House of Representatives
8 October 1912

4th Parliament · 3rd Session



Mr. Speaker took the chair at 3 o’clock, and read prayers.

page 3908

QUESTION

FEDERAL CAPITAL

Parliament House

Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Is it the intention of the Minister of Home Affairs to invite the architects of Australia to submit designs for the Commonwealth parliamentary buildings to be erected on the Capital site, or will he rely on the professional officers of his Department?

Mr KING O’MALLEY:
Minister for Home Affairs · DARWIN, TASMANIA · ALP

– The Department possesses officers of eminent talent, but I hope that the designing of the Commonwealth Parliament House will be thrown open to the competition of the architects of the world.

page 3909

QUESTION

TELEPHONISTS

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
FAWKNER, VICTORIA

– I wish to know from the Minister representing the PostmasterGeneral whether, seeing that concessions have been made to the telephone operators of New South Wales, similar concessions will be made to those of the other States?

Mr THOMAS:
Minister for External Affairs · BARRIER, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-I shall ask the PostmasterGeneral to reply to the question on his return from Sydney.

page 3909

QUESTION

SUGAR INDUSTRY

Mr HIGGS:
CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND

– I have received from

Mr. George Barber, the representative of the Bundaberg constituency in the Queensland Parliament, a telegram stating that a. large majority of the small growers favour equalization, and asking that they be not sacrificed by the abolition of the bounty and Excise, which would place them at the mercy of the sugar millers. Will the Prime Minister ascertain what is the real opinion of the sugar-growers of Queensland and New South Wales on this subject?

Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister · WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– If the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court had power to determine, when the matter was brought before them, the relative value of the work done by each set of persons engaged in the production of sugar, no difficulty could arise. I have stated publicly again and again that the remedy for the present state of affairs is to give the Commonwealth Court power to determine the relative value of the work done by each section of the sugar industry and the return that should be received for it.

Mr GROOM:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

– What is to be the policy of the Government in the matter, pending the vesting of this power in the Commonwealth Court ?

Mr FISHER:

– Our policy will be, as it has always been, to protect the sugar producers to the best of our ability, and to enable the industry to prosper.

page 3909

QUESTION

OLD-AGE PENSIONS

Mr MASSY-GREENE:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; NAT from 1917

– Has the Prime Min ister taken into consideration in connexion with the introduction of an amending OldAge Pensions Bill, and, if not, will he do so, the advisability of paying to hospitals of which old-age pensioners are inmates, the amount of their pensions during the time of their being there?

Mr FISHER:
ALP

– That question has been raised repeatedly since old-age pensions were first proposed. It is considered by the Government that the State hospitals and other similar institutions may well share the burden of supporting the afflicted.

page 3909

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH BANK

Sydney Office

Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Is it a fact that the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank has recommended the resumption of certain property in Sydney as a site for a branch of the Commonwealth Bank? If so, will the Prime Minister take into consideration the advisability of declining to act on the recommendation, and of resuming the whole of the General Post Office block, as in that way a more profitable bargain can be made by the Commonwealth ?

Mr FISHER:
ALP

– With all due respect to the honorable member, I think that the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank knows best what site to choose for a particular building. The Government approves of the resumption of the site recommended for banking chambers.

Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– It is the dearest and worst site in Sydney for the purpose.

Mr FISHER:

– I think it is the best and cheapest.

page 3909

QUESTION

REFERENDUM

Mr PALMER:
ECHUCA, VICTORIA

– Is the Prime Minister correctly reported in to-day’s Argus as having stated, when asked whether the referendum would be purely a party issue, “ without hesitation, ‘ yes ‘ “ ?

Mr FISHER:
ALP

– I regard the question as trivial.

page 3909

QUESTION

PAPUA: FRANCHISE

Mr BAMFORD:
HERBERT, QUEENSLAND

– Does the Government intend to consider the question of giving the white adult resident population of Papua the franchise?

Mr FISHER:
ALP

– Yes.

page 3909

QUESTION

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SYDNEY

Mr FULLER:
ILLAWARRA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is it a fact that when Lord Denman was appointed GovernorGeneral of Australia it was understood that he would have the use, during his term of office, of Government House, Melbourne, and Government House, Sydney ? If that be so, will the Prime Minister use every endeavour to see that effect is given to the understanding?

Mr FISHER:
ALP

– It is correct that when Lord Denman accepted the high office that he holds it was understood that both Government House, Melbourne, and Government House, Sydney, would be available as residences for him and Lady Denman. The position was put before the State Government when the controversy arose respecting Government House, Sydney, and was repeatedly urged as a reason that should weigh with them, but without avail. The conflict is not one of money, but one of principle, and the Federal Government feel that they are not called upon to pay interest or rent under the circumstances I have detailed.

Mr FULLER:

– In view of the legal contention which has been put forward, and which, I take it, the Prime Minister has seen, to the effect that, at the time the Constitution was granted to New South Wales, power was given to the State Government to deal with waste lands only, will he instruct the Attorney-General to inquire into the legal position, and see whether the New South Wales Government have authority to act in the way in which they are acting?

Mr FISHER:

– The Attorney-General is now looking into the matter, and has been, I think, for some time.

Mr AUSTIN CHAPMAN:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES

– In view of the anxiety of the people of New South Wales to have the Governor- General residing in that State, will the Prime Minister consider the question of resuming Yarralumla House in the Federal Territory, so that His Excellency may be domiciled there ?

Mr King O’Malley:

– We have that house now.

Mr AUSTIN CHAPMAN:

– What is it used for?

Mr FISHER:

– I feel sure His Excellency would, in the meantime, feel glad of a little quietude in regard to his domestic affairs.

Mr FULLER:

– It is reported in the Argus this morning that in the speech attributed to the Governor- General, His Excellency said yesterday in Sydney -

I was advised by the right authorities in England, and by my Ministers in Melbourne, to come here and try to effect an amicable settlement of the matter. I have endeavoured to do so.

If that be a correct report, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he is’ prepared to hand over his duties to the

Governor- General and allow His Excellency to interfere in that way in a matter which is essentially one for the Prime Minister and his Government?

Mr FISHER:

– That is the first discordant note we have had on the subject, and there is no need whatever for it. The Governor-General, I think, showed great courtesy, great patience, and great consideration during his residence in New South Wales, and in the manner in which he carried out his duties; and all His Excellency has done, the Government take the full responsibility for.

Later:

Mr FULLER:

– I desire to disabuse the Prime Minister’s mind of any idea that I have introduced a discordant note; it was the construction which the right honorable gentleman placed on my question that might lead any one to think such a note had been sounded. I am concerned only with the action of the Prime Minister and the members of the Government - not with the action of the Governor-General. In view of the reported statement by the Governor-General, that he was advised by his Ministers to go to Sydney, and to try to effect an amicable settlement, and that he had endeavoured to do so in vain, I desire to ask the Prime Minister -

  1. What were the terms on which the GovernorGeneral was advised by his Ministers to go to Sydney and try to effect an amicable settlement of the matter?
  2. In view of the statement that he agreed togive up the greater part of house and grounds, was that power given him by this Government, or by the Imperial authorities?
  3. Whether the failure to make an amicable settlement was owing to the New South Wales Government requiring the house and the whole of the grounds?
  4. If this was not the cause of failure, what was the cause?
  5. Does he not think that it is the duty of the Government to deal with a matter of this sort without putting the Governor-General to the indignity of pleading with disloyal State Ministers for a place to reside in when visiting Sydney ?
Mr FISHER:
ALP

– The honorable member has read out a somewhat lengthy question of a technical character, but I think I may as well answer it, and get it out of the way. In answer to the first question, I may say that the Government are responsible for any actions of the GovernorGeneral. The facts as set out in the reported words are not admitted. As regards the second question, the Government agreed to accept terms for Government House. Sydney, with a lesser area of land. Every one knows that, for the fact has been made public.

Mr Fuller:

– What was the cause of the failure of the arrangements?

Mr FISHER:

– The cause of the failure must be obvious. The Commonwealth Government declined to pay rent or interest on the value of the property. They did not propose to alter the conditions. If the State Government desired to alter the conditions during the term of His Excellency’s residence the Commonwealth Government saw no necessity, and, indeed, thought it would be a wrong policy, either to pay interest on the capital value or to pay rent during the period of His Excellency’s residence in Sydney. As to the loyalty or disloyalty of State Ministers that is a matter which does not affect the Commonwealth Government. We shall see that the Governor-General will be properly housed in every State alike, when he is not at the Seat of Government.

Mr MATHEWS:
MELBOURNE PORTS, VICTORIA

– Following on the question put by the honorable member for Illawarra, I should like to ask the Prime Minister, without notice, if he does not think that the State Government of New South Wales were considering the health of the Governor-General and his family when they told him, in effect, to live in Melbourne instead of in Sydney?

Mr FISHER:

– I do not know whether the State Government considered that aspect of the matter, but their benevolence is well known throughout Australia.

Mr HEDGES:
FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I should like to ask the Prime Minister, without notice, whether the Government have considered the advisability of resuming Government House, Sydney, for public purposes?

Mr FISHER:

– That is a matter of policy. The right to resume undoubtedlyrests with us, but I have already stated the policy of the Government in this matter.

Mr FINLAYSON:
BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND

– Referring to the same question, I should like to ask the Prime Minister : Should the GovernorGeneral desire in future to visit New South Wales, will the Federal Government see that he is accommodated in the same way as when he visits other States of the Commonwealth in the same capacity?

Mr FISHER:

– In this matter we can guarantee nothing beyond the fact that we shall see that the Governor-General, as the chief representative in the Commonwealth of Australia of His Majesty the King, is accommodated in a manner befitting the high office he holds.

page 3911

QUESTION

MOISTURE IN BUTTER

Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Does the Minister of Trade and Customs intend to take any steps to meet the wishes of the people engaged in the butter industry by increasing the percentage of moisture in butter beyond that laid down by the regulations?

Mr TUDOR:
Minister for Trade and Customs · YARRA, VICTORIA · ALP

– The matter is under consideration at the present time.

page 3911

PRIVILEGE

Notices of Motion

Mr HIGGS:
Capricornia

– I move -

That the action of Mr. Speaker on 1st October, 1912, in endeavouring to prevent a member of this House from reading a notice of motion, and in refusing to accept such motion, on the ground that it was frivolous, is a breach of the powers, privileges, and immunities of the members of the House of Representatives.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Do I understand the honorable member to be referring to some motion that I have already dealt with?

Mr HIGGS:

– My motion is as stated, Mr. Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I have to point out to the honorable member that I cannot accept -that motion. Standing order 287 is as follows -

If any objection is taken to the- ruling or decision of the Speaker, such objection must be taken at once, and in writing, and motion made, which, if seconded, shall be proposed to the House, and debate thereon forthwith adjourned to the next sitting day.

There was no notice taken of my action on the previous occasion, and, under such circumstances, I cannot accept the motion.

Mr Higgs:

– I submit, as a point of order, that a question of a breach of the privileges of the House supersedes a mere question of order.

Mr SPEAKER:

– On a question of privilege the honorable member would be perfectly in order, but he will see that nothing has arisen since the date named by him to create a breach of privilege. Under such circumstances, he cannot move the motion.

Mr HIGGS:
Capricornia

.- Accepting your ruling for the present, I beg to give notice that to-morrow I shall move -

That an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General, informing him that the Fusion known as His Majesty’s Opposition merits the censure of the House and the country -

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member is now trying to evade my ruling, and he must not do so. The honorable memoer knows that I have ruled that notice cf motion out of order, and he is now persistently defying my ruling.

Mr Higgs:

– Do you still rule, sir, that I am out of order in giving the notice of motion ?

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must not disobey my ruling, and he knows that.

Mr Higgs:

– I am asking you the question, sir, whether you rule I am not entitled to give this notice of motion?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Yes; the motion would be out of order.

Mr Higgs:

– Then I beg to give notice that I shall move that your ruling be disagreed to.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Will the honorable member hand in the motion in writing? Is the motion seconded ?

Mr Page:

– I second it.

Mr Higgs:

– It does not need to be seconded.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must not attempt to direct me in my duties. The motion does require a seconder.

Mr Higgs:

– With great respect, I would point out that the motion has not yet been written. I should like to know from you sir, whether, as you have ruled that I cannot read this notice of motion I may not raise the question of privilege now.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I point out to the honorable member on the question of privilege that an honorable member is at liberty to raise a question of privilege upon anything affecting the business of the House or honorable members personally, and may conclude with a motion dealing with the matter on which the question is raised. The honorable member will see that when I ruled him out of order the other day he was trying to deal with something which he could not properly deal with at that time. I may inform the House that the honorable member was good enough to write a letter to me saying that he proposed to take this action. With the consent of the House I should much prefer that the honorable member, instead of dealing with the matter to-morrow, should deal with it at once. If he is prepared to go on with it now I am ready and willing that he should do so in order that the matter may be done with.

Honorable Members. - Hear, hear.

Mr HIGGS:

– Accepting your suggestion, sir, I shall deal with the matter at once. I may say that I spent a good deal of time considering this question. I endeavoured to frame my motion in a form which should be as unobjectionable as possible.

Mr Groom:

– What is the honorable member now dealing with, the question of privilege or the ruling with respect to his notice of motion?

Mr HIGGS:

– The question of privilege. I move -

That the action of Mr. Speaker on ist October, 1912, in endeavouring to prevent a member of this House from reading a notice of motion, and in refusing to accept such notice of motion, on the ground that the motion was frivolous, is a breach of the powers, privileges, and immunities of members of the House of Representatives.

On last Tuesday, certain action was taken in the House, which placed me in a most invidious position. Doubtless, those of the general public in Australia who do not know me would come to the conclusion that I was humiliated, but the public of Australia who do know me know very well that I would not place myself in an extreme position without very good reasons.

I yield to no man in the respect I have for the office of Speaker. No member of the House is more careful than I am on entering or leaving the chamber to make due obeisance to the Chair. If ever I come into conflict with Mr. Speaker; if ever for a moment I resist Mr. Speaker, it is because I have a doubt as to whether he is right. If ever I continue to resist Mr. Speaker, honorable members will knowthat I have the strongest conviction that he is wrong. So that, when I attempt to resist Mr. Speaker, it is not out of disrespect to his high office, or to himself personally, or to this honorable House, but because I deem it a sacred duty to resist any encroachment, from whatever source, on my powers, privileges, and immunities as a member- of this House, as they are set out in the Constitution.

Section 49 of the Constitution providesthat

The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and of the members of the Committees of each House shall be such as are declared by the Parliament, and, until declared, shall be those of the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom and of its members and Committees as at the establishment of the Commonwealth.

These powers, immunities, and privileges are decided by this House. Whatever may be our respective abilities or social or other position, we are all here, as members of Parliament, equal in the eyes of the law, and according to the custom of Parliament. The privileges and immunities of members of this House are embodied in our Standing Orders. But we have not behind us the centuries of experience of the House of Commons, and we have therefore made provision in No. i of our Standing Orders in these terms -

In all cases not provided for, resort shall be had to the rules, forms, and practices of the House of Commons.

I can find no standing order’ which enables a Speaker to intervene to prevent me reading a notice of motion, nor is there any standing order of the House of Commons or practice of that House enabling a Speaker to declare that he will not receive such a notice of motion as I desired to give.

Freedom of speech is one of our most ancient privileges. From time immemorial freedom of speech has been one of the privileges of members of the House of Commons, and, so far as our history goes, of members of the State Legislatures. This ancient privilege of freedom’ of speech was some centuries ago interfered with by members of the House of Commons, when a member named Haxey introduced a Bill referring to the excessive charges of the Royal Household, that displeased the King. The member brought in his Bill, just as I, for example, might introduce a motion dealing with what I might consider to be excessive charges in connexion with the Governor-General’s establishment. However, the House of Commons, by a majority, condemned Haxey as a traitor. That was in the reign of Richard II. - 1377 to 1399. I find, however, that in the next reign - that of Henry IV. - the decision was reversed by the Lords and Commons, as against the law and custom of Parliament.

Mr Groom:

– What is the Honorable member quoting from?

Mr HIGGS:

– My information is obtained from’ page 94 of Sir T. Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice. So long as an honorable member says nothing personally opprobrious of other honorable members - and I take that to be something scurrilous concerning the private character of honorable members - he can say any- [i4S] thing he likes in debate. What he can say in debate he can put into a motion. He can say anything he likes, however offensive it may be to the feelings, or injurious to the characters of individuals, and he is protected by his privilege from any action for libel, as well as from any molestation. There was nothing personally opprobrious in the motion which I proposed to put upon the business-paper concerning members of the Opposition. That motion dealt with their public actions and public speeches, and yet Mr. Speaker denied me the right, as a member of this House, to give notice of it. I trust that when he replies, if he does reply to me, he will point to the standing order, or the practice of the House of Commons, which enabled him to apply the closure to me.

How did I come to think of framing that motion? I had witnessed certain things in this House. I remembered that the Leader of the Opposition gave notice of a motion which read -

That the following words be added to the Address : - “ And to inform Your Excellency that the Government merits the censure of the House and the country for its failure to realize its national and constitutional obligations, for flagrant neglect of its duty to secure industrial peace and good order, and to uphold the law within the Commonwealth ; for its maladministration of public affairs and public Departments; for its grossly partisan actions and appointments, and its reckless irresponsibility in the financial affairs of the Commonwealth.”

That motion was moved by him on 25 th June last, as will be seen by reference to Hansard, page 104. The Leader of the Opposition charged the Government and their supporters with failure, which means neglect or incompetency, with maladministration, with grossly partisan actions and with reckless irresponsibility.

Mr. Speaker did not interfere to prevent the honorable member from moving that motion.

The honorable member for Ballarat was quite within his rights in submitting it. lt did not deal with the personal character of honorable members, and if he believed that the Government were responsible for failure, for maladministration, for reckless irresponsibility, and partisan appointments, he was perfectly entitled to move it, and, as a matter of fact, he did move it. He was not prevented from reading it. Mr. Speaker waited to hear what it was all about. Now, if honorable members will turn to Sir T. Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, page 263, they will see the class of matters which may be debated, and those of which notice of motion must be given. May lays downs -

Certain matters cannot be debated save upon asubstantive motion which can be dealt with by amendment, or by the distinct vote of the House, such as the conduct of the Sovereign, the heir to the Throne, the Viceroy and GovernorGeneral of India, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means, members of either House of Parliament, and Judges of the Superior Courts of the United Kingdom, including persons holding the position of a Judge, such as a Judge in a Court of Bankruptcy, and of a County Court. These matters, therefore, cannot be questioned by way of amendment. Now a substantive motion, I take it, is a motion which can be dealt with by way of amendment, and Sir Thomas Erskine May, the authority to whom we chiefly refer on matters of parliamentary procedure, there outlined a sample of the questions which must be dealt with by a substantive motion. He lays it down that no motion concerning honorable members, the Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees can be dealt with by a substantive motion. I could not tack my motion to a Bill dealing with the land tax, or the establishment of the Commonwealth Bank or the maternity allowance. I had to submit a substantive motion.

I contend that by analogy I am entitled to move any motion regarding any section of this House, so long as it is couched in parliamentary language. I would appeal to honorable members opposite to dismuss from their minds the words of the motion of which I desired to give notice. These questions of procedure are questions which ought to be dealt with on a non-party basis. The rules of parliamentary procedure concern us all, because there is no knowing at what lime we may be in a minority, and the Standing Orders which we have adopted, as well as the practice of the House of Commons, have been created in the interests of the minority - in the interests of the single individual - because the majority can always get their own way.

The brilliant minds of past members of the House of Commons have laid down this practice for us. The honorable member for Hindmarsh made an interjection a while ago regarding the possibilities of a revolution. In my opinion the decisions of members of the House of Commons during the centuries have prevented revolution in the Old Country. They have permitted freedom of speech in the House of Commons, and that has been the true safety valve. Contrast the action of Mr. Speaker in regard to the Leader of the Opposition with his treatment of me. If honorable members will refer to Hansard of1st October of the present session they will see that he permitted me to read part of my motion. I want them to be thoroughly seized of the terms of the notice of motion which he endeavoured to prevent me from reading, keeping in their minds the terms of the motion which had been moved by the Leader of the Opposition. I desired to move -

That an Address be presented to his Excellency the Governor-General, informing him that the Fusion known as His Majesty’s Opposition merits the censure of the House and the country -

for its failure to realize its national and constitutional obligations ;

for flagrant neglect of its duty to vote against those measures which it professes not to believe in ;

for unduly taking up the time of the House in moving amendments which, if one may judge by the remarks made in support thereof, ought to be put to a vote and a division recorded thereon.

for its grossly inconsistent actions and speeches ;

for the notorious lack of harmony between its leaders; and (/) for its general incompetence.

Mr. Speaker endeavoured to prevent me from reading that motion. He made me withdraw and apologize.

Mr Groom:

– He was endeavouring to save the honorable member’s reputation.

Mr HIGGS:

– I ask honorable members of the Opposition to dismiss from their minds the reflections, which they may consider quite uncalled for, which were contained in my notice of motion, and to treat this matter on a non-party basis in the interests of their own powers, privileges, and immunities. Contrast the action of Mr. Speaker in dealing with the motion which was submitted by the Leader of the Opposition with his treatment of the motion of which I desired to give notice. He allowed me to get half-way through it, and then interrupted me. The Hansard report of the proceedings from this stage onwards reads -

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order !

Mr HIGGS:
CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND · ALP; IND 1920; NAT from 1920

– which if one may judge by the remarks-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order !

Mr Higgs:

– made in support thereof, ought to be put-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order !

Mr HIGGS:

– to a vote and a division recorded thereon.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! Order!

Mr Groom:

– Chair.

Mr HIGGS:
  1. for its grossly inconsistent actions and speeches ;
Mr SPEAKER:

– Order !

Mr Groom:

– Chair.

Mr HIGGS:
  1. for the notorious lack of harmony between its leaders; and-
Mr SPEAKER:

– I name the honorable member for disobeying the Chair.

Mr HIGGS:
  1. for its general incompetence.
Mr SPEAKER:

– I name the honorable member for Capricornia for disobeying the Chair.

The motion of which I gave notice can be read in less than a minute. Reading slowly, one can dispose of it in forty-five seconds. The point which I wish to make is that Mr. Speaker did not allow me to read the notice of motion, and that was, in itself, a breach of the privileges of honorable members. It is true that I heard Mr. Speaker call “ Order!” ; it is true, also, that I was wrong in disobeying him; but I was only technically wrong, because, according to our Standing Orders, an honorable member is entitled to be heard without interruption. If he is in order, even Mr. Speaker has no right to interrupt.

Mr. Speaker, however, interrupted me, and I resented his action because it was not the first time that he had done so when I had believed myself to be thoroughly in order. The Leader of the Opposition gave notice of his motion of censure on the Government, and the Prime Minister accepted that notice the night before the motion itself was debated. Next morning, I endeavoured to ask a question in regard to it, but was not allowed to read it. I resented that action on the part of Mr. Speaker, and was “ named,” with the result that I had to apologize. Mr. Speaker refused to allow me to read this motion, and some honorable members endeavoured to shout me down. They cried out so loudly that my voice could be heard only within a few feet of me. That shows a distinct breach of the privileges of honorable members. I consider that I was only technically wrong on this occasion; but Mr. Speaker made me apologize for disobeying him, and then made me withdraw the words and apologize for having uttered them.

Surely, if the Leader of the Opposition could be allowed to move a motion accusing the Government of flagrant neglect, maladministration, gross par tisan actions, and reckless irresponsibility ; surely, if he could place on the businesspaper that notice of motion, I should be entitled to place on the business-paper a notice of motion accusing the Opposition, which is a political entity, of flagrant neglect, of gross inconsistency in their actions and speeches, and of unduly taking up the time of the House? When I framed that motion, I thought that it was clever; I thought it “a hit - a palpable hit!” A gentleman who indulges his wit, very often at my expense, and who can hardly be deemed to be a friend of mine, considered the motion a well -merited gibe, quite worth launching at the proper time.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– Who was that?

Mr HIGGS:

– “ Ithuriel,” of the

Argus. Later on, “ Ithuriel “ said -

The sensation of the week was provided by Mr. Deakin, who gave point to Mr. Higgs’ production by giving his blessing to the Maternity Bill on its third reading.

I mention that to show that the opinion of a section of the general public was that the motion of which I proposed to give notice was not a frivolous one. I am aware that the Leader of the Opposition takes exception to the statement that he gave his blessing to the Maternity Allowance Bill, and that he has stated in the press that he placed on record in Hansard his opinion that it was a rash experiment. But he also said, in the same speech -

However faulty this measure ; however obvious and serious its omissions and numerous the risks that it must run, I look upon it, after all, as a social endeavour in the right direction. … It marks, after all, another step towards social union, and if I may say so, social reformation.

That gives further point to the value and cogency of my notice of motion.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member has no right to read extracts dealing with matters that are now before the House.

Mr HIGGS:

– I advance, as another proof that my notice of motion was not frivolous, the conduct of the Opposition since it was brought before the public. The Leader of the Opposition said that the Navigation Bill was a Bill-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The honorable member must know that he is now going beyond the ordinary question, of privilege. The honorable member has not a general licence to roam all over the question of privilege.

Mr HIGGS:

– I submit that it is part of my privilege, and also my duty, to show that my notice of motion was not, as you said it was, Mr. Speaker, frivolous. In the discharge of that duty I wish to bring under the notice of the House - and perhaps I had better do so as briefly as possible - the fact that the Opposition have taken the hint conveyed by my notice of motion, and have reformed. As a matter of fact, my honorable friends of the Opposition have since passed 250 clauses of a Bill-

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must confine himself to the matter before the Chair. The honorable member must know that he is wrong ; that he is not now discussing the question which he has himself brought forward.

Mr HIGGS:

– Part of my notice of motion complained of the Opposition unduly taking up the time of the House. I am now showing that that part of my notice of motion was not frivolous, inasmuch as the Opposition have since passed 250 clauses of a Bill in three days.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member is now discussing the merits of the matter; he must not do that.

Mr HIGGS:

– Very well, sir; I shall not do so. Let us now consider Mr. Speaker’s reason for disallowing my notice of motion. He said, as reported in Hansard, page 3623 -

The motion of which the honorable member desired to give notice is out of order on the ground that it is frivolous. If I permitted such a motion to be brought forward, I can conceive of every honorable member who may desire to say something against another honorable member, or against any section of the House, framing a motion in such a way that he would practically incorporate in it a whole speech. In such circumstances, I can see no finality to the business of the House.

The first reason given by Mr. Speaker for ruling my notice of motion out of order was that it was frivolous. The meaning of “ frivolous “ is “trifling, trivial, slight, unimportant, petty, worthless, silly.” I ask honorable members whether the terms of my motion were trivial, slight, unimportant, or silly? If they were either slight or frivolous, what can be said of the terms of the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition? Mr. Speaker might have thought that it was frivolous, or even slight. He might have come to the conclusion that it would never be carried, but that would not be a good reason for refusing to allow it to appear on the business-paper. The Leader of the Opposition could not carry his motion of censure. It was lost by forty votes to thirty, and, that being so, the motion of which I gave notice could not be ruled out of order on the ground that it would not be carried. That was not the question at all. I submit that the question of frivolity has nothing to do with Mr. Speaker. It is a matter for the House to decide. If the House considers that a motion is frivolous, the House can, according to the standing order, apply the closure. It is laid down that -

After any question has been proposed, either in the House or in any Committee of the Whole, 11 motion may be made by any member, rising in his place, and without notice, and whether any other member is addressing the Chair or not, “That the question be now. put,” and the motion shall be put forthwith and decided without amendment or debate.

Only the House can deal with the question of the frivolity or seriousness or dangerousness of a member’s speech. I should like to give honorable members a specimen of a motion which might be deemed to be frivolous, and which the majority of the Senate did consider frivolous. I was not one of the senators who did consider it frivolous. I voted for it, but there were only six of us, and there were twenty against it. Senator de Largie moved -

That in the opinion of this Senate the Argus newspaper having printed a foul libellous article on the memory of King James I., referring to that monarch as a “ fool and a blackleg,” the Postmaster-General should take steps to prevent the circulation of the said newspaper’ through the Post Office until the Editor of the Argus has tendered ample apology to this Senate.

Senator) Stewart seconded that motion. The President, the late Sir Richard Baker, a most painstaking man, a great authority on parliamentary procedure, did not refuse to allow the motion to be read. I dare’ say half the members of this House would consider that motion frivolous, but the President allowed it to be read, and to go upon the notice-paper. The majority of the Senate showed their opinion of it by allowing the closure to be moved. I submit that Mr. Speaker must deal with me on my own motion, and not rule it out of order, because somebody else may put a speech in ids motion. Was there a speech in my motion? If there was, there was a speech in the motion of the Leader of the Opposition. What is a speech? When

Senator de Largie’ s motion was before the “Senate, the late Sir Frederick Sargood rose, and said -

I agree with the Leader of the House, that we come here to attend to the business of the Commonwealth, and not to join in what, after all, is a perfect farce. I therefore move - “ That the Senate do now divide.”

The President said -

The honorable member cannot do that. He has made a speech.

There was a speech of a few words. As to the question of whether I or any other member of the House can move a. motion concerning another honorable member, I ask honorable members to refer to Todd’s Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies. At page 64 they will see that in the Canadian House of Commons a member moved tor a Select Committee to inquire into a series of specific charges which he preferred against another member, Thomas McGreevy. That notice of motion occupied two octavo pages of brevier type. I submit that, whether a notice of motion occupies 6 or 160 or 1,060 lines of type, that has nothing to do with Mr. Speaker, so long as the language is parliamentary. As regards the limitations placed on Mr. Speaker, at one time in the House of Commons £he Speaker, after hearing the debate, actually framed the motion himself. It is stated in May, page 265-

Formerly it was customary for the Speaker, when he thought fit, to frame a motion out of the debate. This ancient custom, however, was open to abuses and misconceptions, and has long since been disused.

Now, the Speaker must put the question in the words of the mover. To show that he has no right to interfere with the motion when it is couched in parliamentary language, I draw honorable members’ attention to the limitations which are put upon him. Take the question of the closure. Mr. Speaker cannot decide when a debate shall close. That is decided by a majority of the House. Mr. Speaker is not permitted to decide what is a definite matter of urgent public importance. Any member in this House, however frivolous a subject may be, may move that it is a definite matter of urgent public importance, and, if he can get five members in the House to agree with him, he and they decide whether or not the question is frivolous, or ought to be brought forward. Mr. Speaker has nothing to do with that. It’ was found by the Standing Orders Committee in various Legislatures that it would be dangerous and open to misconceptions to allow the Speaker to decide what was a definite matter of urgent public importance. I submit that that is proof that Mr. Speaker was wrong in preventing me reading my notice of motion, and in refusing to allow it to go on the notice-paper.

Mr. Speaker does not decide how long a member may speak. Surely, if he can decide whether or not a motion is frivolous, he can decide how long an honorable member who is making a frivolous speech can take ? But any honorable member who joins with another in moving the adjournment of the House, can speak as long as the Standing Orders permit. However frivolous and unimportant, and even silly, his remarks may be, Mr. Speaker has no right to interfere with him. Take the case of the adjournment of the House. At one time, in Some of the Legislative Assemblies of Australia, it was the practice that Mr.. Speaker, on the question that the House be adjourned, had the power to stop a member from bringing up a question; but, under our Standing Orders, on the motion for the adjournment of the House, a member can bring forward any question he likes, from a political needle to a political anchor, and the Speaker has no power to prevent him.

Mr. Speaker says that he can see no finality to the business of the House. May I say that he has misapprehended his powers? He has nothing to do with the finality of the business of the House. The House adjourns on its own resolution. With the majority of the House lies the decision as to when the business of the House shall be determined - when the finality of the business shall take place. That is a matter for the Government, with the “consent of the majority of the House, to determine.

In conclusion, let me say that Parliament is a place in which party is set against party, mind against mind, and wit against wit. It is the right and duty of every party to endeavour to prove to the public that the one party, and not the other, should have the occupancy of the Treasury bench. All the weapons of humour, satire, ridicule, mockery, derision, contempt, burlesque, and farce can be used by honorable members, if they so desire, to prove that the Ministerialists have no right to occupy the Treasury bench, or to prove that the members of the Opposition are the proper persons to take their place. Mr.

Speaker should hold the balance evenly between the parties. What would be thought on the cricket field if, when a player was making a run which he hoped would be to the advantage of his own side, the umpire stopped the game on the ground that the run was a frivolous one? What would be said in the football field if, when a player was about, in his opinion, to score for his side, the umpire stopped the game on the ground that the kick was frivolous? We are not in the football or the cricket field, however j we are in Parliament. I sincerely hope that honorable members will dismiss from their minds any irritation that may have been caused either by the terms of my notice of motion or its intention, and that they will decide this question on the merits of the case. I trust they will recognise that where the Standing Orders do not in black and white provide what shall be done, Mr. Speaker ought to be guided by precedents ; and I submit that “it would be an exceedingly bad precedent to allow any occupant of the Speaker’s chair to interfere to prevent an honorable member from reading a notice of motion. It would also be an exceedingly bad precedent to lay it down that Mr. Speaker could prevent a notice of motion, couched in proper parliamentary language, being placed upon the notice-paper.

Mr SPEAKER:

– With regard to the words “on the ist October” in the honorable member’s motion, I have already ruled that they are out of order. I would ask the honorable member to amend his motion by leaving out those words.

Mr Higgs:

– I will leave out the date.

Motion amended accordingly.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There is another part of the motion which, if strictly interpreted, is out of order, but I have no objection to allowing the motion to be put as amended.

Mr CHANTER:
Riverina

.- I intend to approach this question without any party feeling, and I trust that every other honorable member will do the same. The honorable member for Capricornia has dealt with the question calmly, judicially, and without any heat, though when his notice of motion was ruled out of order he, no doubt, felt very sore. The whole question before the House is whether a member of this House, occupying the position of Speaker, has power to prevent a motion being tabled. I have some little parliamentary experience myself, and I have looked through the Standing Orders very carefully indeed. It is laid down in the Standing Orders that notice of a motion may be given ; but as far as I can see - and I have looked up the parliamentary authorities, May, Bourinot, and others- rnothing can be quoted which appears to give to an honorable member occupying the position of Leader of the Opposition any more privileges than those enjoyed by any other member of the House. I do not’ think that that proposition can be denied for a moment. By usage, however - and parliamentary practice has grown by usage more than under Standing Orders- the Leader of the Opposition has certain privileges extended to him. When he rises in his place, and gives -notice of a motion, it rests, not with Mr. Speaker, but withthe Prime Minister to treat it either as an ordinary motion or as an extraordinary one. The Prime Minister may choose toregard the motion as one attacking thepolicy of the occupants of the .Treasury bench. But it is only by courtesy and’ usage that a motion from the Leader of the Opposition is treated in that fashion.. Under the Standing Orders no precedence is given to him over any other member of the House. As to the motion of whichthe honorable member for Capricornia desired to give notice last week, I think that Mr. Speaker himself will see that it would be exceedingly dangerous to the privileges of this Chamber if the sole power were vested in him to say whether a motion was frivolous or not. The Standing Orders make provision that a matter of the kind shall not be left in the hands of Mr. Speaker, but should be determined by the whole House. Mr. Speaker is there topreside over us and keep good order. He must do so in accordance with Standing. Orders that we ourselves have adopted. The Standing Orders provide that wherever there is any deficiency in them a Committee appointed for the purpose shall make a recommendation, or the practice of the British House of Commons may beresorted to. This is not a party question, and I do not approach it out of any feeling of antagonism to the present occupant of the chair. I shall be glad to know whether any Speaker of the House of Commons has ever prevented notice of a motionbeing given when that motion has been couched in proper and respectful terms. My own opinion is that such a precedent cannot be produced. Therefore, our Speaker should not attempt to claim more- funder our written Constitution and Standing Orders than is claimed by the Speaker of the British House of Commons under its unwritten Constitution. The formula is laid down so clearly that honorable members can see for themselves what is the notice of motion. Whether the notice of motion read by the honorable member for Capricornia was in good taste or not, I am not going to argue. The honorable member himself has not argued that point, but he has argued, and, in my opinion, rightly argued - and I think that honorable members should agree with him - that it is the undoubted privilege of any member of this House to give notice of a motion dealing with a matter affecting what he might consider interests of the country about to foe disturbed, so far as he can judge, by the action of any individual, or any section of the House. Having taken that course, the notice of motion would appear upon the business-paper, and without the actual assistance of the Prime Minister in allowing the notice to be taken out of the ordinary course, it might be months before it could be reached, indeed, the session might close without it being reached. There is quite a number of safeguards provided in matters of this kind. I assert that our Standing Orders do not vest in the occupant of the Chair the right to reject a. notice of motion. I believe, sir, that I am correct in saying that you declined to allow the honorable member for Capricornia to continue to read his notice of motion because, in your opinion, it was frivolous. If that was so, the power of deciding the question of frivolity is, by the Standing Orders, and the usage of the Parliaments in Australia, vested, not in the Speaker, but in the members of the House. Some of my confreres from New South Wales may, perhaps, remember that some years ago the right of rejecting a motion was vested in the Speaker by a standing order of the Legislative Assembly; and so dangerous did the standing order become, and so ill-used was it, in some cases, I regret to say to the memory of those who have now passed away, that the members of the House saw their privileges being taken away from them, and, therefore, by a considerable majority, they deliberately altered the standing order depriving the Speaker of the right to say whether a motion was frivolous or otherwise, and placed that power in the House itself.

Mr Cann:

– Does he not cut out motions sometimes ?

Mr CHANTER:

– Yes, he did. I do not wish to mention his name, but my colleagues will remember the gentleman whose action brought about the alteration. To a considerable extent, the Standing Orders of this House were framed on the lines of the Standing Orders of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. These matters were discussed - I was a member of the first Standing Orders Committee - and it was considered advisable that only what are termed temporary Standing Orders should be adopted in order that more time might be devoted to producing a complete set of rules in the future for the guidance of the House. It was stated then, that the first standing order - the one providing that where our own rules do not make provision lor any cases, the practice of the House of Commons must be resorted to - covered all detects in the code. But we have gone on to this day in the eleventh year of our existence with temporary Standing Orders. Every honorable member has, I repeat, the absolute right to place on the business-paper a notice of motion to be afterwards proposed by him. When the notice appears on the businesspaper, is it the property of Mr. Speaker? No, it is the property of the whole House to be dealt with in accordance with its own procedure, and at its own time. Another abuse crept in in the past. Experience, we are told, teaches wisdom, and, so, in order to get rid of abuse, through the Speaker being invested with the power of declining to accept a motion, or to say whether it was frivolous, or would be noneffective, the power was deliberately vested in the House. I need only refer honorable members to the standing order to which the honorable member for Capricornia has alluded. If I desire to intercept the business of this country by intimating to the Speaker that I propose to discuss a matter of very great public importance, though it may not be a matter of the slightest importance in the world, public or otherwise, Mr. Speaker is not vested with the power to say so. The House is invested with that authority. If five of my fellow members rise with me, although the Speaker may incline to the view that the matter is of no public importance, he cannot refuse to receive the motion. The motion is launched to be dealt with. The House may allow the motion to be discussed in the ordinary way,’ and a vote to be taken, or it may not. It is the judge. If it should be considered that’ the matter is frivolous, or of no public importance, any honorable member may appeal to the others to stop the debate at a moment’s notice, and the House can close the debate at once. So far as the practice of the House of Commons is concerned, and certainly so far as our own Standing Orders are concerned, the power of decision is vested in the House, and not in the Speaker. I recognise, sir, that you would be the last person to willingly attempt to deprive any member of the House of his privilege of faithfully, honestly, and honorably representing those who sent him here, but with all due respect I would point out that none of us is immaculate or perfect. We are all liable to err. If honorable members, after calmly considering this matter, decide that the honorable member for Capricornia was wrongly interfered with, and was prevented from exercising a right which he possesses, it will be no reflection on you, Mr. Speaker. The honorable member did not claim privilege for his notice of motion, asking that it be given precedence of all other business. He merely read it, with a view to having it set down on the businesspaper for discussion in the ordinary way. You, sir, interfered when he was reading it, and asked him to discontinue. Is there anything in any of our Standing Orders which allowed you to do that? It is expected of a member who is giving notice of motion that he shall read it so that the House may know what his proposal is. It is time that we had a complete set of Standing Orders to define exactly our procedure, and the rights and privileges of members, and to determine whether the guardianship of those rights and privileges is vested in you, Mr. Speaker, or in the House. I contend that it is vested in the House at present. This discussion will do good in giving an occasion for thought on this subject, and I hope the incident will induce the Government to provide for the adoption of permanent Standing Orders. Under the temporary Standing Orders, the Leader of the Opposition has no more rights and privileges than another honorable member. The Prime Minister, and his colleagues, have certain rights. They have the right to sit on a particular bench ; they can obtain messages from the Crown and produce them here ; they can arrange their order of business, and do other things which private members may not do. When the Leader of the Opposition gives notice of a motion censuring the

Government, the Prime Minister may accept it as a challenge, and give opportunity for its immediate discussion, or he may refuse to do so; in which case, it takes its place on the notice-paper in the ordinary way. I understand that the honorable member for Capricornia thinks that, although the Leader of the Opposition made certain charges against the Government, those charges would be more properly brought against the Opposition ; and he desired to bring them against the Opposition. You, Mr. Speaker, ruled that such motions as that of which he gave notice would lead toendless discussion and interference withthe business of Parliament. Without reflecting on you, personally, I think that your ruling deprived the honorable member of a right which -he possesses, and left him with no other course to pursue than to bring forward the matter as a question of privilege, to be determined immediately by the House.

Mr PAGE:
Maranoa

.- Like other private members, I have so few privileges, that I am always ready and willing to guard jealously those I have. No feeling has been engendered by the action of the honorable member for Capricornia, who has taken a manly and honorable course to get this question debated and put out of the way. He thinks that he has a grievance against the House for being pulled up by you when reading a notice of motion on Thursday last.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– A grievance against the Chair.

Mr PAGE:

– The House adopted the Standing Orders, and supports the Speaker in his rulings. Who is it takes the onus of any decision, the House or the Speaker ?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– The Speaker, if there is no motion of dissent.

Mr PAGE:

– I differ from the honorable member. If I do anything here derogatory to my position or to the House, I can be dealt with by my constituents. The honorable member for Capricornia is willing that his constituents should be the judge of his conduct here.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Will the honorable member deal with the question before the Chair?

Mr PAGE:

– I have but a small vocabulary, and my views may be narrow in some respects, and if I cannot transgress as much as I have done in expressing my thoughts, I do not know what I can say. I do not wish to get into conflict with the

Chair, lest something worse might happen to me than happened to the honorable member for Capricornia.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member is reflecting on the Chair.

Mr PAGE:

– I am not; but I do not think that you have given me a fair deal.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member will see that his remarks are out of order.

Mr PAGE:

– I meant them to be.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I do not think that the honorable member intended to say that. If he meant to deliberately insult the Chair, I should be compelled to adopt a very severe course.

Mr PAGE:

– I do not care what you do with me, so long as you do not kill me.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must withdraw those remarks.

Mr PAGE:

– I said’ nothing that I do not believe.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must withdraw his remarks.

Mr Page:

– I will not withdraw them.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I name the honorable member for Maranoa.

Mr Page:

– That is all right; I have nothing to regret, anyway.

Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP

– Following on your ruling, Mr. Speaker, there is a certain course that I am bound to take without question. You have invited the House to take action by naming the honorable member for Maranoa; and I move -

That the honorable member for Maranoa be suspended from the service of the House for the remainder of this sitting.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I have no desireto press this case, because I know that the honorable member for Maranoa did not really mean what he said. If the honorable member is prepared to . apologize, I am prepared to accept his apology; otherwise, I must put the motion.

Mr Page:

– There is nothing I am ashamed of !

Question put, and division called for.

Mr Page:

– I do not wish to be thought a coward, but, if it is not too late, sir, 1 humbly apologize, and withdraw the words to which you have taken exception. I do not feel in a fit state to say anything further; and I shall content myself with supporting the motion.

Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP

– The question of order is always an important one, and, without referring to a recent inci dent, we see how acute men’s minds are, and how strongly they feel, on questions that affect them so far as the etiquette of the House is concerned. A great deal has been said about the powers of the Speaker, but, in my opinion, the Speaker possesses no powers except those vested in him by the Standing Orders, or the practices of this House, and of the British House of Commons; the Speaker can do nothing on his own initiative outside those Standing Orders. There is no member but has far greater powers than those possessed by Mr. Speaker. According to the honorable member for Capricornia, Mr Speaker must put a motion in the words submitted by an honorable member.

Mr Archibald:

Mr. Speaker is the mouthpiece of the House.

Mr Chanter:

– The motions must be respectfully worded.

Mr FISHER:

– Exactly ; the Speaker has to decide, not only as to the proper wording of a motion, but as to its relevancy, and as to its compliance with the Standing Orders, and especially has he to decide whether or not a motion is frivolous.

Mr Higgs:

– Where is the standing order to that effect?

Mr FISHER:

– I say that that is my opinion ; there are customs and practices which are just as strong as Standing Orders.

Mr Anstey:

– Where is the custom? A man will soon not be allowed to speak at all !

Mr FISHER:

– I do not agree with the honorable member for Bourke. Even if a motion were respectfully worded - a motion raising a point such as that raised by the honorable member for Capricornia - referring to members of the Opposition, or certain members of the Opposition, or members on either side of the House, it would, undoubtedly, lead to abuse in this or any other Parliament, and, moreover, would be futile and demoralizing. When I have said that I have said all I can against this kind of motion. In my opinion, the broadest possible latitude should be given to every member who enters this House. A man does not come here as John, James, or Bill Sykes, but he comes as the honorable member for a constituency ; none of us are here in our own names, but simply in the names of constituencies outside, and for these only can we speak, and on their behalf. It is for that reason I desire there should be the widest possible latitude for honorable members to declare themselves in this House, where a record is made of their statements and actions, so that they may be judged by their constituents. Subject to decorum, and to the best known methods of carrying on business, the greatest latitude gives the best results in a representative House such as this. The strength of Mr. Speaker’s position lies in the fact that, if motions such as that before us were permitted they would fill the notice-paper, and some of them, though respectfully worded - and it would require no great ingenuity to so word them - would, doubtless, prove most disagreeable and offensive.

Mr Chanter:

– If they were offensive they would be out of order at once.

Mr FISHER:

– I think not. The honorable member is not such a youth in parliamentary business, and in the framing of motions, that he could not, in perfectly innocuous language, make insinuations that would have the effect of a dagger thrust. What I mean is that honorable members would be quite capable of drawing up motions of that kind ; and it is just as well that the privilege should not be so widened as to enable the most frail of us at some time to do an irreparable injury to another quite as honest as himself. The weakest point I think in the position of Mr. Speaker is that, before the honorable member for Capricornia had read his notice of motion in the first instance, he was stopped and named.

Mr Groom:

– According to the report, Mr. Speaker did not interfere until the motion had been three-parts read.

Mr FISHER:

– The honorable member is anticipating what 1 was going to say. The practice has grown up in this Parliament that an honorable member, on giving notice of motion may give the substance of the motion, or read the whole of it, while he may afterwards alter it. If that be so, I submit that it would be wise for Mr. Speaker to hear motions stated in their entirety, even though they should seem to involve a breach of the Standing Orders. An honorable member might see fit to alter a motion objected to, so as to bring it into conformity with the Standing Orders or the ruling of the Chair. It is inadvisable to anticipate that an honorable member by a notice of motion desires deliberately to flout the Standing Orders. He should be allowed to read it, and, if objection be taken to it, and the honorable* member will not modify it in order to meet the objection, it can be ruled out of order.. Such a practice would strengthen the position of the Chair. The honorable member for Capricornia has given a very fair historical review of the privileges, powers, and’ immunities enjoyed by members of Parliament when they attack persons who arenot members of the House. He will agreethat it is a different matter to attack otherhonorable members in their representative capacity. They are the butt of public criticism here and elsewhere, just as he is himself. In dealing with subjects which are not politically personal, we may at times go too far, but it is much more likely that members will go too far when attacking the Opposition, who are not clothed with the responsibilities, powers, and duties devolving upon members of the Executive. The members of the Executive are subject to attack to a greater degree than are anyprivate members of the House.

Mr Chanter:

– Members of the Opposition have no greater privileges than havehonorable members on this side.

Mr FISHER:

– No, none whatever. Noone is more able than is the honorablemember for Capricornia to look up the strongest arguments in support of any position he may assume, and the strongest pointhe was able to make was in his reference toa motion of censure which was launched by the Leader of the Opposition against the Executive, who are responsible for the government of the country. The honorable member’s motion is launched against the Opposition, who are charged with no such duty as the management of the affairs of the country. The members of the Opposition do not requireprotection from me or from any one else.. They are quite able to look after themselves, but I feel bound to say that I do not think the illustration given by the honorable member for Capricornia was a good one, because the cases he sought to compare are not analogous. The honorable member’s references to the conduct of an umpire in controlling a game of cricket werebeside the question. The question really is whether the game of Parliament can be carried on at all if motions of the kind under consideration are to be constantly moved or read out in this House If everymember of the House exercised the privilege of reading out such motions referring to other honorable members, the time of

Parliament would be entirely taken up inthe consideration of questions of privilege.

Mr Higgs:

– An honorable member’s constituents would look to that.

Mr FISHER:

– Exactly. I anticipated that objection in my opening statement. I say that the more complete the opportunity given to honorable members to display themselves in any way they think fit, as representatives of their respective constituencies, the better. But there are limits, and those limits must be decided, on behalf of the House, by Mr. Speaker, whose duties are onerous and difficult even under the best conditions. His powers and privileges have been placed in his keeping by the House. He cannot enter the chamber or leave it but by the authority of the House. He cannot put a motion except in accordance with our rules, and in the words in which it is submitted. He must act in every way in accordance with the rules and Standing Orders, and, while he does so, he is entitled to the greatest respect from honorable members.

Mr Chanter:

– There is no rule or standing order dealing with such motions as that under discussion.

Mr FISHER:

– There is no standing order and no procedure dealing with such matters.

Mr Higgs:

– There is the practice of the House of Commons.

Mr FISHER:

– The honorable member for Riverina has had a distinguished career in the Chair, and he must know that circumstances may arise, in this or in any other Parliament, which have never previously arisen. In such cases, common sense must rule, and the gentleman we appoint -to the most distinguished position in this House must decide, to the best of his ability, what is in order and what is not, and what action should in the circumstances be taken. Taking it all in all, the privileges of private members will not, I think, be seriously invaded by upholding the ruling of the Chair in this case.

Sir JOHN FORREST:
Swan

.- My desire always has been, and I hope always will be, to uphold the authority of the Speaker or Chairman of Committees. I believe that should we cease to uphold the authority of our presiding officers, very serious difficulties must arise. My desire to uphold the authority of the Speaker or Chairman of Committees would not influence me if I believed that on any occasion they flagrantly exceeded their powers. Although my parliamentary experience has been very lengthy, I have had very little experience indeed of differing from the authority of the Chair. I have always been very anxious, even though I felt that I was being rather badly treated, to bow to the authority of the Chair. I am not aware of any precedent for such a motion as that which the honorable member for Capricornia desires to give notice of. I have never previously known a private member propose a motion of censure upon members opposed to him, and questioning the way in which they think it well to perform their public duties. I cannot see what object there is in such a motion, or what would happen if it were carried. I do not know what the Governor-General could do with the members of the Opposi-tion if such an address were presented to him.

Mr Riley:

– That is not the question before the Chair.

Sir JOHN FORREST:

– I think it bears upon the question as to whether the motion which the honorable member for Capricornia desires to give notice of is frivolous or not. When would such a motion be discussed or be replied to? I think it is quite without precedent in parliamentary procedure. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker was quite right in considering it a frivolous motion. It was frivolous, not only because it could have no effect, but because it reflected upon the conduct of “ members of this House in an unnecessary, and, I think, a frivolous and unbecoming manner. T have no sympathy whatever with the present motion. All I need say in regard to it is that I am opposed to it, and I think that the honorable member for Capricornia has unnecessarily taken up the time of the House in bringing it forward.

Mr ANSTEY:
Bourke

.- I should not have risen to address myself to the question, but for some remarks which were made by the Prime Minister. In the first place, it seems to me that neither the merits nor demerits of the motion which the honorable member for Capricornia sought to move a few days ago are in question. oWe are bound by our Standing Orders, which lay down that, if I desire to bring forward a motion, so long as I can secure the support of five honorable members to that motion, I am entitled to move it. It is this House, and this House alone, which has the right to say whether or not a motion is of a frivolous nature.

If I choose to occupy the time of honorable members in discussing frivolous and non-essential matters, the penalty which I pay for my action is to be found in the odium and contempt in which I shall be held by my fellow members, and in the punishment which will be meted out to me by an outraged country. Mr. Speaker possesses only those powers and privileges which, are conferred upon him by the Standing Orders.

Mr Riley:

– By this House.

Mr ANSTEY:

– Exactly. He is as much bound by those Standing Orders as is any ordinary member of the House.

Mr Fisher:

– The right to move the adjournment of the House on a matter of urgent public importance is not attacked by Mr. Speaker’s decision.

Mr ANSTEY:

– The fact that an honorable member is at liberty to move the adjournment of the House to call attention to any matter, so long as he can secure the support of five honorable members, clearly shows that there are no rules which vest Mr. Speaker with power to decide that a motion is frivolous. It is this Chamber, and this Chamber alone, which has that power. If we are going to vest Mr. Speaker with such a power, he may prevent any honorable member from submitting any motion. Is he to be the absolute judge of whether or not a motion is of public importance? If so, he may tomorrow prohibit any honorable member, who is in the minority, from moving a particular motion. It is idle to discuss the character of the proposal which the honorable member for Capricornia desired to bring forward. I recollect that, when the Gaming Act was under consideration in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, the Government of the day desired to exclude race-courses from the designation of public “place” ; and thereupon I attempted to move what was regarded as a farcical amendment to the effect that public “ place “ should be held to include “ any place, anywhere, and at any time.” The Speaker, on that occasion, held that my proposal would reduce the position to a farce ; but, after discussion, he decided that I was perfectly within my rights, and the amendment was allowed to be put. Since I have been a member of this Chamber, I have seen proposals which commanded the support of only three honorable members. What is the logical deduction to be drawn from that circumstance? Is it not that, in the opinion of the majority of honorable members, the proposal was absolutely farcical ? Upon that occasion, Mr. Speaker might just as well have decided that the motion was; farcical. But, if we are to discuss the merits or demerits of the motion which the honorable member for Capricornia desired tobring forward, I ask what was there in that, motion which was mere farcical or frivolous- - so far as its terms were concerned - than, there was in the motion submitted by theLeader of the Opposition? The honorable member for Ballarat has no morerights or privileges here than has the honorable member for Capricornia. What-: ever position he may occupy as Leader of the Opposition, so far as our StandingOrders are concerned, he possesses no morerights or privileges than does any other honorable member.

Mr Sinclair:

– There would have beer* a little difference if his motion had been, carried.

Mr ANSTEY:

– There was this difference: that the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia had a chance of being carried.

Mr Sinclair:

– It meant nothing if it had been carried.

Mr ANSTEY:

– Just so; because itwas on “ all-fours “ with the motion submitted by the Leader of the Opposition, which meant nothing. Knowing full weir that he had no chance of carrying it, honorable members opposite occupied the timeof this House for three weeks in discussingan absolutely frivolous motion.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The honorable member must not discuss the merits of that motion.

Mr ANSTEY:

– I am not. I am dis- . cussing the merits of the motion which the honorable member for Capricornia sought to submit, which is almost identical in its; terms with that actually moved by the honorable member for Ballarat. What was it which made the motion of the Leader of the Opposition so reasonable, and that of the honorable member for Capricornia so absurd? I, at least, enter my protest against the exercise by Mr. Speaker of any power, until he has been armed with that power by this House. For that reason, I am in agreement with the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia.

Mr KELLY:
Wentworth

.- Everybody will agree with the honorablemember for Bourke that, so far as freedom of speech is concerned, honorablemembers of this House are exactly upon the same footing. Indeed, a number of honorable members will go further and say that freedom of speech is permitted us to facilitate the transaction of public business. If the honorable member for Ballarat, on behalf of a united party, submits a motion of no-confidence in the Government, and that motion be carried, it is interpreted as an intimation by Parliament to His Excellency the Governor-General that Ministers have forfeited the confidence of the Democracy of Australia. On the other hand, if any honorable member chooses to submit a motion of no-confidence in a non-official member of the House, even if that motion be carried, it can lead to nothing, except to a petty gratification. It cannot in any way change the conduct of the affairs of the’ Government ; and, consequently, must lead to a considerable waste of time, whilst being productive of no good. For instance, I might rise immediately after the honorable member for Capricornia had carried his motion, and move -

That an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General informing him that the honorable member known as the honorable member for Capricornia merits the censure of this House for his failure to realize his national and constitutional obligations, for flagrant neglect of his duty, and for unduly taking up the time of the House in moving amendments of a frivolous character.

Such a motion would promptly lead to recrimination on the part of the honorable member against myself- Thus, the time of the country would be taken up in the voicing of frivolous differences, without any possibility of reaching finality. Those differences would have nothing whatever to do with the public business which we are sent here to transact, and for doing which we are handsomely reimbursed.

There is, however, one difficulty which was mentioned by the honorable member for Bourke, and which is worthy of attention. I have searched the Standing Orders, and I have also given a little passing attention to May, but I cannot find that any power is vested in Mr. Speaker to deal with matters of this character. In order to absolve him from any charge of arrogating to himself a power which is not vested in him by the Standing Orders, Mr. Speaker should be given this power expressly. Where he thinks that the conduct of public business will be seriously interfered with if certain matters are brought forward, he should be empowered to prevent them being brought forward. 1 cannot agree with the Prime Minister that the easiest course to pursue is for Mr. Speaker to hear motions read in their entirety before deciding whether he shall rule that they are in or out of order. That would be an unfortunate procedure to adopt, because every honorable member would then be afforded an opportunity to insult every other honorable member and to turn this Chamber into a place which would not reflect credit upon us.

I must say that my sympathies in this matter - and I have been to considerable trouble to arrive at a just decision - are with Mr. Speaker. I think that Mr. Speaker is right in endeavouring to curb frivolity in the chamber. As an earnest student of public affairs, I like to see Mr. Speaker adopting this procedure, and I should certainly hardly be doing justice to my humanitarian instincts if, on the occasion that I thought he was right, I did not support his ruling. I am sorry that the honorable member for Capricornia did not frame his motion on a somewhat broader scale. There are other matters to which 1 do not think I should be in order in referring in this debate, and therefore I shall not allude to them; but it seems to me that as the House has apparently given Mr. Speaker power, by default, to alter the actual wording of questions on notice, without consulting the member who places those questions upon the businesspaper

Mr Chanter:

– Where is that power given ?

Mr KELLY:

– It is given by default. It has been exercised by Mr. Speaker, and it is a very serious power, as contrasted with that now objected to- the power to say that frivolous business shall not be placed before the House to the detriment of the conduct of ordinary business. No one, however, has objected to its exercise by Mr. Speaker. There are other decisions by Mr. Speaker, which have been indorsed in their entirety by honorable members opposite, but which, like the decision to which I have just referred, seem to have absolutely no precedent in May, and no justification under our Standing Orders. My honorable friends opposite, however, have indorssed tthem, and it is not in order for me, at this juncture, to refer to them. I regret that I am forced into the position of indorsing the general attitude of Mr. Speaker in this matter. I do not indorse it because the motion was moved against honorable members nf the Opposition. As a matter of fact, we are delighted to have any public criticism . upon our public actions in this House. We are ready to stand fire upon any of them, but we do think that, as we have come here to conduct public business, we might be permitted to do so without the time of the House and the country being taken up by the discussion of frivolous motions against us.

Honorable members perhaps have not quite realized the reasons for the action which you took last week, Mr. Speaker, against the honorable member for Capricornia. The honorable member was in the middle of his notice of motion, when you, Mr. Speaker, called him to order, and Hansard, at page 3621, and the following pages, shows conclusively that the honorable member took absolutely no notice of you when you called him to order. That proves conclusively, to my mind, that the offence of which the honorable member was primarily guilty, and which resulted in his being named, was not the frivolous framing of his motion, so much as his repeated disregard of the orders of the Chair when the Chair was seeking to interpose.

Mr Fisher:

– This discussion is founded upon a question raised this afternoon.

Mr KELLY:

– But it arises out of the incident that occurred last week, and we shall do no harm in looking thoroughly into it. My reason for referring to the matter in this case is that Mr. Speaker gave as a reason why he should not permit the honorable member to proceed, the fact that, as reported in Hansard, page 3263 -

In such circumstances I can see no finality to the business of the House.

It seems to me that the question of finality to the business of the House is not one for the discretion of Mr. Speaker.

Mr Scullin:

– That was the honorable member’s former argument.

Mr KELLY:

– No; I have been referring not to the question of finality, but to the question of reasonable as against frivolous business being brought before the House. The question of when any business brought bef ore the House shall be concluded is for the House itself “ to determine, and I trust that it will never be given over by the House to the hands of any one man, however able he may be.

Mr Fenton:

– Surely the question of what business the House shall conduct also rests with the House itself?

Mr KELLY:

– The point is arguable, but I do think that the question of whether business that can result in nothing should be brought before the House ought to be left to the discretion of Mr. Speaker., He is able to act at once, whereas the House can act only after a long debate, [f the business be not frivolous, and if an honorable member be truly aggrieved, it is always open to him to challenge the action of Mr. Speaker, and to obtain upon it the verdict of the House. But, if business be purely frivolous, I take it that the power to curb the waste of time resulting from it should lie with Mr. Speaker.

Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925

– It is a reserve power to be exercised subject to the approval of the House.

Mr KELLY:

– Yes. If it does not lie with Mr. Speaker, the House can only exercise it, and arrive at a verdict, after a long and useless debate, and much waste of public time. But so far as the question of finality to business is concerned, where a question is moved in order, and conducted in order, I take it that the House ought to be the only arbiter of such a matter. That being so, while I desire, in this, as in all other cases, to uphold the Chair as far as I can, it seems to me that, in his ruling in that matter, Mr. Speaker gave a bad reason for a good action. I do not wish to take up the time of honorable members further on that point. I can imagine the indignation of my honorable friend in being curbed in the middle of a most excellent joke. I realize that it is an excellent joke that can be turned upon any honorable member no matter on what side of the House he sits.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The honorable member must not discuss the merits of the matter.

Mr KELLY:

– I think that some steps should be taken in order to put upon a legal basis the exercise of this power by you, Mr. Speaker, in regard to frivolous business. I do not think it has any existence under the Standing Orders, but it is eminently necessary in the public interests that you should have the power, and I hope that it will be given to you.

Mr GROOM:
Darling Downs

.- I rise, Mr. Speaker, to support your ruling. I think that there must naturally be inherent in the Chair some power to deal with the regularity or irregularity of notices of motion. The honorable member for Capricornia, despite his seriousness today, must admit that when he gave notice’ of his motion, he thought he was making, as he said, a hit, or doing something clever. It certainly was not seriously intended to be a notice of motion having anything to do with the transaction of public business in this House.

Mr Brennan:

– That is where the honorable member begs the whole question.

Mr GROOM:

– I am not begging any question. I am simply putting before the House my view of this matter. The honorable member for Capricornia himself has said that he looked upon his notice of motion as a clever hit at the Opposition. He was seeking to aim at the Opposition a motion which he never intended to be regarded as part of the public business of this House. It is stated in May, page 243-

As the notice-paper is published by authority of the House, a notice of a motion or of a question to be put to a member, containing unbecoming expressions, infringing its rules, or otherwise irregular, may, under the Speaker’s authority, be corrected by the clerks at the table. These alterations, if it be necessary, are submitted to the Speaker, or to the member who gave the notice. A notice wholly out of order, as, for instance, containing a reflection on a vote of the House, may be withheld from publication on the notice-paper-

Mr Fisher:

– Under what particular phrase does the notice of motion under consideration come?

Mr GROOM:

– Will the right honorable member allow me to conclude my quotation - or, if the irregularity be not extreme, the notice is printed, and reserved for future consideration ; though, in such cases, it is not the duty of the clerks at the table to inform the, member who gave the notice of an informality that it may contain.

Then this is the important point : -

When a notice, publicly given, is obviously irregular or unbecoming; the Speaker has interposed, and the notice is not received in that form ; and he has also directed that a notice of motion should not be printed as being obviously designed merely to give annoyance.

Mr Fenton:

– The notice of motion was allowed to be given.

Mr GROOM:

– No. The substantive issue we are discussing is the Speaker’s power to prevent the notice being given. We maintain that he has that power, lt is stated further -

If an objection be raised to a notice of motion upon the notice-paper, the Speaker decides as to its regularity ; and, if the objection be sustained, the notice will be amended or withdrawn. The House has also, by order, directed that a notice of motion be taken off the noticepaper.

According to this authority, Mr. Speaker, if, in your opinion, a notice of motion is obviously unbecoming, you have the power to intervene, and to prevent that being done which is unbecoming to the dignity of the House. Or if you think that a notice of motion is intended only to give annoyance - to “ make a palpable hit,” even though it is regarded as clever - that is a ground on which you can refuse to accept it.

Mr Fenton:

– But the notice must be given.

Mr GROOM:

– There is something in what the honorable member says, in that the Speaker cannot rule something out of order before he hears it. What was the Speaker’s action in this case? The Speaker listened to the honorable member until he reached the third objection or ground, and, knowing the honorable member’s attitude in this House-

Mr Brennan:

– That is a very remarkable attitude !

Mr GROOM:

– The honorable member did not wait for me to finish my sentence. I was about, to say that the Speaker, from the attitude of the honorable member for Capricornia in the House on that occasion when he rose, and the way in which he- gave the notice of motion, was able to gather from what he did hear of the motion that it was unbecoming to submit such a motion to the House. When you see the motion, what was it ? It was a mock motion of censure, obviously intended to be a travesty upon a motion that had been moved seriously in this House against the Government. The Speaker, as far as he heard it, could gather distinctly from the notice that the honorable member gave that his intention was simply to perpetrate a burlesque upon the ordinary parliamentary procedure.. There is a proper way of attacking a Government on a motion of want of confidence. This was only a burlesque on a want of confidence motion. The honorable member was trying to turn it round and point it at the Opposition in a way that he knew could only be futile. As the honorable member said, he thought it was clever, and possibly it was a clever point to make, but that is not the issue. It was for the Speaker to decide from what he had already heard whether the honorable member was starting on a course which was intended to lower the dignity of the House by introducing a practice unbecoming to the proceedings of the House, and by giving notice of a. motion which might in itself be offensive to the House. In the circumstances the Speaker had the right to rule that the notice of motion was out of order, although, of course, this House has always the right afterwards, on proper notice being given, to object to the Speaker’s ruling, and override it. So that, ultimately, as the honorable member says, the supreme power does rest with the House. But, for the time being, for the proper and orderly conduct of business, there must be somebody in the House to preside over, and, if necessary, to correct the irregularity of our proceedings. That power we have vested in you, sir, for the time being, as the custodian of the procedure of the House, and I contend that the practice you have adopted, which seems to be in conformity with the quotation I have made from May, was in order, and that you did your duty in declining to accept the notice of motion.

Mr BRENNAN:
Batman

.- I desire very briefly, but most cordially, to support the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia. The speeches we have heard from honorable members opposite go to show, if not conclusively, at any rate to some extent; that the motion is well justified. The right honorable member for Swan, going into the merits, referred to the obvious absurdity of the motion, and the honorable member for Darling Downs, by some psychological power which I do not possess, read the mind of the honorable member for Capricornia, for he was able to say, not only that what the honorable member had said, but also that what he intended to say, was an absurdity. The very fact of honorable members opposite rising in their places, and showing that they have been touched and hurt by the criticism of their policy, constitutes one of the strongest reasons why this House should be no party to “ gagging “ itself. As one who has taken the platform, and hopes to take it again-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order 1 Will the honorable member confine himself to the motion ?

Mr BRENNAN:

– I am trying very hard to confine myself entirely to the question of the powers of the House, and to urge that the Speaker should not set limits upon the power of the House to debate any question. I do not know if I should be in order in calling attention by way of illustration to some of the speeches made in this Chamber by the honorable member for Wentworth. They are splendid examples of the privileges which members enjoy ; and, although some of us have often ‘ lamented what we had to suffer in order to preserve the right of free speech, no one has attempted to encroach upon that inalienable right in this Chamber.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– What about the time limit to speeches?

Mr BRENNAN:

– That is a limitation which the House imposed upon itself in the interests of the expeditious discharge of public business, and is by no means a limitation imposed by the Speaker upon the rights, powers, and privileges of the House. It is a limitation imposed by ourselves upon ourselves, which we can remove or modify at our own free will from time to time. We are told that the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia was obviously absurd and frivolous, and that this could be seen before it was heard. I did not see anything very facetious or wildly ridiculous in the attitude of the honorable member as he gave the notice of motion, and I do not think that honorable members opposite saw the fun of it either. They saw that it was a criticism directed at their policy, and at their attitude towards public business in this House recently. At any rate, on the broad and general principle that the onus lies upon Mr. Speaker, and upon those who are assisting him in this matter, to show by reference to authority in what way an honorable member is limited, except by the rule which demands that any motion shall be couched in decent and proper language, I say that we, as guardians of our own privileges, and as representatives of the Australian people, are bound to see that our rights are’ not invaded. For these reasons, I am in accord with the motion submitted by the honorable member for Capricornia.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I think that this discussion will do no harm, because it may help to clear the atmosphere and enable honorable members to know where they stand in regard to their rights and privileges with some approximation to exactitude. The members of the Opposition have frequently felt a great deal of resentment at certain decisions which have been given from the Chair, and which seemed to them to encroach unduly upon their rights. .Of course, it may be said - and quite correctly - that if the Opposition feel aggrieved they have the right of moving dissent from the Speaker’s ruling. But that is an extreme step, which very few honorable members feel inclined to take, and which will not be resorted to unless it is considered that some exceptionally harsh or unjust ruling has been given from the Chair. There is also the obvious disadvantage that very often a motion for dissent from the ruling of Mr. Speaker is decided rather on party lines than on the actual merits of the question. The tendency of the House in a case of that kind would naturally be for the majority - that is the Government - to uphold the ruling, especially if it were to the disadvantage of the minority. May I refer, by way of illustration, to a case in which a ruling was given to the effect that members of the Opposition had no right to discuss either a motion or an amendment before the House, but were confined to discussing a blank ? That ruling made discussion absolutely impossible. There was a strong disposition on the part of a number of members of the Opposition to resent the ruling given.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order !

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I understood that we were dealing with a question of privilege?

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honorable member must confine his remarks to the question raised by the motion.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I have no desire to go beyond that, but the question of the privilege of members is the basis of the motion, and I thought that I might be allowed to refer to an incident that occurred as illustrating what may happen when, as a result of a ruling, discussion is rendered a practical impossibility. I am glad that the honorable member for Capricornia and the honorable member for Batman have shown a desire to resist any encroachments upon the rights and privileges of honorable membersI have more than once expressed my view that we should not permit any such encroachment, except upon very extreme provocation, and should even then be extremely chary about doing so. I have already said that the Opposition have sometimes felt inclined to take exception to the rulings given from the Chair. We have not had recourse to the method of moving dissent from’ a ruling, because we have felt that it would be futile to do so. There were also other reasons - perhaps personal regard for

Mr. Speaker himself, as well as a natural disinclination to call his authority in question. Consequently, we have sometimes put up with what we deemed to be an injustice and an infringement of our rights rather than take the step’ permitted by the Standing Orders. But when the honorable member for Batman talks about resenting encroachments upon the right of free speech, I should like to ask him how long he has been of that opinion? It is not long since he voted for a limitation upon the speeches of honorable members. In that way, certainly, an encroachment was made upon the right of free speech. It may be that the honorable member would reply that the House itself imposed a limitation upon its own powers. But that is not quite the correct view, because what happened was that the majority who did not want its measures examined and criticised imposed its will upon the minority. I cannot help thinking it is a pity that we in this House have not yet’ a proper set of Standing Orders. We have not yet had an opportunity of deciding for ourselves what shall be the rules of the House. We are still working under temporary Standing Orders, and much has to be left to the discretion of Mr. Speaker. Where the Standing Orders do not make specific provision, resort has to be had, as far as possible, to rules laid down in May’s Parliamentary Practice. I have not always been able to reconcile rules contained in May with some of the conflicting rulings that have been given here, nor to reconcile rulings on the same point given from the Chair in this House. As to who should be the authority on matters of order, I take it that, unquestionably, Mr. Speaker should be. He is the authority who is called upon at the moment to give a ruling on any question of order that may be raised, but, of course, the House itself never parts with its own power, and can always decide for itself in respect to the decisions of Mr. Speaker. The House itself is the final authority. I agree with the honorable member for Wentworth in what he said concerning the statement of Mr. Speaker, that if a motion like that of the honorable member for Capricornia were permitted to be submitted, there would be no finality to the discussions that would be raised. I do not know of any practice recorded in May, or any rule in our Standing Orders, which gives authority to Mr. Speaker to determine the conduct of business or the finality of discussion. The persons ultimately responsible for the conduct of the business of the House are the Government of the day, and any one, whether he be a member of the Opposition or Mr. Speaker himself, who takes the conduct of business out of the hands of the Government practically carries a motion of censure upon them. In that case, it is for the Government to hand in their resignations to His Excellency the Governor-General. It is not for Mr. Speaker, but for the Government, to determine upon the conduct and duration of business in this House. It is not for Mr. Speaker to determine upon the matter of finality in any discussion. The House has already decided upon that matter by the inclusion in the Standing Orders of what is known as the “ gag “ and by the limitation of the duration of speeches.

Mr Fisher:

– What is the “gag”?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– I should be sorry to offend the susceptibilities of the Prime Minister, but I thought he was the one honorable member in this House who, more than any other, would be particularly acquainted with that term, seeing that he took such an active part in making the “ gag “ part of our Standing Orders.

Mr Roberts:

– Seeing that he was subjected to the “ gag “ so unfairly.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– That is a matter of opinion. I say again that I regret that the House has not yet had an opportunity of dealing with the Standing Orders. This Parliament has been in existence over eleven years, and we are still working under temporary Standing OrdersI think it would be a good thing, even in this session, seeing that the business is proceeding so rapidly, if the Government would afford an opportunity for a review of the Standing Orders, and let the House decide upon what procedure is to govern its actions.

Mr HIGGS:
Capricornia

.- The honorable member for Darling Downs quoted May to show that the Speaker of the House of Commons had the power to interfere with motions. He read this passage

When a notice, publicly given, is obviously irregular or unbecoming, the Speaker has interposed and the notice is not received in that form.

Was there anything irregular or unbecoming about the words of the notice of motion which I proposed to read?

Mr Scullin:

Mr. Speaker has to decide that.

Mr HIGGS:

– But if Mr. Speaker was in the position to decide whether the notice was obviously irregular or unbecoming, was he right in ruling it out of order? I am not at all surprised that the members of the Opposition think that the notice wasobviously irregular and unbecoming. It was a motion attacking them - gibing at them, as it has been put. No wonder that they support the view that it was obviously unbecoming to say anything about the Opposition. They should be allowed, apparently, to take up the time to an unlimited extent. May also points out that the Speaker - has also directed that a notice of motion should not be printed as being obviously designed merely to give annoyance.

Why did not the honorable member for Darling Downs mention the footnote to this page of May, and quote the case where the Speaker of the House of Commons decided not to allow a notice of motion toappear on the business-paper because it was obviously intended to cause annoyance ? The footnote reads as follows -

Notice of a return of the conviction of Mr.. King-Harman for an assault, 21st February,. 1888.

If I desired to draw attention by calling for a return showing where a member of the House, if there was such a member, had been guilty of an assault outside, anybody would be able to say that my motionwas designed merely to cause annoyance to that particular member in his private capacity. I was not dealing with honorable members opposite in their private capacity. I was dealing with them on their public actions and public speeches. While I am indebted to the Prime Minister for the support which he gives to my motion by saying that he considers that Mr. Speaker was wrong in not allowing me to read the notice of motion-

Mr Kelly:

– Does the honorable member say that the Prime Minister is not supporting the Chair?

Mr HIGGS:

– The Prime Minister said he thought that Mr. Speaker made a mistake in not allowing me to read the noticeof motion. I dare say that if Mr. Speaker had allowed me to do that, we could have got over the difficulty in some other way. But it seemed to me that Mr. Speaker, having intervened to prevent me from reading the notice, in order to avoid admitting a mistake, had to rule the whole thing out of order. That is the point. The honorable member foi Wentworth said that Mr. Speaker ought to be invested with some authority to prevent honorable members from moving motions of a frivolous character and taking up the time of the House. He also said that Mr. Speaker ought to have it in his power to decide whether he would admit motions which could not lead to anything. The Leader of the Opposition submitted a motion which could not lead to anything, except something to which I shall refer afterwards. That motion occupied the time of this House for no less than twenty-eight days.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917

– And it was time very well spent.

Mr HIGGS:

– Why was it well spent? The ordinary practice, sir, as you will admit, if it be desired to censure a Government, is to give notice of a motion that the Government no longer possesses the confidence of this House. That is all that was; in any of the motions which have ever had any business in them. That is the simple form which they have taken. In my opinion, the Leader of the Opposition had in his mind the same thing as I had in my mind when he submitted his motion. When he thought that the House had no longer any confidence in the Ministry, what did he do? He prepared a placard, a long list of charges-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The honorable member is now going beyond his motion.

Mr HIGGS:

– I am not discussing whether the charges of the Leader of the Opposition were right or not - whether the Government were guilty of grossly partisan appointments or not. I am only discussing the terms of his motion to show the House that what he was aiming at I was aiming at. He was desirous of putting this party before the country and holding them up to ridicule and contempt. I was desirous of doing the same thing in regard to honorable members opposite.

Mr Finlayson:

– And you would have had an easier job.

Mr HIGGS:

– I believe I would. It is unfortunate for me that this question has to be decided on the notice of motion which I gave concerning the Opposition. Apparently, honorable members on the -other side are not able to dissociate themselves from the party. I have no feeling in this matter. I sincerely hope that the

House will protect the privileges, the powers, and the immunities of individual members. This nation of ours is going to grow into a mighty nation. The parties that are here now will be a mere circumstance to the parties thai will arise in Australia when it has twenty, or shirty, or forty millions of people. . We shall have large parties here without a doubt. There may be men, representing only a very small section of the community, and holding very much more advanced ideas than we do; they may come forward with proposals which other members may consider are of a frivolous or objectionable character. If the House gives this power to Mr. Speaker, he may be influenced, perhaps, by the fact that he has a large party to support him, because the tendency of parties is to support the Chair always. Mr. Speaker may, on account of having the support of the majority, be inclined to do a wrong thing to an individual member. In my opinion, there is no loss of dignity to the House or to Mr. Speaker in permitting an individual member to give notice of any motion he likes to introduce, provided that it is couched in ordinary parliamentary language. I hope that honorable members will decide this question, not on a party basis, but on the grounds which I have stated.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I should like to say a few words before the question is put. The motion moved by the honorable member for Capricornia this afternoon” has relation to action taken by me last week when the honorable member was reading a notice of motion. I intervened when the honorable member had read about half of his notice of motion, and thereupon he deliberately turned his back upon me, and refused to obey my call to order, thus committing one of the greatest offences that a member can commit. That matter, however, has been dealt with. As to whether the honorable member was in order in giving the notice of motion which he was reading, I wish to say, first, that my intervention was due solely to a desire to guard the privileges of honorable members, and I have been pleased to hear those who have spoken in favour of the motion now under discussion say that they did not support it because of. any personal feeling in regard to me. I appreciate the consideration that prompted that assurance. It is the duty of every honorable member who thinks that a ruling from the Chair is not in accordance with the Standing

Orders, nor likely to conduce to the proper conduct of debate, to take an opportunity to have it discussed, so that the point at issue may be settled definitely by the House itself. Questions of relevancy, however, are entirely for the Speaker to determine, even though nine times out of ten he might be wrong. The determination of such questions by the House would be impracticable. It must be remembered, moreover, that any one making a speech has many ways of evading a ruling in regard to relevancy - I may have been guilty myself of doing so in the past: - but it is the duty of the presiding officer to see that the Standing Order on the subject is obeyed. The point involved in my action of last week is not dealt with by any standing order, nor has it arisen in the practice of the House of Commons, nor of the Parliament of any other Englishspeaking community, so that it was left for me to deal with it by the application of common sense. The House is now asked to say whether in its opinion J did right or wrong. In my view, were I to permit of notice being given of a motion of the character of that which the honorable member for Capricornia wished to place on the business-paper, it would be impossible for me to prevent notice being given of a similar motion next day, and on subsequent sittings, until there would ‘ be so many notices of motion of the kind on the business-paper that the ordinary notices of motion would be lost sight of. The Standing Orders being silent on the subject, and there being no precedent in May, Bourinot, or other parliamentary authorities, it was my duty to decide the question as I thought proper. Every Speaker and every Chairman of Committees must from time to time give such a ruling on his own responsibility. Had a member of the Opposition risen in his place, and asked if the motion were in order, I should have had to give a ruling on the point, and the position then created would have been similar to that which came about as the result of my independent intervention. I saw clearly that if I allowed the notice of motion to be read, I could not prevent another honorable member from reading a similar notice of motion, censuring, perhaps, some member of the House other than the Leader of the Opposition. It is immaterial that the notice of motion was levelled against the Leader of the Opposition ; I should have taken the same course had it been levelled against the

Government, a Minister, or any individual member. When the Leader “of the Opposition gives notice of a motion of censure he takes an action very different from that which the honorable member for Capricornia wished to take, because if his motion is carried the Government, as a consequence, must leave office. The carrying of a motion like that of the honorable member for Capricornia would have no such effect. Indeed, the carrying of the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia would have had no effect whatever. Therefore, there is no similarity between his motion and that of an ordinary motion of censure. Were I to prevent the Leader of the Opposition from giving notice of a motion of censure I should exceed my powers. ,In this connexion I would remind the House of the standing order which says that an honorable member may not put questions to other honorable members who are not Ministers, except as to business of which they have charge. The reason for this standing order is that were one honorable member allowed to put questions of a personal or controversial nature to any other honorable member, the time of Parlia- ment might be entirely taken up with such questions. There is a connexion Bet ween that rule and the action which I took last week, but I do not lay stress upon it. What honorable members have now to consider is what is the best rule to follow in this matter for the proper conduct of our proceedings. I think that my action was the right one in the interest of the orderly conduct of debate, but, of course, I am in the hands of the House, and must do what it orders. It is true, as the honorable member for Capricornia has pointed out, that we are guided not only by the Standing Orders, but also by precedent and custom, and that when I give a ruling, establishing a new precedent, the House iaaf liberty to dissent from it, in which case I must follow another course. It is no reflection upon me should the House in its wisdom desire me to alter my ruling; I am not so egotistical as to think that my individual wisdom is greater than the collective wisdom of honorable members. But in this case I warn the House that should the motion of the honorable member for Capricornia be carried, I shall be compelled to permit every honorable member who desires to do so to place on the notice-paper motions similar to that which, he desired to” read.

Mr Bamford:

– At the commencement of the debate, Mr. Speaker, you said that the honorable member was infringing one of the Standing Orders, the number of which I forget, and that he should have given notice of dissent from your ruling at once in writing, when the debate would have taken place on the following day. Are we to understand that, having allowed the debate to take place so long after the period mentioned, we are establishing a precedent ?

Mr SPEAKER:

– When the honorable member for Capricornia brought up the question of my previous ruling he saw that he was not in order in following the course he proposed, and to put himself in order he read the motion he intended to move, so that the matter might be before the House. In such case the honorable member should have given notice in writing, and the debate would have taken place to-morrow; but I desired, and the honorable member concurred - and, I understand, the House assented to that course - to allow the debate to proceed at once.

Question - That the motion be agreed to - put. The House divided.

AYES: 12

NOES: 35

AYES

NOES

Majoriy … … 23

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 3933

QUESTION

WHARFAGE CHARGES, PORT AUGUSTA

Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925

asked the Minister of Home Affairs, upon notice -

Whether the charges made by the South Australian Railways Commissioner against the Federal Government for wharfage and other services at Port Augusta are not those specified in the agreement between the Commonwealth Government and the Government of South Australia for working the railway and other transferred properties?

Mr KING O’MALLEY:
ALP

– The charges for portion of the work are those specified in the agreement, and for the remainder a special charge is being made, no provision having been included in the agreement.

page 3933

QUESTION

TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE LINES

Mr JOHN THOMSON:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

  1. How many approved telegraph and telephone lines are now delayed in erection in New South Wales owing to the necessary wire not being available?
  2. What quantity of 500 lbs., 400 lbs., 200. lbs., 150 lbs., 60 lbs. per mile galvanized-iron wire will be required by the PostmasterGeneral’s Department in New South Wales during C the present financial year?
  3. What arrangements have been made for making the quantity required available other than the acceptance of. the tender of Rabone Feez and Co., Sydney, referred to in the Commonwealth Gazette of 28th September last, for supplying 75 tons, 75 tons, 60 tons, 100 tons,, and 7 tons of the above sizes respectively?
  4. When will delivery be effected?
  5. Does he consider the policy of buying fromhand to mouth in small parcels as mentioned above is either economical or calculated to add to expedition in the erection of lines?
  6. Will the Postmaster-Generul take steps to appoint a buyer of material for his Department in England, so that the best prices with regular delivery may be secured?
Mr THOMAS:
for Mr. Frazer · ALP

– Inquiries are being made, and the desiredinformation will be furnished as early aspossible.

page 3933

QUESTION

BOUNTY ON WOOL-TOPS

Mr FULLER:

asked the Minister of

Trade and Customs, upon notice -

  1. Is it a fact that the bonus on wool topsof£10,000 per annum is about double the amount paid in wages in the industry?
  2. Is it a fact that the effect so far of the bonus on wool tops, amounting to over£30,000 of public money, has been threefold, viz. : -

    1. Cheap tops to the Japanese?
    2. Dividends at 10 per cent. and 6 per cent. to combing mills and meat company shareholders ?
    3. Girl labour with odd overseers in oneor two combing mills ?
  3. Is it a fact that one top-making company during the twelve months ended 30th June last received something like , £10,000 or£1 1,000 of this bonus, and at the same time guaranteed to buy a subsidiary company’s (the Colonial Meat Export Company) sheepskins at such a price as would pay a dividend to the meat company of 10 per cent, per annum?
  4. Is it a fact that a portion of the£10,000 or£ 1 1,000 bonus by the Federal Government has been applied indirectly to pay the dividend in the Colonial Meat Export Company?
  5. If so, is the effect of this to place the guaranteed meat company in a position to crushingly compete against any (and, in fact, all) small buyers of sheep at Flemington, Sydney, New South Wales?
  6. Will he, before continuing the bounty, have a searching inquiry made into the whole industry, and report the result of such inquiry to this House ?
Mr TUDOR:
ALP

– -Information as to details referred to in the honorable member’s questions will, so far as practicable, be obtained, and reply made as soon as possible.

page 3934

QUESTION

NORTHERN TERRITORY LANDS ORDINANCE

Mr GROOM:

asked the Minister of External Affairs, upon notice -

Has the Minister given any instruction to suspend for the time being the granting of applications for leases under the Crown Lands Ordinance (Northern Territory)?

Mr THOMAS:
ALP

– No leases are being granted at present. None will be issued until the new Lands Ordinance becomes law,

page 3934

QUESTION

STORAGE OF ELECTORAL DOCUMENTS

Mr JOHN THOMSON:

asked the Minister of Home Affairs, upon notice -

  1. What provision, if any, has been made to house the index and application cards for the” enrolment of electors necessary for the identification of the signatures of electors, also other equally valuable electoral documents, in a building with sufficient fire-proof accommodation to insure their safety?
  2. If no provision has been made, will he take immediate steps in that direction?
Mr KING O’MALLEY:
ALP

– The cards are, in some States, stored in substantial buildings, the property of the Commonwealth, which are used as Commonwealth offices; and in other States, in buildings which are considered good fire risks. Owing to the fact that constant reference has to be made to the cards, and for other reasons, it has so far been difficult to secure a fire-proof room in the latter States ; but I am giving the whole matter consideration.

page 3934

PAPERS

MINISTERS laid on the table the following papers : -

Defence Act - Regulations Amended (Provisional) -

Military College - New Regulation - Statutory Rules 1912, No. 191.

Military Forces - Financial and Allowance Regulations -

Statutory Rules1912, Nos. 190, 192.

Public Service Act - List of Permanent Officers of the Commonwealth Public Service, as on 30th June, 1912.

Public Service Act - Department of Home Affairs - Appointment of H. W. Barker to new office of Draughtsman, Class E, Professional Division, Public Works Branch, Central Staff.

page 3934

SUPPLY BILL (No. 3)

Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie Railway: Rails and Sleepers : Tenders for Machinery : Appointments : Government Stores - Governor-General’s Residence in Sydney - Northern Territory: Land and Railways Policy: Settlement - Sugar Industry : Arbitration: Bounty and Excise - Maternity Allowance Bill: Criticism in “ Hobart Mercury “ - Article in “The Labour Call” - Bonus for Wool-tops - Telephone Extensions - Electoral Enrolment and Population Statistics - Testing of Explosives - Immigration - Nationalization - Defence : Compulsory Training.

In Committee of Supply:

Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP

– I move -

That a sum not exceeding£2,252,661 be granted to His Majesty for or towards defraying the services of the year ending 30th June, 1913. The Supply Bill which this motion is intended to introduce has been circulated among honorable members for about a week. They will see that we are asking for an amount which it is expected will carry us on until the passing of the Appropriation Bill. If the House passes the three months' Supply asked for, we shall be able to avoid the necessity of coming down month by month to ask for Supply. The proposal is quite in accordance with precedent when we have got well on with the business of the session. It will be an advantage to have arranged for this Supply until the Estimates for the current year have been considered. The Bill is based on last year's Estimates, and! provision is made for a Treasurer's Advance to cover exceptional circumstances. {: #debate-16-s1 .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST:
Swan .- I regret the absence, through indisposition, of the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that the honorable gentleman will soon be in his place again. We have to avail ourselves of this Supply motion to speak generally in regard to matters we consider of importance which it would not have been necessary to refer to on this occasion if private members' business had not been superseded. I am sure that the Leader of the House will recognise that we are entitled to take advantage of this opportunity to discuss, not merely matters included in the Bill, but other matters which we consider of public importance. In asking for Supply to be granted for three months, I think that the Government are asking for more than is warranted, under the circumstances. Of course, the Treasurer always finds it convenient to obtain Supply for as long" a time as possible, but it must be remembered that the Opposition naturally desire the House to retain control of the finances. There is no reason why the Government should ask for a grant of three months' Supply, seeing that, when they were in Opposition, they always objected to granting Supply for a longer period than one month. I recollect that the Treasurer, on one occasion, when the Government of which I was Treasurer asked the House to authorize the grant of two months' Supply, characterized the request as an extraordinary, if not an unprecedented one. I think the Prime Minister will recognise that, if Supply be granted for three months, he will deprive honorable members of some of their opportunities for criticism. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- We are providing an opportunity for the Opposition to appeal to the country, if they get a chance. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- I do not think we have much chance of going to the country for a little while yet. I wish now to touch upon a few questions of public importance. The first has reference to the extraordinary delay which is occurring in the work of constructing the Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta railway. J have no desire to be captious - in fact, I wish to assist the Government all I can in pushing forward that great undertaking. But, seeing that the Bill authorizing the construction of the line was passed nearly a year ago, it does seem strange that no provision has yet been made for the delivery of rails or sleepers on the ground. At Kalgoorlie,, no work is being done, apart from that, which is being accomplished by a few surveyors. I venture to say that there are not more than twenty men employed there. We have not yet been told whether the railshave been even ordered. Certainly, there arenone upon the water. I believe that anarrangement is in progress under which some locally-rolled rails will be obtained at Lithgow and, although the prices which, will, have to be paid for them will probably be greater than those at which we could purchase them elsewhere, the additional' payment of what will practically amount to a bonus upon their local production will be amply justified. My complaint is that the Government are not making sufficient progress. There are no sleepers, no rails., and no plant upon the ground. {: .speaker-K9R} ##### Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Has not the honorable member heard of any sleepers being; ordered ? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- There are no sleepers on the ground, although there area good many hewers of sleepers in Western' Australia. The Government have given- themselves an immense amount of troubleby endeavouring to carry out this work, themselves. There is not very much difference between day labour and contract labour, because, after all, the contractorhas to employ day labour. My chief objection to the day-labour system is that it throws too much detailed work upon theGovernment. I undertook great public works in Western Australia by day labour, notably the Fremantle harbor works and' the Coolgardie water works, so that I havehad experience of the day-labour system on> works that can easily be supervised. I believe that great delay will result from the Government endeavouring todo all this work themselves instead of distributing it under a system which would relieve them of attention to details. Then a most extraordinary decision hasbeen arrived at in regard to the use of karri timber. I hope that the powellizing system will prove eminently successful ; but I fail to see the wisdom of preferring karri sleepers to jarrah for this important undertaking. In saying this, I am advocatingalso the interests of the manual labourers - of the men who hew these sleepers. In Western Australia there is a powerful association known as the Hewers'" Association - a co-operative enterprise - which supplies these sleepers.- My' desire is to obtain the best wood suitable for the purpose at the cheapest possible price. In advocating the use of jarrah in preference to karri, I am acting in the interests of the stability of the work, and also in the interests of the sleeper hewers of Western Australia, many of whom are to be found in my own constituency. I have no hesitation in saying that jarrah sleepers can be supplied as cheaply, if not more cheaply, than can karri. They have a more solidly established reputation- {: .speaker-K9R} ##### Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Have the Government ordered some sleepers? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- They say that they have. I read the other day a statement by the Premier of Western Australia that his Government had sold to' the Commonwealth 1,500,000 sleepers. When I asked the Minister of Home Affairs a question in regard to that statement, he informed me that he would give me the information in a few days. {: .speaker-K9R} ##### Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- He told the honorable member the same thing as appeared in the press. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- Then we ought to see the contract. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- The honorable member may see it. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- In preferring karri to jarrah we are taking an unnecessary risk. We know very well that jarrah untreated is vastly superior to karri untreated. If powellized karri is better than unpowellized, then jarrah, if powellized, would be very much better than powellized karri. The only reason I can give for this action on the part of the Government is that it is anxious to assist the Labour party in Western Australia to establish State sawmills. It seems to me that there must be some idea of the kind in view, but I fail to see how it can be of any advantage to the country. I desire now to refer to a matter to which reference has already been made this afternoon, and which has become a question of public importance. I refer to the position in regard to the Governor-General's residence in Sydney. A good many questions have been asked, and there has been a good deal of discussion in the press in regard to it; but it is to be regretted that the difficulty ever arose, as it ought to have been very easy for the Government to have satisfactorily arranged the matter. I fail to see why it should have been left to the Governor-General to say that he was advised before he came here, and also by Ministers after his arrival, that, when in Sydney, he should try to effect an amicable arrangement with the State Government in regard to the matter. lt is not a matter on which the GovernorGeneral should have been called upon to intervene, save to inform the Prime Minister of his desires in regard to his public duties or personal comfort. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Seeing that I have already answered a question dealing with the matter I do not think that it should now be discussed. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- I propose to discuss it solely as it affects the Government, as I hold that the right honorable member's Government are wholly to blame in this matter. Instead of shielding the Governor-General, as they are bound to do, they have humiliated him. What right have we to expect the State of New South Wales to provide free of rent a residence for the Governor-General? Do we provide the State Governments with any service free of charge ? I do not know that we do. I do know, however, that we impose duty on goods imported by the States - upon the very rails imported by them for the development of the Commonwealth. There is a case in point in my own State. The Government of Western Aus-" tralia will have to expend nearly a million in order to continue the Trans-Australian railway on a 4 ft. 8j-in. gauge from Kalgoorlie to Fremantle, and will have to pay an enormous sum by way of duty on the rails required for what is really a great national work - the work of connecting Western Australia with Eastern Australia by means of a broad gauge railway. Then, again, we charge the State Governments postage on all their postal matter, and for their telegraphs and telephones. It seems to me that the time has arrived when the Commonwealth Government and the Governments of the States, working in the closest amity, should pay each other for services rendered. I fail to understand why the Commonwealth Government should refuse to pay rental for the use of Government House, Sydney, if they really desire the Governor-General to have a residence in that city. It looks very much as if " the Caucus " did not desire the GovernorGeneral to retain a residence there. If they were at all anxious in the matter, do honorable members think that they would not be prepared to pay .£3,500 per annum for' the use of the State Government House ? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- Did the Government of which the right honorable member was a member pay any rent for that building? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- We were never asked to do so. Had a request been made, I should have advised the Cabinet not only to pay rent for that residence, but to pay for every service rendered bv the States. The only safe plan on which good understandings can be arrived at and maintained is for the Commonwealth Government and the State Governments to pay for services rendered by the one to the other. {: .speaker-KFP} ##### Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925 -- Does not the right honorable member think that the New South Wales Government is a good deal at fault in this matter? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- I am not aware of any fault which attaches to them in connexion with their demand that rent should be paid for the use of Government House. We have taken away from the States a good deal of their revenue that they formerly obtained. Instead of paying the States *£2* 10s. per head of their population as we used to do up to 19 10 we are now paying them only 25s. per head of population. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Who took away that larger revenue? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- The right honorable member's Government. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Whose agreement was it that provided for a payment of 25s. a head? {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- The agreement that we proposed was not at all in accord with the arrangement made by the right honorable member. Under the present arrangement the States have been impoverished, while the Commonwealth has been placed in an affluent position. During the last three years, owing to the alteration, consequent on the termination of the Braddon section, the Commonwealth has received £14,000,000 which would, if the alteration had not been made, have gone to the States. It seems to me to be the height of meanness for the Commonwealth Government to try to make excuses for not paying a rental of £3,500 a year for such a magnificent residence as is the State Government House, Sydney. The only inference I can draw from the attiture of the Commonwealth Government, or rather " the Caucus " that controls it, is that they do not wish the Governor- General to remain in Sydney. If they did they would have at once agreed to pay the moderate rental asked for the residence. If the Government of Victoria demand a rental for the use of Parliament House and for the occupation of Government House by the Governor-General, will the Commonwealth Government take up the same attitude, and refuse to pay any rental? {: .speaker-L1P} ##### Mr Wise: -- The difference is that Melbourne is, and will be, the Seat of Government, until we go to the Federal Capital. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- And there is the further difference that the Victorian State Government have not asked for any rental. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- The honorable member for Gippsland surely does not wish to argue that, because Melbourne is the Seat of Government, the State should provide the Federal Parliament with a Parliament House free of rent? {: .speaker-L1P} ##### Mr Wise: -- No; because the State was good enough to offer the use of this building free of rent. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- The only inference to be drawn from the honorable member's interjection is that, because Melbourne is the Seat of Government, the State is bound to provide us with a Parliament House and the Governor-General with a residence free of charge. If I were Premier of the State, I should demand a rental. I should say to the Commonwealth, " You must pay me for all services, rendered, as you expect my Government to pay for postage, Customs duty, and all services rendered." {: .speaker-L1P} ##### Mr Wise: -- The right honorable member never offered to pay for these buildings all the years that he was in office, although his Government was making the charges to which he refers, just as they are being made to-day. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- We did not go about looking for demands. If the State Government had made a demand for pay-' ment, I should have advised their being paid. As a matter of fact, whilst we were in office, we paid to the States many thousands of pounds for the Governor-General's travelling expenses by rail, covering a period of several years, and payment is being made at the present time. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- This is a public incitement to rebellion. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir JOHN FORREST: -- It is an incitement to the Government to do their duty ; to pay what they ought to pay, and not to expect the States, whose revenues have been depleted by£14,000,000 during the last three years to give us, free of rent, a residence for the Governor-General or the use of any public building. If there is any one to blame for the situation that has arisen in this regard, it is the Government themselves. I repeat that the only inference I can draw is that "the Caucus" does not wish the Governor-General to have a residence in Sydney. The New South Wales Government are only acting reasonably in demanding a moderate rental for the use of Government House by the Governor-General, and are justified in asking the Commonwealth to pay for any service rendered by them. *Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m.* {: #debate-16-s2 .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM:
Darling Downs .- I am sorry the Prime Minister has found it necessary to make a demand for practically three months' Supply. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- It is the usual thing. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- It is not. The usual period has been two months. It means that for three months we are practically putting it out of the power of the House to have redress of any grievances. That is an unprecedented demand to make of any House, especially when it is remembered that the House is now practically having a continuous sitting from 3 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon until 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon without a break of any description, except a little for sleep. An unfortunate delay is taking place in putting before the House the land policy for the development of the Northern Territory. That is one of the most pressing matters with which we can deal. The land policy which was developed previously was put before the House and fully discussed, and now is put aside. There are only about ten weeks of time during which the House can sit this session, yet we have no indication of any land policy being likely to be placed before us. This is unfortunate also because we see, from a statement made by the Minister this afternoon, that for the time being it is necessary to hang up the whole policy of land settlement in the Territory, and applications cannot be dealt with. The granting of leases has of necessity had to be suspended, because had leases been granted contractual rights would have been conferred which we should have had to recognise. I realize that it was essential to suspend the policy for the time being, but there has been a long delay in getting going again. It means that the regulations have to be reframed and be sent out before people will be able to take advantage, of them, and a delay of several months must take place in land settlement. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- There is not a delay of a day. After the lands are surveyed we have to advertise them. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- First, regulations must be made, so that people may know the rights they are going to obtain in the Territory. The whole of that time has been lost, but I hope the Minister will realize the position in which he is putting the Territory, and press matters forward in order to get the land policy of the Government before the House as soon as possible. There is another unsatisfactory feature in connexion with the administration of the Territory. About March last the Minister announced that it was his policy to appoint a number of experts to inquire into the question of the railway policy for that part of Australia. The matter came before the House again the other day", and again the same policy was promised. Yet here we are in October, without even an announcement having been made as to who are to constitute the Commission. All this valuable time is being lost to the development of the Territory. We are continuing to run it under its heavy obligations, with a large staff of officials, who, by virtue of the delay in its development and settlement, are not being given the opportunity of working to their fullest capacity. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- Are they not? Ask them whether they are working to their full capacity. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- They cannot possibly have had opportunities for doing so. We hear of a State school inspector about to be appointed at a salary of *£500* or£600 a year, for a few schools. How is it possible to say that men in such positions will be working to their fullest capacity? I urge the Minister not to delay any longer, but to press forward the Commission, and as soon as possible to let us have some developmental policy for the whole of the Northern Territory. I hope he will understand that I am not raising these points in a spirit of mere captious criticism. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- Oh, no; you must say something ! {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- When the Minister gives us such an opportunity to say something, we should be guilty of a breach of duty if we did not bring these matters under notice. Although we are sitting in Opposition, we are not without our duty to the country. We have still this large Territory in our possession, and we have not had evidence from the Government of any strong forward policy for its development. It is a fair thing for the Minister to indicate why these two great matters of land settlement, and the appointment of a Royal Commission to push this forward policy along, have been so much delayed. We must all admit that, without a railway policy, we cannot expect those regions towards the interior, that are capable of carrying large quantities of stock, to be properly settled, or worked to their full extent. The announcement of the Prime Minister this afternoon must cause a good deal of disappointment to the sugar growers. When asked as to the Government's policy, with regard to the sugar industry, the Prime Minister mentioned the desirableness of having the Constitution altered so that the Industrial Court might have power to fix other matters than the question of wages. I take that to mean the power to fix the price of cane or other commodities. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Any question submitted to it between two parties in the deal. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- Any matter in dispute, as regards, for instance, the fair price lo be paid by the sugar mill to the grower? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Certainly, and the sugargrowers are in favour of that. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The Prime Minister, and those associated with him, did not wait until a tribunal could be endowed with all powers to deal with these questions. The trouble at the present time is that one factor of the sugar problem was disturbed without any effort being made to adjust the equities of the other factors. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- The only thing we had power to deal with we have dealt with. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The Prime Minister is wrong. The Government have power to do two things, without any alteration to the Constitution, in order to meet the case of the sugar-growers. They have power to equalize the bounty and Excise, and they have power to abolish the bounty and Excise. Either of these things could have been done under the existing power*. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- There is not much protection in that suggestion ! {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- It is what the sugargrowers themselves are asking for. All the Government have done up to the present has been to increase the cost of pro duction to the grower, and give him no possibility of getting an increased price for the article that he produces. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- The retail price of sugar to the public has been very much increased.: {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I am dealing, not with the retailing of sugar, but with the cane grown by the grower. I *am* not discussing the fairness or unfairness of the wages. But there are several factors to consider in connexion with the sugar problem. There is first the grower, without whom the industry could not be carried on. Secondly, there is the worker, who is also necessary. Then you must have the sugar miller, the refiner, and, last of all, the consumer. The interests of all those five factors must be considered. At present, we are dealing with one factor, the worker. His remuneration has been' increased, and the grower has no possibility of improving his position. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- He had twelvemonths'' notice. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- How can twelve months' notice enable a man who gets only a certain, price for his cane to improve his position, when you increase the wages which he has to pay? The cost of production has been increased, and if there are any means by which you can give some compensation tothe grower, they should be adopted. The Prime Minister need not wait for an alteration of the Constitution to do this. I should not like to take it from what the right honorable gentleman said to-day that he has made a final pronouncement of policy for this Parliament. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Is the honorable member objecting to the wages? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The Prime Minister has evidently not been listening to the debate. Apparently, he takes so little interest inthe sugar industry that he does not pay attention to what is said ; because that remark is absolutely unfair. The Prime Minister is usually fair, and if he had listened, he would have heard me say twice that I am not objecting to the wages. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- The honorable member does not understand the position himself, and he thinks that every one else is in the same position. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I am sorry that the Prime Minister should descend to misrepresentations. It is a pity that he has not followed the debate sufficiently to pay the usual courtesies to those taking part in it. I am sorry to say this, because the Prime Minister and myself have hitherto always been able to carry on discussions without personalities. I hope this remark will close the incident as far as we are concerned. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Mr Higgs: -- What does the honorable member suggest? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The honorable member for Capricornia sent a telegram to the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Bundaberg, as follows - >Am by no means certain that abolition of Excise and bounty will improve the growers' position ; but if the sugar-growers of Bundaberg and district in public meeting unanimously carry a resolution in favour of the abolition of the Excise and bounty, and the Queensland Parliament passes legislation prohibiting alien labour in the sugar industry, i will support the abolition of the Excise and bounty. Apologising for delay. It is only fair at this stage to remember that the Premier of Queensland wrote the following letter to the Prime Minister - >Chief Secretary's Office, > >Brisbane, 5th September,1912. **Sir,** - I have the honour to inform you that my colleague, the Treasurer, on his return to Brisbane, communicated to me (1) your expressed opinion that it would make for the welfare of the sugar industry if both Excise and bounty were abolished, (2) that you would do your best to influence your colleagues to take the same view; and, if successful, would, next session, introduce Bills for the repeal of so much of the Excise and bounty sections as applied to the sugar industry. While thanking you for this attitude on the question, I must say I was not unprepared for the information, as I was aware you had on former occasions expressed yourself similarly thereon. Whatever co-operation I can give you in the matter will be cheerfully rendered, for I am fully satisfied that along such lines as you suggest lies the only solution of the difficulties which have to be met. I hope, therefore, you will be able to prevail on your colleagues to take action in the direction mentioned, and to take it during the current session of Parliament, for delaying it until next year would entail very serious consequences on the industry, and, among other evils, the intensifying of the present feeling of uncertainty and unrest in those connected with it. If you can give me your assurance on this point I shall undertake to introduce legislation prohibiting Asiatic aliens from engaging or working in the industry, and compensating, such aliens as may be *bond fide* owners or leaseholders of land now under sugar-cane. The people of Australia desire the sugar industry to be a white-labour one, and I gladly give my support to any arrangement which will insure the realization of that desire. It is also their wish that this industry should pay the white labourer the highest wage consistent with its prosperity, and the better to achieve that end, I shall so enlarge the Industrial Peace Bill as to bring sugar-workers (both field and mill hands) under Industrial Boards. I think that will be the most effective means of protecting their interests. I am informed that you have expressed some doubt as to whether the cane-grower would reap any benefit under the altered conditions. On this point, **Mr. White,** M.L.A., assures me he raised the matter at a meeting of the Sugar Manufacturers' Association, held in Bundaberg on the 2nd September, when it was resolved that, in the event of the Excise and bounty being abolished, the millers will pay the growers of cane 8s. 8d. per ton in place of the 6s. 6d. now paid by the Customs. The Treasurer will also give the growers the full benefit of the difference between Excise and bounty. You are aware of the intention of the Government to erect mills under the Sugar Works Act ign, three of which have been approved, and will involve a total expenditure of ^350,000. Other mills are likely to be pressed upon our attention, but I fear that, in the present unsettled state of the sugar industry, the House will not vote the necessary funds. I have been favoured by an authority, whose opinion may be implicity relied on, with the following reasons for the abolition of the sugar Excise and bounty : - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. That no other primary industry pays Excise. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. That the abolition of the Excise and bounty will place the sugar industry on the same footing as other protected industries in the Commonwealth. 1. That the reason for the Excise on sugar does not now exist, as only about 4 per cent, of last year's crop was grown by coloured labour. 2. That the abolition of the Excise and bounty will not increase the price of sugar to the consumer. 3. That the abolition of Excise and bounty will create a feeling of security in the sugar industry which does not exist at the present time, and will insure its vigorous development, whereas the prevalent uncertainty is causing farmers rather to restrict than extend their operations. 4. That as regards other Australian industries, our foreign rivals are manufacturers of goods produced by white labour, but the sugar industry has to compete with the sugar grown and manufactured by cheap coloured labour in other parts of the world. 5. That nearly all the growers throughout the State have dismissed their employes, other than those engaged in harvesting the present crop, and as the time for spring planting is at hand immediate action must be taken if the industry is to be saved from extinction. I have the honour to be, **Sir,** Your most obedient servant, {: type="A" start="D"} 0. Denham. It is clear that the Premier of Queensland is quite willing to take the action suggested. I may add that the Industrial Peace Bill has been amended on the motion of Colonel Rankin to provide for the creation of the Boards suggested in the letter. The Premier of Queensland is quite willing to insert the prohibition suggested, although it is considered that, as a matter of constitutional right, the Commonwealth has power, under section 51 of the Constitution, to pass laws dealing with alien races. That is the offer that was distinctly made to the Prime Minister, and I am sorry that, so far, no reply has been sent to it. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- It is not an offer, it is a communication ; perfectly *bona fide.* {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I understand that no reply has yet been sent. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Does the honorable member mean that the letter has not been acknowledged ? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- It may have been acknowledged, but no communication has been made as to the policy to be pursued. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- This Parliament will be the first to be informed of that. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- The next move should be made from Brisbane. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- No; the Prime Minister says that this Parliament will first be notified. {: .speaker-JM8} ##### Mr Archibald: -- Why does not the Queensland Government do what is suggested ? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The Queensland Parliament has carried out the first part of the undertaking, and is willing to pass a prohibition in regard to the employment of coloured labour. But it is quite proper to ask whether the Commonwealth Parliament intends to take action. Surely that is a fair inquiry to address to the Prime Minister, seeing that the power of legislating in connexion with the sugar industry rests with this Parliament. {: .speaker-JM8} ##### Mr Archibald: -- Is the industry of no interest to the Queensland Government? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- Of course it is, and it is equally of interest to this Parliament. Is it of no interest to the Commonwealth Government? Surely the honorable member sees that there are mutual obligations resting upon both the State and the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-KNH} ##### Mr Mathews: -- The time of this Parliament is always being taken up with trivial State affairs. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- Does the honorable member consider the sugar industry of Queensland, which employs thousands of people, a trivial affair? Any Australian industry, whether it be located in Victoria or in Queensland, is dear to me. I do not think that the honorable member for Melbourne Ports intended his remark to apply to the sugar industry. {: .speaker-KNH} ##### Mr Mathews: -- I was referring to the present aspect of it. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- It is a fair thing for us to ask those intrusted with power what action they propose to take. The honorable member for Capricornia evidently realized that it was the duty of this Parliament to take action, otherwise he would not have received the communication I am about to read from his constituents. I applaud him for the interest which he showed in this matter. He received the following letter from the Secretary to the Bundaberg Chamber of Commerce - I am directed by the **president (Mr. E. T. Amos)** to acknowledge your wire of the 18th inst. reading as per copy enclosed. Arrangements were immediately made to hold a public meeting this afternoon, and which is just over, and I was desired to send you a copy of a motion and amendment which were brought forward, which I now have much pleasure in doing. The motion reads as follows : - " That this meeting is of the opinion that it is urgent for the preservation of the sugar industry to Australia that the Excise and bounty be abolished at the earliest possible date." The amendment : - " That this meeting is of opinion that the bounty and Excise should be equalized, and that 8s. 8d. should be given back to the grower instead of the 6s. 6d." On the latter being put to the meeting, at which there were over eighty present, only seventeen voted in favour. The original motion was then put, for which fifty-three voted ; it therefore was carried by a very large majority. I am also to mention that, in addition to those present, a written document was handed in at the meeting, signed by fourteen canegrowers in the Yandaran district, and who were unable to attend the meeting, signifying their desire to see the Excise and bounty abolished. The meeting was hurriedly called, as it was desired to reply to your telegram as soon as possible, and many of the growers who live at a distance from Bundaberg, and who only get their mails two or three times a week, could not be communicated with, otherwise we are sure the attendance would have been much larger; and we venture to say the majority in favour of the abolition of the Excise and bounty would have been considerably greater. I should like to point out that in a large meeting of any description it is a particularly hard matter to get any resolution carried unanimously, and would respectfully submit that it this instance, with such a large majority in favour of the abolition of the Excise and bounty, we may legitimately claim your support as our member in the House of Representatives, and ask you to vote in the way indicated. The Honorable the Premier of Queensland having guaranteed the passing of a measure through the State Parliament to prevent the growing of cane by coloured labour, and having also guaranteed to purchase the leases of any alien at present in the industry, there should thus be nothing to prevent the immediate abolition of the Excise and bounty. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Mr Higgs: -- The Prime Minister has these communications, which, I understand, are being considered. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- That is so. The honorable member very properly conveyed the opinion of the growers of the Bundaberg district to the Prime Minister. The secretary to the Isis Primary Producers and Cane-growers Association informs me, in a letter dated 23rd September, that, at a meeting held on the previous Saturday, the Isis cane-growers unanimously passed the following resolution - >That in view of the serious position, of the sugar industry, it is desirable to immediately abolish the Excise and bounty. He writes to me as follows - >I have been instructed to say that this meeting represented at least 75 per cent, of the whole cane-growers of the Isis, and it was exceedingly unanimous. One and all were of the opinion that it would be far better to turn their land to other use than attempt to grow cane profitably to themselves under the present conditions. > >This Association has made a canvass of the Isis, and has ascertained that the effect of the new regulations is such that at the present time there would be over 100 per cent, more men employed here (outside cane-cutters) in the industry than there is; that is to say, we have evidence that 60 per cent, of farm hands have been dispensed with. The two centres to which I have referred are very large and very important, and I presume that other honorable members have received communications expressive of the views of the cane-growers. Here is a telegram which has been published to-day from Mackay - >Between seventy and eighty farmers assembled at the Britannia hall on Saturday to consider the matter of the abolition of the sugar Excise and bounty. Communications were read from eighty-four others expressing themselves in favour of abolition. A motion was agreed to urging abolition of Excise and bounty, and legislation on the part of the State Government to exclude aliens from the industry. All these resolutions point to a policy which can be carried out without waiting for any referenda on the subject, because we have constitutional power at present to act. The resolutions, I repeat, do not refer to any question of lowering wages, but simply put the case of men who, by reason of the increased wages, have been subjected to an increased cost of produc tion. They are simply appealing to their representatives in this Parliament, which alone has the power to remedy the grievance, to put them in a position to meet the additional expenses which they have to bear. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Yes; but what power have we to get these farmers an increased price for the cane? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -r-By repealing the Excise and the bounty, the growers would be in a position to get a higher price for the cane. Further, if honorable members do not want to do that, they can equalize the Excise and the bounty, and retain the existing machinery. That would be doing something for the growers, and that is the line of action suggested by the honorable member for Herbert. If honorable members will equalize the Excise and the bounty, they . will put the growers in the position of having so much per ton bounty in excess of what they get to-day, and, to that extent, give them considerable relief without increasing by a penny the cost of sugar to the consumers. That can easily be done. I ask honorable members to accede to the request of those who are engaged in the industry, and to abolish the Excise and bounty. I have given two or three instances of this feeling. The failure to give relief is having a varying effect. The reports which have been given to the press by the Minister of Trade and Customs show the effect which it is having upon the industry. For instance, referring to Bundaberg, we" read - >Growers who are in a small way are not employing outside labour, but are assisting one another, and in other cases are cutting their own cane with the help of their families. The reports state that it is rumoured in some quarters, unless a lower rate of wages is required bv the Minister, large areas will be allowed to go out of cultivation. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- Then it is a question of wages? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- Do not let the honorable member misunderstand me. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- The Sugar Producers' Association say, in their journal, that they will sack every man they can. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I am speaking on behalf of the small cane-growers. I think that honorable members know that these men represent a very large number of fairminded growers. I believe that the Prime Minister will bear me out that the general desire of the growers, especially the small growers, has been to try to give a fair deal to those whom they employ. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Yes; and at a time when very few honorable members on your side would do anything, we assisted the small growers. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I do not know whom the right honorable gentleman is referring to. I would remind him that members on this side supported the Barton Government which first passed this legislation. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Who? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- The honorable member for Ballarat, the honorable member for Kooyong, and others. It is not a question of who did something in the past. We are dealing with the present problem, and we can discuss that, quite apart from party considerations. Here are certain telegrams stating that the small growers have had this increased burden put upon them, and all that they ask is, not that the burden shall be removed, but that when we have the power and the means., we shall put them in a position whereby they can get a fair living in the industry. {: #debate-16-s3 .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- The honorable member's time has expired. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr GROOM: -- I regret that I shall nave to resume the second chapter at a later stage. {: #debate-16-s4 .speaker-KK9} ##### Mr JENSEN:
Bass .- In this Supply Bill provision is made for the maintenance of the Parliamentary Library. There is filed in that Library a newspaper known as the Hobart *Mercury,* owned by Messrs. Davies Brothers, Limited, cf Hobart, and having a circulation of 10,000 or thereabouts. On Saturday last there was published in its columns a letter criticising the action of this' Government in regard to the Maternity Allowance Bill. The statements made in that letter, and the suggestions it contained, were, in my opinion, scandalous, degrading, and low, and I ask the Prime Minister to have the matter brought before the Library Committee, with a view to the removal of the file of the *Mercury* from the Library until an apology has been made to the Government, to this Parliament, and to the women of Australia. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- What is in the letter? But, perhaps, if it is indecent the honorable member had better not read it. {: .speaker-KK9} ##### Mr JENSEN: -- I hand it to the right honorable gentleman. It is deplorably indecent. It is immoral in its statements regarding a section of the women of Australia. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Then the newspaper ought not to be in the Library. {: .speaker-KK9} ##### Mr JENSEN: -- That is so. I have risen to draw attention to the matter. The writer goes so far as to say that this Government is deliberately and maliciously introducing legislation to cause degeneration and debauchery. The letter is signed by G. L. A. Field, a fairly large landowner. In justice to the proprietors of the *Mercury,* 1 should state that they may not have seen the letter, but the editor must take responsibility for its publication, and the proprietors are well-known opponents of the Labour party, one of them being Speaker of the House of Assembly, and the other a member of the Legislative Council of Tasmania. Of all the statements I have read about the Maternity Allowance Bill, this is the most contemptible. 'As there are ladies present I shall not read the letter. It speaks of some of the poor unfortunate women of Australia as beasts of the field. I should not like to use a word that it applies to them It is too deplorable, low, and contemptible to appear in print. The Prime Minister has seen the letter, and knows its contents, and, therefore, I ask him to bring the whole matter under the notice of the Library Committee, so that that body may consider the advisability of having the file removed from the building until an apology has been made by the proprietors of the *Mercury* for the statements they have published about the Government. An apology should also be made to the women of Australia. {: #debate-16-s5 .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP -- I have read the letter referred to by the honorable member for Bass, and think that it is of such a character that the whole matter should be referred to the Library Committee. It is one that need hardly be discussed in this Committee. I suggest that the honorable member should forward a copy of the newspaper to the Library Committee, with a request that it should consider whether an apology should not be demanded from the proprietors. It must be remembered that the letter may have slipped into the newspaper inadvertently, but if it represents the policy of the newspaper, that paper, in my opinion, ought not to be here. {: #debate-16-s6 .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER:
Illawarra .- I wish to indorse what has been said by the honorable member for Darling Downs regarding the request of the Government for three months' Supply, which, if granted, will deprive honorable members of opportunities for the discussion of grievances. However, I suppose the Bill will be passed; practically all the Opposition can do is to enter its protest against it. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Mr Higgs: -- Honorable members willingly surrendered their powers this afternoon. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- -The honorable member for Capricornia must excuse me if I did not regard his motion as seriously as he meant it to be taken. I have risen chiefly to address myself to a subject about which there is a great deal of agitation in New South Wales. To bring it more prominently before the Chamber, I asked the . Prime Minister some questions about it this afternoon. Honorable members are aware that for some time past communications have been passing between this Government and the Government of New South Wales regarding the removal of the GovernorGeneral from Government House, Sydney, with the result that yesterday he was compelled to leave Sydney, an occasion which was used by the people of the State to give him one of the grandest farewells that any Governor-General or Governor has ever received. The people of New South Wales have been greatly moved by what has taken place. The Prime Minister informed me, in effect, that it was' understood when Lord Denman accepted the position of GovernorGeneral that he would have a residence in Sydney, and the right honorable gentleman said that the circumstance was one which should have weighed with the Government of New South Wales. Speaking at Sydney last night, the Governor-General said that there was an understanding when he accepted office that he should have a residence in Melbourne, so that he might be here when Parliament was sitting, and another in Sydney. That statement was indorsed by the Prime Minister this afternoon ; but now the right honorable gentleman airily says that that was a circumstance which might have influenced the Government of New South Wales. What the Government of New South Wales have done will, I have no doubt, be dealt with in the proper quarter; all I wish to say about them is that they have been extremely short-sighted in not taking every possible opportunity to keep the Governor-General in residence there. Time after time, the State Government, instead of endeavouring to keep up the prestige of the old State, have done things that are fast bringing it down to a secondary position; and this is one act added to others. Let the Prime Minister distinctly understand that, while this is a matter affecting the Government of New South Wales, it is one which, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, affects himself and his Government. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- In what way? {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I shall" tell the Prime Minister, who need not be so short and sharp. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- We have had a long journey. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- We have both had a long journey; and if I become rather short and sharp, 1 hope he will forgive me, as I forgive him. The Commonwealth Government is primarily responsible for the Governor-General, and it is the duty of the Prime Minister and his colleagues to see that all the arrangements entered into with His Excellency are carried out. As I have said, the State Government are shortsighted in refusing to allow the GovernorGeneral to remain in the State Government House ; and it is the duty of the Commonwealth Government to see that His Excellency is afforded facilities to reside in New South Wales when he thinks fit. I have heard it said that the Governor-General and his lady were looking forward with the greatest pleasure to their residence in the Government House of the Mother State, because of its historic associations. That, however, is at an end. The Prime Minister says that the Government will see that, when the GovernorGeneral goes to New South Wales, he is properly housed ; but there is no place where that can be done except in Government House, on the shores of Port Jackson. If Lord Denman be practically evicted from the State Government House, it will reflect no great credit on the State Government, and certainly . none on the Federal Government. What is all this about? The Prime Minister has told us that it is not a matter of money, but a matter of principle. Where is the principle? It appears to lie in breaking the agreement entered into with the King's representative before he left London. The sum involved is a paltry £3,500 a year. Why should that expenditure be stopped at the end of twelve years? Since the expiration of the Braddon section, millions of pounds, which previously went to New South Wales and the other States, have been pouring into the Commonwealth coffers. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- I know the honorable member does not desire to mislead, but he is suggesting that it was agreed before the Governor-General left London that the Commonwealth Government would keep up Sydney Government House. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Nothing of the sort. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- The language conveys that idea. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I said that the ar-. rangement was that, in addition to the residence in Melbourne, there should be the residence in Sydney. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- There were two Government Houses, each a gift from each State. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- The Prime Minister, this afternoon, indorsed what 1 am now saying. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- The two houses were available under the conditions then made. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- And the two houses have been occupied by the Governors- General up to the present time. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Until the conditions were withdrawn. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Until the present position arose. My contention is that it is the duty of the Government and this Parliament to see that the agreement made with the Governor-General is kept. If the report of the Governor-General's speech be correct, he was advised, not only by the Imperial authorities, but by his Ministers here, to go to New South Wales to see if he could amicably settle the difference. Surely the Commonwealth Government is not so puerile, puny, or pusillanimous that it cannot ar range a simple matter of administration without appealing to the Governor-General ? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- I told the House to-day that I did not indorse that view. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- That is my view. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Keep going. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- The Governor-General says that he offered to give up a portion of the grounds. Although His Excellency saw **Mr. Holman, Mr. Griffith,** and others, the pleadings he put before them were absolutely in vain. The Prime Minister and his colleagues should not have allowed the GovernorGeneral to be placed in the undignified and humiliating position of practically crawling on his knees to the Ministers of New South Wales and saying, " Please give me this house while I am in Sydney." The Commonwealth Government ought to have a keener sense of their position, and more feeling towards the Governor-General, than to place him in such a position. {: .speaker-JOW} ##### Mr Bennett: -- Why suggest that the Governor- General crawled ? {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- The Governor-General said that he pleaded and strove in vain, and I use the word " crawling " because it is the strongest way of putting it. For the Governor-General to go to the Ministers of New South Wales, or of any other State, and say, " Please, if I give up a portion of the grounds, will you allow me to remain ' ' {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- He did not go to the Ministers ; he wrote a letter to the Lord Mayor of Sydney. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- The honorable member for South Sydney knows, as I do, that the Governor-General saw the State Ministers and pleaded with them. He said in his speech that he offered to give up a big portion of Government House grounds if they would allow him to remain, but they would not. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- That was an offer to the Lord Mayor, by letter. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- All I wish io say is that I think the Prime Minister and his colleagues seem to have forgotten their duty to the Governor-General, who ought not to have been asked, and, if asked, ought to have refused, to interfere between the two Governments. It is the duty of the Commonwealth Government to arrange these matters, and not to place the GovernorGeneral in so humiliating a position. I do not wish to say more than that, however blamable the State Government may be, the responsibility is on the shoulders of the Commonwealth Government to see that the arrangements entered into with the GovernorGeneral are properly carried out. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- We shall accept the responsibility, and not drag the GovernorGeneral into party political warfare. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I am not dragging the Governor-General into party political warfare. I am charging the Prime Minister and his colleagues, including the Honorary Minister, who is so ready with his tongue, with forgetting their duty to the GovernorGeneral, and with being so paltry and pusillanimous as to be unable to carry out a simple administrative act. They have had to get behind the Governor-General, and send him along to plead with State Ministers and say, " Please, gentlemen, will you allow me to remain here, if I agree to do so and so?" {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- That might be very good stuff for the platform. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- If it is good platform stuff, I am not ashamed of having said it. Every loyal son of the Empire will agree that I am correct. If the honorable gentleman wants platform stuff, I can give him enough of that sort of thing. I could say that the whole business is part and parcel of a feeling of disloyalty to the Crown of England. The honorable gentleman can have that for the platform. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- It is a contemptible way of discussing matters, to bring the GovernorGeneral into the discussion. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Why does the honorable member permit the Honorary Minister to interrupt me, and say that I am doing platform work ? I object to the honorable member's statement, and I ask that he should be called upon to withdraw the remark that I am dealing with this matter in a contemptible fashion. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- If the honorable member foi Maribyrnong made that remark, he will certainly withdraw it. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- I shall withdraw the remark if it is offensive to the honorable member. 1 would not say anything offensive to him. I shall deal with him a little later on. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- The honorable member for Illawarra should now withdraw his charge of disloyalty. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- 1 made no charge of disloyalty. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Yes, the honorable member did. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I made no charge of disloyalty against any one here. I spoke of disloyalty in certain quarters. If the honorable member thinks that the statement fits the party, he can take it. I did not make it against the party. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- It does not fit me or foe party either. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Why should the honorable member ask me to withdraw an accusation which T did not make? 7 said " in certain quarters," and if the honorable member thinks that it fits he can take it. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- My loyalty is not iri question, or that of the party either. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I wish now to refer to another matter, I hope in a calmer fashion, as I was led to speak rather strongly just now in consequence of interruptions. We are voting a considerable sum of money every year for the payment of bonuses established at the instance of this Parliament. We have what is known as a bonus for wool- tops. We are given to understand that, as the result of the payment of that bonus, an industry has been established in Botany, near Sydney, which gives a certain amount of employment. If the reports we read are correct, those concerned in that industry not only carry on their own business for the manufacture of wool-tops, but in an indirect fashion subsidize what is known as the Colonial Meat Export Company, and so enable it to pay good dividends, and, at the same time, to go into the Flemington sale-yards, in Sydney, as a big buyer, to the very great prejudice indeed of small buyers of sheep in those yards. I put a series of questions to the Minister on the subject to-day. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Would the honorable member mind mentioning the small buyers he refers to? {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I wish the Minister to find out all about this matter. I have a considerable amount of information on the subject, but I do not wish to put it before the House until I am absolutely certain that it is reliable. The Minister of Trade and Customs is in a position to have inquiries made by his expert officers, and that is an advantage denied to a private member of this House. I presume that many honorable members have received a circular cn the subject similar to that which has been sent to me. I have noticed statements concerning the matter in the leading daily newspapers of Sydney, and one cannot go into the Stock Exchange there without hearing comments on it. I understand that the bonus ran out on the 30th June last. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- No; it will run on to the end of next year. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I hope that, in view of the statements made, the Minister will institute a searching inquiry into the whole business. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- I announced the other day that it was the intention of the Government, when submitting another Bonus Bill, to extend this bonus for another two years. I shall try to get the details for which the honorable member has asked. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I hope that before the Minister extends the bonus in the way indicated {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- Parliament will have to do that, if it is done. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I hope that the Minis.ter will give Parliament the fullest information in connexion with the matter before honorable members are asked to extend the bonus. I am sure that honorable members on both sides, while they may be prepared to grant bonuses for the encouragement of our industries, desire that the money voted shall be used for the purpose intended. We have the statement made that a company receiving a bonus is working in conjunction with another company, and enabling that company to pay dividends, and to outbid competitors in thesheep market. We should know whether that information is reliable before we are asked to extend this bonus. One very serious statement made in. this matter is that, whilst over £30,000 has been paid in the shape of this bonus, the effect has been three-fold. First of all, it has provided cheap wool-tops for the Japanese ; secondly, it has enabled dividends of 10 and 6 per cent, to be paid to the shareholders of the Colonial Meat Export Company; and, thirdly, it has been the means of finding employment for girl labour, with a few odd overseers in one or two combine mills. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Would the honorable member mind saying what paper he is quoting from ? Is it the *Newsletter?* {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I am quoting from my own questions on the business-paper, and the statements were not taken from the *Newsletter.* {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- They appeared in the *Newsletter.* {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Even if they did, it is the duty of the Minister to find out whether the statements are correct. I am acting, not only upon letters which I read in the *Sydney Morning Herald* and *Daily Telegraph,* but also upon statements made to me by different business men in Sydney. {: .speaker-KX9} ##### Mr Watkins: -- Does only one company get the bonus? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- There are two companies manufacturing wool-tops. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- There is one company manufacturing wool-tops, and, with one exception, the shareholders of the Colonial Meat Export Company are also shareholders of that company. It is said that the Colonial Meat Export Company is being subsidized by the company manufacturing wool-tops, and is so enabled to pay dividends, and to out-bid their competitors in the markets at Flemington. The company I am speaking of was, I understand, brought into existence by the decision of this Parliament to pay the bonus. The factory is in the constituency of the honorable member for South Sydney, and, possibly, the honorable member knows more about it than does any other member of the Committee. {: .speaker-KFP} ##### Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925 -- We should know the real effect of the. bounty. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- That is all I desire. Weare to be asked to extend the bounty later on, and the Minister of Trade and Customs has now an opportunity to make an inquiry into the accusations that are made. {: .speaker-KX9} ##### Mr Watkins: -- Do no other companies get the bonus? {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Not so far as I know. The bonus is given only on wool-tops for export. I wish now to express my disappointment that the Minister of External Affairs has not been more expeditious in submitting a statement of his land policy for the Northern Territory. Whether the honorable gentleman proposes to introduce a Bill, or a fresh Land Ordinance, I do not know, but it is some time now since be withdrew the Ordinance he first submitted. We are all most anxious to have the Northern Territory settled at the earliest possible moment. Its unoccupied condition is recognised as a menace to- the safety of Australia. Instead of taking action to people the Territory in order to preserve Australia to the white races of the world, we find the Minister of External Affairs wasting week after week, and making no effort to submit a new Land Ordinance which will lead to the settlement of the Territory. All land settlement is practically suspended. I do hope that the Prime Minister will impress upon his colleagues the: necessity, in the interests of defence alone, of submitting the Government policy in this connexion at the earliest' possible moment. The next matter to which I desire torefer is that of the supply of telephonic facilities in the country. I do not know how other honorable, members fare ; but, during the past two, years, I have been able to get practically nothing done in the matter of telephonic extension in my constituency. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr Charlton: -- We are all in Che same position.. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I do not know how that may be; but I do know that, every time I open, the *Gazette,* I see tenders called for the erection of lines in different parts of Australia. More than two years have elapsed since the telephonic extension, from Nowra to Wollongong was approved, and: yet nothing has been done towards carrying out the work. The excuse which is- offered is. that no wire is available. If that be so, there has been gross mismanagement in the Postal Department. No big concern could carry on business with any, hope of success if it permitted things to get into such a backward state. One of the matters on which this House has been keenest for some years has been that of providing the fullest telephonic facilities to residents in our back-blocks. For that reason, forward orders should have been despatched for telephones which are required immediately, and for those which will be required in the near future. Only to-day I received another letter from the Department in reference to what are known as guarantee lines. The communication sets out the different amounts which it will be necessary for the people to contribute, and at the bottom of it is the following addendum - t may add that even if these terms arc accepted, the erection of the line could not be undertaken at present, owing to the number of works already approved and awaiting attention as opportunity offers. Here is a case in which the residents are actually prepared to supply the necessary number of poles, and to contribute the amount asked by the Department, and yet the work cannot be carried out. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me the information for which I have asked in a series of questions that I placed on the business-paper on Friday last. {: #debate-16-s7 .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP -- I should not have spoken, but for the statement pf the honorable member for Illawarra regarding the Governor-General. I think it was most unfortunate. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- It is quite correct, anyhow. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- This afternoon, I gave very full and fair replies to questions put by the honorable member. I stated that I was unable to accept the accuracy of the reports of His Excellency's utterances yesterday in regard to Sydney Government House. _ This Government have never asked His Excellency to undertake any of mel r duties, and have no intention of doing so. That is how they stand. But a Government which would not allow a little latitude to His Excellency the GovernorGeneral in the circumstances in which he was placed, and which would not be very grateful for any action that he might take in a friendly way, would be wanting in that courtesy and sane view of their duties which they ought to exhibit. I do not think I need trespass on the time of the Committee further than to say that I hope honorable members on this side of the Chamber - whatever may be said by hon orable members opposite - will refrain from discussing the Governor-General, as he has no right of reply. Regarding the charge which has been made against the Government, I welcome it. I hope that criticism in connexion with this matter will be confined to an attack on the Government for what they have done, or for what they have not done. Their position may be thus stated : When the last GovernorGeneral, Lord Dudley, resigned, there was evidently ari understanding that Government House, Sydney, would be available to his successor in the same manner, and to the same degree, that it was available to his predecessors. That is to say, the Government of New South Wales placed that residence at his disposal, if he chose to occupy it, for a portion of the year - during recess. Those conditions were withdrawn, I think, whilst **Mr. McGowen,** the Premier of New South Wales, and myself, were absent in London. That withdrawal having been notified to us by the owners of the Vice-Regal residence there, we had to recognise it as a fact. Negotiations were therefore begun between the Commonwealth Government and! the Government of New South Wales, with a view to extending the time during which it should be available to the Governor-General for the full term of His Excellency Lord Denman's appointment. Those negotiations failed, upon two grounds. The Government of New South Wales asked that the Commonwealth should pay rent for the premises from a certain date. We declined. They asked that we should pay interest on the capital value of the building as a transferred property from a certain date. We declined. We proposed to restore the building, to keep it in good order, and to return it to the New South Wales authorities iri the same condition as we had received it, conditionally upon the old arrangement being allowed to continue. They declined to agree to that proposal, and all negotiations which have since taken place - delicate and difficult though they have been - have been conducted with far more circumspection than has been exhibited here to-night. Nevertheless, they have failed. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- The Commonwealth always paid for the up-keep of the Sydney Government House. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Not completely. The Government of New South Wales regarded some of the up-keep as extraordinary, and their expenditure was considerable. {: .speaker-JNV} ##### Mr Bamford: -- What was the average cost of the up-keep per annum? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- To the Commonwealth it was about .£3,000, and to New South Wales, I think, more. What is the position? Victoria - a smaller State - grants us the use of this building, which cost, I presume, £500,000. {: .speaker-KLM} ##### Dr MALONEY:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA · ALP; FLP from 1931; ALP from 1936 -- More than £1,000,000. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Let me assume that it cost £500,000 which, at the present time, is worth £20,000 annually by way of interest ; Victoria also grants us the use of Government House, a splendid building, which clearly represents another £5,000 per annum, or a gift of £25,000 per annum. Yet some of the representatives of New South Wales now indignantly demand that we should pay rent for the use of Government House, Sydney. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- And we ought to pay rent for this building. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- No individual and no Government ought to be so lofty as to refuse to accept from another individual or another Government a gift offered in a graceful way. This gift was handsomely offered to us, and we accepted it. I do not think that we ought to be led by any false pride or dignity to say to the State Government, " We cannot accept anything from you ; we cannot trust you." {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- The Victorian State Government had also to provide for a new State Parliament House. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- On which something like £j 0,000 was spent. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- I say that the Victorian State Government acted gracefully and well. It cost them from £70,000 to £100,000 to provide a Parliament House for the State Legislature, but although I am living here, I have never heard an official grumble regarding our use of these buildings. Does this cry emanate again from the idea that there are only two States in the Commonwealth ? Ten years ago, we heard in this House nothing but wrangling between the representatives of two States. Surely the Commonwealth ought to be above that sort of thing. If we are to pay for the use of Government House, Sydney, by the Governor-General, while the Seat of Government is not in New South Wales, we ought to provide a residence for the Governor-General in far distant Queensland, which has a population approaching 700,000 ; we ought for the same reason to provide one in South Australia, and a residence should also be pro vided for the Governor-General in the great State of Western Australia, which is cut off from the people of the East. Likewise, in the delightful island State of Tasmania a residence for the Governor-General should be provided. The logical position is that if a residence for the Governor-General is to be provided in any State other than that in which the Seat of Government of the Commonwealth exists, a residence ought to be provided for the Governor-General in every State. Indeed, I doubt very much whether in every State where the population is large, and settlement widespread, there ought not to be more than one residence provided for the Governor-General if this theory is to be developed. I do hope we have heard the last of this, the worst of all parochialism in the two great centres of Australia. We hear it in no other part of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- Why do not the Government carry out the arrangement that was entered into? That is all that' was asked. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- No arrangement wa"s entered into. We had the offer of the free use of the building just as this building was offered to us. When the Government of this State say that they desire us to pay rent for this building, we shall have to accept their decision. The position in that case, however, would be very different, because we have the uninterrupted use of this building without any interference whatever. Coming now to the matter referred to by the honorable member for Darling Downs in regard to the sugar industry, honorable members who were in the first Parliament will find it interesting to make comparisons between the discussions then and now. It was then held, although not by the honorable member for Darling Downs, or his father before him; that white labour could not carry on the sugar industry. A very large proportion of this Parliament declared that the sugar industry could not and would not be carried on successfully by white labour. It was said that it was neither a matter of money nor of economics, but that it was a physical impossibility for white men to do such work in the tropical areas. Those who took the opposite view have proved that white men can do the work. They have shown that they can do that which has never been done before by white men in any tropical country. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- We are all in favour of the policy of a White Australia. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- We recognise your conversion. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- There has been no conversion; there was never any difference of opinion on the subject. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- It is pleasing to hear these statements made after the event. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- They could not have been made before the event. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- Will not the records prove that our statement is correct? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Both Houses of the Queensland Parliament declared that the industry would be ruined, and that it was impossible to carry it on by means of white labour. The honorable member for Oxley in this House made a speech extending over something like four hours, in which he read resolutions passed by nearly every public body in Queensland declaring that the White Australia policy meant the ruination of the sugar industry. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr Fuller: -- I was speaking of what this House did. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- This House decided by a majority to adopt the white labour policy, and I should like to ask what party pushed forward that policy. The honorable member for East Sydney at that time, **Sir George** Reid, who was then Leader of the Opposition - said that his justification for supporting that policy was that the majority of the representatives of Queensland were members of the Labour party, who had been returned pledged to support it. It was for that reason, and not because he entirely admitted that the work could be done by white labour that he supported the policy. The honorable member for Parkes, to his credit be it said, has stood to his guns from that day to this. Some people denounce him, but I admire him for his consistency. He says to-day, as he said in the first Parliament, that .the policy is an impossible one. As to the official records, to which reference has been made, I could point to an official record showing a resolution passed by the MackayAssociation to the effect that this question of white labour on the cane-fields was not an economic one - that it was a physical impossibility for white men to do the work. Could a stronger statement be imagined? What has caused the trouble about which we are now hearing so much? It is all a question of wages. There was no trouble until that question arose. The honorable member for Darling Downs tried to fence the question when he was thundering away- {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- I did not. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- The honorable member was a member qf a Government which madeprovision for the payment of a wage of 22s. 6d. a week on the cane-fields, and for a wage of 25s. per week in the cutting season. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Sir Robert Best: -- That Government carried out the law, and those wages werefixed as the result of investigation as to the standard rate of wage prevailing. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- The wage is not enough. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Sir Robert Best: -- That is another point ; we were bound by the law. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- But the honorable member's Government made that law. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Sir Robert Best: -- We did not. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- The wages were fixed by regulation. ' {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- The right honorable member is wrong. We had power only to require payment of the standard rate of wages in the district. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- The honorable member and his party had the same power that we have to frame a regulation on the subject. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- The Minister of Trade and Customs says he has not the power; he simply says that the bounty will not beimperilled if certain wages are paid. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- It was open to the Government of which the honorable member was a member to take the step that we have taken to ensure payment of fair and reasonable wages to the sugar workers. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr Sampson: -- Did not the right honorable member support that Government? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Yes; and I should support it again as against the only alternative then possible. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr Sampson: -- But did the right honorable member and his party attack that Government on the schedule of wages brought in? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- We did; we supported the best we could get. That schedule wasthe best we could get out of the Government of the day. If we had adopted the only alternative, and supported a Government coming in from the other side, we should probably have got nothing. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr Sampson: -- But the Labour party could have put them out at any time.' {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- And put the honorable member in? {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- We are simply asking for some statement of policy with regard to the Excise. The wages question, has noi been raised. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- It is not a new question with me. I stated publicly in the sugar districts and other parts of my electorate that the superstructure of Excise and bounty is a mere expedient to accomplish two things. One is the transformation of the industry from a coloured to a white-labour industry, and the settlement by white labour of the great north-east of Australia, 500 miles in extent, which otherwise would have been under coloured labour and useless to us. This it has done. The second is to assure that the small sugar-grower will get a greater return for his raw product than he would otherwise get. By this means his return is separated into a payment by the raw sugar miller to whom he sells his cane, and a payment by the Government, in the shape of a return of three- fourths of the Excise. That, in my opinion, assures a greater amount being paid directly to the grower of sugar-cane than he would otherwise receive. It was, however, never in the mind of any one that that superstructure should continue for ever, and the first amendment made in the law was to lead to the reduction and ultimately the elimination of both the bounty and Excise on a graduated scale. I was not in favour of that. I told my constituents I was not favorable to the elimination of both the Excise and bounty until there was some power or authority which would protect the white grower against the unfair competition of coloured labour for the same product. The proposal now is that the State Government, which has sovereign powers, and has the right to exclude any class of labour from any portion of the State, should take action. The same Parliament which declared that coloured labour could not be dispensed with now seems to be prepared to pass a law preventing coloured labour being employed in any circumstances on sugar land. When that is done, we shall have white areas where only white people can be employed. That, I admit, lays down a fair basis for considering whether the Excise and bounty should not be eliminated altogether, and provision made by agreement or law - preferably by a Court through the law - to assure that the producer of raw sugar-cane will be protected, and also that the small mill-owner will be protected in selling his product to the refiner. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWilliams: -- Will you apply the same to every other industry ? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Yes; and I have always said so. That is the road of safety and progress. There is, in every industry in Australia that is worth carrying on, a sufficient margin of profit for every one concerned in it, or it ought not to be going on at all. {: .speaker-KNF} ##### Mr MASSY-GREENE:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; NAT from 1917 -- Has the Prime Minister anything to say about the equalization of the Excise and bounty in the meantime ? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- This must be done in one act." The sugar industry is the only one dealt with in this way. I am sure that this Parliament does not desire to continue superstructural legislation of this sort any longer than is necessary. The industry should be placed on the same basis as every other industry as soon as that can be done. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- There are only 1,400 coloured men in' the industry altogether. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Withdraw the conditions of the bounty and Excise, and you will have 5,000 in three years. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWilliams: -- Where would they come from? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- There are at least 40,000 coloured aliens in Australia. The labour in connexion with the sugar-growing industry is more manual than in any other industry I know of, and those people would undoubtedly soon be found to do that work, ousting the white men in consequence. They would be brought from north, south, east, and west, wherever they could be obtained, and that must be prevented. The big issue, however, is that, if an agreement or understanding can be come to by Commonwealth and State legislation, it will be an advantage to the industry, and no disadvantage to Australia. It will leave the sugar industry on the same basis as other protected industries, and I think the majority of honorable members will not hesitate to say that it is an industry worth protecting and possessing. Some honorable members think lightly of it ; but, calculating its value and the amount of employment it gives, and the settlement it causes, I presume it ranks practically with the great coal industry of Australia. It is, therefore, no small industry, and it also helps to develop the tropical parts of the continent. If the Commonwealth Parliament had power to pass a law to enable the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration to hear causes between the employé and the grower as regards wages and conditions of labour, and between the grower and the small mill-owner, and also between the small mill-owner and the refiner, a solution of the difficulty would be arrived at that would settle the matter for a time. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Mr Higgs: -- And those are the powers we are asking for at the referendum. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Yes. I am repeating now only what I said publicly when I was previously Prime Minister, and also as a candidate. I still hope that some rearrangement will be arrived at that will satisfactorily safeguard all interests. We must first make sure that it is an absolutely white industry. Secondly, we must assure fair remuneration to the workers, and we must see to it that the grower, who, after all, is, as a rule, as small a man as the smallest struggling farmer in other States, and much in need of assistance and sympathy, has also a due measure of protection in his industry from those above and below him. On those grounds a perfectly safe way out can be found by this Parliament co-operating with any other authority that offers to assist in settling the problem. {: #debate-16-s8 .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS:
Franklin -- The question which I put to the Prime Minister was an honest one. I asked where, the coloured labour would come from if the bounty and Excise on sugar were abolished?. It is impossible under our existing law to import coloured labour. Therefore, if coloured labour were to flood the cane-fields, it would have to be that already in Australia. But I say very distinctly and clearly that there ought to be no difference in this respect between the sugar industry and any other industry. For instance, what logic is there in preventing a Chinaman from working in the cane-fields, whilst you allow him to work in the market gardens of the suburbs of Melbourne, Sydney, and Hobart? What difference is there between preventing a Chinaman from working in the cane-fields, and preventing him from working in the banana plantations? The whole trouble in connexion with the sugar industry is that we are always placing around it artificial barriers which we do not place around any other industry. On the day when the kanaka was taken away from Australia the sugar industry ought to have been placed upon the same footing as any other primary industry. There is no more reason to-day for the bounty and Excise on sugar than there would be for treating it in the same manner as the wheat industry, the fruit industry, the dairying industry, or any other Australian primary industry. Does the Prime Minister think that the Chinese laundrymen of, for instance, Melbourne and Sydney would leave their comfortable livings here to work in the cane-fields of Queensland? I am quite certain that they would not. But even if they did, is there any more reason why a Chinaman should be allowed to compete in the laundries of our cities, or in our market gardens, than in the sugar industry? Why should you attempt to make one branch of industry sacred? Why should you drive coloured men out of that industry and compel them to compete with white labour in other centres of Australia ? There is no logic, justice, or reason in such a policy. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Who suggests doing that? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- If there were no difference in treatment between cane produced by coloured labour and that produced by white labour, coloured labour would soon predominate in the sugar industry. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- How is it, then, that the Chinamen in Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania do not predominate in the orchards? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Because they can get better money in the cities. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- And because they can get better money in the cities than in the cane-fields, is that a reason for preventing them from flooding the canefields of Queensland if they like? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- They are not paying enough to feed a Chinaman there ! {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I do not want to be led off the track, because I consider that this is a large and serious question. It is very serious when we find that after a duty of *£6* per ton has been imposed for the benefit of the sugar industry for nearly twelve years - a duty equal to 50 per cent. - we are not even now producing enough sugar to supply the needs of Australia. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Not 50 per cent., surely ? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Yes. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- On cost price? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- We used to be able to land sugar in Sydney and Melbourne in ordinary years for *£12* a ton. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- The duty is now equal to about 45 per cent. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Then I am well within the mark in saying that in ordinary years we have been charging a duty of 50 per cent. Nevertheless we find that to-day we shall have to import more than half the sugar required for our own consumption. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- I think the duty in America is£9 per ton. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Would the Prime Minister approve of a duty of *£9* per ton here? {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- It is worth thinking over. {: .speaker-K9R} ##### Mr W J JOHNSON:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- That would settle the jam industry. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- There is a duty equal to £14 per ton on jam. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I see that there has been a decrease in the white workers employed in the sugar industry during the last five years of 12,000, and a decrease of 2,200 whites in the mills. That is a very serious position for us to consider. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- I do not think that the journal from which the honorable member is quoting is very reliable. {: .speaker-KNF} ##### Mr MASSY-GREENE:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; NAT from 1917 -- Those figures are not right. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I am quoting figures given by **Senator Chataway** in a debate in the Senate eight or ten days ago. **Senator Chataway** is, I believe, one of the best authorities in Australia to-day on the conditions prevailing in the sugar industry. The production is not much more than half the consumption of Australia. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Unfortunately. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I say distinctly that it is unfortunate. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Nature decreed that, not man. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Nature has not been decreeing that for the last twelve years. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- The honorable member does not mean to say that we produced less sugar last year than we did twelve years ago? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- No, but we produced less than we did five years ago. {: .speaker-KNF} ##### Mr MASSY-GREENE:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; NAT from 1917 -- That was on account of the season. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- The fact remains that, after twelve years of our legislation, ive are not to-day producing half enough sugar to supply the local market. It is quite time that this Parliament took the matter in hand, so that the sugar industry may be removed from the molly-coddling or interference of Parliament, and placed on the same footing as wheat growing or any other of our primary industries. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Can the honorable member tell us why they do not grow sugarbeet in Tasmania? The product would have the same consideration as cane sugar receives. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- We do not grow beet in Tasmania, because' we find that it pays us better to grow something else. The argument that is always urged in connexion with the sugar industry is that, in the greater portion of tropical Queensland, the whole place would return to a state of nature if sugar went out of cultivation, and that nothing else could be grown to take its place. It is because we want to see the northern portions of Australia settled that Parliament has given -the sugar industry certain assistance, but I think that the time has arrived when we should remove the bounty and Excise, and place upon sugar whatever duty the House in its wisdom may think fit. At the same time, legislative interference, which has been hampering and harassing the industry, should cease. There is one point which the House ought to take into very serious consideration, and that is in connexion with the Northern Territory. We took over the Northern Territory in 1910 ; we passed the Administration Act in the same year, but up-to-date we have done actually nothing in the way of settling the Territory. We have appointed, it is true, a huge army of very highly -paid officials; but we have not even passed a land law for the Territory. It is not possible for a man to take up a lease or purchase a piece of land there. If the policy of the House is to be a leasehold tenure, let it be so, but to-day it is not possible for the Government to lease an acre of land to a settler. A Lands Ordinance was brought down here, which was laughed at and ridiculed, practically, by every honorable member who spoke, no matter on which side he sat. I think, sir, that it received no severer criticism from any one than it did from yourself, whose constituency included the Territory before it was taken over by the Commonwealth. The Lands Ordinance was admitted by every speaker, I think, to be useless. It was generally recognised that it would not effect the purpose for which it was framed. It was taken back, but, up to the present time, we have heard no more of it. For three years the Government have been in office ; for nearly that period we have held the Territory, and to-day it is in exactly the same position as it was when it was taken over, with the exception that we have appointed a huge army of officials. What their duties are is an enigma to the House. There is another very serious question to which I think the House ought to turn its attention at once. Honorable members have seen in the press that, as regards two of the States, there is a very serious discrepancy between the number of adults and the number of persons enrolled. **Mr. Knibbs,** in his corrected statement up to 31st March, puts down the adult population of New South Wales at 909,000. Estimating for the arrivals between then and the 30th June, the adult population is put down by him at 915,000. These are the figures which this Parliament and this Government accept, and upon which is based the capitation grant of 25s. per head to the State. We accept 915,000 as the figures, but there are 935,744 adults enrolled. In other words, there are 20,744 more persons on the electoral rolls for New South Wales than there are adults in the State. That is an exceedingly serious thing. {: .speaker-KNF} ##### Mr MASSY-GREENE:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; NAT from 1917 -- That is stuffing the rolls properly. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Do you mean to say that they are stuffing the rolls with a view to paying the State 25s. a head on the added number? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- The Commonwealth does not pay on the basis of the electoral enrolment. My point is that **Mr. Knibbs** is our own Statistician. His figures are those which the House accepts absolutely. We accept them in connexion with the redistribution of seats. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Were not his figures up to the end of March? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- No; they were up to the end of June. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Not **Mr. Knibbs'** figures ? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: **- Mr. Knibbs'** figures up to 31st March were 909,000; and up to 30th June, 915,000. June was just about the time when enrolment took place. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr Charlton: -- What percentage of the population of New South Wales does he take to arrive at the number of adults? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- When the census was taken, the ages of the people were given, and it is simply a matter of addition. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr Charlton: -- Does he not base it upon about 56 per cent., approximately? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- That may be a general regulation, but these figures are based on the census returns. **Mr. Knibbs'** own words are, " The census figures corrected up to March 31st." He took the figures for the last census and corrected them up to 31st March by adding the number of adults who came into the State and those in the State who had reached the age of twenty-one years, and thus he added 6,000 to his March return, bringing the total up to 915,000 as at the end of June. The point to be remembered is that the enrolment for the Commonwealth took place precisely at that time, and that' the number of persons enrolled in New South Wales is 20,744 more than the entireadult population. But it is admitted that there is always a deficiency, variously estimated at from 4½ to7½ per cent., of persons who do not get on the rolls. Every honorable 'member is aware that there isalways a certain proportion of adults whoare not enrolled. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr Charlton: -- But we never had compulsory enrolment before. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- Nor did we get a betterenrolment before. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- There is a possibility of duplication. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- It is the matter of duplication which I wish to point out. In reply to the honorable member for Maribyrnong, I would say that we are not getting a better enrolment when we have 20,000 more persons on the rolls for New South Wales than the number of adults in the State; and if we allow the 5 per cent, for those who are not on the rolls - it runs from 4½ to6½ per cent., but I take 5 percent. - we shall get another 45,750 persons,, or 66,494 persons on the rolls who are notentitled to be there. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- Are not the 5 or 6 per cent, of the people who you say should be off the rolls entitled to be there? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- They are, but, unfortunately- {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- But the honorable member is taking those in with the others. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I am taking the 5 per cent, who have been omitted from the rolls. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- Does the honorable member not think that **Mr. Knibbs** has allowed for that? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- He has not. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- Any ordinary person who knows anything about electioneering would do so. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- **Mr. Knibbs.** would, I think, tell the honorable member that to-day there are far more persons on the rolls for New South Wales than there are adults in the State. The number of adults in Tasmania - taking the same dates - was given at 101,000. But there are 103,527 persons on the rolls, or 2,527 more than the number of adults in the State. If we add the deficiency of 5 per cent., we get7,577.In plain English, there are about 7 per cent, more people on the rolls of New South Wales and Tasmania than there are adults in the States. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- Have you taken the figures for the other States? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- No. We are all interested in having the rolls as perfect as possible, and there is time now to have this matter dealt with. The card system is not porfect. In Victoria alone upwards of 30,000 cards have been returned by the postal authorities, the persons to whom they were addressed not having been found. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Most of them have left Victoria to take up land in New South Wales. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Not as many as 30,000. {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr Cann: -- The enrolment figures . are not yet complete. I could not ascertain them a fortnight ago. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- They have been made public by the Minister and by the Chief Electoral Officer. **Senator McColl** stated that 150 cards had been returned to one small post-office in Victoria, and 200 to another. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- In Melbourne about 25 per cent, of the population changes its residence every year. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- But 7½ per cent, in excess of the total population has been enrolled. It is not enough for the Department to say that all will be right in the end. A general election takes place next year, and we desire that its issues shall be fought on a fair, clean pure roll. The figures now available show that either by accident or design the rolls have been stuffed. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- It may be due to the fact that the Fusion has so many paid agitators going about. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- The Honorary Minister, as he represents Adelaide, should, be the last to speak about roll-stuffing. Disclosures took place there recently which show that roll-stuffing has been practiced in that State. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- Nothing of the kind.. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- The practice was found to exist by a Royal Commission. {: .speaker-KFP} ##### Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925 -- It was proved up to the hilt. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- There being this enormous discrepancy in the enrolment of two States, it is the duty of the Government to see that the rolls are purged, so that the next election can be fairly contested. The basis of honest parliamentary government is good rolls. In the past the rolls have not been good. Hundreds of persons who thought that they were enrolled for East Melbourne last week found at the last moment that they were not, and they were therefore disfranchised. That has been a common experience of the past. Some of the States - Tasmania, for example - use the Commonwealth roll for both Commonwealth and State elections; only one roll is compiled. That arrangement should have been made universal years ago. "To have two rolls in a State means a waste of money and of time. The reform could be secured by the use of a little common sense. The last Tasmanian election was fought on Ihe roll that had previously been used in the State for the Commonwealth election, with the omissions and additions necessary to bring it up to date. The franchise is practically the same in all the States. {: #debate-16-s9 .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr ROBERTS:
ALP -If the other States had as much sense as Tasmania, the reform referred to could be brought about within a week. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- A little tact would secure the desired end. I am sorry that reference has been made to the removal of the Governor-General from Sydney. The wrangle between this Government and the Government of New South Wales was undignified, and the less said about it the better. With regard to the supply of sleepers for the Western Australian railway, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the Government of Western Australia has "taken down" the Commonwealth over the deal. This Government has purchased 1,500,000 karri sleepers, untried and untested, at 10s. each - an outlay of £750,000 - although the Government of Western Australia, from whom we are buying, has not a mile of railway laid on karri sleepers. Every report and experiment has proved that karri is not a suitable timber for railway sleepers. {: #debate-16-s10 .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON:
Hunter -- I desire to draw the attention of the Prime Minister and the Government to a question that I raised the other day in regard to the establishment of a testing station for explosives. This is a matter that should not be delayed, because such an establishment is necessary, not only for the safety of life and property, but for the encouragement of the manufacture of explosives within the Commonwealth. To-day no explosive can be used in the Newcastle district unless it is on what is known as the permitted list, and no explosive can be placed on the list unless it passes the test imposed by the Board established for that purpose in the Old Country. There are coal mines in four of the States; and as these mines go to the dip, gas will, in all probability, be given off. Every precaution will be necessary ; and any explosives used under such circumstances ought to be free from fire. Only a fortnight ago there was a narrow escape from serious disaster owing to the use of a permitted explosive. In the Pelaw Main mine a shot was fired by an experienced man, and it is stated that the permitted explosive gave off fire to such an extent as to cause an explosion and ignite the mine. This ought to be sufficient warning to take action before we are face to face with some mining disaster equal to those of which we have heard in the Old Country, and which we have seen in Australia. It cannot for a moment be contended that an explosive tested in the Old Country can be stored for months and months without deterioration. An explosive may be stocked in the Old Country, then brought to Australia, and stocked here; and my contention is that we ought to have a test on the spot. Then there is the question of testing all explosives used in Australia, including those used in gold mines. At present we do not know that the explosives used are of the proper standard, and we have to be guided entirely by the analytical chemist. Under the circumstances, a testing station should be established for explosives for all purposes; and, if this were done, we should, without a Tariff, bring about the manufacture of explosives in Australia. No one at the other end of the world would run the risk of sending explosives to be tested here before use, but would manufacture them within the Commonwealth. One factory was established, in the Maitland district, with the expenditure of a good deal of capita Here there were some fifty or sixty hands employed, and the belief was that there was nothing in the way of the factory at once beginning to supply the mine-owners. The fact was, however, that unless the explosive was on the permitted list it could not be used ; and the only course was to send it to England to be tested. This was done, and the Mines Department of New South Wales rendered every assistance. The explosive was considerably over twelve months in the Old Country, and when it was tested it was barred. I had the privilege of being present with two Government inspectors, a mine manager, and two or three practical men, when this explosive was tried ; and we fired six or eight shots in deep holings, and in no case was any flame given off. Yet this explosive, under the present conditions, cannot 'be used. Even supposing the explosives did not deteriorate on the way Home, and passed the test there, can we suppose that the Board would permit the use of an explosive which they could not test from time to time? I can only say that if I were on the Board I would not put an explosive on the list that I was not in a position to test, in view of the risk of an inferior article being manufactured and disaster caused. As I said before, immediate action should be taken; and if the Commonwealth do not intend to move we ought to know the fact. The Minister of Mines in New South Wales, in a letter to his Government, has urged the necessity of establishing a testing station. He believes this to be a Commonwealth matter,, affecting, as it does, more than one State ; and he goes so far as to advise his Government to bear a portion of the cost of establishing a Commonwealth station. If, however, the Prime Minister does not intend to go on with the work, he urges that the. State Government should, as early as possible, provide an establishment of the kind. So far as I can ascertain, the cost would not exceed ,£6,000 or .£7,000 for coalminingalone, though, of course, the expenditure would be a little more in connexion with explosives generally. However, if anestablishment of the kind would encourage the local manufacture of explosives, it would be money well spent. We ought to be self-contained so far as explosives areconcerned, because, as things are at present, I doubt whether, in the case of Australia being isolated during war, we should"find sufficient ammunition to defend ourselves. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- Would one testing stationdo for all Australia? {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON: -- One would be quitesufficient, and, as New South Wales uses at least one-half of the explosives necessary in mining, I think the testing station ought to be in that State. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- I think Western Australia uses a large quantity of explosives. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON: -- I should suppose that New South Wales uses three-fourths or more of the permitted explosives, though I do not mind where the station is, so long as we have one. I admit that explosives cannot be manufactured . that do not emit some fire ; but, in gaseous mines, our object should be to reduce the danger to the minimum. Whatever action the Government intend to take ought to be taken at once. They should come to a decision and let the authorities of New South Wales know whether they are going on with the matter. If they are, the sooner they set about the work the better, and if they are not, the sooner the New South Wales Government set about it the better. I do not wish an accident to occur which may lead to the destruction of life and property in the mining industry in New South Wales, or in any other State. I wish to say a word in connexion with the delay in the construction of telephone lines referred to by the honorable member for Illawarra. The honorable member made it appear that he is unable to get anything done in this direction in his electorate. I wish to inform him that he is being given about as fair a deal as any other member of the House in this matter. The trouble is that all the big works in connexion with telephone construction are held up for the reason the honorable member gave, that we have not a sufficient stock of materials to carry them out. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr Sampson: -- Why do we not get it? {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON: -- I was going to point out that we have never, since Federation was established, had a sufficient store of material to meet our requirements. Every Government of the Commonwealth has been equally to blame in this matter. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- There is a big demand all over the world for the wire. {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON: -- I am aware of that; but that is all the more reason why we should have a stock of it on hand. I believe that the Government should establish bonds or stores in all the different States for storing these supplies. {: .speaker-JNV} ##### Mr Bamford: -- Why not manufacture the wire localy? {: .speaker-JXA} ##### Mr CHARLTON: -- Even if we did that, we should have a stock in each of the States to meet our require ments. I know, for a fact, that to-day we are short of necessary supplies for the extension of telephone lines. Many lines agreed to in my district, and possibly also in every other district, cannot be carried out because of the lack of material. I believe that the Government should get in a good stock of the materials required in order that the money voted for the purpose may be expended. Since I have been a member of this Parliament, I find that every year votes passed for the purpose remain unexpended. There is something in what the honorable member for Illawarra has said, and I hope that the PostmasterGeneral will secure sufficient supplies as speedily as possible, and give instructions to utilize the money voted for the purpose in carrying out the various extensions agreed to in every part of Australia. If that is done, the country districts will greatly benefit from the expenditure. Efforts have been made to meet the requirements of country districts for telephone extensions, and the delay in carrying out the extensions, agreed upon is solely due to the fact that we have not the necessary material at hand. I hope that the Government will take some notice of what has been said by the honorable member for Illawarra, and other honorable members, and have those very necessary works carried out as speedily as possible. {: #debate-16-s11 .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON:
Wimmera .- I should like to support the protest of the honorable member for Darling Downs against the delay on the part of the Government in submitting their land policy for the Northern Territory. That great Territory, which has been too long neglected, is apparently still to suffer by this delay. When the Lands Ordinance was before the House, the Minister of External Affairs was treated rather cavilierly, and certainly very unfairly, by a number of his own supporters. The party opposite, apparently, had decreed that there should be leasehold tenure in the Northern Territory ; and when the Minister of External Affairs brought down an Ordinance which embodied the leasehold tenure, a lot of the criticism directed against it from his own side was, in my opinion, quite unmerited. I have certain objections to urge to provisions of that Ordinance, which will lie stated at the proper time, but I think we have now reason to protest against the long delay in having the land policy for the Territory fully discussed and settled by this House. I listened to what was said this evening on the sugar industry in Queensland, and was surprised at the protest made against the action of the Queensland Government in proposing to introduce a Bill in the State Parliament to prevent the employment of coloured labour in the industry. It seems to me that if the Queensland Government had passed such a Bill, honorable members opposite would probably have charged them with interfering with Commonwealth affairs. If the Federal Government propose to direct the policy adopted in connexion with the sugar industry, it is their place to communicate with the Government of Queensland, intimating that if they pass certain legislation the Federal policy with respect to bounty and Excise will be given effect. 1 have to protest once more against the inaction of the Government in respect to our immigration policy. We have appointed a High Commissioner who, I believe, is doing splendid work on behalf of the Commonwealth, and is adequately representing its great interests in London. We are paying, for the High Commissioner and his office in London, from £15,000 to , £20,000 per annum. We are about to erect offices for the Commonwealth in London which will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and yet I understand that a paltry , £20,000 a year is spent in promoting immigration by advertising the resources of the Commonwealth. In my opinion, the Government have been guilty of flagrant neglect of duty in connexion with immigration. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- More immigrants have come to Australia since we have been in office than for several years previously. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- The Government are, apparently, prepared to claim credit for the wonderful bounties which Providence has showered upon this continent, and now they wish to take credit for the large immigration during their term of office, which has been solely due to the activity of the State Parliaments, which they are constantly condemning. {: .speaker-KNH} ##### Mr Mathews: -- The State Parliaments are responsible for the fact that thousands of Australians are out of work. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- They are responsible for bringing many people to Australia ; but we have still a great deal more land than the immigrants coming here are prepared to take up. {: .speaker-KTU} ##### Mr LAIRD SMITH:
DENISON, TASMANIA · ALP; NAT from 1917 -- How many of them go on to the land ? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- It is surely their own affair if they do not. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- A percentage of them are, unfortunately, going into the consumptive hospitals. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- I think that is an unfair statement to make. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- It is most unfair to bring such people out. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- If a number of unhealthy immigrants are being admitted, it is due to the failure of the Government to properly administer the Immigration Restriction Act. It is their duty to see that those who are not fit to. mix with our Australian people on the ground of health, should not be admitted. I should be sorry to think that any. more than a very small percentage of those who are coming here from the Old Country are disqualified from admission on the score of ill-health. There are thousands and tens of thousands of people willing to come to Australia, but there are no ships available to bring them here. One of the most anti-Imperial policies ever adopted is that of a stolid opposition to any form of immigration such as is presented by the various trade unions throughout the Commonwealth. We know that it is only by building up the strength of the Empire that we can hope to preserve it. {: .speaker-KTU} ##### Mr LAIRD SMITH:
DENISON, TASMANIA · ALP; NAT from 1917 -- Why do not the States make land available for settlement? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- In Victoria there is more land available for settlement than there are persons prepared to take it up. If the Government are anxious to provide land for immigrants, why have they not dealt with the great areas in the Northern Territory ? There is more land available in the various States than there are applicants for it. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- That is not so. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- It is. In Victoria applicants are required at the present time for a large number of blocks which have been purchased by the Closer Settlement Board. The Victorian Government are also prepared to throw open for settlement large areas along the river Murray, adjoining one of the most successful irrigation areas in Australia. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- The honorable member does not know what he is talking about. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- One of the most successful settlements established on the Murray is adjacent to large areas which can be taken up by any persons who choose to apply for them. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- What does the honorable member say to he and I taking up some of those blocks? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- Hundreds of thousands of persons are ready to come to Australia, but are unable to do so on account of the shortage of shipping accommodation. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- Why do not the great ship-owners build ships? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- As a Parliament we are specially charged with the work of directly controlling immigration to . Australia. The present Government are constantly complaining that this Parliament has not sufficient powers under the Constitution, and that we require extended powers in order that we may be able to legislate within the boundaries of Australia. But the most important duty of this Parliament is to shoulder its responsibility in connexion with immigration. That is the one great obligation under the Constitution which the Government have steadfastly and flagrantly neglected. There is no excuse for their inaction. It is only possible to consider this great question from an Imperial stand-point. We have, merely to take an Imperial view of it to realize the gross neglect which can be laid at the door of the Government for their failure to discharge their responsible duty of attracting immigrants to Australia. Some time ago I quoted figures with a view to showing our position as compared with that of other parts of the Empire. In Great Britain there is a congested population of our own race. The inhabitants of that country number 45,000,000. There are other parts of the Empire which are crying out for population. We require population more than does any other country in the world. We have a smaller population per square mile than has any other portion of the British Empire. Great Britain has the largest population per square mile of any European country, European countries contain only n6 persons per square mile, whereas Great Britain contains 375. Russian Asia, where there are large areas fit for wheatgrowing and dairying, contains only twentyfive persons per square mile. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- How many are there in Patagonia ? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- If the Minister of External Affairs considers this question a frivolous one, I do not. It is a question on which the future of the Empire depends. There is one outlet for the congested popu lation of Great Britain. It needs to be transferred to the outer Dominions, whose resources require development. That is the only way in which the Empire can be saved. If our population continues to increase at the same rate as it has increased since the establishment of Federation, we shall have very little more than doubled it in 1950. Something like thirty-eight years hence we shall have scarcely more than double our present population if the same ratio of increase is preserved. If we believe in this country as we ought to believe in it, we should push it ahead, and it is capable of eventually carrying as great a population as the United States. I do not think that; in the variety and wealth of our resources, we can place ourselves second to the United States, which at the present time has a population of 90,000.000. It is stated, on the authority of persons who have considered this question, that those States will eventually carry something like 600,000,000 inhabitants, and that they will be able to produce sufficient to support that huge population. If we in Australia value our resources and do what we can to develop them, we can find room here for tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people. There is only one way in which our resources can be opened up, namely, by the transfer of population from the Old Country. Our natural rate of increase is far too slow. At the present time we are spending from £15.000 to £20,000 a year to keep open the High Commissioner's office in London, and, in addition, it is intended to erect Commonwealth offices in that centre, at a cost of some hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet, during the past two or three years, only the small sum of £20,000 annually has been placed upon the Estimates for advertising the resources of Australia. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- How much did previous Governments spend? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- The need for immediate action has never been so insistent and urgent as it has been during the past two years. Fortunately, the tide of immigration has turned towards Australia, and all that the Government have to do is to provide *the* ships necessary *to bring out* our own kith and kin. {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr Cann: -- Would the honorable member have us build the ships? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- I am asking the Gr>vernment to carry out this work. The *Age,* in commenting on the immigration policy of the States and the Commonwealth, in its issue of 9th January last, stated - >In commenting on Saturday upon the advice given by *The Times* on 'the subject of immigration, the Minister for External Affairs, **Mr. Thomas,** said that the Commonwealth Ministry was ready at all times to co-operate with the States; but, until that co-operation was sought, the Commonwealth could not interfere. Referring to this yesterday, the Premier, **Mr. Murray,** said, "When the States are bringing people put themselves, surely the time is ripe for assistance by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is in no way giving assistance. We have appealed to the Federal Government in vain, and now the States interested in immigration are going on their own. These Commonwealth Labour Ministers are afraid to appear to support immigration." We have an uncontradicted statement by the Minister of External Affairs that if the States would appeal to the Commonwealth Government for assistance in carrying out the policy of immigration they would respond, and we have the Premier of Victoria stating that such an appeal has been made by his Government, and that it has been turned down. Quite recently the *Age* published an article from its usually well-informed London correspondent, the whole of which would well repay perusal. {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr Cann: -- I did not know that they had one there. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- Then the honorable member does not attend to his newspaper reading as diligently as he does to most other matters. This is really a South Australian authority. The article sets forth that - >One of the many authorities consulted by the London newspapers is **Mr. A.** A. Kirkpatrick, Agent-General for South Australia. He states that emigrants who cannot get passages to Australia, and are unable to wait, go to Argentina. That is confirmed by **Mr. J.** E. Ridgway, a leading shipping agent of London and Manchester. " So anxious are English immigrants to go to Australia now," he says, " that often when the shipping companies notify me the evening before the ship sails that a berth has fallen vacant, I telegraph to a man in the north of England, and he travels all night to seize the opportunity of sailing. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- This shows what the Labour Government has done. The Opposition said that if we got into power people would leave the country. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- We shall see presently what the various writers on this question think of the action of the Federal Government with respect to immigration. The article continues - " Often, too, men come to the docks and actually wait by the last tender to an emigrant ship in the hope that even at the very last moment they may secure a berth. But they are generally disappointed. The rush to Australia is enormous. There are not nearly enough British ships to carry the passengers. Berths can be found more easily in German ships, and the North German Lloyd Company will pay an emigrant's fare to Antwerp so that he can embark there; but an Englishman prefers to travel in British boats. He cannot afford to wait four months. He has got to pay half-fare as deposit on his berth. Often that means a forced sale of his belongings, and while he is waiting he cannot get work. Meanwhile, berths are always ready in the Argentine boats, and hundreds and hundreds of Englishmen are going there rather than wait. The Peruvian Government, too, is trying to attract our men." **Mr. Ridgway** is satisfied that 175,000 suitable English people could be sent to Australia in 19,12 if sufficient ship accommodation were available. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- Is he a ship-owner? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- If the honorable member is not prepared to treat this question with that seriousness which its importance demands, I ask him to cease his interjections. His attitude is a reflection on the Parliament. It is deplorable that the Minister of External Affairs, who should have charge of the immigration policy, who knows the importance of bringing to Australia some of the surplus population of Great Britain, and who should do his test to encourage immigration, and so build up the strength of the Empire, should jeer in this way. The article continues - >The ship-owners are being given an opportunity to defend themselves against the accusation that they are not sufficiently enterprising. As on other occasions, they blame the Governments for not taking more third-class space and paying for it - and so on. There is a reference in this article to a statement made by the Prime Minister. It is said - " It has been estimated by the Australian Prime Minister," one ship-owner Remarks, " that every able-bodied man who arrives in Australia is an asset worth at least ^200 to that country. If that be true, Australia is losing ,£2,000,000 worth of ready and available capital this year, and we cannot help her without losing money." The chief emigration officer of the New South Wales Government in London, **Mr. Percy** Hunter, also comments on the situation. According to this article he declares, after making a round of the provinces, that - " Australia is losing this year tens of thousands of the most desirable settlers through lack of steamer berths. Shipping agents," he says. " get disgusted and say, ' Oh, it's no use talking about' Australia ; you must go somewhere else.' No third class passenger to-day who walks into a shipping office in London with money in his pocket can get a passage to Australia before December." That is the serious position with which we are faced in connexion with this important question of immigration. The responsibility for that situation rests with this Parliament, which has specifically delegated to it the power to deal with immigration. We are spending £5,000,000 a year to build up a Defence Force. We have in this continent enormous reserves to open up, and we must have people to open them up. We have to develop them in order to provide a foundation for the great defence policy that we are seeking to build up, yet we are flagrantly neglecting the very means by which these great aims and objects can be achieved. We are neglecting this opportunity to transfer to Australia 'some of- the brain, bone, and muscle of Great Britain, the transfer of which would help the Old Land,- and we find the Minister charged with this important duty treating it as a laughing matter, and regarding the future safety and maintenance of this continent for ^ a European people with a flippancy that is unworthy of Ministerial office, and is indeed an insult to the Empire. We, in Australia, need population more than any other country in the world, not only because we have vast resources to open up, and because as part of a great Empire we offer a natural outlet for the surplus population of Great Britain, but also be- * cause geographically we stand in a more parlous position than any other country. Europe has 119 people per square mile, Asia 55, Africa 13, America 10, and Australia ii. We have it on the authority of **Mr. Knibbs** that if we continue to increase our population up to 1950 at the rate at which we have increased it since Federation, we shall have not more than 8,000,000 people by that date. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- What would he say if he calculated on the rate of increase during the last two years? {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr SAMPSON: -- In the last two years the States have done splendid work, but no thanks are due to the Commonwealth Government for it. The danger is that, if the Government neglect the present splendid opportunity of bringing people to Australia, now that the tide of immigration has turned in our favour, we may lose the opportunity in the. course of a year or two, and when we seriously require people of our own kith and kin we shall perhaps find it impossible to get them. We are spending £20,000,000 per annum in the Commonwealth, one-fourth of it to establish naval and military defence. We know the parlous position in which we are likely to stand, owing to our proximity to the over-populated countries in the East; we know that Great Britain may be menaced by an enemy at any .time, and we know also that the only way in which the strength of the Empire can be maintained is to distribute over the various Dominions the population in the overpopulated centre. /This Parliament, therefore, with its financial resources, should not delay one day longer in providing the ships that are necessary to bring people of the right class to our shores. I should like to support the remarks that have been made by several speakers with regard to our telephone system. I know there has been some difficulty in getting material, but we might reasonably have expected before this that material would be obtained. As my time has expired, I hope to have another opportunity of dealing with that question. {: #debate-16-s12 .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY:
South Sydney -- The honorable member for Illawarra expressed a hope that the Minister of Trade and Customs would inquire into the question of the bounty for wool-tops, and made certain allegations which I think the facts will not bear out. The wool-top industry was established in the district of Botany through the action of a previous Parliament in granting a bounty for the article if exported. That Parliament thought that this country was not always going to produce only raw material. We are a great producing country, and we desire to see here a more complete system of producing woollen goods. For that purpose a bonus of £10,000 has been given each year for the manufacture of wool-tops. . Two firms have already availed themselves of the bounty, and have put down very large machinery plants in big factories. Any part of the Commonwealth that likes to manufacture wool-tops can receive the bounty. It is not confined to any one State or factory. The industry which has grown up in the district of Botany since the passing of the Bounty Act employs 700 hands. While the raw wool they treat is worth 9 1/2 d. to 10d. a lb., the finished article they produce is worth about 2 s. 9d. per lb. The industry, therefore, adds to the value of the raw product of this country, which is much to be desired. I am sure that all members are desirous of seeing Australia manufacture its raw materials into more finished articles. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Have they any local market for the tops? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- No. The tweed mills in my own State have, in connexion with their own establishments, a plant that makes the tops for their own use. Consequently these people have had to look for foreign markets. They are handicapped when they go on to the market to buy their raw wool, because being small buyers they are always allotted a seat further back. The big buyers of the previous year, such as those from Germany, France and Great Britain, always get the front seats, with the consequence that any local woolbuyer iis right at the back. He is therefore in a Less favorable position than foreign buyers, and has to pay more for his wool. Messrs. Hughes and Company have to pay, perhaps, £d. a lb. more for their wool, which is a great handicap to them. They, therefore, decided to go on the market, buy live sheep, and utilize the wool from the skins. Having done that, they were compelled to go into the market as suppliers of mutton. When they did so they were brought into direct competition with what is known in New South Wales as the Sydney Meat Company. That company has a large canning place at Auburn, and all the sheep and cattle they buy they drive to the abattoirs and slaughter and export. Immediately the wool-top company went into the live stock market to get their sheep, they became a competitor with the Meat Company at Auburn, who resented the appearance of any other local buyer. The honorable member for Illawarra said that another buyer coming in put the small buyer at a disadvantage, but surely another buyer coming into the market should make the price of sheep go up. The very fact that these people bought sheep to get their wool, caused them to become sellers of mutton. The day after the Colonial Meat Export Company was formed, they were compelled to sell cheaper than. they did before. A large amount of correspondence has been printed in the Sydney newspapers, and some f the newspapers have been subsidized to write articles in the interest of the meat companies, with the object of getting the competing company out of the way. The mere fact that this company has come into the market has caused the price of meat tocome down in Sydney, much to the disadvantage of those interested in the meat trade. I was a member of a deputation to the Minister of Trade and Customs, at which **Mr. Gee,** manager of the meatworks at Auburn, said that his company had been the means of keeping up the price of meat in New South Wales, and he said that because these new people had come into the market, the effect had been to reduce the price of mutton considerably. This new company pays good wages, has no trouble with its employes, and is adding to the value of our wool. This industry is quite as much entitled to protection as the steel industry. It is quite right that the Federal Government should pay a bonus to **Mr. Hoskins** for the production of steel, because we want Australia to be a selfcontained country ; but we have also a right to our own market in the matter of wool. We can produce the best of cloth and blankets, because we have the raw material at our door. {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr Cann: -- Would the honorable member pay a bounty on the production of coal ? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- No; because coal is a gift of nature. No encouragement is required to produce it. But these people have to compete in the open market. They have already captured the Japanese market. Japanese manufacturers say that they produce the best wool-tops that have ever been sent to their country. It has been an excellent advertisement for New South Wales. The company has gone to great expense in erecting an up-to-date plant. It would be a scandal for this Parliament toallow itself to be guided by interested parties who have been writing to the press with the object of trying to close up the industry. Any honorable member who chooses to go and see the works for himself will be surprised. He will also be satisfied that they are conducted on right lines, and that the industry is worthy of consideration. The employes are receiving 30 per cent, more wages to-day than before the industry was established. It is likely to grow. I believe that a branch will probably be established in another State, for the company is very progressive. With regard to the remarks of the honorable member for Wimmera concerning immigration, I should like to impress upon the Committee the fact that the Government have spent '^20,000 a year on advertising the resources and attractions of Australia. Indeed, this is the only Government that has ever expended that amount. {: .speaker-L0P} ##### Mr Sampson: -- The Government are not finding the ships to bring the immigrants here. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- As the Government are spending the full amount voted by Parliament, they must be more sincere in their efforts than previous Governments were. I have obtained from the Commonwealth Statistician, **Mr. Knibbs,** a return giving the number of people who came to the Commonwealth during the first seven months of this year. 1 find that 154,000 people landed, and that before the end of the year over 250,000 people will have arrived in the Commonwealth. That is a greater number in proportion to population than the number of immigrants who are going to the United States or Canada. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr Fowler: -- That argument is upside down altogether. We have to consider our area, not our population. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- If the honorable member will work out the proportions, he will find that our population is being added to by immigration to a greater extent than is the case with either Canada or the United States. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr Fowler: -- Our need for population is greater. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- What need is there for increasing the rate of immigration? Have any of our factories been closed up for lack of labour? Have buildings been unable to be erected for want of labour? {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr Fowler: -- Yes. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- The honorable member surely does not mean to say that 4,500,000 people are enough for this country ? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- That is not the point. I want to see this country grow, and I am pointing out that it is growing more rapidly in proportion to population than the United States of- America. If factories were being closed up for want of labour, I could understand the anxiety of honorable members opposite in regard to immigration. But what is the result of immigration to-day ? It is that the people of the Commonwealth have to pay 20 and 30 per cent, more for house accommodation, because immigrants are arriving more quickly than houses can be built for them. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr Fowler: -- Does the honorable member believe that we should keep Australia empty ? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- I do not believe that at all ; but I am> not prepared to flood this country with immigrants. I do not wish, to see them come in more rapidly than they are coming at present. {: .speaker-KJE} ##### Mr W H IRVINE:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- That is quite clear. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- I am not prepared to support, the Government in maintaining a line of steamers for the purpose of bringing people here indiscriminately. {: .speaker-KJE} ##### Mr W H IRVINE:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- We know that the honorable member does not want them at all. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- I believe that I am expressing the opinion of the people whom I represent. Those who want more immigrants are the landlords and the shopkeepers. Those who brew beer want more people to come and drink it. It is not a question of developing the country, but of self-interest. 1 maintain that people are coming to this country quite as rapidly as we can absorb them, or provide for them. Therefore the Government are to be congratulated on maintaining a policy based on sound lines. That policy is already attracting people to this country. The honorable member for Flinders laughs. {: .speaker-KJE} ##### Mr W H IRVINE:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- I do. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- There is nothing to laugh at. The development of Australia is a very serious question to me. The Government have passed measures which have attracted people from all parts of the civilized world. If they had not done so, people would not have been coming here so rapidly. I understand that we are not likely to rise until a late hour. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Surely the Government will not go beyond reporting the resolution to-night ? {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- We shall only pass the Supply Bill ; that is all. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Honorable members on the other side took up the whole of the evening in discussing other business. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr RILEY: -- I do not wish to keep the Committee sitting late, as I know that we are all tired after travelling last night. I hope that the Government will not embark upon a large expenditure in connexion with immigration, because that would not be justified, seeing that there is, and always will be, I believe, plenty of labour in Australia to carry out all the works required. {: #debate-16-s13 .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER:
Perth .- I think that one of the most humorous episodes we have had here since the inception of Federation has been the claim made on the other side that the present Government has been of material assistance in developing a policy of immigration to Australia. I do not think that a statement of that kind needs very serious traversing, because it is well known that the attitude of most of those who sit on the other side is that of entire opposition to immigration, and that, therefore, they, even although in their hearts they realize the urgent necessity of immigration, dare not say anything to the contrary after their masters have given an indication of the policy which they desire should be adopted. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Hear, hear; why should we? {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- I did not rise to discuss the question of immigration, because that requires more time, and, I think, a more seriously-minded Government than we have at present, but to bring under the notice of the Minister of Home Affairs, in particular, and of the Government in general, a matter affecting my own State, which is, I think, worthy of a few minutes consideration. This Government poses as being pre-eminently a national one. It tries hard to ignore State boundaries, and it claims that, above all other Governments, it will deal out even-handed justice to all sections of the community, and equally to all parts of Australia. Of course, we know that the Government with these high pretensions has failed very egregiously in many respects. I am going to indicate one way in which it has failed, and shown a most remarkable disregard for at least a section of the people by no means unimportant, and its action in this respect is bitterly resented in Western Australia. In a previous discussion here I pointed out that a very important appointment had been made without being advertised, and I showed very conclusively that, of necessity, the Minister responsible for the appointment had really no other course open to him than to evade the rules and regulations laid down in connexion with all appointments in order to make the one I refer to. But since then there have been several cases of a similar character, each one being more objectionable than the other, and affecting a greater number of persons, until the thing has reached the dimensions of a public scandal. A little time ago - after the episode to which I have just referred - an advertisement appeared in the *Gazette* calling for tenders for the supply of certain machinery required in connexion with the transcontinental railway. This matter was referred by myself to the Minister. I pointed out to him that it was quite impossible for persons in Western Australia to have an opportunity of putting in tenders, as the time limit advertised in the *Gazette* was too short to allow them to do so. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Where were the tenders to be sent? {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- The tenders were returnable at Melbourne by a certain date, and it was obviously quite impossible that persons in Western Australia could see the specifications and deal with them, and send in their offers, in time. I pointed out the position to the Minister, and, of course, he had to concede a certain amount of time. He had to alter the terms of the advertisement to some extent. But even with that alteration tenderers in Western Australia were still at a grave disadvantage, and I doubt very much whether any of them had a genuine opportunity of doing any of that work within their, own State, in respect of which, surely, they had an equal, if not a- prior, claim, for consideration. Again, in Augustapplications were invited in the *Gazette* for persons for the following positions at Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta in connexion with the transcontinental railway : - Assistant engineer, surveyor-in-charge, junior assistant engineer, assistant surveyor, draftsman, senior clerk, clerk for records and posts and statistics, stenographer, typist, and timekeeper. The advertisement calling for applications for these positions appeared in the *Gazette* on the 2nd August ; it invited applications up to the 9th August, but the *Gazette* did not reach Western Australia until the 13th August, so that, in connexion with these appointments, the majority of them being required for Western Australia, there was no chance given to persons in that State to apply in time, and many of those who would have sent in an application had the conditions permitted them to do so, lost, perhaps, the opportunity of their lives to get promoted to positions which they were thus prevented from applying for. On each occasion, 1 believe an assurance was given that that kind of thing would cease. But, in the course of a few minutes, I have given three cases of that kind of treatment being meted out to Western Australia. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- What dates were these? {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- These 'cases have occurred in the last six months, or thereabouts. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- I think that that has been altered. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- In each case, as I said, we had an assurance that it would not happen again, but up to the present time there appears to be some gross neglect of common sense in issuing the advertisements or - and I am sorry to think that the second condition is possible - a deliberate intention to keep Western Australians out of these positions. {: .speaker-K5D} ##### Mr King O'Malley: -- No, no. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- These matters are under the control of the permanent officials, but I admit that the Government are responsible. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- The conduct of those who are responsible for this kind of thing seems to me to be serious enough to demand the earnest attention of the Government. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- That is admitted. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- Western Australia is a part of the Commonwealth, and these officers must know that there are persons in that State equally entitled to an opportunity to apply for all positions throughout the Commonwealth. When the positions are to be filled in Western Australia itself, surely it is almost past understanding that those whose duty it is to issue the advertisements fail to realize that an opportunity should be given in that State for persons to post their applications so as to arrive in time. I bring this matter forward because I think that, although it concerns, perhaps, only a limited number of persons, still there is a very important principle involved, and one' to which, I feel sure, any Government can fairly well be asked to give attention, and, in particular, this Government, which professes to deal out even-handed justice to all parts of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Of course, the honorable gentleman is aware that the notifications regarding the making of all these appointments are wired, to each State immediately they appear. {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- They do not appear to be made public. I recently paid a visit to Western Australia, and on several occasions while there was approached by gentlemen who complained bitterly that they had not had opportunities to apply for positions because they were unaware of the vacancies until the time for applying had gone by. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- What would the honorable member suggest? {: .speaker-JWG} ##### Mr FOWLER: -- That when the *Government Gazette* cannot be distributed in Western Australia soon enough to give persons there a proper opportunity to apply for positions that may be vacant, the particulars should be advertised in the leading newspapers of the State. The *Government Gazette* does not circulate with great rapidity, and, as a matter of fact, is sometimes _not published until several days after the date which it bears. In view of that fact, important information regarding appointments should be published in the remote parts of the Commonwealth by advertising in the leading newspapers circulating there. This would not mean a big expense, but it would remove a grievance that causes no small amount of irritation, and is one of those pin-pricks which do great harm to the Federal sentiment, in my own State, at any rate. I hope that a definite instruction will be issued in all the Departments to prevent the recurrence of what I have complained of. {: #debate-16-s14 .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON:
Maribyrnong -- Confusion seems to exist in the minds of a number of persons who were naturalized under State Acts prior to Federation as to their present standing. Whenever I have met such persons, I have assured them that naturalization papers issued by any State prior to Federation are acknowledged by the Commonwealth. On the authority of an Attorney-General or the legal advisers of the Electoral Department, it was held until recently that an Australian woman marrying a man who was not naturalized would be regarded as naturalized and able to vote ; but I understand that the latest decision is that such a woman is regarded as not naturalized, and is disfranchised. Electors who have exercised the franchise for forty years past are disturbed in mind by a doubt as to their real position, and fear that the women they have married, as well as themselves, may be disfranchised. If the Home Affairs Department would give publicity to a statement of the true position, considerable uneasiness would be removed from the minds of many of the electors. The honorable member for Wimmera waxed eloquent in complaining of the lack of an immigration policy by this Government, but recently I received from the head of a family lately settled on the land in Victoria a copy of a newspaper published in Great Britain - the *John Bull* - from which I intend to read an extract which will show that everything regarding immigration is not satisfactory. This newspaper has a considerable circulation among the working and middle classes of Great Britain, and is sent out from the Old Country to immigrants who settle here on the land, or make their homes in our cities. According to the honorable member for Wimmera, now is the golden opportunity for inducing people to come here. To those who ardently desire immigration, the present inflow of population should be satisfactory.. Personally, I am prepared to welcome with open arms immigrants of our own race who are willing to fill the waste spaces of Australia, providing that land is made available for our farmers' sons and our own people, which is not the case in Victoria, Victorians having to migrate to Queensland and New South Wales to get land. But one ofthe worst things for the immigration movement is for intending immigrants to read or be given certain official information prior to their departure from the Old Country, and to find, on their arrival here, that the conditions were not properly described. That is the complaint made by many of those who have settled on our irrigation areas. The honorable member for Wimmera said that there was space for thousands of settlers on the Murray. I know as well as he does, if not better, the land that is being purchased by the Government and subdivided for irrigation areas. Many of those who have settled on that land are not fitted, for the work which they have undertaken, but they were all told by the Department that its officers would be only too pleased to instruct them in the management of irrigated farms, and would make practical farmers of mere novices within a few months, a thing that no Department can do. A man must be blessed with considerable initiative, and have some experience, before he can become a first-class farmer. The promises made by the Department have not been kept. My chief complaint is that people are arriving here expecting to settle on the land, and finding no land to settle on. This newspaper, *John Bull,* circulates amongst millions, and it has been sent to me. by an elector of the honorable member for Wimmera. This paper is accompanied by a letter, and my correspondent is the head of a family who has fought a good fight on an irrigation block, and intends to remain there. He tells me in this letter that the information contained in the newspaper is perfectly true, and can be borne out by a number of other immigrants. The newspaper is dated 24th August, 1912, and contains the following - >THE GREAT EMIGRATION LIE. > >Married Couple's Experiences in Australia. > >In view of the present rushing of emigrants to Australia - following our repeated warnings about Canada - we publish a pitiful story, which reaches us from a young m.in and his wife who recently left one of the suburbs of London for Australia. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Are the names of those persons given? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- Not in this particular case. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Does the correspondent say that he knows anything of the facts related ? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- He says that the statements made are quite correct, and that the case is only typical of others. One of the worst advertisements Australia can receive is for men and women to come here and be disappointed in the conditions, and then write home, informing their friends that they have been stranded. The day may come when we shall be pleading for people, but such advertisements as these will, more than anything, keep people away. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- How is it that ships enough cannot be found to bring people here? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- The right honorable member ought to know that a Labour Government is in power, and that legislation of a very beneficent nature is being passed. The article proceeds - " Everything has gone wrong since we landed in this cursed country," is the burden of his text. When they landed they were worth about £200 ; now their capital amounts to about *£70.* First of all, they went up-country to gain farming experience, and although they tried to obtain a married couple's job for miles and miles around the place, there was not one going. The wife, therefore, took over the management of a cottage and four children for a publican.; the husband went out fruit-picking and navvying. Farmers would not employ him because he was inexperienced, and, because, like employers in this country, they wanted value for their money. In five months the husband was able to secure only five weeks' work, and he and his wife had to eat their capital. {: .speaker-KNH} ##### Mr Mathews: -- Thousands like that are brought out. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- I do not know that there are thousands, but there are hundreds - >He therefore applied for several blocks of land. Each time he was unsuccessful. In the end, he and his wife returned to Melbourne, where the Australian Government officials eventually told him that he had insufficient capital to take up -a block of land of useful size. My complaint is that every time the Australian Government is referred to. The people at Home do not know of the separate States, but speak of Australia as a whole; and quite right, too. It is about time people were talking more of the Australian Government. At the same time, the Government, who are not to blame, are being blamed. {: .speaker-KRN} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- That rather weakens the argument that the Labour Government are responsible for the rush to Australia. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- I often fail to see the deductions of the honorable member, and I am much more astray now than ever in the past. The article in *John Bull* goes on to say - " In England," he says, " their emigration boosters told me a string of lies as to what could be done with a small capital, and now the officials here have the cheek to turn round on me and say that the pamphlets were circulated in error, and are now withdrawn ; that, however, does not console the poor devils who have been lured out on the strength of information contained in them." The settlers who did take up land under the Closer Settlement scheme about a month previous to the arrival of this young couple have received most inconsiderate treatment from the Government {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- Were those glowing advertisements circulated by the Labour Government ? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- If so, I should be inclined to censure the Government. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- Who is the writer of the letter to the honorable member for Maribyrnong ? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- **Mr. Seed,** Tyntynder South, near Swan Hill. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- The letter should be sent on to the State Government for investigation. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- I am sure that if the honorable member for Darling Downs and I were living in England, and we received a letter of this description, we should not think of coming to Australia. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- The matter ought to be referred to the State for proper investigation. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- The Victorian Government are receiving numbers of papers telling the same tale. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- If an agent is misleading the public in England, that agent ought to be punished. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- 1 do not say that the Victorian Government are altogether responsible, but they have knowledge of discontent. {: .speaker-KNH} ##### Mr Mathews: -- They know all about it. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- They know all about it, and even when men and women do arrive here the Victorian Government are not doing their duty by them. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- Yes, they are. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- They are not, and I am speaking with knowledge. I do not speak for Queensland, about which State the honorable member for Darling Downs is probably better informed. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- I think the honorable member will find that the Victorian Government are just as anxious that proper representations should be made. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -i-I can refer the honorable member to a statement made by the Victorian Minister having charge of the matter of immigration. I refer to **Mr. Hagelthorn,** Honorary Minister of the Victorian Government in the Upper House of the State Parliament. He was asked how many immigrants he expected to come to Victoria during the current financial year. He said he expected 30,000, and when an interviewer asked him how many of those people would go upon the land, and whether he thought that 5 per cent, of them would do so, he said, " No, not 2^. per cent." I wish to ask the honorable member for Darling Downs, and every true Australian, whether that is the kind of immigration policy which will send Australia ahead. We know that It is not. It means that only a few hundreds of thosewho are brought out to Australia will goupon the land, and the rest will be dumped into the already overcrowded cities. I know that, in my own electorate, there are to-day hundreds of men who cannot findwork. The honorable member for Swan had some experience " as a member of a State Government, and I ask him if heconsiders it a fair thing, when there arehundreds of men out of work in the metropolis of a State, to bring men from theother side of the world to make the condition of unemployment still more acute.. It is a wrong, and a dastardly tiling to do. It is unjust to the men who are beingbrought here, and a cruel wrong to thosewho are here and out of employment. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- Is the honorable member sure that **Mr. Haglethorn** said' what he is reported to have said? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- I have seen the statement in the report of an interview with him, and he has not denied it. What is **Mr. Hagelthorn** doing now. According toparagraphs appearing in the newspapers he is busy at his office every day. He announces that he has so many artisans on his hands. He applies to **Mr. Ashby,** of the Chamber of Manufacturers, and **Mr. Ashby** sends out letters to the different manufacturers asking whether they can find room for certain men. We have a system of bringing people here practically to take the bread out of the mouths of Australians. If that system is being followed by other State Governments it must do incalculable harm to the people who are already in Australia as well as to those who are induced to come here. The article to which I was referring continues - >Although they have made known their grievances, and have proved that the officials of the Australian Government have misled them, nothing has been done for them. Many have abandoned their holdings, lost their capital, and are now working for wages. > >When the young couple arrived in Melbourne a Government official told them that all their furniture and personal belongings would pass as settlers' effects, free of duty. The husband was advised to swear a declaration to this purport, and the result would be that the stuff would be carted from the dock and stored free of charge for three months. They had a different 'tale for him when he returned to Melbourne. His things were still in the King's warehouse, held up by the Customs, they said, though during the whole of the time they had not written a line to him, a stranger in a strange land, to inform him of the fact, and so give him the chance of returning to Melbourne and arranging matters without having to face the accumulation of heavy storage rates. . In the end he had to pay£15 odd for duty, storage and incidentals. > >This is not a rare story. On the contrary, it is a commonplace one. We could go on repeating it over and over again. For hundreds of emigrants, life is a story of dismal tragic failure, owing to the lures and lies of emigration officials. I wish honorable members especially to note this statement - >In the ordinary course of things, it is not those who are successful in their own country who emigrate to another. From various causes they are beaten, or all but beaten, when they leave it. Australia, Canada, America, is the last throw of a dice - the last gamble for . the means of subsistence. If a man must emigrate, let him ; but not under any less pressing circumstances whatever. If he goes, let him go with his eyes open for the harshest conditions, with his heart brave to bear them, with his hands ready to grapple with them. Do not let him be lured by what the Government emigration officials of Australia and Canada, and the Home shipping agents, tell him by mouth and by pamphlet, of the new golden dawn which is gleaming for him-all for him - over the great waters. Let him discount everything ; disbelieve almost everything ; calculate everything by discount and disbelief. Then it may well be, when he does reach the promised land, that the conditions will be a little brighter than he thought, and he may be heartened to struggle through for life and prosperity. An honorable member asked me from what I was quoting, and I may inform the Committee that I have quoted from a newspaper called *John Bull* which has a considerable circulation amongst the masses of the people in Great Britain. It is sent out regularly to some of those who have come from the other side of the world. I have been in conversation with many immigrants, and they have shown me this newspaper, and various items published in it. I am pointing out that the publication of such letters as I have quoted in newspapers circulating in the Old Country must do a very great deal of harm to Australia. I speak particularly with reference to the action of the State Government of Victoria. I believe that the day will come when our State Governments will have land ready for those who are induced to come here. The honorable member for Perth referred to the practice in Western Australia. I do not say that the system followed there is to be credited to the Scaddan Government, because previous Governments of that State also adopted something like business methods for the settlement of people upon the land. Victorians who have gone to Western Australia have informed me that as soon as a man lands in that State he is taken in hand by an official of the Lands Department and is shown where he can get land. Within comparatively a few hours after his arrival in Western Australia a man from the other States, or from the other side of the world is taken to the spot where land is available for him. Unfortunately, in Victoria, immigrants are not treated in that fashion. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWilliams: -- Crown lands are not as available here as in Western Australia. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- I admit that, but if immigration is conducted by the other States, as it is in Victoria, it can only result in Australia getting a very bad name on the other side of the world. I do not wish to say anything derogatory of those who are coming here, but I have it from their employers that if they are put side by side with Australian workmen and workwomen they cannot keep the pace. As soon as dull times come the men and women who cannot keep the pace will be turned on to the street, and what is to become of people from the other side of the world who will be homeless in a land where they have few friends? I say that the immigration policy of the States and particularly of Victoria is a failure, and personally I am against that kind of immigration. I repeat that there are hundreds of men in my own constituency out of work, and it is heartless of the Victorian Government to bring men here to take the bread out of the mouths of those who are the breadwinners of wives and bairns in Australia. {: .speaker-KFJ} ##### Sir John Forrest: -- Very many of those who are coming here will do well, as many immigrants have done before them. {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- The honorable member knows how great an influx found its way into Australia. The pioneers of this country were amongst the finest men the British nation has produced. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- Why should not the same class of men come here today? {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr FENTON: -- The cream of Britishers are not coming here to-day. I know that men and women are coming to Australia who ought not to be allowed to enter the Commonwealth. Their physical condition is not what it should be, and I also protest against a continuance of a policy that fails to settle people on the land, and crowds them into the cities. {: #debate-16-s15 .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- It is certainly most extraordinary that the Treasurer should ask for a grant of three months' Supply at this stage of the session. I do not recollect an occasion upon which, under similar circumstances, such a course of action has been followed. Still more extraordinary is his expressed determination to push this Bill through in one sitting. By so doing, he is taking a most unfair advantage of the Opposition, especially in view of the fact that its Leader is absent through illness; and that its Deputy Leader, as the result of an accident, missed the train from Sydney to Melbourne last evening. Ordinary courtesy should have prompted him to extend some consideration to those who are absent. However, the Government intend to push the Bill through to-night; and, therefore, it is impossible for us to give it proper consideration. Only the other day we were reminded! by an honorable member opposite that the Opposition were allowed to have a voice in legislation merely as a matter of grace. Although the remark was made jocularly, it accurately represents the present situation.Why cannot the Government proceed in a regular way with their Estimates, instead of adopting these unbusiness-like and slipshod methods of dealing with the finances? The honorable member for South' Sydney took credit for the fact that the Government have expended the whole amount placed upon the Estimates for advertising the resources of Australia, whereas previous Governments had not done so. As a result, he claimed that the present Government were respon sible for *the* great influx of immigrants to this country. Immediately afterwards he stated that immigration was a very bad thing for the workers of Australia. In other words, he declared that the Government are responsible for having expended the largest sum of money in doing something to the injury of the workers. This debate, so far as the question of immigration is concerned, has had one good result, in that it has shown us where some honorable members opposite really stand. Despite all their lip professions of a desire to attract people to this country, we have their own declaration that they do not favour bringing immigrants here. Some of them affirm that they favour immigration, whilst others condemn an immigration policy. In this connexion, it is interesting to recall what took place at the Labour Congress which was held in Sydney, on 10th June last. That Congress met in the Trades Hall, Goulburnstreet, and, amongst other things, the question of immigration was discussed. The honorable member for Cook was in the chair, when a resolution was carried - That the trades unions of New South Wales, as represented by the Congress, request the State Government to discontinue its immigration policy. This occurred in New South Wales, where a Labour Government is in power. Thus we have outside labour organizations calling upon a Labour Government to discontinue its immigration policy, whilst leaders of the party express full concurrence in it, and claim credit for it. It is about time that we had some unanimity in the Labour party on this question, so that the public may understand the position. Is it the desire of the party that Australia should be made a close reserve for those who are already here, or do they desire to populate this country in order to develop its resources, and to secure an effective defence from foreign aggression? It is clear that honorable members opposite speak with two voices, and that they have no real desire to encourage immigration. I have always held that it is not desirable to encourage some classes of immigration. Discretion must be exercised. It is certainly not advisable to encourage the wholesale immigration of persons who can find occupation only in our cities. The land tax policy of the Government was adopted avowedly to open up country lands for settlement, to encourage immigrants to take up those lands, and thus to develop our primary resources. But that is not what is being done. Only the other day, I read in the newspapers a description of certain immigrants who have been brought here, and who, presumably, passed our immigration agents in the Old Country. These men, who described themselves as agricultural labourers and rural workers, knew absolutely nothing about rural occupations. According to statements which were published, some of these so-called farm labourers weighed only between 5 and 6 stone. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- I suppose the honorable member would call them "weedy," and that has some relation to rural things. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- Weeds may have something of a rural character, but they are not the kind of cultivation that we want. If we are going to develop this country, we will not do so by importing "weeds" either vegetable or physical. According to these newspaper reports, the money expended by the Commonwealth in advertising the resources of Australia has merely had the effect of encouraging to come here an undesirable class of people, who would do no good in any country. Their departure from the country where they have hitherto lived would be very satisfactory to the people there, but they are not the class to develop Australia, or to settle down even in our cities; and not a few. of the criminal class appear to have been included in the batches of oversea arrivals. As a matter of fact, our cities are gradually becoming very congested. Their population is largely increasing at the expense of th': rural districts, and even the natural increase of population is being affected in that way. We find that, from many causes, chief amongst which, in my opinion, is the policy of the Labour Government, men who should be settling and developing the lands of Australia are being attracted to the cities by the prospect of obtaining plenty of Government work, at high rates of pay, on daylabour jobs. The country districts, in this way, are being gradually denuded of their population, and the natural outcome of this movement of population is an increased demand for accommodation in our cities on the one hand and the forcing up of rents on the other. The high rents and the lack of accommodation of which workers in the cities are complaining are, therefore, directly due to the' mistaken policy of the Labour Government. I think we ought to have from the Government a responsible pro nouncement of their actual policy in regard *0* to immigration. We are asked to grant Supply for three months, and we have no explanation for this unusual demand. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- I understand that it is only to provide for salaries. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- No; the honorable member cannot have read the Bill. It covers much more than what he thinks. The Treasurer, in submitting a motion of this kind, should have given some reason for resorting to the extraordinary procedure that has been adopted. It is becoming the fashion, however, for the Ministry to treat the House with scant courtesy. The Prime Minister, or some member of his Government, in introducing a Bill, makes a few inconsequential remarks, conveying no information, and these are supposed to be sufficient to satisfy all purposes. The Government seem to fake up the attitude, "We have discussed this matter upstairs ; we recognise that you have been sent here by some obscure people in whom we are not interested, but we are the only men to be considered, and you must take what we offer you or leave it." Such an attitude is not conducive to the dignity of Parliament or of the deliberations of men who are returned to represent different sections of the people, who have a right to have their opinions voiced in the House. I for one shall always resent such treatment, no matter what Government is in office, because I think the amenities of life should be observed here as elsewhere._ The rights of the minority should not be trampled upon as they are By the methods adopted by the present Government. I think that, at this hour of the night, we ought to have a quorum. *[Quorum formed.]* {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- That settles it; we are all here. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- I am delighted to see so many Ministerialists now present, because I wish to tell the Committee of the situation3 in regard to Government House, Sydney. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr Fisher: -- Go ahead; there will be no closure. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- I shall do so if the Prime Minister will cease his frivolity. The right honorable member cannot get rid of his responsibility, in the matter of the negotiations concerning Government House, Sydney, in the way that he has attempted to do. In -the first place, Government House, Sydney, was erected by the Imperial Government for the King's representative in New South Wales, and with that generosity that has always characterized the Old Country's treatment of us it was presented to the people of New South Wales, with the intention, evidently, that it should be used only for that purpose. I do not suppose that it ever entered the heads of the Imperial authorities that the representative of the King would be turned out of the house which the British Government had built specially for his use. It remained for a Labour Government in New South Wales to turn the King's representative out of his house, and for the Labour Prime Minister of the Commonwealth to actually refuse to pay a sum by way of rental for those premises. It is a most undignified attitude for the Prime Minister to take up, and a most humiliating position for him, in conjunction with the Labour Government in New South Wales, to have placed Australia in. That is the kind of advertisement we are getting now in the Old Country, gaining for us there a reputation for disloyalty, because a slight offered to the King's representative is a slight offered to the King himself.' This is the King's house, and when he is not here his representative stands in his shoes. Any indignity placed upon his representative is placed upon him. We, therefore, cannot wonder that our actions are miscontrued. We are all supposed to be tarred with the one brush, and the whole of Australia gets the discredit which rightly attaches to this action. I protest against this matter having been carried through in this way. It was bad enough *for* the Labour Government in New South Wales practically to give the Governor-General notice to quit, but it was equally bad for the Prime Minister to be so lacking in dignity as to begin to haggle and huckster and bargain about a mere question of paying rent. {: .speaker-KZG} ##### Mr Roberts: -- There was no huckstering or bargaining. The Commonwealth Government cannot treat one State differently from another. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- I do not believe another State in the Commonwealth would have taken such action, unless it was governed by a similar party. I am sure that if any other Government had been in office in New South Wales this *contretemps,* this humiliating spectacle, would never have occurred. For a Government of a country, enjoying all the advantages of the protection of the British Flag and British Navy, as we have enjoyed them in Australia since the country was handed over to us as a people, to give notice to the King's representative to quit in those circumstances, is to commit' an act which would be almost unbelievable by any body of people of British origin. It has been done, to our shame, disgrace, and humiliation, and our chief regret is the share which the Government of the Commonwealth have had in that most deplorable transaction. {: .speaker-K5D} ##### Mr King O'Malley: -- It will be all forgotten a hundred years hence. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- I wish it could be forgotten now, but, unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that will stick in the minds of the people of the Old Country, and will not do Australia any good. It is not the kind of advertisement that is calculated to raise us in the estimation of British people or of other civilized communities in the world. We have not been getting Sydney Government House altogether "for nothing. It has been costing us £3,000 a year for maintenance and upkeep, so that the Government of New South Wales were really losing nothing through its occupancy by the King's representative. What has happened has had a very serious effect in a number of other ways, not the least important of which is that it has deprived large numbers of people of employment. The residence of the Governor- General in Sydney, during the few months that he was accustomed to stay there, meant, I am informed, the distribution of between £10,000 and £15,000- in wages in various employments. This sum is now withheld from the workers of Sydney. I therefore take this opportunity of entering my emphatic protest against what has been done in the eviction of the King's representative from the King'shouse. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Do you not think that is a misnomer? {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -" Eviction " is the proper word to use, and noother will meet the case. It was built by the Imperial Government as the official residence of His Majesty's representative. When the Prime Minister was unwilling to pay the rent asked for these premises, he should, at least, have cast about at once for some other residence for the King's representative. I, as a resident of New South Wales, feel humiliated. What has been done is a shame and a disgrace, undeservedly put upon the people of my State by the combined action of twoLabourSocialist Governments. The opinion of the people of New South Wales has been most sadly misrepresented in the attitude taken up by the State Labour Government. The feelings of the people of Australia generally have been outraged by the failure of the Prime Minister and his Government to rise to the occasion, and see that suitable provision was made for a residence for the King's representative when he elected to pay New South Wales a visit. I' come now to the decision of the Minister of Home Affairs to open Government stores in connexion with the building of the transcontinental railway. **Mr. Griffith,** the Minister of Works in New South Wales, recently referred to the risks and penalties of Socialism in practice, as the following published statement will show : - >The Minister for Works **(Mr. Griffith)** was asked yesterday why the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Trust had abandoned its intention to establish State stores in connexion with the Murrumbidgee irrigation area. > > **Mr. Griffith** stated that the difficulties and annoyances consequent on undertaking this work would have interfered with the effective administration in other branches. " In the first place," he said, " there would be the question of credit. If the trust stores refused credit probably one-half of the employes would deal with the Narrandera storekeepers, and the Government store would then be unprofitable. If the trust gave credit then every attempt to recover accounts would be regarded as persecution. The adjournment of the House would be moved, and ferocious attacks would be made -upon me personally by the union officials in the columns of the press, and I would be held up to the public as a grasping Shylock seeking my pound of flesh from a poor working man. "This sort of thing is all right if consequent on carrying out functions that are actually necessary ; but as it is not necessary in this case we have decided not to voluntarily go and look for it. Consequenty there will not be any Government stores on the area." If the Minister of Home Affairs establishes Government stores, the same condition of things may eventuate. {: #debate-16-s16 .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY:
Wentworth .- ] t seems to me to be rather absurd that the Committee should be asked to pass three months' Supply so late in the session in three or four hours. When all is said and done, the. passing of Supply is the only recognition which the Australian Democracy has of the supremacy of the people regarding the expenditure of public funds. Here we are asked to expend the money of the people of Australia for a long term in two or three hours. But it is only the people's money, and it does not matter how we deal with it ! That seems to describe the present situation. I do not think that it reflects credit upon the Government, or will reflect credit upon Parliament, if this method of conducting public business is persisted in. With respect to the remarks of the honorable member for Lang as to Government House, Sydney, I wish to say that, in my humble judgment, the GovernorGeneral occupies a dual position. In the first place, he is the representative of the King. In the second place, he is the representative of the sovereignty of the Australian people. I regret his eviction from Sydney on both counts. Enough has been said of His Excellency as the representative of the King to justify me in not deeming it necessary to make further reference to that aspect of the question. But I do wish to put it to honorable members that it is advisable that the sovereign majesty of the Australian people should be represented amongst the densest population and in the biggest city of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- What argument is there in that? {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- There is this argument - that we want to keep constantly before the largest population in Australia the ideal of Australian union, in order that we may not suffer from the absence of reminders in that direction. No doubt the Honorary Minister is of opinion that he himself could fill the bill. He believes that he could represent the dignity and majesty of the Australian people. Let him try. Could any man in party politics represent the abstract dignity of the Australian Commonwealth in the way that the King's representative does ? Honorable members opposite cheered the Prime Minister when he made a very proper announcement as to the duty of the Commonwealth Government with respect to the Governor-General. But look at the sneers upon the faces of the Prime Minister's colleagues when this question is brought up here. There are sneers upon every one of them - sneers from the Minister of External Affairs, sneers from the Honorary Minister, and sneers from all their colleagues - showing the amount of lip-loyalty that is behind the cheers they gave to the Prime Minister when the press representatives were present. I want to say in connexion with this Government House trouble that I think the Government of New South Wales are primarily responsible for the unfortunate business. But I also think that the Federal Government, if it had been alive to its duties, would not have allowed two men in the New South Wales Ministry to engineer this business - men who have been against the British connexion since the start of things; who have been against the Mother Country in every crisis that she has faced since they have been in Parliament. These men have engineered this thing, and any Federal Government worth its salt would never have permitted the mere matter of rent to stand between the ambition of these men and the realization of what we all desire.. It seems to me that there is absolutely no excuse for the action that has been taken. What are the New South Wales Government going to do with that historic building formerly occupied by the Governor-General? They may take the grounds if they please, but what are they going to do with the building itself? Is it going to be used as an official residence for the Premier of New South Wales; or as a private residence for the Minister of Works ? Perhaps **Mr. Willis** is going to have Parliament meeting there, in order to be a shade nearer to the Police Court. What can result from this business, except to dishonour the King's representative, and cast a slur upon ±he Australian Commonwealth? {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- The honorable member is doing that. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- I am doing what? {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- Casting dishonour on the King's representative. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- I do not think that the honorable member's language is to be taken seriously. 1 remember him not very -long ago pasturing over there about abolishing the refreshment bar. Do we hear a word from him about the bar now? He has secured his petty advertisement, and we hear no more about the subject. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- My motion stands on "the books. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- Exactly ; and that is all the honorable member wanted. But the bar still stands on the upper story, and what is the honorable member doing to abolish it? I think we all realize that the language used by the honorable member must be taken with a certain amount of discount. But this business about Government House, Sydney, is a very unfortunate one, and I hope that some way will still lie found to get out of the difficulty. It is eminently desirable that Australia and the King shall be represented in our largest city, which is rapidly increasing in size proportionately to the other cities of the Commonwealth. When I came into the chamber tonight, I was rather interested to hear the honorable member for Maribyrnong entering upon a somewhat savage indictment of the Victorian Premier and Government for persisting in introducing immigrants into this unfortunate country, lt was an outrage; the thing was done clumsily and wickedly ; it was against the public interest; it was something that ought to be stopped. Now, I have been looking through the very first pronouncement of policy submitted by the Government to Parliament this session. I find there that the real malefactors in this matter are my honorable friends opposite. When it was a question of the popularity of immigration - when immigration was a thing that every one regarded as beneficent and essential - my honorable friends opposite, with that extraordinary modesty that always characterizes their public attitude, put the following statement into the mouth of the GovernorGeneral - >There has been a very marked increase in the volume of oversea immigration, to which > the land tax and the general policy of my Advisers has largely contributed. Yet, how long was it that I had to listen to the honorable member's savage indictment of the Victorian Premier for doing exactly the thing to which the policy of honorable members opposite, as declared by themselves, has "largely contributed"? Let us have done with this hypocrisy and humbug ! Honorable members opposite cannot go on playing the thimble-and-pea racket with regard to immigration. When it is unpopular they attack the State Governments; when it is popular, they say that their own policy has contributed to it. My suggestion is that they adopt the attitude of the honorable member for Maribyrnong, and so help us to get over there to run the country. {: .speaker-K99} ##### Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1906; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917 -- They should leave us a little money in the Treasury to run the country with. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- It is beginning to be a grave matter with many serious-minded politicians as to how Ave are going *to clean* up the stable after these honorable gentlemen have been forced from it. {: .speaker-KFP} ##### Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925 -- It will take months. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- It will take miracles. Here is a party in office with commitments which none of them yet understands, and with a revenue which will, I am afraid, 'in the natural course of things very shortly. decrease. How we are going to clean up the whole stable, Lord only knows. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- Do not take it on. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr KELLY: -- The public of Australia will insist upon our taking it on, and when we do we shall do all that we possibly can to clear up the mess which my honorable friends opposite have created. With regard to immigration, there is one thing which I cannot overlook. Honorable members opposite are inclined to say, " Let us do this thing in a year. Let us take time to do it." I quite believe in systematic immigration. I quite believe in the Canadian method of organizing immigration, so that upon their arrival immigrants may immediately find work which they are fitted to do. But I would remind honorable members that this country is in an extraordinarily difficult position. Time is the essence of the contract, so far as Australia is concerned. Time will decide everything. If we have time, Australia will live; but if we have not time, and leave Australia empty, it will be taken by an alien people, and men speaking another language will be occupying our places in this House. I cannot overlook the fact that a great country in the Northern Pacific has waged two successful wars for the purpose of getting land suitable for racial expansion. First, Japan defeated China; and, afterwards, Russia for the possession of Manchuria and Korea. Having won those two wars, and possessed themselves of the countries, the Japanese found that they were faced with a cheap-labour difficulty. The Manchurian and the Korean can subsist on worse conditions than can the Japanese labourer, and will work for lower pay. The result is that the Japanese Government, despite their best efforts, have been unable to settle Manchuria and. Korea with Japanese people. In other words, two wars have been waged for nothing, and Japan is still looking for a country for racial expansion. The only countries which are unoccupied at present are two British Dominions in the southern seas, and I put it to my honorable friends on both sides that if they have any instinct of racial patriotism in them, they will do what they can to fill up this land now that we have time to do it, so that, eventually, it may not cease to be white because of the apathy and the want of public spirit of the politicians who are leading Australian affairs. These are matters of small moment to some honorable members ; but I think they are mat ters of the utmost importance to the Australian people as a whole. I believe that men who refuse to regard these matters seriously will shortly be asked to leave the public life of this country. The public are sick and tired of a policy of election bribes. They want their public men to seriously regard the interests of Australia, and it is about time that men on both sides of politics began to wake up to this biggest issue of all. By all manner of means if you like - and I believe that it is necessary to do it - .try to organize your immigration ; try to carry out here, by Government methods and means, the great work being carried out in Canada by the landgrant railways.' Get people and set them to the work for which they are suited ; but do not forget that time is the very essence of the contract if the Commonwealth is to continue to exist as a White Dominion of the Empire. {: #debate-16-s17 .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER:
Illawarra -- Earlier in the evening the honorable member for Bass said that a letter was published in a recent issue of the Hobart *Mercury,* reflecting upon the action of_ the Government in introducing certain legislation which has passed through this House, and is now before the Senate. He said that that letter was of such a character that the newspaper should be removed from the files of this House. Its language must have been extremely bad, because the honorable gentleman, on seeing that ladies were present in the gallery, would not read it. He handed it to the Prime Minister, who apparently recognised the seriousness of the statements, and undertook at his request to submit the matter to the Library Committee. I am of the opinion that publications containing matter unfit to be read should not be kept on our newspaper files, but I hope that all newspapers will be treated alike. Newspapers containing, articles dealing improperly with the most sacred subjects connected with our social life should not be received by the Library Committee. I am sorry that the PrimeMinister is not here now, because I wish to read some newspaper statements of which T think it is as necessary for the Library Committee to take notice as it is that it should notice that which he read and put into his pocket. The articlewhich I am about to read appeared in the Victorian *Labour Call* of the 18th April last. That is a newspaper which is received by the Library Committee, and1 filed, and I should like the Committee to- consider whether it is fit for members to read. Honorable members opposite must know exactly what the article contains, because they must read everything that appears in the *Worker,* the *Labour Call,* and the other organs which advocate their policy throughout the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr Kelly: -- And which they compel the union; to pay for. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I was about to add that the unions of Australia are compelled to pay for the newspapers which publish articles of the character I am about to read. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- That is not so. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Like all sudden converts to a cause, the honorable member for Riverina is the quickest to challenge any statement made against the Labour party. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- I challenge the honorable member to give the name of any union that is compelled to subscribe to the *Labour Call.* {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I cannot do that now. Will the honorable member support me if I move for a Royal Commission to have the matter inquired into? {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- Yes. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Then I shall give notice of a motion to-morrow morning. {: .speaker-JWY} ##### Mr Chanter: -- If the honorable member can prove that any union is compelled to contribute to the *Labour Call,* I shall give £5 to the Melbourne Hospital. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I think it shows a weak cause to offer to forfeit money, or to wish to lay wagers. I ask the honorable member to support me in moving for a Royal Commission to inquire into the practice of compelling unions to contribute *to* organs which support the Labour policy. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- The honorable member said that the unions were compelled to contribute to the *Labour Call.* {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I shall move for a general Commission. {: .speaker-KWL} ##### Mr Tudor: -- The honorable member is a twister. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I am making the Minister feel very uncomfortable. Honorable members opposite must know what is in the article I wish to read, or they would *not* try to prevent me from reading it. Sanctity of the Marriage Tie. The sanctity of the marriage tie has been the shibboleth of the "ant is" during recent years, and although it is becoming a little threadbare with excessive use, it still rouses itself occasionally and takes the air on special occasions. The daring of the " ant is " is truly appalling, but they usually rely on the silence of their press to smother up any inconvenient detail, and so many hoary old institutions are allowed to persist which have long outlived their usefulness, and many a shining aphorism does duty as a battle cry, which, if only examined in a little more daylight, would be relegated to the limbo of forgetfulness. Fool's Paradise. The sanctity of the marriage tie is one of those pretences which really ought to be exposed in the interests of public morality, for the sooner we cease to live in a fool's paradise the better it will be for all concerned, and the sooner we recognise that the preaching of the churches and the prosing of the purists is scornfully ignored by the mass of the people who simply follow the impulses of their natures regardless of the awf ul warnings of the pious pretenders, the better it will be for all concerned. From time immemorial attempts have been made "in the interests of morality" to restrict intercourse between the sexes and to force upon humanity some arbitrary man-made social customs which, of necessity, has failed, simply because it has flown in the face of a primary law of nature. The sooner legislators and preachers and purists recognise that social customs must conform to natural laws and not to artificial regulations, however well conceived, the better will be our chance of securing wholesome and cleanly social and marital relations among the people. Sexual Laxity. The most cursory examination of the figures bearing upon this question reveals a most startling state of sexual laxity in our midst, and we learn that the so-called sacrament of marriage is based upon flagrant immorality and loose sexual relations which the church and clergy sanctify and indorse. Perhaps they are doing the best possible under the circumstances, but the circumstances themselves reveal an almost inconceivable state of moral delinquency from which the teachers cannot escape all the responsibility. Then follows a list of first births in the various States of Australia; and now we come to - >The "Busted Lie." > >Now this is a serious social problem, and one which requires the most serious examination and investigation ; and any attempt to suppress information of this character should be promptly resented. In the public interests the fiercest light should be turned upon this question, and every effort should be made to discover the facts in connexion therewith if illegitimacy is on the increase or pre-nuptial conception is prevalent. The public have a right to know, and if a remedy can be obtained let us discover it, or else let us abandon the " busted lie " about the advantages of religious instruction in our schools and the lovely lonely tarra-diddle about the "sanctity" of the marriage ties and the purity of the shopkeepers' home. The Church Forestalled. Now, no amount of sophistry can argue away these facts. Allowing for a slight overstating due to the' fact that a small percentage of first births are premature the figures are substantially correct, and we have to face the truth that this sacrament of holy matrimony is a sacrament to only one-half of the men and women of all. ages throughout Australia, and that every other couple who have been blessed by the church, and had the sanction of the clergy, having previously found sufficient sanction in themselves, and have only thought of the rights of the clergy as a concession to a conventional code of morality which they have already violated. The proportion who have violated the convention during their most impressionable years of innocence is anywhere between nine to one at seventeen years, to an average at twenty of a little over two to one, tending to even up at about twenty-four and twenty-five. Primal Instincts. It is not much avail to attempt to draw inferences from these figures. It should be sufficient to state them to show to the world the rottenness of the pretence upon which our matrimonial system is based, and the total inadequacy of the churches and extra moral teachers to war against the primal instincts. Nor can any comfort be derived from the fact that there is a lack of moral teaching in the schools, because these figures include New South Wales and Queensland, where the Bible has played a prominent part in the school curriculum for some time. We have simply to recognise the failure, and admit that the attempt of the 19th and 20th century to regulate sex relations has been a complete and egregious failure. The figures do not reveal the true inwards of the case, as they take cognisance only of those cases in which conception has followed on intercourse ; but this aspect of the case is one about which of necessity there can be no satisfactory data. However, such as they are, they stand as a cenotaph of the failure of civilization to regulate or control the vital relations of men and women, and it behoves us to give up canting about our morality and social purity, and the sanctity of the marraige tie, and give the truth a chance in the interests of public decency. These extracts are from the accredited organ of the Labour party in Victoria ; and I say that the letter read by the honorable member for Bass, as worthy of banishment from this House, bears no comparison to the article I have read. In that article there is decried a great social institution which makes for the probity and advantage of any nation - marriage, and the sanctity of the marriage tie. From either the honorable member for Brisbane, or the honorable member for Barrier, I heard just now a sort of "'Hear, hear." I do not know whether the honorable member for Barrier approves of the article in the *Labour Call;* but I should say that, in his heart, he believes that a newspaper of that sort should not be allowed to be filed in the Library. I ask the honorable member whether he approves of such an article? {: .speaker-KEA} ##### Mr Kelly: -- Why does the Minister of External Affairs not answer? {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Why should he? He is not here to be cross-examined. {: #debate-16-s18 .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- I am not crossexamining the Minister. {: .speaker-K8L} ##### Mr Thomas: -- The honorable member for Illawarra mentioned my name first. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- The Minister will allow me to say that I feel perfectly sure, from my knowledge of him for a number cf years, that he disapproves strongly of such an article. {: .speaker-KFP} ##### Mr RICHARD FOSTER:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ANTI-SOC; LP from 1910; NAT from 1917; LP from 1922; NAT from 1925 -- He would put it in the fire. {: .speaker-JZF} ##### Mr FULLER: -- Quite so. There are two other newspapers in my possession which, if I had them with me now, I would submit to the Committee in the same way. I am sorry that the Prime Minister is not present, because he was so ready to accept the suggestion of the honorable member for Bass with respect to the Hobart *Mercury.* I do not know what side in politics the *Mercury* supports, but, apparently, it does not meet with the approval of the honorable member for Bass, who talked in the most -'dramatic fashion about it this afternoon. The honorable member handed his copy of the *Mercury* to the Prime Minister who agreed to submit it to the Library Committee. I am prepared to hand him the copy of the newspaper from which I have just quoted so that it may be treated in the same way. {: #debate-16-s19 .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr CANN:
Nepean -- I wish to refer to the matter of the testing of permitted explosives which was discussed by the honorable member for Hunter. The honorable member said that permitted explosives are most extensively used in the Newcastle district, but that may not be always the case. No doubt they will be largely used at some future date in all of the States. In the district I represent coal-mining is carried on at Lithgow, Cullen Bullen and Portland. In many mines the explosives are used in crossing faults. Without a testing station in the Commonwealth the inspection of permitted explosives is very largely a farce. I have some experience of this matter, because I worked in gassy mines in the Old Country before coming to Australia. A mining' inspector in the Old Country is at liberty at any time to take a sample from a canister of explosives that are being used, take it away and test it. In theOld Country the testing is carried out under conditions such as would exist in a gassy mine, or in a mine in which there was a great deal of coal-dust. Without such a. test Government inspection of permitted explosives must be more or less farcical. Many people labour under a delusion in regard to the testing of explosives. They are under the impression that the test is as- to the explosive power, whereas the test, as a matter of fact, is to discover the amount of fire that would be given off by an explosive when it explodes. It has been said that this is a State matter, and I am inclined to believe that this is more of a State matter than a Commonwealth matter. However, it would be a very expensive business for the New South Wales Government to erect a testing station for the purpose of testing explosives used in the western, northern, and southern mining' districts. The whole matter requires to be gone into very fully, and as constitutional difficulties might arise it would be a good plan if the Prime Minister would consult with the State Governments and see whether they could not come to an honorable understanding in regard to this matter. {: .speaker-KEX} ##### Mr Finlayson: -- I do not like that expression. ' {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr CANN: -- This is not a matter to joke about as it may affect life and limb. The lives of 800 or 900 men may be dependent upon the use of these explosives. I do not see why the Commonwealth and State Governments should not come to some mutual understanding before a testing station is established. If the Commonwealth Government were to establish a testing station and explosives could be imported ' without having to go through that station we should have achieved nothing. Already many accidents have occurred in this country from the use of inferior explosives. Quite recently an accident occurred in the Pelaw-Main mine, and referring to it **Mr. Edden,** the New South Wales Minister for Mines, wrote the following letter which explains the matter very fully : - >The recent occurrence at Pelaw-Main Colliery, when the firing of a shot with the permitted explosive, "Arkite," caused the ignition of gas, and subsequently of the coal, and a serious calamity was narrowly averted, raised once more the question of the necessity for establishing an Australian testing station for explosives. > >In England all explosives for use in coal mines are tested in such an establishment, under conditions Jas to the presence of explosive gas, coal-dust, sc.), similar to those that would be met with in dangerous mines, and as a result of their capacity for withstanding these tests there are a number of so-called permitted explosives, which are supposed to be safe when fired in the presence of fire-damp, coal-dust, ftc. However, although these permitted explosives are popularly supposed to be incapable of igniting mixtures of fire-damp - air or coaldust, as a matter of fact, none of them can be regarded as absolutely safe in that respect, and the most that can be said is that by their use the danger of explosion is reduced to a minimum. > >There is a possibility of some of these permitted explosives deteriorating, and becoming unsafe if stored for long periods, and it would therefore be an advantage if they could be tested at intervals. Moreover, there is a possibility of explosives being manufactured in the State; the manufacture of one. known as " Westonite." was, in fact, started by a company near Maitland, but owing to there being no testing station in Australia, it became necessary to forward a parcel of it, at considerable expense, to England, in order that it might be tested by the British authorities. > >If an Australian testing station were established. New South Wales would be the most suitable location for it, because in this State not only are the coal-fields of much greater extent than in any of the others, but the dangers of working them are more pronounced, by reason of the occurrence of fire-damp. However, as all the States would be more or less interested in it, the establishment of a testing station would seem to properly come within the province of the Federal Government, and I observe that the Prime Minister has stated that he will favorably consider the advisability of undertaking it. In the event, however, of his deciding not to carry cut the proposal, it is my intention to ask the Premier to provide the necessary funds for the establishment of a testing station under the auspices oi the State Government. That letter puts the matter very clearly. The question is one, the importance of which is not confined to the working of coal mines, because many accidents have occurred in quarries and railway cuttings in New South Wales from the use of explosives. Only a very short time ago three or four men lost their lives by a premature explosion in a big quarry in the electorate of the honorable member for Illawarra. The reason for that accident was never satisfactorily solved. If a testing station were established, these explosives could be submitted to other than an analytical test. At the present time our mining inspectors who are able men can take samples of any explosive found in a mine to the laboratory and test them there. But they cannot tell their explosive force or the effect they will have when used for mining purposes, nor can they determine whether or not they will emit fire. All these things it is necessary to know. In my own electorate there is a large number of railway workers, amongst whom there have been fatal accidents from time to time - a satisfactory explanation for which has not been forthcoming. Sometimes they have been attributed to faulty fuse, and on other occasions to faulty detonators. But nobody has been able to say definitely whether or not the explosive used was satisfactory. If a testing station is established, it should be located at our Cordite Works at Maribyrnong. Our own cordite could then be tested. Unless an honorable understanding, however, be arrived at with the States, a most contradictory situation will be created. If a testing station be established by the Commonwealth, all explosives should be subjected to a test, irrespective of whether they be locally manu factured or imported from abroad. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- The High Court would declare such a course unconstitutional. {: .speaker-JW6} ##### Mr CANN: -- Probably. I remember being in the Cessnock district, at Weston, some twelve months ago. Large works have been established there, and two or three samples of explosives have been despatched to the Old Country for the purpose of being tested. These tests have not proved quitesatisfactory. But, seeing that sometimes twelve months have elapsed before the explosives were tested in England, the result is not surprising. It is possible that they may have deteriorated in the interim. If explosives could be manufactured at Weston, I believe their price would be reduced by2½d. per lb. That is a big item to a working miner. The Government should look into this matter carefully, as the establishment of a testing station within the Commonwealth would result in great benefit by reason of the explosives being manufactured locally. I think it is to the interests of every State that proper explosives should be used, even in metaliferous mines. {: #debate-16-s20 .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS:
Franklin -- I quite agree with what the honorable member for Nepean has said with regard to explosives. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- There can be no two opinions upon that matter. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Then, if that is accepted, I shall deal with the question of defence. The position which we have reached in connexion with our system of compulsory training is surely a very peculiar one. To the accompaniment of the plaudits of this House, and the approval of the country, we passed a Universal Compulsory Training Bill. Before the system has become really operative, it has broken down by reason of a decision of this Parliament. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- Question. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Can we have a greater break-down of the system than is reported in the newspapers of this morning? They record the fact that a boy was brought before the Court for not putting in the necessary number of drills. The magis trate inquired of the officer, " What am I to do with him ? '" The officer replied, " Fine him, " and asked for the imposition of a penalty of £5. Thereupon the magistrate asked, " What is the use of doing that, seeing that we cannot enforce it ? " The officer replied, " Fine him *£5,* anyhow." It will be seen, therefore, that military officers are haling lads before the Court, and asking magistrates to fine them, knowing full well that the proceeding is an absolute farce, because the penalty cannot be enforced. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- What would the honorable member do with them? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I would not bring them before the Court at all to make the officers ridiculous, and the defence system a derision. The method which is now being adopted is bringing our defence system into ridicule. The matter is being dealt with in the British newspapers. When we recollect that the Minister of Defence, who posed in Great Britain as the author and creator of the compulsory system {: .speaker-KEV} ##### Mr Fenton: -- He never did that. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- He did. Let the honorable member ask any honorable member who visited England in connexion with the Coronation celebrations. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- A number of members who went Home posed in some capacity or other. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I think they all did. Before our defence system has got thoroughly into operation we have hauled down the flag of compulsory training so that to-day the whole thing is regarded as a farce. I do not. say that the training is a farce, but when a magistrate tells a military officer that it is idle to fine a cadet who has failed to put in the statutory number of drills it must be recognised that the system has utterly broken down. There is not a cadet who does not know that we cannot enforce any penalty which may be inflicted. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- Whose fault is that? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- It is that of the Government, and of this House. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- Does the honorable member know what a fine of £5 means to a working man or woman? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- Yes. {: .speaker-KX9} ##### Mr Watkins: -- Does the honorable member want the fine to be enforced? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- The lads should not be dragged into the Police Court, and the farce of a trial and fining gone through, when all concerned know that the whole of the proceedings are farcical. It is wrong to fine a parent, who really cannot afford to pay, because his boy refuses to attend drills. The system, however, is provided for on our statute-book. We have in force a compulsory training system in connexion with which officers from day to day bring boys before the Court for failing to attend the requisite number of drills. The boys stand outside the Court joking at the whole procedure, and when they are called before the magistrate, the absurdity of the whole arrangement is pointed out. The officer, however, says, " Impose a fine of *£5"* The defence of Australia is costing £5,000,000, so that one-fourth of the entire expenditure of the Commonwealth is really on its trial. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- It is mostly on the Navy. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- I think I am correct in saying thatnot one-half of it is on the Navy. Our defence expenditure per head of the population is, with the exception of that of Great Britain, the heaviest in the world. We are depending almost entirely on our system of compulsory training, and that system is ridiculed from one end of Australia to the other, and, indeed, wherever it is considered outside. {: .speaker-KXO} ##### Mr Page: -- The same thing was said of compulsory education. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- There is power to punish those who do not observe the provisions of the compulsory education system. If that power were abolished, the system would be a farce. {: .speaker-JOW} ##### Mr Bennett: -- Then the honorable member believes in the old law remaining? He believes that parents should be fined £5 for the non-attendance of their boys at drill ? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- If the Government are going to have a compulsory system, let them be honest and say so. Do not repeat the farce of dragging boys before the Police Court day after day, of having their names recorded on the charge sheet as defaulters, and of imposing penalties, when the boys themselves know that the penalties cannot be recovered. I do not think it is possible to find, in the history of any compulsory system, whether it be of defence or education, a case in which, whilst the pretence of compulsion is retained, the power to enforce is either abolished or withheld. I ask the Committee, in all seriousness, to consider the ' position of our compulsory training system. It cannot be allowed to continue as it is. It cannot be allowed to continue a compulsory system with no power of enforcement, ridiculed by the boys themselves. The Government are doing more to destroy discipline, and to take away the credit of the defence system, by the utterabsurdity of the procedure they have adopted, than by. anything else that is obtaining in connexion with the Defence Act to-day. Whilst we have this pretence of compulsory training, we find that the boy who attends drill is in exactly the same position as the boy who does not. From a return that I obtained a few days ago, I learned that, of the many, hundreds or thousands who had been fined, only eleven parents had actually paid the fines imposed. {: .speaker-KYV} ##### Mr Riley: -- That is eleven too many. {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWILLIAMS: -- It is, if the remaining thousands are to be allowed to escape. Cannot honorable members recognise the absurdity of asking the magistrates to impose fines, when every one knows that there is no power to enforce the punishment? The practice is really bringing the whole military system of Australia into disrepute; and if it were not for the enormous cost that our defence system involves, the people might be inclined to regard it as a joke. But when we know that we are spending over , £5,000,000 a year on our defence system, and that our land defences are based on this compulsory training system, we ought not to allow the contemptible position of affairs that has arisen to remain a minute longer than we can possibly help. Question resolved in the affirmative. Resolution reported. {: #debate-16-s21 .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Wide Bay · ALP -- I beg to move, with the leave of the House - >That the Standing Orders be suspended in order to enable all steps to be taken to obtain Supply and to pass a Supply Bill through all its stages without delay. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- If the motion is moved by leave, we object. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- Very well. {: .speaker-KFK} ##### Mr Groom: -- We are prepared to allow the Bill to go up to the second-reading stage. {: .speaker-F4N} ##### Mr FISHER: -- I again ask leave to submit the motion. If it is agreed to, I shall not ask the House to pass the third reading at this sitting. {: #debate-16-s22 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Is it the pleasure of the House that the Prime Minister have leave to move the motion? {: .speaker-JUV} ##### Mr McWilliams: -- I object. House adjourned at 1.16 a.m. (Wednesday).

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 8 October 1912, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1912/19121008_reps_4_66/>.