wales, and she had S,000 females working in her factories compared with “4,000 in New South Wales. Her factory hands numbered 11,864 in excess of those employed in the New South Wales factories. In 1893, when the financial crisis occurred, and when the true stability of the factories of the two States was thoroughly tested, the results disclosed, according to Coghlan, are very much to the disadvantage of Victoria. At that time the number of factories in Victoria was reduced to 2,673, as against 2,052 in New South Wales, thus leaving an excess of 625 in favour of Victoria. The males then employed in Victorian factories numbered 32,000, as against 36,000 in New South Wales. There was thus an excess of 4,000 males in favour of New South Wales. Alto.gther, 39,473 hands were employed in Victorian factories, as against 38,918 in those of New South Wales. Thus it will be seen that the number employed in Victorian factories between 1885 and 1899 was reduced from a surplus of 11,000 over that of New South Wales, to an excess of only 555. To put the matter in another way, the increase of male hands employed in New South Wales factories between the years mentioned was 1 0,673. The increase of males in Victorian factories during the same period was 2,499. New South Wales, therefore, under this condemned system of free-trade, which it is urged is inimical to industry, found an outlet for 10,600 of her surplus population, whilst Victoria, with all the artificial assistance which her industries had received through the medium of protection, could provide an outlet for only 2,499. The decrease of males in New South Wales between 1889 and 1893 - that is, during the time of the financial crisis - was 6,546, whilst the decrease in Victoria was 17,956. Of the native-born population of the latter State, 120,000 had matured to manhood during the period indicated. Victoria had established her factories, had levied upon her people largely through customs and excise, and had called upon those who were engaged in her primary industries to specially subsidize these factories in order to open up avenues of employment for her boys. New South Wales, on the contrary, had worked out her progress upon sounder and more natural lines, with the result that she found an outlet for 10,600 of her population as against Victoria’s 2,499. My friends, the Victorian protectionists, will have a very hard task to destroy the significance of these figures. If they could be quoted against New South Wales as they can be against Victoria, what a different tale we should have heard from honorable members of this House. How our ardent protectionist friends would have brought them forward as evidence of the superiority of their fiscal doctrine as against that which obtains in the sister State of New South Wales. I think that these facts disclose a state of affairs which must be of very grave concern to those who believe in protection, and who hold that that fiscal policy is really intended to develop our resources by opening up remunerative avenues of employment. It has been contended that the increase in the factories of New South Wales has been chiefly in the primary avenues of production rather than in the complicated avenues of manufacture. I have a set of figures here compiled from the same source which show the increases that have taken place in New South Wales in industries which in Victoria are supposed to have been specially assisted by the Tariff. Comparing the year 1896 with that of 1900, I find that in biscuit manufactories there was an increase of hands from 485 to 830 - a substantial advance. In confectionery manufactories the employes increased from 475 to 706 ; in jam and fruit factories, from 452 to 713 ; in boot and shoe factories, from 3,526 to 3,953 ; in hat and cap factories, from 73 to 280 ; in furniture and bedding manufactures from 1,039 to 1,773 ; in coach and waggon factories, from 1,230 to 1,574 ; in glassware factories, from 190 to 369 ; and in clothing factories, from 2,724 to 5,568. These are industries which have been specially fostered by the protectionist policy. Similar industries receive no special assistance in New South “Wales, and yet in that State they have contributed very largely, as I have shown, to the increase in the avenues of employment. “With reference to the wages paid and the conditions which obtain in these industries, the difference between the two States is not very marked when all things arc taken into consideration. In Victoria there is special legislation providing for wages boards, of which there are something like 24 in operation. In New South “Wales there is no special legislation foi” the regulation of wages. Prom a return compiled recently we learn that in the industries I have mentioned there are in Victoria 13,000 males over eighteen years of age employed at an average wage of £2 0s. 5d., while the total number of persons engaged is 17,286, at an average wage of £1 13s. lOd. In similar industries in New South “Wales there are employed 10,755 males over eighteen years of age, at an average wage of £”1 18s. lid., while the total number employed is 13,297, at an average wage of £1 13s. 6d. This shows an advantage to Victoria of ls. 6d. or 2s. in the case of adult males, and of 4d. in the case of those under the age of eighteen. In females the difference is more marked. In Victoria there are 6,614 females over eighteen years of age employed at an average wage of 18s. 4d., while the total number employed is 9,274, with an average wage of 15s. 3d. In New South Wales there are 2,486 females employed at an average wage of 14s. lid., while the total number employed is 4,455 at an average wage of lis. 5d. In this class of labour Victoria shows a’n advantage of 2s. 8d. for adults, and of 3s. lOd. for those under eighteen years of age. These differences have been created largely by the operations of the wages boards, which have no doubt had a good effect in this particular direction. But these boards were called for as absolutely necessary in order to deal with the question of wages and of the social condition of the working people in Victoria. That the boards have been successful to the extent I have shown every one must be pleased to know. I am glad that these boards have resulted in obtaining better conditions in the factories, better payment for work, and in the suppression to a large degree of the sweating which previously obtained. “We can see very readily how these reforms have been resisted by manufacturers who are supposed to be advantaged by protection, but who complain that if the boards are allowed to continue they will be compelled, to close their establishments, because they cannot compete under the wage system which is insisted on. If the Victorian industries cannot compete with those of New South Wales under the circumstances,, there must be something radically wrong, and whatever the cause of that may be, it is something which the system, of customs taxation cannot remedy. At the present time I understand that there is a committee of inquiry investigating the complaints of the manufacturers, and is eliciting evidence primarily for the purpose of showing that the conditions which are insisted on by the wages boards, are too stringent, and so much to the advantage of the workers a3 against the manufacturers as to render the latter unable to successfully compete with the manufacturers in the sister States, particularly in New South Wales. While it may be difficult to draw these deductions from the mere statement of figures, the latter indicate what is beingcontended ; and I should like to read a quotation showing the need there was for wages boards in Victoria. The quotation, which describes the conditions which obtained amongst the factory hands of Victoria under the protectionist system before these boards were established, is from an address by Senator Barrett in the Carlton Orderly Room, on 6th March, 1895, during the agitation for the reform legislation. Senator Barrett, a gentleman well known, who ought to be an authority on these matters because of his connexion with the labour movement, stated -

The conditions were such that the worst forms of ‘sweating existed in the colony to-day, and were worse than in Great Britain. England was immeasurably superior to Victoria in that respect just now.

Senator Barrett, who is an ardent protectionist and a strong believer m the efficacy of assisting labour and promoting industries under that system, was compelled to confess that in Victoria, at that time, the conditions were worse than in free-trade England, where there is a greater pressure of population, unci where, according to him, there is a wrong fiscal policy. There is another matter, in dealing with which I do not wish to be understood as saying anything derogatory to the Victorian working men. I have seen the Victorian working man in New South Wales. He has assisted wonderfully to develop the productive resources of that State, despite the supposed disadvantages of free-trade under which he had to work. But our complaint against the Victorian working man has been that whenever it became a question of an industrial dispute, and of pitting against inert metal on the part of capital against hunger and need on the part of labour, we have been compelled to continue the struggle on very unequal terms, because the Victorian working man was prepared to accept conditions to which our workmen refused to submit. I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. We have in New South Wales men who will blackleg on their fellow men, but these are the parasites of labour. The squatter or mine-owner who recruits his surplus labour from amongst that class of men finds one experience of them sufficient. It is a much more costly form of labour, and much more unsatisfactory than the labour against which he is fighting. The Victorian working man, however, is no parasite. He is a real worker, but he has been shoved out of employment in his own State, and his need has compelled him to become a blackleg in New South Wales. When he lias obtained a position in our State that gave him greater independence than he had previously, he has become amongst our staunchest unionists. If the Lucknow mine-owners were compelled to get sufficient men to replace those who went on strike, and obtained them from the parasite class I have described, they would find that they would be better without them. But, instead of that, they came over here and engaged Bendigo miners, practical men, to replace New South Wales miners. The same has been the case when we have had strikes of printers, bootmakers, shearers, and other workmen. This matter appeals practically to our New South Wales working men. It is better than a bushel of statistics to them. They ask, “ If the working man in Victoria is so well off under a high Tariff, how is it that he is willing to come to our State to work for lower wages than satisfy us?” We have also had a similar experince in regard to working men from New Zealand. In 1890, men from New Zealand were brought to New South Wales to take theplace of our own men in the shearing sheds in connexion with a dispute which took place But from 1895, or thereabouts, since New Zealand has married her protective Tariff toan enlightened progressive policy, and has. developed her natural resources, we havebeen relieved of that trouble so far as she has been concerned. In our recent strikesand labour troubles we have not been called upon to pit our working men against working men from New Zealand.

Mr Mauger:

– New Zealand is protectionist.

Mr BROWN:

– But New Zealand issomething more than protectionist. WhatI am saying is that the Victorian working man has been educated to suppose that protection is a panacea for all his evils, with, the result that the reforms that would have tended to his betterment have been neglected. Those reforms have been taken up in New Zealand by the progressive democratic spirit there, which is responsible for the improvement in the condition of the workmen. There is another matter I should like to deal with, and that is the agricultural developments that have taken place. In the year 1S81 we in New South Wales had 2S1,8SS acres of land under crop. In Victoria there were 926,729 acres under crop. In 1891, ten years later, New South Wales had an area of 365,366 acres under crop. In Victoria the area was 1,332,683 acres. In 1899 the area in New South Wales had increased to 1,426,166 acres, and in Victoria to 2,165,693 acres. In 1891 the wheat returns of New South Wales showed a yield of 3,966,668 bushels, and in Victoria 13,629,370 bushels. In 1899 the yield in New South Wales was 13,604,166 bushels, and in Victoria it was 15,237,948 bushels. Mr. Coghlan in a paragraph dealing with this table of statistics says that -

The greatest increase in production is shown by New South Wales, which in 1809 produced nearly 10,000,000 bushels more than in 1891, and from the following statement, which gives the proportion of the total crop produced by each colony between 1891 and 1899, the progress made by New South Wales will be evident, for whereas in 1881 and 1891 it only produced 11 per cent. Victoria and New Zealand show the largest declines, the proportions falling from 38 per cent, and 28-6 per cent, in 1891 to 31 -4 per cent, and 17 ‘7 per cent, respectively in 1899.

We are led to believe that the duty on wheat is of great benefit to the farmers by shutting out the external competition against which they are supposed to have to contend, but Mr. Coghlan points out that instead of the duty being a benefit to the farmer, it is simply a make-believe, one of those things which look well on paper, but which in practice confers no benefit at all. At page 515 of his Seven Colonies, there will be found this important paragraph relating to this matter -

The records of the six States forming the Commonwealth show that since1879 there were only four yearsduring which they were forced to import wheat from places outside their boundaries. Those years were 1886, 1889, 1896, and 1897. In the first year the wheat crop was a partial failure in Victoria and South Australia, and almost a complete failure in New South Wales and Queensland. In1889 there was a general failure in New South Wales and Victoria. In 1890 the crop failed inVictoria, and in the following year that colony, for the first time in 22 years, was compelled to import wheat. The net import, however, being only til, 160 bushels.

Mr. Coghlan there clearly demonstrates that the wheat production of the Commonwealth is such that, except in times of drought, we can not only pro videf or our own needs, but must find an outlet for surplus production. So that the farmer of Victoria, who is bearing the burdens of this Tariff, which have been described by members of the Victorian State Legislature in the way I have al ready referred to, has to find a market for his produce, the price for which is regulated by what can be obtained in Mark-lane, which regulates the wheat markets of the world. The latest statistics I can find show a decrease in the area under wheat in New South Wales and Victoria, due to drought and other causes ; but while the decrease in area in Victoria amounts to 200,000 acres, in New South Wales it amounts to only between 60,000 and80,000 acres.

Mr Kennedy:

– That is accounted for by the fact that the value of the return per acre has decreased from £2 in 1891 to £1 5s. in 1899.

Mr.BROWN. - It must be remembered that the New South Wales farmer has had to compete with an open market and with the Victorian farmer, though he was not on’ the same footing with him to the extent to which the Victorian farmer was protected. Still, despite that disadvantage, with the other advantages he possesses he has been able to make headway, and the returns I have quoted indicate the relative positions in which the farmers of the two States stand to day. Two or three speakers have discussed the price paid for reapers and binders, and it has been stated that, because of protection, the farmer in Victoria can obtain a reaper and binder much cheaper than can the farmer in New South Wales, who, it is said, is under the iron heel of an importers’ ring, from which the Victorian farmer is able to escape. Iknow a little about this particular matter, as I can claim to be one of those who have taken a leading part in the farmers’ movement in New South Wales. I can claim to be one of those who assisted in the formation of the’ valuable representative organization known as the Farmers and Settlers’ Association of New South Wales. Among the delegates to our conference about four years ago was one who had visited America, and who, being of an inquiring turn of mind, had made exhaustive inquiries into the conditions under which farming was carried on there. He discovered that these machines for which we were paying from £55 to £65 each could be purchased in America at prices ranging between£18 and £26. We were told that the importers were responsible for the difference, and we believed that statement. Eventually we decided to do our own work. We formed a Settlers’ Co-operative Association, and such a body, worked on sound financial lines, can do more for the farmers than any protective policy could do. We resolved to import the reapers and binders for ourselves, and communicated with a firm doing a large trade in Australia with a popular make of machine.We discovered that it could not be obtained at the reduced price because of the existence of a combination, but we were advised that another machine, built for the South American fields, and differing only slightly from that to which we were accustomed, was not within this combination, and could be landed here at a price more in accord with the cost of production in America. When we entered into negotiations for its purchase, however, we were informed by the representative of the manufacturer’s agent in Australia that the undertaking which he had made with us was not approved by the American and Canadian manufacturers. They had formed a ring to control the Australian trade, and had an understanding among themselves that they would not sell under a certain price. Our efforts were thus defeated for the time being. As the result of further negotiations, we got in touch with a manufacturing firm in America which was outside that ring, and obtained from it a number of machines. We were able to sell them at a profit of £35 each, as against the ±’55 and ±’65 which we had been paying previously. The Minister for Trade arid Customs had something to say about wheat-growing in South Australia, and he may be interested to learn that we came to the assistance of farmers there by selling them a number of our machines. As soon as we introduced them, the syndicate in New South Wales considerably reduced its prices. A much larger reduction was made in Victoria, but that was due to the fact that the agents here got at loggerheads. . As soon as the parties come to terms, however, we may be sure that the prices will rise. This fact serves to show that the high prices, instead of being the work of the importers, have been due primarily to the manufacturers’ combination. They refused to deal with us when we were prepared to do business with them direct. This incident shows also that the farmers and settlers, under a sound system of co-operation, can do more for themselves than under any protectionist system that could be devised. I have occupied considerably more time than I had intended at the outset. I want to say, in conclusion, that I am a poor man. I had the misfortune to be bred and born in the back parts of New South Wales.

Mr Kingston:

– There is no misfortune in being born in any part of Australia.

Mr BROWN:

– I agree with the right honorable gentleman who interrupted me before I had completed my sentence. I was bred and born in the back parts of New South Wales when pioneer conditions prevailed. I had to bear the burdens of the pioneer, and shared none of the advantages of those who live in the city. I have had to work hard to cut out a home in the forest of Australia, and I had to commence work at a time when most young people are pursuing their educational Studies. Despite that fact, the electors out there, believing in my sincerity of purpose, and in my desire to advance the democracy of this country, have placed me in the high and honorable position that I hold as a Member of the Parliament of the Commonwealth. Whilst I occupy a seat in this House I do not want to do anything that would be to the detriment of the democracy that I represent, or to the working people from whom I come. It is because I view the matter earnestly and seriously in that light that I intend to vote against the Government proposals. I do not claim a monopoly of experience or of brains, nor do I wish to insinuate anything against my fellow countrymen. I give honorable members on the Government side of the House the credit that I take for the Opposition ; but. viewing the issue from the stand-point which I have endeavoured to put forward, I should regret the fact all my life if, at the outset of this new nation, in the moulding of which I hope to have a part, I gave my vote for a piece of legislation such as a Tariff, placing the burdens of taxation upon the working people of Australia.

Mr TUDOR:
Yarra

– After such a lengthy debate on a question which has been already worn threadbare, an honorable member who rises at this juncture to address the House is placed somewhat at a disadvantage. It is only because I have had a little experience in countries other than that which is my native land, and particularly in connexion with an industry which has come under the lash, that I desire to say a few words before the vote is taken. I am at one with the honorable member for Canobolas iu wanting to do my utmost to improve the position of the workers, not only here but in other lands, and it is because I believe we can do that better under the fiscal system supposed to be set forth in this Tariff that I support it, not that I believe it goes far enough in the direction of protection. It is well known to many honorable members that I am a Victorian who had the good fortune, which does not fall to the lot of every one, to work at my trade for a number of years in England, and for about a year in the United States. The conditions I found as a workman were not those which have been quoted by many honorable members on the other side from a book, circulated from one to the other, in which Mr. John Burns, whom I respect, and Mr. Keir Hardie put forward their impressions of the United States. 1 admit that my impressions of that country are not the result of a visit of a week. I did not go away after a week’s visit and write a book telling people all about a country of winch I had only a very superficial knowledge. I have worked there, and what I am about to state is my practical experience gained in different parts of England, and in different parts of the United States. I was told by one gentleman that even if I proved that my wages were higher in the United States or Victoria than in England it would mean nothing, that these were representative men, and, therefore, better qualified than I am to speak upon the question. My name as a man who has taken an interest in labour politics is not so well known all over the world as is that of Mr. John Burns or Mr. Keir Hardie. But I have held, if I may say so without egotism, the highest position which a trade unionist can occupy here. I have also held high official positions in my own trade union in England and the United States, so that I can speak with some degree of authority as a representative of the workers in those countries.

Mr HENRY Willis:

– In what part of America?

Mr TUDOR:

– I worked in the States of Connecticut and New Jersey. In Victoria my wages had been ls. 3d. per hour ; but in England they were 7d. per hour, and that is the rate ruling there to-day. Honorable members may say that that condition might be owing to the trade unions not being so well organized in one place as in the other. But we pride ourselves that our trade union is pretty well organized, and in several districts in England, the United States and Victoria, we can say what perhaps no other society can say, that every man who is eligible is a member of the union. I do not think that even the strongest trade union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, can say that in regard to any district in Australia, England, or the United States. Honorable members on both sides have compared the conditions in Australia with those in England or those in the United States. For a number of years I lived in a manufacturing town in the north of England. I find that the standard of life in a manufacturing village is not so high to-day as it is either in Victoria or in the United States. 1 am comparing the workers in the same trade, and not a worker in one trade in one place with a worker in another trade in another place. I am comparing men with whom I lived and worked, not for a few days, but for nearly a year in one case, and for a number of years in another. A little work I hold in my hand describes the conditions in a manufacturing town in England to-day. I visited most of the manufacturing towns in the North of England - cotton towns, woollen trade towns, and others, and the conditions are set forth more clearly in this book than I could describe them. I am about to quote from “The Effects of the Factory System,” written by the editor of a newspaper in a manufacturing town in the North of England. I refer to Mr. Allen Clarke. He is speaking of the cotton trade, which, perhaps, is one of the most representative of all the free-trade trades in England, and it was practically as much for the cotton trade as for any other that England adopted free-trade. He draws a picture of Bolton, although he could draw a similar picture of nearly every manufacturing town in the north. We have been told hy honorable members on the other side of the House that if we had protection we should get shoddy. Taking the number of factories in England and tabulating them, I find that there are no less than 125 doing nothing but manufacturing shoddy to-day. Out of 1,184,4-31 persons employed in factories of all kinds in England, no fewer than 52S,795 are employed in cotton mills, so that nearly one-half are employed in cotton mills of which he draws this picture -

Everywhere you will find steam hissing and smoke scowling ; factories, forges, furnaces, chimneys, coal pit-heads, streams fouled by chemical works - these are the bulk of the scenery in the Shire of Smoke. That is the general aspect of the county. Now, let us take a typical cotton manufacturing town. We will take Bolton, because I know it best (and as I said before, I only intend to write about what I know). Let us stand in Bolton Park, which is like an isle of dingy green in a black sea, the charm of the place being utterly obscured by the fact that, from whatever part of it VOl raise your eyes you meet a prospect of smoking towers. .Looking south we can count nearly 200 tall chimneys rising ugly over a mass of brick buildings that look as if they had stood for years in a climate where it rained ink every day.

There are 152 cotton-spinning firms in Bolton at the present time employing 12,000 cotton operatives. AVe have been told by honorable members opposite that in protectionist countries the tendency is to displace males with females, and adults with children. We find that out of the 12,000 operatives who are employed in the cotton mills of Bolton to-day there are no fewer than 2,400 halftimers. I feel confident that if honorable members had seen the children going to the mills in the way that I have seen them, and had realized that the employment of child labour had been one of the factors in bringing about England’s greatness, they would not be so fond of preaching about the good that free-trade has done for her.

Mr Batchelor:

– Is there nothing of that sort in America ?

Mr TUDOR:

– No, I did not come across anything of that kind in America. Although we have had continental countries held up to us as terrible examples so far as the workers were concerned, I may mention that the age at which children are allowed to go to work in England is lower than in any of the continental countries. When conferences of workers from different countries have been held, complaints have been made that England is one of the most backward of nations with regard to the employment of child labour. It has been said by some honorable members that if wages arc high in any particular trade, the purchasing power of the money received by the workers is relatively not so great. It has been argued that a man receiving 32s. or 33s. a week in England would be as well off as if he were getting £3 a week here. My experience does not bear out any such idea. I find that I can make 20s. go just as far in Melbourne as I could in Manchester. I admit that in some instances articles would be cheaper in. Manchester - than in Melbourne, but food products and articles of daily consumption would, on the whole, be much cheaper in Melbourne than in England. Clothes and boots might be a little cheaper in England, but not so very much. Referring to the half-timers in England, I can draw upon the experience gained in the county in which I was working for the greater part of my time in England. According to the Statistical Abstract for 1894, there are 48,133 boys and girls working half time in the cotton industry. We are told that it is only in protectionist countries that females are replacing males in the factories, but out of 48,133 half-timers there are 25,432 girls as compared with something less than 23,000 boys. In the woollen trade there are 19,000 half-timers employed, and in the worsted trade 37,000, making a total of 101,000 half-timers engaged in the cotton, woollen, and worsted trades alone.

The writer from whom I have quoted these figures says -

Figures can give no idea of the hideous truths that we can see in the pale faces and thin weary heads. These cannot be put into statistics.

This gentleman, prior to becoming an editor on a newspaper, was a teacher in a school. He says -

For eight years I taught in public elementary day schools in a cotton town, and in all the schools in which I was a teacher there was a great proportion of half-timers, and I speak from experience when I say that I often pity the half-timers and excuse their lessons.

I have seen these children going to the factories in the early morning when I have been going to work at half -past five. They start before breakfast, and work for about two hours in the morning, and then, after getting some breakfast, they work four hours, and having had a small meal at the mill, rush off for their books and go to school for the afternoon. The writer continues -

I have seen them fall asleep over their lesson books or tasks, after they have been in the factory all the morning (six hours). They were generally dull and sleepy, and it was often downright cruelty to force them along the curriculum fixed by the education code : but the schoolmaster, no matter how tender his heart, was forced to prick them to the pace, or risk censure, and perhaps loss of place, for not keeping the school up to the standard and getting the expected amount of Government grants at the annual examination. In spite of the alleged sharpness of half-timers, no schoolmaster likes them. The testimony of all the teachers in Lancashire is with me on this point, that half-timers, as a rule, hamper and hinder the progress of the rest of the class.

Archdeacon Wilson, of Rochdale, in an article on “Half-timers,” writes: - “There is the physical health point of view. Now, from this point it is perfectly clear that the children, especially from the neglected homes, suffer. I caused all the boys in my boys’ school to be weighed and measured in the autumn of 1891, before the halftime age was raised from ten to eleven.’

I was there during that year, and I know the outcry that was raised by the parents against what they considered to be the uncalled for legislative interference by Parliament with their sending their children to work when they liked. It is further stated -

The results were disputed, and the Rochdale School Board of that date willingly took the matter up, and made similar measures in their schools. Their figures confirm mine, and showed that while children who are not half-timers grow uniformly in height and weight from the age of eight to that of twelve, our Rochdale children, many of whom were half-timers, received a sudden check in the rate of growth at ten, and the lower rate was continued till the age of twelve. Our children are below the average size, even at eight, nine, and ten, from many causes, chiefly improper food and early neglect; but the disparity was even greater at eleven and twelve. These measures were repeated at the end of 1.894 in my school (the newly-elected school board refused), and, since the half-time age had been raised in the meantime to eleven, the measures were of much interest. It became quite plain that the check in the growth at ten had disappeared, and that a much slighter check was apparent at eleven. In other words, these measures, so far as they went, proved that the work of these children in the mills from ten to eleven stunted their growth.

We have been told by the leader of the Opposition that in England the trades unions are so strong that practically they have only to ask in order to receive what they want from their employers. As one who has had a little experience in that matter, I am sorry to say that the honorable member is not exactly correct in his statements. I went through a very long strike in England in 1892, when the society of which I had the honour of being assistant secretary - one of the strongest societies in England - went down before the employers in one of the midland districts. We only asked for one penny farthing per dozen ; but we lost. If the right honorable gentleman will take the trouble to read The White Skvr.es of England, he will see that many societies have been crushed by the employers when they only asked what I consider were fair terms and improved conditions to which they were entitled. The leader of the Opposition has declared that the trades unions of England are practically in a position to secure compliance with their demands. That has not been my experience of trades unions in the old country. In reference to the effects of the factory system of England upon children who have to work half-time, 1 wish to read a quotation from Dr. Torrop, of Heywood, one of the largest manufacturing centres in Lancashire. Speaking of that system, the writer says -

The promising child of ten degenerates into the lean and sallow young person of thirteen ; and this process is continued until a whole population becomes stunted ; and thus the conditions of life in factory towns become a real source of danger to England’s future. After 25 years’ observation of factory life, I have no doubt that the height, weight, and physique of Lancashire factory hands is below the average of England. The deficiency is greater iu full-timers than in half-timers, and is not made up iu adult life, but goes on in accelerated ratio.

Further On he states -

It must be borne in mind that the medium average of Lancashire factory children is not equal to the average elsewhere. The latter standard is hardly reached by the 341 children described as superior (out of 2,000 examined), while the medium division (1,10(5 of the 2,000) is greatly below the standard of good health. This is much more distinctly marked amongst children of thirteen - “full-timers” who have passed some years in the factory - than it is in those of ten years of age. Of (iO healthy children, averaging thirteen and a half years, and taken as they came (31 girls and 29 boys), the average weight was 74 lbs., or 14 lbs. below the average of good health elsewhere.

It will be seen, therefore, that the children who worked half-time in the mills were 12 per cent, smaller than were the average children all over England. This result is. not creditable to a country which boasts of the position it has attained under freetrade.

Mr Poynton:

– Is not that an argument against factory work altogether ?

Mr TUDOR:

– The honorable member knows we have been told that the children in protected countries go to work at an earlier age than they do in free-trade countries. Figures have been set before us. with a view of proving that factory children go to work earlier in protectionist Victoria, than they do in free-trade New South Wales. I am attempting to prove that in England they go to work at a more tender age than they do in any protected country throughout the whole of Europe. The right honorable and learned member for East Sydneysays that the trades unions of England are strong enough to get exactly what they want. I will show what one of the strongest unions in that country - the Bolton operative spinners - said in their annual report, which was issued in April, 1891, of the disadvantageous conditions under which the adult spinner has to labour. That report states -

He has to work in a temperature ranging from SO to 1 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a vitiated atmosphere, which is not completely changed even once, a week. These conditions render him peculiarly liable to contracting chest complaints, and rheumatic affections.

Mr. Allen Clarke, speaking of the statements contained in the document from which I have just quoted, says -

That is true, as medical evidence testifies. Now, read what the very same body of men, the Bolton operative spinners, said at a meeting held to consider the half-time question only a month after they had issued the report containing the preceding statement. Mark! “ Having carefully considered the proposal to raise the age of halftimers from ten to twelve, we are strongly of opinion that such a step is entirely uncalled for, in the interests of the child itself, as, speaking with a full knowledge of the question, we do hereby assert that a child does not suffer, either physically or intellectually, as a result of becoming a half-timer, and ?’e would, therefore, respectfully urge upon the Government not to accede to any demand for raising the age.”

It should he remembered that this is the same body of spinners “who a year later declared that -

Eight hours a day was sufficient for adults under such trying conditions.

Mr. Allen Clarke continues 1 nin reluctant to write it, but it is a sad fact that the majority of parents in Lancashire regard children only as commercial speculations, to be turned into wage-earning machines as soon as the child’s age and the law will permit. For this they oppose the raising of the age of half-timers ; for this resent all legislative interference, either educational or hygenic, in the matter of their children. Instead of fighting for wages to keep their children they are cowardly enough to let the children be forced to keep them.

That is the position of one of the strongest trades unions in England to-day.

Commonwealth as a whole. I have several statements relating to that matter, but I do not wish to quote them now, because, in my opinion, the question has no bearing upon the situation. We have to deal with the Tariff in the light of Australia’s position to-day. What Britain was 40 years ago, or what Victoria’s position was five years ago, has nothing to do with the question. The Tariff deals with the position of the Commonwealth to-day. We have to raise revenue, and how are we going to obtain it 1 I should like to see every duty swept away, but whether we have to raise a £9,000,000 Tariff, or an £8,000,000, or a £7,500,000 Tariff, the money must be collected through the Customhouse. If we slaughtered the Tariff as ruthlessly as the honorable member for Tasmania, Mr. Poynton, has suggested, we should have to impose duties on something else.

Mr Glynn:

– How can the honorable and learned member’s statement be correct, when the customs revenue of New South Wales was only £400,000 short of that of Victoria? Why should New South Wales spend £3,000,000 a year in order to make up the deficiency in Customs revenue ?

Mr CROUCH:

– It means that £3,600,000 of capital had to be recklessly used in making up the deficiency caused by extravagance, whereas we in Victoria curtailed our expenditure, and, in consequence, lost a large part of our population. That is the real reason for the loss of population which Victoria has suffered since 1891. The Government of New South Wales were able to spend on an average £2,600,000 a year during the five years the right honorable member for East Sydney was Premier, in order to keep the men who were unemployed in that State, and attract others from Victoria. That is the real explanation of the population question, which it is not necessary to enter upon further. Last year New South Wales received £2,820,989 of land revenue, as against a land revenue in Victoria of £353,000. That shows that New South Wales had, in this respect, an advantage of over £2,000,000 of land revenue, which was applied to her needs simply because she had not dared to face the position in the past. Free-trade was adopted, but was not successful. It was impossible to raise direct taxation, or to do without exemptions, and representatives of New South Wales, instead of speaking about the other States of the Commonwealth as insolvent, ought rather to so describe their own State, which was only too glad to enter the Commonwealth in view of the consequences to which it wasdrifting. I only desire now to .show to the House exactly what is this “ voice of Sydney “ we have heard so much about. I shall show how the alleged dissatisfaction with the Tariff is created, by describing what occurred at the public meeting held in the King electorate, which was previously represented in the local parliament by the leader of the Opposition, and now forms part of that right honorable gentleman’s Federal constituency. The meeting wascalled to protest against the Tariff, and amongst the speakers was Mrs. Dalton.. AVe read in the Daily Telegraph of 26th October -

Mrs. Dalton rose to speak amidst cheers. “ Barton,” she said, “ was going to tax mangles, starch, patent medicines which we want to save life with, and all the things the poor people use. (Cheers. ) The poor people’s boots were included ; he is going to tax the babies’ bottles. (Laughter). What will become of us, what will become of this lovely country, with its beautiful plains and its fertile valleys - its broad expanse of enclosed waters ? (Wild cheers).

The voice of Sydney was asserting itself !

They want to drag us all down to the level of that stinking cabbage - gorden, Melbourne. (Laughter.) We want wise men in the Parliament at the head of affairs, not goats. (Boars of laughter. )

That is rather hard on the electorate’s representative. I do not think there is another newspaper in Australia which would print such stuff as in any sense an expression of public opinion. No other city and no other State except Sydney and New South Wales would wildly cheero such references. The fight on this occasion Ls not for free-trade or protection. There is no need to go into the principles which are involved in such a discussion, and the honorable and learned member for Northern Melbourne wisely avoided that issue. They advocate free-trade principles outside, but they do not advocate them in practice in this chamber. They do not want freetrade principles now, because they see that the natural corollary to free-trade is land taxation. They call themselves revenue tariffists, and yet they abuse a revenue Tariff All the abuse that has been levelled against this Tariff throughout the Commonwealth, has not been directed against the protective items in it, but against the revenue duties. In fact honorable members opposite are what the honorable member for Tasmania, Mr. O’Malley, has called “planted free-traders.” They make their greatest success, in opposing it, by taunting some old gentleman at a public meeting about his artificial teeth ! For myself, I believe in protection and I think I have a reason to do so. Protection has been a magnificent thing for “Victoria, as it will be for the Commonwealth of Australia. I am, therefore, heart and soul a protectionist. I believe in this policy, because it means prosperity for our workers, prosperity for our farmers, prosperity for our miners, who, if not directly benefited by a protective Tariff, are certainly benefited by the general prosperity of the community which follows from it. Every class of the community is benefited directly or indirectly by protection. I venture to assert that a large part of the prosperity of Australia is due to the protective policy that has been adopted in most of theStates. In fact, a good deal of it is due to Victoria and Victorians. May I quote a wellknown line, with a variation -

What do they know of Victoria, who only Victoria know?

Some years ago an attempt was made to give the then colony of New South Wales the name of “ Australia.” If any State should be called “ Australia,” it is Victoria. Victoria has sent her best men, her energy, her enterprise, her brains, her money to all parts of the Commonwealth, and to the advantage of all the States. Even some members of the Opposition originally came from Victoria, and they are in themselves the best evidence that wherever Victorians go they almost always succeed. For the reasons I have given, I think that those who want to serve the Commonwealth best will advocate this policy, and do their utmost to enable the Commonwealth to prosper under a Tariff which, if not exactly on the lines of the Tariff now before us in all its details, will be generally upon those lines, and in accordance with the policy of the Government.

Mr KINGSTON:
Minister for Trade and Customs · South Australia · Protectionist

– It is not a very easy task to address the House on a subject of great importance, after the very long sitting in which we have been engaged, and which has necessitated my constant attendance in the chamber, and my abstinence from that nightly repose which is so necessary to weary men. However, I am confident that I shall have, in my attempt to do my duty in summing up a few of the matters which ought to be put before the

House on behalf of the Government, the assistance of the goodwill and consideration of honorable members. First, I should like to clear up one or two matters on which - unwittingly, no doubt - I have been misrepresented by prominent members of the Opposition. The first to which I would refer is the statement made, in the plainest possible terms, by the right honorable member for Tasmania, Sir Edward Braddon, that in declaring the Tariff proposals of the Government, I had said that this was a protectionist Tariff, with revenue incidental to protection. Sir, I never said anything of the sort, nor anything like it. I said precisely the reverse. I put the matter so that it was impossible of misconception if the right honorable member had listened to what I said, and had not taken his information on the subject second hand. I used these words -

We recognise fully that at this time in our history neither free-trader nor protectionist can have his way entirely. The Tariff is a compromise Tariff, but at the same time it gives effect to our policy. … as declared at Maitland, which required that our Tariff should be framed so as to produce an amount sufficient to allow of there being returned to the States their ordinary receipts….. plus their share of the Federal expenditure.

I said that our policy was further - moderate protection, particularly avoiding the unnecessary destruction of existing industries.

And I emphasized my position again in these words -

The objects of the Tariff were of varying importance. They were, above all, to obtain revenue, to preserve the solvency of the States, and to keep faith with them, because they entered into federation on the understanding that they would be so protected,and their right to the redemption of that promise continues unabated to-day.

I venture to think that our opponents must have a bad case, indeed, when they rely for the substantiation of their indictment against the Government - levelled chiefly at their Tariff proposals - on a complete misrepresentation in the most specific terms, of what the position of the Government was, and put words into my mouth which I not only never uttered, but never thought of uttering. Then, sir, the leader of the Opposition took it upon himself to sneer, amongst other things, at my reference to intercolonial free-trade, as if I had no sympathy with it. He said that the words in which I “proclaimed” - that was the word he himself used - intercolonial free-trade, came “ slowly and heavily “ from my lips. Sir, the right honorable and learned member knows, and every honorable member of this House knows, as the public of Australia know, that I have never wavered in my advocacy of federation, intercolonial free-trade, and protection against the outside world ; and I say that a suggestion of that sort made concerning me is altogether unwarranted, as no one knew better than he did. I say that for various reasons. One of these is that I had the honour of being associated with him in the federal movement right through the piece. Further, I was engaged in the movement and doing my best to foster it, when he was opposed to it in 1891, and when his attitude in connexion with federation subjected him to the criticisms which have been levelled against me, and to which I need not refer. I, at least, was steadfast in the faith. I go further, and tell the right honorable member that when he sneered at my advocacy of intercolonial free-trade, he might well have remembered that when he first formed a Government in New South Wales - before, in fact, it had been formed - the moment he was sent for by the Governor - he received a communication from me suggesting action in connexion with intercolonial free-trade. I had been corresponding with the previous New South Wales Government - the Dibbs Government. I had not been successful. The Dibbs Government was overthrown in August, 1894, and on the 1st August, 1894, this right honorable gentleman, who sneered at my advocacy of intercolonial freetrade, received from me - I having then the honour to be the Premier of South Australia - the following wire : -

Shall be very pleased, when your Ministry is formed, to negotiate for intercolonial free-trade. “Under these circumstances, I ask how is this sneer in the slightest degree justified 1 I received an answer from him on the 3rd August -

Just sworn in.

My wire was sent before the right honorable gentleman was sworn in -

Hasten to reply to yours of 1st referring to intercolonial free-trade, and to assure you of desire of this Government to promote more friendly intercourse between the Australian Colonies. Invite further communication.

And the very same day my reply went -

Re intercolonial free-trade. Very pleased to receive your assurances of desire to promote intercolonial free-trade. Would you be disposed to arrange for free interchange of local products and manufactures of New South Wales and South Australia ? If so, we would lose no time in sending a Ministerial representative to Sydney to endeavour to negotiate for this or any larger scheme which might be thought desirable.

– I am pleased to hear the honorable member interject, because it brings me to the consideration of the question what is the condition of labour in the United States. If we accept the statement of another distinguished member of His Majesty’s Opposition, the honorable mem- ber for Parramatta, the fact is that the

United States labourer and mechanic work under conditions which are 20 per cent. lass favorable than those of the Australian worker. I am going to prove that right up to the hilt.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– “Why does the right honorable gentleman differentiate New Zealand from his outburst of intercolonial generosity?

Mr KINGSTON:

– New Zealand, I believe, has a Tariff against us. When she removes that Tariff it will be time for us to consider whether we should remove ours.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Has the Minister attempted to negotiate as he tried to do with New South Wales?

Mr KINGSTON:

– When Premier of South Australia, I effected an intercolonial arrangement with New Zealand, and we shall be glad if an arrangement can be arrived at between New Zealand and the Commonwealth. At present, however, the New Zealand barrier is up. Ours also is up. No doubt, proposals for the mutual benefit of the Commonwealth and New Zealand would receive the most serious consideration on the part of this Government. The interruption almost drew me away from my intention of quoting from the speech made by the honorable member for Parramatta, for the purpose of establishing the differences in the conditions between the United States labourer and the worker in Australia. We have received a lot of wonderful and most valuable information from the honorable member. I never met a gentleman who had a happier capacity, when he opened his mouth, of putting his foot into it, and still worse, of supplying the most valuable information for the destruction of his own proposals, when he had recourse to the ink-stand. I do not want to say anything unkind. I am sure that the happy relations which exist, not only between the honorable member and myself, but I am happy to say, between myself and all honorable members, will not be disturbed by anything we have to say in the course of debate. I do say, however, that whether the honorable member for Parramatta is advocating what he has seen with “ mine own eyes,” or quoting some newspaper writer, who he tells us is not anonymous, but who hides his identity under the aweinspiring nom de plume of “ Mother Jones,” or whether the honorable member is relating what happened between himself and some one else, he always gives himself away completely to his political adversaries. Therefore, I quote him with delight for the purpose of answering the honorable member for North Sydney. He told us that he had a conversation with a gentleman whom he met in a train, and who informed him that when business men in America made a contract in Australia they had to put on 20per cent. for the reason that the American worker worked at a much greater strain than his Australian brother. But here are the honorable member’s words -

Because the American workmen bustle so much more than the workman anywhere else. They do not work only eight hours a day -

Honorable members should note the result. If we have free-trade with America our eight hours’ system vanishes. They do not enjoy it there, and how can we live against them when our workers toil a lesser time at the same wage ? The honorable member continued -

They do not stop for lunch, except for just a snack.

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– That is in a protectionist country.

Mr KINGSTON:

– If there is occasion for men of that sort to protect themselves against competition, how much greater is the necessity in our own case?

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

– But they do not protect their workmen.

Mr KINGSTON:

– The honorable member is like Blucher. He comes up when it is all over. While I have been referring to something else, he has been toiling laboriously in the rear. But he chips in in that delightful way that is so characteristic of him. The honorable member for Parramatta went on to say that -

– I do not believe the Treasurer’s sum was right. I think the revenue was over-calculated.

Mr KINGSTON:

– As a matter of fact this additional £7,000,000 did not bring in a quarter of a million excess of revenue for 1900 as compared with 1899.

Mr Reid:

– Hear, hear. Mast-high !

Mr KINGSTON:

– Protection second, after revenue. The cry that we have been false to our pledges is too preposterous to be seriously considered. Any excuse on the part of these gentlemen, these partisans, is used for the purpose of attacking and of criticising the Government. Let the flag be low or let it be high, it is all the same to them - it is either not high enough or the reverse. We came here with certain support. When I mentioned the subject before the electors, I referred to the Maitland speech, and said - “This is our programme - revenue, and, after that, protection - moderate protection.” We invited the people to try it, and they are trying it now. We believe that the verdict will leave no room for doubt. As to the question of revenue, let me put this consideration to any honorable member who had a seat in the Convention. I might even put it to the leader of the Opposition himself. What was contemplated at the time we framed the Commonwealth Bill, a high or a low Tariff?

Mr O’Malley:

– A righteous Tariff.

Mr KINGSTON:

Do not let any one think for a moment that when I make these statements I at all shirk the question, that there is bound to be a very high Tariff.

Mr Reid:

– Hear, hear!

Mr Wilks:

– We call 15 per cent, a high . Tariff in New South Wales.

Mr KINGSTON:

– The right honorable gentleman proceeded -

We all know that whatever Government is in power there must be a high Customs Tariff. I franki)- admit that if I stood up before the House and said anything else, I should simply be sinning against my own knowledge. I admit it, and give it to every one for what it is worth, that there must be a high Customs Tariff under federation, and that is one of the sacrifices that some of us are prepared to make for federation.

An honorable member has suggested that the leader of the Opposition was then speaking relatively. I venture to consider that he could not have forgotten the words he used at that Convention as regards the necessities of the States. I will carry it further, and- show as clear as- the noon-day sun that he contemplated that to meet the necessities of the State in the- circumstances that we recognise we are in at present, there should be at least a revenue of £8,500,000. If I recollect rightly, the amount the right honorable gentleman spoke of in the Townhall in Sydney a day or two ago - I did not read the full report - was £7,500,000.

Sir George Turner:

– £7,600,000.

Mr.W atkins. - That was after he turned round.

Mr KINGSTON:

– There was a time when the right honorable gentleman’s attitude was not so pronounced on the benefits of federation as it afterwards became, when he was warning the people of some of the dangers and difficulties attaching to federation, and when he was pointing out the cost, I tell honorable members that the cost as he calculated it - his calculation being applied to the circumstances of today - would have amounted to £8,700,000, and I shall show it. He spoke at Newcastle, and we find the report of his speech in the Sydney Morning Herald of 27th May, 1898, the period of his halting somewhat. I have his own words when he was telling the people the bitter truth. I do not think I shall ever be found even dreaming of suggesting that the right honorable gentleman does anything else. He said -

Now let them take a Tariff which would be necessary to meet the financial necessities of the other colonies - £7,000,000 a year. Under this Tariff the financial committee made the following estimate : - In New South Wales there would be a Customs revenue of £3,010,000, which was £1,245,000 a year more than New South Wales wanted. Victoria would be taxed to the extent of £2,240,000 a year, or £2,000 more than was wanted. South Australia would be taxed £735,000 a year, or £47,000 more than was wanted. Western Australia would be taxed £700,000 a year, which was less than she wanted. Tasmania would be taxed £315,000, or£59,000 less than was wanted. The question was, how would this Tariff affect New South Wales ? The people of the colony would contribute £3,000,000 a year, or £2 5s. 5d. per head - or deducting excise, down to £2 per head in round figures. This was a much larger tax than in any other country.

Mr REID:

– No doubt the honorable member would make them for himself, being a thorough protectionist, and then he would keep the money in the family as well as in the country ! I should suppose that butter was a necessary of life. If honorable members go over the Tariff they will find that out of thousands of items there are hundreds and hundreds which in any decent community are considered necessaries of life. Many of these necessaries of life are produced by the farmer. That reminds me of a remark made by my honorable friend the member for Gippsland. He told us very candidly that about twelve or fifteen years ago he called a number of country members together. He had discovered that the system of protection in Victoria was doing nothing for the farmers, and was doing everything for the manufacturers. So that we find that for twenty years the protective system has been a burden upon the farmers of Victoria, who has utterly neglected their own interests. The honorable member for Gippsland had to come to the rescue, and get a stock tax imposed. And, by the way, when that stock tax of 2s. a head on sheep, and 30s. a head on bullocks, was taken off, within two weeks the price of sheep went down 2s. a head, and the price of bullocks 30s. a head. So that the foreigner does not seem to have been paying the stock tax. I got those facts from the best authorities - stock and station agents, and men dealing in meat in a large way. There was one person who was nearly swindled by a tradesman in Melbourne, and sympathy must be felt for a lady who went into a boot shop in this city to buy a pair of boots, of a kind for which she had been accustomed to pay 25s. She was asked 32s. There was an exposure, and she got them for 25s. I do not think that any honorable member on this side of the House has said that people who buy the higher quality of boots and shoes have anything to complain of. On the contrary, we have pointed out that the higher the value of the article, the less the tax upon it. Now it appears that there is no duty upon best ladies’ boots, for which this lady expected to pay 25s.; or the duty is reduced - probably that is the explanation. The honorable member for Melbourne Ports, however, bewails the reduction of these duties in some respects. What do you think, Mr. Speaker, is the reduction that the Melbourne artisan cannot stand? A reduction from about 150 per cent. to about 70 per cent ! He cannot live with that amount of protection, even with wages boards ! What a state of things industry must have come to in Victoria, when men can produce a larger quantity of boots and shoes in New South Wales without a penny of duty, whilst the poor Victorian must have 70 per cent., and will starve at that. Does not that show that we can offer to our people two choices ? We can surround them with every inducement to relax their energies, and not to keep pace with every growing improvement of the age; or we can leave them under the stimulus, which my honorable friend, the member for Melbourne Ports, would call a cruel stimulus of unrestricted competition, and by so doing develop their energies so that they may hold their own against the world. This “curse” of unrestricted competition was exposed on Eight Hours’ Day in Sydney. It was shown then what sort of workmen this “curse” makes. We saw what starved, down-trodden, miserable, decrepit, workmen there were in Sydney. I believe that about 16,000 trades unionists marched through the streets of that city a month ago.

Mr Watson:

– It was the first time for ten years that we have had anything like so many.

Mr REID:

– That is just what I say ! Things have been looking up since I threw the Customs barriers down ! But there were always great demonstrations, even before this year.

Mr Watson:

– Not as good as they ought to have been.

– I am quoting from the Daily Mail Year Book. There are a number of children and others, who arc not ablebodied, and a number of insane, but here comes in what I conceive to be the glory of England, although she is supposed to be in s uch a miserable state. She has a system of poor rates for the benefit of the poor. If other countries carried on their system of relief in that way, we should have a tale that would stagger us. Where is there another country that has a poor rate on property as a national system ? England is rich enough to afford it, but America is not yet able to do so. Of the world’s commerce of 18, 000, 000, 000 dollars, Great Britain has 18 per cent., Germany has 10 per cent., and the United States 9 per cent. England has nearly as much as the other two. My honorable friend says that he does not believe in the square mile theory, but Victorian protectionists use it freely” when it suits their purpose. I never thought much of the system until I saw it used a good deal down here. There is another theory which the honorable gentleman put forward, to which I shall refer briefly. He committed himself to the statement that if the imports and exports of a country did not agree, they would be balanced by coin. During the ten years, 1889 to 1898, the goods imported by Great Britain amounted to £1,334,000,000 in excess of imports. That was a big bulk to pay in sovereigns. During the same period she exported gold and bullion and silver specie amounting to £356,000,000, while she imported £401,000,000 worth. There were £1,334,000,000 excess of imports of merchandise, and £45,000,000 more of imports of gold and silver. There is something else there. What is it? The policy of Great Britain is not that of the Minister forTrade and Customs, who would follow a coin round the borders of Australia to see that it did not get out, lest it should be lost. That is not the maxim of British merchants and capitalists. They lend their money all over the world. They do not want it back. They bring back their ships laden with raw material and cheap food, and they make up most of this raw material and send it out in a manufactured state to the markets of the world. The honorable and learned member for Indi referred to the marvellous progress of America. May I instance one little fact, which in itself is sufficient to dispose of a great deal of what he said. They grow an enormous quantity of raw cotton in the United States. Where do they send it? It is taken by the British merchant in his ships . to Liverpool and up to Manchester. The British people import £34,000,000 worth of cotton from America and other parts of the world. They clothe themselves with it, so far as cotton articles of clothing are concerned, and send away£67,000,000 worth in the finished state. They supply the whole population of the British Isles with cotton goods, and yet they are able to sell in the world’s market £67,000,000 worth of articles manufactured from the raw cotton. America sends out £4,000,000 or £5,0 0,000 worth of cotton goods to the markets of the world. The country we CO719 from has a proud record thereIt is a marvellous thing, but it Ls nothing to the triumph which is being prepared by the Federal Ministry. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister have announced solemnly that they see no reason why our wool should be sent home to be made up, and that, in their opinion, it should be made up here. Why should we not make it up here ? It is a grand policy, “but it is a kind of policy that only a tyro in mercantile knowledge would venture to propound. Are these gigantic industries, which send their products into the markets of the world to the tune of £60,000,000 a year, constructed by the pen and ink ingenuity of colonial or British politicians? No ; they are not built up in that way. The idea of any Government system changing the current of trade in that way is preposterous. We all hope that Australia will have n great woollen industry, but that will have to come when we are not so well off. What is the hope of the great manufactures of Australia? How are we to manufacture cheaply, or to compete with the cheap labour of other countries ? Can we have a monopoly of mechanical appliances ? Can we so devise our mechanical appliances that our machinery will be better than the British or German manufactories ? Can we have better factories ? The manufacturers of England and Germany can buy raw material all over the world. How are we going to compete with these under-paid sweated countries until our own labour is under-paid and sweated too ? There is no magic about production. It seems to me “that the prospect of growing these noxious weeds of sweated industries on this bright continent should cause a man associated with the interests of labour to shudder. In the plenitude of time, when our millions become tens of millions, we shall have a crop of misery which will solve the difficulty in regard to cheap manufactures. Will the erection of a fence solve it? Never ! We may run a ring, around our own people, but we cannot bull-doze the markets of the world. When we come to compete with those markets, we shall have to do as all other nations do. That is why I have abhorred the policy of producing artificial industries, which belong to a period of human misery and overpopulation. I do not refer to all our manufactories. I am not alluding to a large number of Australian industries, which, are bound to come soon, and be a source of prosperity to us. But I cannot come to the level of the honorable member for Echuca,, who seems to think that the people who develop our internal industries are hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that wo should bring higher industries into Victoria. What true political snobbishness that is. Is the labour of the farmer something inferior ? Is it not at the heart of all national progress and strength ? The -honorable member represents an agricultural constituency, but he is guilty, actually, of the ineffable snobbishness of drawing a distinction between industries of the town, which live upon the people, and industries which have to live upon the people in countries abroad. It seems to me that this policy of industrial favoritism reaches an inhuman point when it burdens the machinery of our agricultural industries. Where do they sell ? It is not a case of coming to us and trying to push into our markets. They have to take their chance at the other end of the world, and push into markets thousands of miles away from the producing centres. They have to enter into competition with this terrible cheapness, this accursed abundance. That is the lot qf our pioneer industries, and forsooth, in this great struggle in the cheap markets of the world, our farmers are to be taxed on their machinery. If you will favour industries, favour the great and natural industries of the soil. And may I suggest to my gifted friend, the Minister for Trade and Customs, that if the Government believe in what he said to-day, they have a simple method of making us all rich in the right way. What is the right way ? For the Government themselves to establish these industries, if they are light. Why, if this is a national policy, should the burden rest only on the people who buy the article that is made ? They are encouraging an industry. Why, if it is a national policy, should not the burden of it be distributed over the nation? The inherent fatal fallacy of the protectionist doctrine is that it handicaps the wrong man. It makes a man who is encouraging an industry, and buying what it makes, pay the burden, whereas the nation ought to pay it, and when the nation pays it the sweating and wages evils will disappear. What did the honorable member for Melbourne Ports discover in Victoria before the Wages boards were established ? When they had this policy of clearness all round Victoria, before the three wages boards were established, what did the secretary of the Anti-Sweating League say ? He said that universal sweating was going on in Melbourne in all the industries. There was protection ! The Victorians are a first-class people. If it runs to sweating in Victoria with men like my honorable and learned friend, Mr. Isaacs, with their eagle eyes looking on, what will it do in other countries? There is the acknowledgment of the league, of which the Attorney-General and the honorable member for Melbourne Ports areofficials, that protection in Victoria ran to universal sweating. There are people here to-day as badly sweated as are any people in the world. Let the benevolent gentlemen who are interested in down-trodden Victorian labour, take an interest in the position of the milkmen of Melbourne. Let them inquire into the circumstances of the milkmen, and they willfind a pictureof misery and sweating equal to that in any place out of Australia. Let them look on these sores that come upon this policy of theirs. It was all covered with sores until a further device was planned. Having got the policy they had to run after the manufacturer to make him disgorge. We had none of these troubles in New South Wales. The men managed pretty well to get fair wages without them. If you take the wages of the wages boards of Victoria, and those of our people, you will find a difference of id. per week between them - £1 13s.10d. in Victoria, and £1 13s.6d. in New South Wales. But there is that accursed cheapness for the man with the £1 13s. 6d., and that beneficent scarcity for the man with the £1 13s. 10d. Fourpence more and scarcity versus fourpence less and abundance ! What is the use of arguing about Europe, and America, and Great Britain, when we have this stark, staring fact before us, that one-tenth of the population of this blessed country has cleared out Of it in ten years ? Could you have a truer demonstration that the labour conditions are better somewhere else than when men leave here by the hundred thousand? If one-tenth of the people of

– It was a gag - the honorable member is quite right. This most worthy, grave, and reverend signior was guilty of a very wrong act when he was seeking the support of the people of Tasmania. In order not to do him any injustice - and I can convict him out of his own mouth - I shall take his own explanation of his own programme. He was foolish enough to try to explain the unexplainable, and he solemly read to the House a statement of his governing principles. Listen to this -

. Inter-State free-trade.

That is all right.

Revenue Tariff to suit our needs - that is, the needs of Tasmania, which means revenue as he knows - and stave off heavy burthens of laud and income taxes ; no Commonwealth direct taxation ; a fair trial for Mr. Barton as the first Federal Premier, and general acceptance of his platform.

What is his platform t All Australia wants to know. We know what his taxes are -

But his fiscal proposals must fit Tasmania’s necessities as far as possible.

Mr REID:

– Mr. Beale has been about a good deal.

Sir George Turner:

– I have never seen him.

Mr REID:

– Oh, no ; the Treasurer has not seen him. This gentleman has been able to establish his business in New South Wales without a shred of a duty. He has been turning out an enormous number of pianos every year - I believe, speaking from memory, 500 last year. He is the only manufacturer of these instruments in Australia. There have been duties on pianos in Victoria for many years past, but they have not been able to establish any industry like that in Sydney. Mr. Beale has got on very well without having money taken out of the public pocket for his advantage. Then Mr. Sandford has become a wealthy man. The duties under this Tariff will be of advantage to him. Instead of this Tariff being beneficial to the great bulk of the people, the adoption of such a policy will enable the clever men, with their power of combination and of capital, to fleece the poor.

Question put. The House divided -

Ayes ……… 25

Noes … … … 39

Majority … … 14

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 6808

SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT

Point of Order - The Cup Holiday. - Order of Business

Motion (by Mr. Barton) proposed -

That the House, at its rising, adjourn until 7.30 p.m., on Tuesday next.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member for Parramatta is not in order. The honorable and learned member for Indi raised a point of order as to some remark which was made by an honorable member whom he has not yet named.

Mr Isaacs:

Mr Reid:

– There is the old tory silence.

Mr BARTON:

– Cannot the right honorable and learned member trust the press ? I rise to say, however, that if I thought there was any likelihood of a quorum I would go on as usual on Tuesday afternoon, but while I know that I can obtain a quorum in the evening, I can see that I cannot get one in the afternoon. That is why I moved the motion. As to the suggestion made by the honorable member for Kennedy, I had really anticipated it, because I have given already, by a public statement, an indication of the fact that the debate on the second reading of the Pacific Islands Labourers Bill will be proceeded with on Tuesday evening. I should like to add for the benefit of honorable members, many of whom have spoken of various objections to the Tariff, that if those objections can be reduced to some concrete form, and the information on which they are founded can be supplied in writing to the Minister for Trade and Customs, the adoption of that course will facilitate their consideration, whether they are agreed with or not.

Mr Reid:

– Then I shall have to write a book.

Question put. The House divided -

Ayes……… 40

Noes……… 10

Majority…… 21

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

page 6810

ADJOURNMENT

Fifth Victorian Contingent- Military

Commandant - Supply of Leather - Secession of Queensland

Motion (by Mr. Barton) proposed -

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr WATSON:
Bland

– Has the Prime Minister any objection to lay upon the table of the House, at its next sitting, the complete report by Major McKnight in respect of the Wilmansrust affair? The portion of the report which has been published is utterly useless, so far as the real point at issue is concerned. I do not see that the publication of the full report could complicate our relations with the old land. It is due to us to know whether any of our soldiers have behaved in a manner which reflects no credit upon us.

Mr WILKS:
Dalley

– If the Government have come to a decision with regard to the appointment of a military commandant, will the Prime Minister give to the House the name of the officer whom they have decided to appoint ?

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I desire to bring under the notice of the Prime Minister an important matter concerning the furnishing of leather to the Government. Perhaps I can explain the matter best by leading a notice which appeared in the Government Gazette, as follows -

Tenders will be received until . 11 o’clock a.m, on the 23rd October, 1901, from persons willing to furnish leather of Victorian manufacture in such quantities as may be ordered by the Victorian Government, or by the Federal Government for its officers situated in Victoria, for six months commencing 1st January, 1902, as per schedule No. 40. The conditions of the contract are those published under General Stores for 1901-1902 in the Government Gazette, 29th March, 1901, page 1,157.

Mr Watson:

– Does it say which department? -Mr. JOSEPH COOK.- No. This extract istaken from the Australian Leather Journal of 15th October, but the signature to the notice in the Gazette is not attached. I believe that it appeared in the Gazette of the 29th March last, I shall be obliged to the Prime Minister if he will inquire into the matter, and if it is found that the tender ought to have been an open one, being a Federal matter, take care that such a thing docs not recur.

Mr McDONALD:
Kennedy

-I desire to know if the attention of the Prime Minister has been called to the following paragraph in the Brisbane Courier of 10th October -

Reasonable men may soon have to decide whether the Federal Parliament should not be asked to allow Queensland to leave the Commonwealth, and no less an authority than Mr. Chamberlain has given it as his opinion that such a request, under certain conditions, ought to be granted.

Can the right honorable and learned gentleman inform the House whether any representation has been made to the Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to the withdrawal of Queensland from the Commonwealth, and if he can get that information, will he be so good as to lay it before the House?

Mr BARTON:
Minister for External Affairs · Hunter · Protectionist

in reply. - With regard to Major McKnight’s report, I explained before that he had furnished certain direct statements with regard to the Wilmansrust disaster whichwerebased upon his own knowledge, but, with respect to the question which arose as to certain courts-martial, and the circumstances leading up to them, he furnished no information that was not hearsay. I considered that it was certainly not my duty to lay this information upon the table unless the House particularly wished it - having in view not only what I have stated, but the fact that the incident has been closed by the release of the men, and by the supercession of the general, who was deemed to have treated them in a manner which, if correctly reported, certainly no one could approve of.

Mr Fisher:

– Does not the Prime Minister think that that statement reflects upon the officer?

Mr BARTON:

– Hearsay statements on these subjects are not of much value, but, as I said before, I shall be pleased to hand the report for inspection and perusal to any honorable member who wishes it, but I am hot prepared to lay it upon the table. I said, however, that if it were the general desire of honorable members, I would lay it upon the table, because I would not resist the will of Parliament in a matter of this sort. If, however, honorable members will look at the report, and see the extent to which it depends upon hearsay evidence, they will not, I am sure, insist upon its being laid before the House.

Mr Watson:

– Is there any possibility of securing direct information on the subject ?

Mr BARTON:

– I think so. We have cabled for the fullest information, and I think we may very well let the matter rest until we get it, because honorable members may safely assume that the particulars we shall receive will be more reliable than any report founded upon hearsay. I do not say this with the object of suppressing information. It is only fair to say that, provided that facts are as have been stated, public sympathy can only be in the one direction, and I do not wish to dissociate myself from the public in my sympathy. With regard to the question of the honorable member for Dalley, respecting the military commandant, I may inform him that no commandant has yet been appointed. There have been lengthy communications on the subject, and as these are secret it is not within my power to lay them on the table at present. I can assure the honorable member that the Government is not delaying the matter in anyway, but onthe contrary is urging it as much as possible. The honorable member will see with me that the whole matter has been necessarily hung up for three weeks owing to the debate which we have just passed through. With reference to the question about leather raised by the honorable member for Parramatta, the statement he has referred to apparently appeared in a Victorian Government Gazette notice. It was notanadvertisement of this Government, and it has not been published in the Commonwealth Gazette. I will, however, make inquiries as he desires. I understand that some of the leather is described as’ “ such leather as may be required by the Victorian or Federal Government.” That may have arisen from a decision which was arrived at some time ago that any supplies required by the Federal Government departments before we established a stores department - for which there is no present necessity - should be obtained at the contract rates arranged for by the Victorian Government. In respect to supplies required in the various States the desire is - and it will be carried’ out as far as possible - that articles shall cither be supplied after open tendering throughout the Commonwealth or obtained in the State in which they are appropriated. With regard to the statement of the Brisbane Courier, repeated by the honorable member for Kennedy, I should like to say thatno despatch of any such tenor or colour as indicated has been received by the Government. The Government have made no representations which could have evoked any such reply, and as far as I am aware, there is not the slightest pretence of truth in the statement.

Mr Fisher:

– There are only three men and a dog in Queensland who want separation.

Mr BARTON:

– It is wholly unlikely that the statement is true, not only because I do not anticipate any desire for separation on the part of the majority of. the people of Queensland, but also because I know that no such representations could come from the present Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at 5.30 p.m. (Friday).

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 31 October 1901, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1901/19011031_reps_1_5/>.

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House of Representatives31 October 1901

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir William Lyne:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir William Lyne:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:Protectionist

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr SPEAKER:

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

Mr Wilks:

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:

MOTION OF CENSURE

Mr WATKINS:NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

Mr Conroy:

Mr WATKINS:NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

Mr Conroy:

Mr WATKINS:NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr WATKINS:

Mr FOWLER:PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Mr WATKINS:

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr WATKINS:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr WATKINS:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr McCay:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Fowler:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Fowler:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Fowler:

Mr McCay:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Glynn:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Glynn:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr Thomas:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Conroy:

Mr BRUCE SMITH:PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr G B EDWARDS:SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Conroy:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr Conroy:

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr McCay:

Mr JOSEPH COOK:PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

House of Representatives
31 October 1901

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Sir WILLIAM LYNE:
Protectionist

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP; FLP from 1931

Mr WATKINS:
NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr FOWLER:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr BRUCE SMITH:
PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr G B EDWARDS:
SOUTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr HUME COOK:
BOURKE, VICTORIA · PROT

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

Mr THOMAS:
Barrier

Mr V L SOLOMON:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · FT

Mr SYDNEY SMITH:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr F E McLEAN:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

Mr BARTON:
Minister for External Affairs · Hunter · Protectionist

Mr CLARKE:
Cowper

Mr JOSEPH COOK:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917