Senate
23 September 1903

1st Parliament · 2nd Session



The President took the chair at . 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 5328

PETITION

Senator MACFARLANE presented a petition from the Peaceand Arbitration Department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Tasmania praying the Senate to provide against conscription or compulsory drill.

Petition received.

page 5329

QUESTION

MAJOR CARROLL

Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP

– I desire to ask the Minister for Defence, without notice, if it is his intention to grant to Major Carroll an inquiry into the reasons for his retrenchment, and, if so, when will it be instituted 1

Senator DRAKE:
Minister for Defence · QUEENSLAND · Protectionist

– I have the matter under consideration, and I can assure the honorable senator that in any case there will be no delay.

Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP

– The Minister intends to grant an inquiry ?

Senator DRAKE:

– I am endeavouring to arrange it.

Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP

asked the Minister of Defence, upon notice -

  1. If he has received from the General Officer Commanding a report containing the reasons why Major Carroll was retrenched ?
  2. If so, will he immediately cause such report to be laid on the table of the House ?
Senator DRAKE:

– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : -

  1. Yes.
  2. As there is a probability of an inquiry being held I think it is inadvisable at this stage to lay such report on the table.

page 5329

QUESTION

PREFERENTIAL TRADE

Senator PULSFORD:
NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

  1. Is it true, as reported in the press, that Sir Edmund Barton has cabled to Mr. Chamberlain that his policy commanded the support of Australia?
  2. If it is true, then, how can Sir Edmund Barton know that Mr. Chamberlain’s policy commands the support of Australia, when it has never been considered by the Federal Parliament ?
Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : - 1 Yes, and he has received the following answer: - “ Believe in ultimate success, and rejoice in your co-operation.”

  1. Sir Edmund Barton’s knowledge is derived’ from his confidence that the people of Australia will support Mr. Chamberlain’s policy in place of the policy of little England, or little Australia.

page 5329

QUESTION

PACIFIC CABLE CONFERENCE

Senator HIGGS:
QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

  1. . Did Mr. C. H. Reynolds, general manager of the Pacific Cable Board, on his arrival in Melbourne, inform the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth that a majority of the Pacific Cable Board were desirous of a Conference of representatives of the Governments represented in the Pacific Cable ?
  2. Did Mr. C. H. Reynolds at a later stage inform the Prime Minister that he had received a cable stating that a majority of the Board were still desirous of a Conference?
  3. Is the following paragraph, appearing in the Melbourne Argus of the 21st September, true : -

” THE PACIFIC CABLE.

“The Prime Minister is still awaiting a cable message from the Pacific Cable Board respectingthe proposed Conference to discuss the agreement into which the Commonwealth Government wishesto enter with the Eastern Extension Company. Sir Edmund Barton does not think that there isany necessity to hold a Conference of representatives of the countries interested in the PacificCable, and he has submitted an alternative scheme to the Board, which that body is now considering.”

  1. What is the alternative scheme now being considered by the Pacific Cable Board ?
Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : -

  1. Yes, and the Prime Minister was already aware of the fact.
  2. Yes.
  3. and 4. The paragraph is not quite accurate, but papers will be laid on the table at an early date giving all the facts required.

page 5329

QUESTION

MAIL SERVICE : NEW GUINEA

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

Do the Ministry intend to place a sum of money on the Estimates as a subsidy for a regular mail service between Queeusland and New Guinea, on lines similar to the subsidy granted to steamers running between the Commonwealth, the New Hebrides, and Fiji ?

Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -

The matter is under. consideration. No sum, howe ever,. can be placed on the present Estimates, as these have already passed the House of Representatives.

page 5329

QUESTION

SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH

Senator STEWART:
QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

In the event of Sir Samuel Griffith accepting the office of Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, will he come under section 84 of the Constitution, which provides that any State servant transferred to the service of the Commonwealth shall carry with him such pension rights as have accrued to him under the State law ?

Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -

It is not advisable to give, by way of answer to a question, what would only be an official opinion as to .matters of law arising out of a hypothetical case.

page 5330

QUESTION

MAIL BOATS : FREMANTLE

Senator PEARCE:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

Do any of the conditions attached to the tenders for the conveyance of mails between the United Kingdom and Australia omit Fremantle as a port of call ; if so, which are they, and what are the reasons for Fremantle being omitted as a port of call in such cases ?

Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -

Only the conditions attaching to the tenders for the conveyance of mails via Vancouver omit Fremantle as a port of call. The reason for the omission is that Fremantle is not on the route between Australia and Vancouver.

page 5330

PRINTING COMMITTEE

Ordered (on motion by Senator Drake) -

That the order of the clay for the consideration of report brought up on 3rd September, 1902, be rend and discharged.

page 5330

QUESTION

FISCAL REFERENDUM

Senator DE LARGIE:
Western Australia

– I move -

That in the opinion of this Senate -

It is in the best interests of Australian prosperity that a settled fiscal policy should be adopted by the Commonwealth.

Recognising the difficulty of securing a clear, explicit, and definite expression of opinion upon the fiscal question at a general election, when so many issues are involved, this Senate affirms the necessity of ascertaining the will of the electors by means of the referendum, at the forthcoming senatorial elections.

The ballot-papers to be used in the aforesaid referendum may be in the following form : -

I do not know that I need to offer an apology for putting the motion on the business-paper, because this is not the first occasion on which I have advocated this proposal in the Senate. I had the privilege of doing so on at least two occasions last session - first, in speaking to the Address-in-Reply, and, secondly, in discussing the second reading of the Customs Tariff Bill. I may say that during the Federal elections I also advocated the adoption of this course. If at that time I was a strong believer in the referendum as a means of settling the fiscal question, my brief parliamentary experience has convinced me that it is the only possible way in which a period of fiscal peace can be secured. I believe that the people of Australia are quite prepared to deal with this issue. There is no question of the day on which the man in the street is so well prepared to offer an opinion as that of the Tariff. No matter whom one may converse with, he is always ready to state which side he takes. Of. course, I except the few cranks who can never make up their minds on any question. I hold that the people are ready to express their opinion clearly and concisely, so that the Parliament may know the will of the majority. The question of free-trade or protection has provoked considerable controversy. It was discussed in this Parliament for a period of ten months. It has been discussed more or less in the Parliament of every State, but no finality has ever been reached. Its settlement has been put off for the time being, and at the next elections the same indefinite expression ofopinion will be obtained as at the preceding ones. I see no hope of any better results being obtained in the future than in the past unless a referendum is taken. The fiscal question was a very important factor in the last general elections. Generally the candidates took sides on the question, and when the Parliament was opened the fiscalists on either side claimed a victory at the polls. It was said hat if the people could only be given an opportunity of expressing their opinion on the Tariff they would vote against it. The free-traders declared that it was not framed in accordance with the will of the people, while the protectionists took the opposite view. If this confusion of thought has been witnessed in the past, I see no reason to anticipate any better result from the next general elections unless a suitable method is adopted to ascertain correctly the will of the people. The present method of electing members of Parliament is not a very safe guide to what is public opinion on the fiscal question. I cannot suggest a better method to ascertain public opinion than that which I submit in this motion. I admit that it is a difficult task to draw up a ballot-paper which will provide for the expression of various shades of fiscal thought. For several days I puzzled my brain to draw up a ballotpaper which would be comprehensive, and, at the same time, simple and easily understood ; I have to confess that it is capable of improvement. But

I am satisfied that it is possible to frame a ballot-paper which will afford to the electors an opportunity to indicate their opinion. I believe thai the ballot-paper which I have drawn up will furnish t© the electors an opportunity for which they have been longing. I make bold to prophesy that if a referendum is taken at the next general election there will be no doubt as to what is the. collective opinion of Australia. I expect to be met with the argument that I am proposing a method which will enable a candidate to shirk the ‘ responsibility of declaring himself on the fiscal question. But there is very little in that argument when it is examined. It must be admitted that at an election the candidates declare themselves on one side or the other. If there was anything in the argument at all, I think it would tell rather against a candidate than in his favour. Take, for instance, the various members of the Senate. Almost every candidate who appeals to the electors of Victoria is quite ready to declare himself a protectionist. And it seems to be the usual thing in New South Wales for a. candidate to declare himself a free-trader. For a man to boldly declare himself either a free-trader or a protectionist does not explain hh true position. Just in the same way as there are protectionists of different degrees, so there are free-traders of different degrees. If my proposal is adopted an elector will have the opportunity of voting either for a straight-out free-trade or revenue Tariff, according to free-trade ideas, or for a protectionist or revenue Tariff, according to protectionist ideas, and we shall be able to ascertain more accurately the will of the people than we should do if they simply had to vote for candidates who announced themselves as free-traders or protectionists.

Senator Higgs:

– How many questions does the honorable senator propose to have on the ballot-paper ?

Senator DE LARGIE:

– I have included in my motion four questions, which I think are clear enough for the average man to grasp. We know that there are scientific protectionists, who do not desire any revenue to be collected through the Custom-house. That is generally called scientific protection. There is also the free-trader, pure and simple, who does not believe in deriving any revenue through the ‘ Custom-house - that is the free-trader of the out-and-out Henry George school. Of course, either protection or free-trade of the kind mentioned involves the necessity of direct taxation. There are large numbers of electors in Australia who believe in free-trade or protection from that stand-point ; but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, after the long debate we had on fiscal ism when the Tariff proposals were before us, that there are also many voters who believe in revenue-tariffism combined with either free-trade or protection. No matter to what political school a man may belong, the ballot-paper which I propose provides for all the various shades of fiscalism.

Senator Drake:

– I thought the honorable senator .said that he was not quite satisfied that his ballot-paper achieved the object he has in view.

Senator DE LARGIE:

– I quite admit that I had some difficulty, as is shown by the fact that I asked leave to amend my motion. There is another aspect of the question which perhaps forms a greater recommendation of the proposal than any I have yet mentioned. If my motion be carried, it will be a means of making people think for themselves ; in fact, it will compel the people to devote their attention to one of the great questions of the day, and will have an educative effect, by causing them to take a. more direct part in the legislation of the country than they take at the present time. This method of settling important questions has been adopted by the republican and liberty-loving people of Switzerland, who are perhaps the most intelligent people in the world ; and that fact speaks, highly in favour of my proposal. I do not wish to initiate the referendum as a sweeping change in our methods of legislation, because such a proposal would court instant defeat. What I desire ls to initiate the principle of the referendum in connexion with a question on which the people of the country are well prepared to express an opinion. There is nothing of a wild-cat nature in my proposal. Another important feature has tobe taken into consideration. Australia requires .a stable or permanent policy of fiscalism. If the trade of this country is to progress, and we are to have prosperity, we must have a settled fiscal policy ; the industries of the country must have time to become established before any Tariff alterations are made. If we change and chop about after every election, stability cannot be expected, and people will never know when there is to be a disarrangement of the Tariff, with consequent confusion in trade and commerce. Viewed from whatever stand-point we like, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by submitting this question directly to the people of Australia. We recognise that there are certain financial obligations imposed on the Federal Parliament by the Constitution; and this .makes it all the more necessary for us to have a settled fiscal policy. If my proposal is not adopted I am quite sure that after the next elections we shall have the same fiscal turmoil we have had during the life of the present Parliament ; and that state of things will continue until a method similar to the one which I am now advocating is adopted. W.e shall always be in doubt as to what is the will of the people, und politicians will have the right to declare that the opinions they express are also the opinions of the public. We shall never be able to obtain any proof as to what are the real opinions of the people until an opportunity such as the referendum affords is given, and a vote recorded in accordance with the popular will.

Senator PULSFORD:
New South Wales

– I suppose nobody is more anxious than I am to have the fiscal question settled, but I wish it settled properly, and in accordance with what I believe to be the requirements of civilization and common-sense. I am not prepared to submit my lifelong convictions to any referendum with the intention, from that time forward until I reach the grave, of not expressing any opinion or any desire to alter the Tariff if I conceive it to be wrong in any particular. I take it that whatever may be the existing doubts of Senator Higgs and Senator De Largie, if they thought any special industry would be benefited by a duty of 5 per cent., 15 per cent., 100 per cent., or 1,000 per cent.,, they would straightway propose such an impost. In that may be seen one of the great objections to a referendum, which, though it might be introduced with an honest desire to obtain finality, would not assure that end. I am quite certain that if we had a referendum and the free-traders carried the day, as they ought to do, Senator Higgs or Senator De Largie would not take a “back seat” on a fiscal question for ever.

Senator Higgs:

– I certainly should not.

Senator PULSFORD:

– I think Senator De Largie said )ie* was quite certain.how the referendum would result, and was therefore prepared to advocate that method of settling the question.

Senator De Largie:

– I said nothing of the sort. »

Senator PULSFORD:

– Then I understand that if at the next general election the free-traders obtain the sweeping triumph, to which they are justly entitled by virtue of their policy - a policy which nowhere receives more powerful indorsement than in Western Australia - Senator De Largie will atenceforth and for ever be prepared to bide by that result. I do not, however, think that that would be the case. I should like to know what is meant by “ protectionist Tariff.” Senator De Largie has practically told us that by these words he means something that would be more properly described as a prohibition Tariff - a Tariff so high that no duties could be collected. Then I understand that Senator De Largie by “free trade Tariff” means a Tariff which would result in the abolition of the Customhouse.

Senator De Largie:

– Hear, hear !.

Senator PULSFORD:

Senator De Largie gives us in the first place a choice between the prohibition of imports and the abolition of the Custom-house. But everybody knows that Australia is not in a position to accept either proposal. Both goods and revenue are required.

Senator De Largie:

– Is that the sort of free-trader the honorable senator is - a revenuetariffist 1

Senator PULSFORD:

– Australia needs revenue, which must be collected, but which cannot be collected by an application of the Henry George theory.

Senator PEARCE:

– Oh !

Senator PULSFORD:

– No other conclusion can be arrived at by any person who has studied the figures relating to the value of land in Australia. “

Senator PEARCE:

– Are there no other sources of revenue t

Senator PULSFORD:

– Undoubtedly there are ; but at the present time what we have to consider is the difference between a protectionist Tariff and a free-trade Tariff. By the former, I understand a Tariff which is levied so as to more or less protect local producers. There are all sorts of protection ; there can be a duty of 5 per cent, which is protective, or there may be a duty of 500 per cent., or a duty of 5,000 per cent. Does Senator De Largie mean moderate protection, or does he mean immoderate protection, which approaches very near to prohibition ? I object to the term “ free-trade revenue Tariff.” In England the Tariff is confined to a very few articles, and is clearly a Tariff for revenue ; and that is what is desired by free-traders all the world over. They contend that if a Tariff is necessary it should be for revenue pure and simple.

Senator De Largie:

– The honorable senator may find free-traders to dispute that view.

Senator PULSFORD:

– I do not know any free-trader who would do so.

Senator De Largie:

Senator Pearce would for one.

Senator Pearce:

– I should most certainl y.

Senator PULSFORD:

Senator Pearce does not dispute that, under a free-trade Tariff, duties must be imposed for revenue purposes only. I am sure the honorable senator does not desire a Tariff imposed for protection. Free-traders are united in the opinion that when a duty is imposed it should be wholly and solely for revenue. There are so many degrees of taxation connected with the Tariff that we cannot go to the masses of the people and ask - “Which side are you on ? “ What the rates of duty may be depends very much on who is handling the Tariff. There might come into power moderate protectionists who would impose only moderate duties, while others might go as far in the direction of absolute prohibition as revenue considerations permit. The differences are so great that we cannot finally settle this matter by a referendum. Even if we did settle the question in that way, on the very next day politicians on one side or the other would be announcing that they disputed the result, and would take the earliest opportunity of having it reversed. The only thing we can do is to fight the matter out, and I for one am quite determined to fight it to a finality, in the hope that the day will come when Australia will be thoroughly free-trade.

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:
Western Australia

Senator De Largie proposes to introduce the principle of the referendum into our Federal system of government, and the motion is one which should receive very careful attention before being adopted. The referendum would practically decide the question just as though our system of government were a unification pure and simple instead of a Federation. It would mean that the mass vote of the people would, irrespective of any.State rights, decide some of the most important questions with which the Australian Government have to deal. Under the Federal system, the States have equal representation in one of the Chambers ; and that system would be nullified if important questions were decided by a mass vote. No doubt the adoption of a referendum would be supported by a large number of people who believe in absolute unification, and who hope that our present Federal system will pass away. But from a Federal point of view any question of importance which involves State rights ought not to be settled by means of a referendum. I do not say that the question of the Tariff specially involves State rights.

Senator Pearce:

– Then the honorable senator’s argument does not apply.

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:

– There are numbers of questions with which State rights are intimately associated, and in such cases the referendum would be anti-Federal. When we come to examine the proposal of Senator De Largie, apart altogether from the question of whether it is advisable to introduce the referendum into our Federal system, we find that, after that method had been resorted to, we should be no nearer the solution of the difficulty. It is proposed that the people should have an opportunity of deciding the question in four ways - of saying whether there should be a protectionist Tariff, a free-trade Tariff, a protectionist revenue Tariff, or a free-trade revenue Tariff. Supposing for the sake of argument, that the people decided in favour of a protectionist Tariff, should we be any nearer finality ?

Senator De Largie:

– We should be a long way on the road.

SenatorSTANIFORTH SMITH. -What is the definition of “protectionist Tariff”? It might be said that the protectionist Tariff should mean duties of 15 per cent. : but the present Government might take the view that the duties ought to be as high as those in the United States - that there should be a prohibitive or true protectionist Tariff. The whole question would then have to be decided by the two Houses, just as though there had been no referendum. Of course “freetrade Tariff” is definite, meaning as it does the imposition of no duties. As to a “protectionist revenue Tariff,” when we cast our minds back to the celebrated Maitland manifesto, we remember that Sir Edmund Barton declared that the Federal Tariff would be principally a revenue Tariff - that it would be neither protectionist nor free-trade, but a revenue Tariff incidentally protective. We had there a pronouncement in favour of a protectionist revenue tariff ; but -what was the Tariff which the right honorable gentleman’s Government introduced ? It was a Tariff in which many of the composite and specific duties amounted to over 100 per cent. If at the referendum the people decided for a revenue Tariff incidentally protectionist, Sir Edmund Barton would introduce just such a Tariff as we dealt with last session. The right honorable - gentleman time and again justified the statements he made at Maitland, and he held that the Tariff brought before the Federal Parliament was a fulfilment of the promises he made on that occasion.

Senator De Largie:

– He allowed for plenty of room to cut down.

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:

Sir Edmund Barton never said that. He claimed that he was perfectly justified in submitting his Tariff to Parliament, and that in doing so he broke neither the letter nor the spirit of any statement contained in his Maitland manifesto.

Senator Drake:

– Quite right.

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:

– The Minister for Defence agrees with me that Sir Edmund Barton’s definition of a revenue Tariff incidentally protective was shown by the Tariff which he introduced. Another definition of a revenue Tariff would be a Tariff of 1 0 or 1 2 per cent. In such a case we should have just the same fight as before as to what was a revenue Tariff, and the same time would be occupied in settling the question as if no referendum had been taken. While a definite decision on the fiscal question would be of immense advantage to Australia, I am certain that the proposal submitted by Senator De Largie would be absolutely useless to secure such a decision. We have the fiscal issue continually cropping up in Australia, and dominating parties in Parliament. It draws a line transversely across the two historic parliamentary parties, the conservative and democratic parties, and divides them into camps, though upon everything but fiscalism they may not hold views in common. We have amongst free-traders conservatives and radicals, and, amongst protectionists, tories, the most extreme liberals, and labour members. We know that there has been fiscal peace in Great Britain for the last forty or fifty years,’ and the Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain has recently thrown a bombinto the political camp, which is having the effect of dividing the two historic liberal and conservative parties once more. In the division that is now taking place in those parties we have labour membersand the extreme tories of England on one Side, and liberals, land-owners, and manufacturers on the other side. Any one who has the interests of Australia at heart must agree that it is regrettable that the Tariff issue should be continually hanging over our heads, like some sword of Damocles, and that parties should be dominated by it.

Senator De Largie:

– Does the honorable senator support Senator Pulsford’s contention that Henry George’s view could not be applied in Australia ?

Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:

– No, I do not. I believe in free-trade, and I support a revenue tariff only because I look upon it as a stepping stone to free-trade. If some sane proposal could be submitted by which the people could give a definite decision upon the Tariff which would stand for at least ten years, it would ‘be found to bein the best interests of Australia, but I have not yet heard of a solution of the difficulty. While Senator De Largie submits his motion with the best intentions, he must see that even though the people decided that we should have a revenue Tariff, the issue would be no nearer a settlement, because we should still haveto decide what a revenue Tariff is. When we came to deal with specific duties, weshould have the same differences of opinion as before, because whilst a revenue Tariff” interpreted by free-traders would permit of 10 per cent, duties, according to the definition of the Prime Minister, it would allow of the imposition of duties of over 100 percent, in some cases. I do not believe thatwe can bring about a settlement of the fiscal issue by a referendum. I cannot thereforesupport the motion, believing that it will bring us no nearer to the goal which SenatorDe Largie and I desire to reach. If thequestion of the Tariff is fought out at thenext election, we may hope that there will be fiscal peace for some considerable time. I do not believe that a referendum on the fiscal issue would violate any of the principles of Federation, because I do not believe that the Tariff issue is one which specially affects States’ rights. If it did, it would be impossible to submit it to a referendum. So far as the principle is concerned, there does not seem to me to be any insuperable objection to the taking of a referendum upon the question:; but when expediency, and the results which are likely to accrue from a referendum upon the question, are considered, we shall find that we would be no nearer a settlement than over, and we should have, just the same fiscal differences in this Senate as we have at the present time.

Senator HIGGS:
Queensland

– I thought that this motion would furnish a very good subject for discussion, and I expected to find honorable senators more eager to take part in the debate. I wish to say that I am prepared te support the .motion with a certain amendment. I propose to add to it this additional question : -

Are you of opinion that the present Customs Tariff should remain undisturbed for a period of seven years ?

That would bring us to about the end of the bookkeeping period. I cannot understand why Senators Pulsford and Smith should object to a referendum upon this question. During the prolonged debate on the Tariff, extending over some seventeen months, they continually told us that they were sure that if we appealed to the people they would decide in favour of free-trade. Here is an excellent opportunity offered them to appeal to the people, and they are not disposed to take advantage of it. My impression is that, although Senator Smith may not realise it, Senator Pulsford does realise that free-trade is a dying cause.

Senator Pulsford:

– No he does not.

Senator Staniforth Smith:

– How -is it that the leaders of the protectionist party have repudiated the proposal for a referendum.

Senator HIGGS:

– I am not aware that they have done so, but they may have the same doubts as the honorable senator. As a good protectionist, I have no fear as to the result. I should have no fear in submitting the question to a referendum even in New South Wales, because the very brief experience that the people of that State have had of the Commonwealth Tariff has been of such a nature that a writer in the Argus, dealing with New South Wales politics, has made a statement to the effect that the misfortune is that when people get a taste of protection they want more of it. We know, from a tabulated statement which has appeared, that something like £1,000,000 has been expended in building factories and extending existing factories in New South Wales.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

-Col. Neild. - That is an exploded lie.

Senator HIGGS:

– The honorable senator is under a misapprehension. We are in a position to supply him with details of the various buildings that have been erected under the aegis of the Federal protectionist Tariff.

Senator Pearce:

– Is the honorable senator referring to the figures in the Argus of this morning

Senator HIGGS:

– No, I am referring to a long list which appeared some time ago in the columns of the Daily Telegraph. There may have been a little stuffing in the statement. It is possible that some buildings which would have been erected whether there were a protectionist Tariff or not were included in the list ; but that could have been due only to the excessive zeal shown by certain protectionists. We have amongst our ranks certain misguided men, just as have the freetraders, whose zeal outruns their discretion. Whether we fear the result or not, Senator De Largie proposes to submit a fair proposition to the electors. We know very well that iri New South Wales the cry of freetrade has lasted politicans for some forty years, and they have lived upon it during that time. The only question submitted to the electors from time to time in that State was whether they favoured free-trade orprotection.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– That question was not submitted until 1889.

Senator HIGGS:

– The honorable senator must know that the late Sir Henry Parkes lived on the question of free-trade in New South Wales for about forty years, and to the great detriment of the country.

Senator Pearce:

– It was evidently nourishing.

Senator HIGGS:

– I would remind the honorable senator that the late Sir Henry Parkes got some help also from the quantity of Crown lands he sold. He got several millions in that way which enabled him to pull through. There was not much nourishment in the free-trade policy ; but there was a great deal in the alienation of Crown lands, which enabled him to meet public expenditure. “When a candidate appears be- fore the electors, the first thing they study in him is his personality. Personal considerations influence electors more than a political programme. They will say - “I know so-and-so, and I will give him a vote.” The next consideration of importance may probably be some useful legislation which he proposes, and the views of a candidate upon the fiscal question form only one of many considerations. A man might be a free-trader or a protectionist. He might be like Mr. Bamford, a fiscal atheist, or like Senator Stewart, who says he is a freetrader, and votes protection. Electors return a man very often without considering what his fiscal policy is. It is possible to have a majority in Parliament that will vote on the fiscal question against the wishes and desires of a majority of the electors.

Senator McGregor:

Senator Walker was returned on account of his financial knowledge.

Senator HIGGS:

Senator Walker was returned to this Senate because he is the great financial authority of New South Wales. I think that Senator Pulsford is the only representative of New South Wales who was returned because he was a freetrader, and a free-trader who has held the flag aloft, and I am glad to hear him say will hold it aloft to the end. I am glad to find that he is not like a certain other so-called free-trader, who, when addressing a public meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall, said it had been the proud boast of his life to uphold the honour of free-trade, but who has since then said that, if it could be shown by a referendum that the people were against freetrade, he would abandon it for the rest of his days. I am glad that Senator Pulsford is not a free-trader of that kind. I think the electors will be able to give a very intelligent vote upon this question. I do not know that Senator De Largie’s questions are stated in the best possible way. I think the electors would understand what a protectionist Tariff is, but they would not know what a free-trade Tariff is, because they have no experience of a free-trade Tariff in any part of the world. We know that the ‘ Tariff of the old country is a hybrid Tariff. I support the motion, but I do not feel positive that it will turn put as I should like, because there may be some confusion in the minds of the electors. It must not be forgotten that we shall have to deal with an unknown quantity in the women’s vote, which may be cast in a direction different to that in which I should like to see it cast. Free-traders may appeal to the women folk, who have to carry on the household economy in many instances on a very limited sum. They may suggest to them that it wouldbe wise to take the duty off condensed milk, oatmeal, and other household requisites, and’ some of the women folk’ may be shortsighted enough to vote in that way.

Senator Playford:

– They would knock’ the duty off salt, soap, and scent.

Senator HIGGS:

– If a stiff duty were imposed on soft soap the honorable senator might find it a great deal harder to get a seat in Parliament. I cannot get away from the justice of this proposal. I believe in the adoption of the referendum. I hope that it will not be very long before a reasonable number of electors will be able to secure a referendum on any subject. I move -

That the following words be added: - “Are you in favour of $he present Customs- Tariff remaining unaltered for a period of seven 3’ears ? “

The Tariff does not give protectionists all the protection which they desire. For example, the duty on hats was reduced, and the result is that the hat factories are not doing as well as they ought to do, as they have to compete with the cheap products of other countries. The Tariff as a whole may be said to be a fair compromise, and I think that the general public, especially commercial men, desire to have a few years’ rest from the turmoil which no doubt would ensue from a prolonged fight on the fiscal question.

The PRESIDENT:

– I desire to call the attention of honorable senators to the fact that under new standing order 393 only the amendment can be discussed, and that when it is disposed of another amendment can be moved and discussed, and so on. If, however, this amendment is put, no other amendment can be proposed, because it is an amendment to add to the motion.

Senator Sir Josiah Symon:

– Shall we be allowed to speak once to the amendment and once to the motion 1

The PRESIDENT:

– Every amendment which is put can be spoken to by every honorable senator.

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– I am under the impression that our standing order was taken from the Standing Orders of the Legislative

Assembly of New South Wales. In that Chamber it is competent for a member to speak to both the amendment andtheoriginal question upon it. And I take it, sir, that it will be competent for honorable senators to do the same, and that if this amendment Were negatived and another amendment moved, honorable senators who had spoken to the original question would be required to confine their remarks to the amendment. I submit that it will be competent for Senator Playford or Senator Dobson, who have not yet spoken to the original question, to speak to both the amendment and the original question.

Senator Drake:

– I believe that there is a similar standing order in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The practice, I think, was that if a member confined his remarks strictly to the amendment he did not lose his right to speak subsequently to the main question. There was nothing to prevent him if he chose from discussing both the amendment and the main question at the same time ; but if he did, he had no right to speak again to the main question after the amendment had been disposed of.

The PRESIDENT:

– I do not exactly know the practice in the State Parliaments in which the standing order has been in force, but 1 cannot see how Senator Playford, for instance, can refrain from speaking to the original question if he addresses himself to the amendment. I shallbe very glad to learn whether the practice in the State Parliaments is that when an amendment is moved a member can speak to that amendment, and after it is negatived or passed he can speak again to the original question.

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– The rule is that a member can speak to both the amendment and the original question, and that when that amendment is disposed of he can speak to any other amendment which may be moved, but not to the original question, except so far as may be necessary to explain himself. I think it will facilitate the transaction of the business if that practice is adopted here. Our former standing order, taken from the South Australian practice, to the effect that a member who had spoken to the original question, could not speak afterwards to an amendment, was, I understood, the reason for our present standing order so as to enable a member who had spoken to the main’ question to speak to any amendment which might be moved, or, if he had not already spoken to the main question, to speak to both the amendment and the main question at the same time.

The PRESIDENT:

– I should like to get this matter settled. Standing order 393 says -

Every senator may speak once on -

  1. Any question before the Senate ;
  2. Any amendment thereon.

Am I to understand that in the Parliaments in which this standing order is in force a member is entitled to speak to both the original question and the amendment, and that he cannot speak again unless another amendment is proposed ?

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– Hear, hear.

The PRESIDENT:

– How am I to know that a senator is speaking to the original question and the amendment? Ought he to state when he rises that he intends to speak to both questions ?

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– If he chooses to speak to only the amendment he will lose his right to speak to the original question.

The PRESIDENT:

– I confess that I am in a fog about this matter. It is quite a new practice to me. I shall call on Senator Playford to speak, subject to the restriction that if he speaks to both the original question and the amendment he cannot speak again.

Senator Drake:

– Not unless another amendment is moved.

Senator Sir Josiah Symon:

– May I suggest, sir, that the question before the Senate is the substantive question plus the amendment, and therefore that those honorable senators who spoke on the substantive question before the amendment was moved will, according to the practice which has been described, be permitted to speak to the amendment alone, subject to your power to call them to order if they diverge from the question, or repeat what they said previously. If that course is taken it will relieve us from any difficulty which might otherwise be experienced.

The PRESIDENT:

– That, is what I understand to be the wish of the Senate.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– That is the practice in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales.

Senator PLAYFORD:
South Australia

– If we were compelled to keep strictly to the amendment before the Senate, and subsequently to be allowed to debate the whole question the discussion might be interminable. It appears to me that we adopted a bad rule. A great many bad things, and among- others this standing order have come from the mother State.

Senator Higgs:

– I submit, sir, that the honorable senator has no right to reflect on a decision of the Senate unless for the purpose of securing its repeal.

The PRESIDENT:

– The honorable senator is light.

Senator PLAYFORD:

– I could have very easily got round the standing order by saying that I was prepared to move for its repeal at some date. Senator De Largie has explained that he has advocated the adoption of. the referendum for this purpose on several occasions, and that he is now submitting his views in a concrete form. This can be nothing but an academic discussion. If he will reflect for a moment, he .must see that it could lead to no practical result, but would cause the utmost confusion. Although I have for many years been engaged on difficult subjects which could be put in a concrete form before the electors - a form which would enable them to answer practically yes or no - still I preferred to have a referendum. I supported a referendum in South Australia respecting the question of Bible reading in State schools, when of course the direct.question could be put to the electors In the caseof theTariff, however, a difficulty arises at once. “When Senator Higgs expressed his belief that the electors would be able to give an intelligent answer to the questions on the ballot-paper, J asked him to state what is meant by a protectionist Tariff. To one man it means a protection of ‘50, 60, or more per cent. ; to another man it means a moderate protection, perhaps going down to 25 per cent., and possibly up to 30 per cent, in the case of certain luxuries ; while to another man it may mean a protection of only 10 per cent. If a man said, “ I am in favour of a protectionist Tariff,” we should not get from him an intelligent decision. What would be the use of putting such a question to the electors when, if it were answered, no result could follow % There would be only confusion and wrangling over what it meant. It would be said that it meant a high protectionist Tariff, or a moderate protectionist Tariff, or a low protectionist Tariff, and therefore we could get no decision. On the other hand, what is meant by a free-trade Tariff? In almost every case it is incidentally protective ; very often ‘it cannot be otherwise. The same difficulty arises in this case as in the other.

Senator Sir Josiah Symon:

– What protection is there in a duty on tea t

Senator PLAYFORD:

– What protection is there in a duty on wine 1

Senator Sir Josiah Symon:

– That might be directly protective. Take the duty on tea 1

Senator PLAYFORD:

– The honorable and learned senator will remember that a Speaker of our House of Assembly, Sir R. D. Ross, had an idea that tea could be grown at a profit in South Australia. We offered a bonus - a grant of land, I think - to induce the growth of the tea plant. A man brought tea plants from Assam, which he planted in land granted to him in the Mount Lofty ranges. He took care to grow precious few tea plants, and a considerable quantity of potatoes, which, of course, he marketed at a profit. The idea of starting tea plantations in the State, was exploded. Possibly tea may be grown by-and-by, and when it is grown a duty on tea will not be a free-trade duty. Senator Higgs said he was a little frightened about the women’s vote on this fiscal question. I can assure him that in South Australia we are not frightened of the women’s vote. As a rule a woman votes with her husband, or her brother, or her cousin. I was not in the State when the first elections under adult suffrage were held. I was intimately acquainted with all the leading politicians, and when I saw the results I came to the conclusion that if there had been no women’s votes the same men would have been returned. The women’s vote was a negligible quantity I do not know how far the experience of New Zealand bears out that view. I believe that in that Colony, the women favour prohibition more than men do. It has not been the case however in my State. The granting of the franchise to women has only duplicated the voting power. It had no right to be withheld from the women, because they have to obey the laws ; the logic was on their side.

Senator Fraser:

– Do they defend the country?

Senator PLAYFORD:

– They would, if necessary, stand behind Senator Fraser and load his rifle for him. The Boer women fought in the war against the British, and women have in the past fought, and in the future will fight, if necessary, in defence of their home’s and families. Senator De Largie says in his motion that “ in the best interests of Australian prosperity” a settled fiscal policy should be adopted by the Commonwealth. That is a truism. It would be a good thing if we could adopt a settled fiscal policy ; but in this world of change we cannot have a policy that will last for all times. Revision must always be demanded by altered circumstances. At the same time, I believe, that throughout Australia the majority of protectionists and free-traders alike are strongly of . opinion that it would be unwise to interfere with the Tariff until ‘we have had experience of its working for a good many years - that it would be unwise to make the fiscal question an issue at the forthcoming elections.

Senator De Largie:

– Why not let the people express’ that opinion ?

Senator PLAYFORD:

– That is what I understand Senator Higgs wishes the people to have an opportunity of saying ; and, no doubt, a single question might be put at the referendum, though it “would be impossible to put all the questions proposed by Senator De Largie. Senator Higgs’ amendment is practically that the people should be asked - “Are you prepared to leave the fiscal question alone for seven years ? “ No doubt that is a definite question ; but in my opinion there is no necessity for . a referendum. The matter may be left to the commonsense of the electors when the candidates are before them, and when the prevailing opinion may be easily ascertained. My belief is that free-traders and protectionists alike will agree to leave the question alone for a considerable time to come. Senator Higgs’ amendment imposes a limit of time, but altered circumstances might arise having regard to which both free-traders and protectionists would be of opinion that the Tariff should be altered in certain particulars. The referendum would draw a hard and fast line which would do no good and might do considerable mischief. I ask Senator De Largie not topress his motion to a division.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:
New South Wales

– This afternoon I have heard honorable senators advocating the very thing they condemned yesterday, namely, the absence of Ministerial responsibility. Some honorable senators yesterday deplored the fact that the Government were leaving, or seeking to leave, Parliament to decide a question which they themselves ought to have the courage to propose and support.

The motion before us strikes at the very root of responsible government, and leaves it to the man in the crowd to settle the fiscal policy of the country.

Senator Higgs:

– Who has the betterright ?

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– No one, perhaps; but the question is whether by the plan proposed we can arrive at the result desired. The referendum might perhaps apply, I admit, if there were no constituencies other than entire States. But how are we towork a fiscal referendum in the separateconstituencies which form a State 1 In Victoria, for instance, there are twenty-three constituencies, and in New South Wales twenty-six. If a referendum were taken, should we not find great differences in the figures amongst those different electorates ? I admit that in New South Wales we might find some constituencies which would vote for a continuance of the present fiscal system, but in the large majority of cases the vote, would be in exactly the opposite direction. Is it “ to be supposed that representatives of electorates which had decided against the present fiscal system, would consent to have their mouths closed by the votes of people whom they did not represent? Is it to be supposed that I, as a senator for New South Wales, would consent to have my mouth closed foi’ seven years in consequence of the votes of people in another State ? Unless the people of the whole Commonwealth vote, irrespective of whether they form House of Representative electorates or Senate electorates, it will be quite impossible to get an allround vote on such a question. No matter what question might be submitted, there would be varying results in the States and in the House of Representative constituencies. We could not expect the people of a State or the people of a constituency to refrain from expressing their views because people elsewhere had decided in a different ‘ manner. How can any just decision be obtained by a vote on the questions which Senator De Largie submits ? The honorable senator himself suggests that his proposals might be improved on. There are four phrases used - protectionist Tariff, free-trade Tariff, protectionist revenue Tariff, and free- trade revenue’Tariff. What on earth do these four propositions imply ? Without an interpretation clause, showing the maximum tate to constitute a protectionist Tariff and the minimum rate to constitute some other variety o£ Tariff, “what will the people understand themselves to be voting on ? What constitutes, in the estimation of the members of this Chamber, let alone the people of the Commonwealth, the different degrees of fiscal faith or belief set forth in the four phrases I have mentioned ? I remember reading some time ago of an old sea-captain, who was asked what represents moderation in the consumption of liquor, and who replied - “ Well, it is some where between a glass and a barrel.” Freetrade and protection, as set forth in the four propositions, suggest the old captain’s notions of moderation, as being somewhere between no duties and prohibition. But where are the halting places between no duties and prohibition? In submitting a question of this kind to the people by referendum, there would have to be attached to the ballot-paper an interpretation clause much more elaborate than that inserted in any Bill by Parliament.

Senator De Largie:

– Was that done in the case of the Federal Constitution 1

Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT

-Col. NEILD.- That was a clear-cut issue whether we were or were not to have the Federal Constitution, and it required only a plain “ yes “ or “ no.” Here very different propositions are put forward in the four suggestions.

Senator De Largie:

– They are all on one subject.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

.- Yes, but the honorablesenator knows that a thousand questions could be framed on the fiscal policy, whereas in the case of the Federal Constitution there was involved only one question. A portion of the notice of motion, which the honorable senator has not moved, is as follows : -

You may in addition give a contingent vote for any other Tariff by placing the number 2 in the square opposite, so as to indicate the order of your preference.

Senator De Largie:

– If the ‘ honorable senator reads the paragraph from the beginning he will understand it differently.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

.- The words immediately preceding those I have just read are -

Indicate your vote by placing the number 1 in the square opposite the Tariff that you vote for in the first instance.

I see what the honorable senator intends, but the notification is so framed that the average voter would read it as I did, namely, as inviting him to vote for any other variety of Tariff. This is not a question of whether we do or do not trust the people. We may trust the people implicitly; but in order to get an intelligent vote we must submit an intelligent question. I submit “that in a matter of the Tariff it is impossible to have a ballotpaper in such a form as to be intelligible. It is practically impossible to frame questions in such a manner that they cannot be misunderstood. In the Senate elections in New South Wales there were no . less than 34,000 informal ballotpapers.

Senator Pearce:

– There were fifty candidates.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– Exactly ; and the electors became so confused that in a large majority of cases the informality consisted of voting for five senators instead of six. Is it not almost certain that if so many electors voted informally at the Senate elections, there would be much greater confusion in the case of a referendum such as is proposed 1 How can a man or woman in the little voting compartment, with a waiting crowd behind, deliberately con over four or five propositions and come to a’ wise decision on the spur of the moment ? As to Senator Higgs’ amendment, why should the present electors, thousands of whom will be dead before the end of seven years, debar new living electors and senators from dealing with the Tariff 1

Senator Pearce:

– That applies to every law.

Senator Higgs:

– The honorable senator’s leader proposes if the referendum goes against free-trade, to drop the fiscal question for life.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– I do not profess to-be my brother’s keeper, and I have nothing to do with what may have been said elsewhere. I entertain the opinion that those electors who have gone from the world have no right to bind living electors for six, five, four, three, two, or even one year.

Senator Pearce:

– That happens at every election.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– The honorable senator cannot know what he is talking about to say .such a thing. An election to the House of Representatives is for three years.

Senator PEARCE:

-s-But the laws may stand for twenty years.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– An elector who is placed on the roll after a law has been passed, is not debarred from attempting to alter that law, whereas, under Senator Higgs amendment, the Tariff would have to remain unaltered for seven years. I sympathize with Senator Higgs in his opinion as to the probable effect of extending the franchise to women. That reform was not the act of the present Government or the present Parliament, but the act of the f ramers of the Constitution.

Senator De Largie:

– The “ Braddon blot “ is for a term of years.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– I never believed in the “ Braddon blot,” and voted against it, as I should do again to-morrow.

Senator De Largie:

– It is there all the same.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– If that proposition were submitted in New South Wales to-day, there would be no hope, for the sake of any form of Federation, of carrying it into force. I feel absolutely certain that the newly enfranchised half of the community would give a vote, whether for members of Parliament or on a referendum, which would mean the destruction of the present Tariff at the earliest possible moment. It is not only, as Senator Higgs fears, the free-traders who will bring forward the question of the Tariff at the next election. the honorable senator must know very well that, whether the free-traders bring that question forward or not, the Government, from the opposite stand-point, are pledged to bring it forward. They are pledged to rip up the Tariff in the interests of preferential trade. If there is anything in pledges or utterances, it is the Ministry who have pledged themselves quite as strongly as have the Opposition to raise the fiscal issue at the forthcoming elections. It is certain to be raised, and will continue to be raised so long as there are large bodies in the Commonwealth entertaining diametrically opposite views of fiscal policy. While I do not think that there is any hope of the motion being carried, or that it would bring about any useful result if carried, I am quite sure that we all sympathize with Senator De Largie in his desire. The honorable senator has left charmingly indefinite the result which he would hope for from the proposed referendum.

Senator De Largie:

– That is quite another question.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

– I freely admit it. We can recognise the very natural and proper desire which the honorable senator has that there should be. some element of finality in the fiscal policy of the Commonwealth. We will all agree with him as to that, but, unfortunately, the probabilities are that we all desire that finality from our own stand-point. We all think there is one form of fiscal policy better than another, and we all believe that the adoption of our views is the only way by which fiscal salvation may be attained. We know that, whatever the result of the next elections may be, we shall be certain to find active propaganda work in the Commonwealth in the future. If the free-traders - or, shall I say, the revenue tariffists - secure a majority at the next election, can we be quite sure that the protectionists will remain quiescent ?

Senator HIGGS:
QUEENSLAND · ALP

– No.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:

.- I do not think they would. If, on the other hand, the protectionists secure a majority, I do not think that free-traders will remain quiescent. I do not see how the carrying of this proposal into effect can promote fiscal peace, and I do not think it would achieve the degree of finality which the honorable senator who submits it so much desires to see established.

Senator PEARCE. (Western Australia). - I do not think this proposal can be called academic, when we find the leader of one of the great fiscal parties in the Commonweal th prepared to advocate it.

Senator Walker:

– I wonder if he is.

Senator PEARCE:

– He has advocated it on one occasion. I do not know whether Senator Walker desires to hint that he may be prepared to advocate something else on the next occasion. With regard to Senator Pulsford’s fear that he may be asked to sink his opinion, there is no necessity for any free-trader or protectionist to do that. If it were decided by the Parliament to refer the fiscal question to the people, every member of the Senate and every member of the other House could take the stump, and advocate free- trade or protection as much as he chose. But it would remove the question from the elections later on. Do we get the true opinion of the people on the fiscal question at an ordinary election? We know very well that at the next election such questions as the proposed Conciliation and Arbitration law, and the amendment of the Navigation law, will sway many of the electorates altogether apart from the fiscal issue ; whilst members returned from constituencies in which this takes place will come here and have an equal voice with others in framing or altering the Tariff. Senator Pulsford seemed to be alarmed that in some subsequent Parliament he would not have the opportunity to give us the splendid figures and facts with which he favoured the Senate during the last discussion of the Tariff. I am sure that they may be found useful at some subsequent period, and the honorable senator need not be afraid that he will have to forsake the child of a lifetime. Senator Smith said that a referendum on the fiscal question was opposed to the Federal system, but that is not the case, because the fiscal question is not one which affects one State as against the others. It is not a question in which the smaller States are against the larger States. Judging by past events, there would be a large majority forfreetrade in New South Wales, and a large majority for protection in the other large State of Victoria.

Senator Millen:

– Under the Federal system, a referendum might be taken to decide whether the majority of the people and of the States are in favour of a particular view of the question.

Senator PEARCE:

– A referendum taken on the lines laid down in the Constitution would safe-guard the Federal idea, because, as Senator Millen says, we could get the view, not only of a majority of the people, but of a majority of the States. Senator De Largie does not say, in his motion, that he refers to that kind of. referendum, or to a mass referendum. In the absence of any reference in the motion to a mass referendum, we may take it that the honorable senator suggests a. referendum such as that indicated in the Constitution, which would provide for a decision by a majority of the States as well as of the people. Senator Smith evidently recognised the weakness of his position, because he very quickly retreated from it by admitting, that he was not prepared to say that the fiscal question involved States rights. Senator Higgs has rightly said that this is a very broad question, and that honorable senator proceeded to show that it is by dealing with the whole question of Tarifflegislation. The honorable senator referred to some figures, and I thought he was referring to the figures appearing in the Argus of this morning, which show that industries, which Senator Higgs claimed we would destroy by the lowering of duties, have progressed and prospered under the Federal Tariff. It is shown that industries, in connexion with which duties were most cut down have increased to the. greatest extent.

Senator De Largie:

– Are they under the Factories law.

Senator PEARCE:

– Yes, they are under the Factories law, and notwithstanding that fact, and the fact that duties connected with them have been cut down, they have progressed and prospered.

SenatorFraser. - Because they got a wider market.

Senator PEARCE:

– That was so, but when that was pointed out during the discussions on the Tariff, Senator Higgs, and those who agreed with him, said that we were going to wipe those industries out of existence by lowering the duties.

Senator Higgs:

– I referred to industries which have sprung up in New. South Wales under protection.

Senator PEARCE:

– I am glad of the correction, because I have no desire to misrepresent the honorable senator. I hope, however, that he will look into the figures appearing in the Argus this morning, as they may have some effect in inducing him to change his views. I think Senator Higgs was somewhat unjust to the leader of the free-trade party, in dealing with his statement that if, at a referendum, the people said they were against free-trade, he would abandon it for the rest of his life. Perhaps, after all, what the right honorable gentleman desired to show was only that he was so good a democrat that he was prepared to bow to the will of the majority. Senator Higgs should give the right honorable gentleman credit for that. What he has said is that, as a free-trader, he is prepared to take the will of the people oh the question. He is a free-trader who is prepared to recognise that there are other questions to be considered besides the fiscal question ; whilst free-traders like Senator Pulsford believe that there is no other question. With them the fiscal question is everything.

Senator Millen:

– There is the question of the Federal capital.

Senator PEARCE:

– Yes, the Federal capital is certainly another question with the honorable senator. I remind Senator Pulsford that the people of New South Wales will desire to know his attitude on the question of the Arbitration and Conciliation Bill, the amendment of the Navigation law, and the White Australia question. All those questions will have to be dealt with at the election, and they will influence some votes for or against the honorable senator. When he comes to this Parliament again, he will be a very bold man if he can say “ I am returned to the Senate simply because I am a free-trader.” The honorable senator may be returned because he is for or against the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill, or for several other reasons apart from free-trade. The people, in returning the honorable senator, or any other honorable senator, do not declare whether they are in favour of a free-trade or a protectionist Tariff. I am opposed to the amendment proposed by Senator Higgs, because it will not put the question fairly before the people. I take it that the present Tariff may be called a protectionist revenue Tariff. The protectionists themselves say that it is not a protectionist Tariff, but a protectionist revenue Tariff. I, as a free-trader, admit that. If Senator Higgs and those who think with him believe that the policy of protection should continue, they will be entitled to take a referendum vote in favour of a protectionist revenue Tariff as a declaration by the people that they desire that the present Tariff should remain in force for seven years. It would be only confusing to give them a fifth option, by asking them to say whether the present Tariff should remain undisturbed for seven years. How many of them know the exact incidence of the Tariff?

SenatorFraser. - We cannot bind future Parliaments.

Senator PEARCE:

– If a large majority of the whole people declared by vote that the present Tariff should continue undisturbed for seven years, a future Parliament would be likely to respect their decision . It is quite true that any future Parliament would have the right to review the decision, and no referendum could take that right away from it. Senators Neildand Playford have asked us to say what would happen if the people by a referendumdeclaredfora protectionist Tariff, and there were free-trade majorities in both Houses. I am sorry that Senator Playford is not present, because I should like specially to remind him that it would not be the first occasion upon which a freetrade Minister brought in a protectionist Tariff. In South Australia last week I heard a little tale of South Australian political history. It was the story of a free-trade member of Parliament, who was defeated because he was a free-trader. He was then invited to contest a free-trade electorate, and was returned for it. When he entered Parliament he joined a protectionist combination, and brought in the first protectionist Tariff in South Australia. It is clear, therefore, that we should not be without a precedent for a free-trader bringing in a protectionist Tariff. I believe that the gentleman of whom I was told, now boasts of the protectionist Tariff which he introduced as the proudest achievement of his life. I believe he never went back to the same electorate for re-election. I am of opinion that the majority of free-traders and protectionists alike, desire to have this question removed from the arena of party politics. Senators Eraser and Zeal will agree with me that there is an attempt on the part of the Employers’ Federation of Australia to make the issue at the next elections the policy of the Labour Party and the policy of those opposed to the Labour Party. As a member of the Labour Party I should welcome that division of opinion, but how can we secure that when the fiscal question is introduced ? There may be some members of the Labour Party who agree with Senator Fraser on the fiscal question, but if we had the fiscal questionremoved, the honorable senator would be able to act in direct opposition to the party, and we could get a clear cub expression of opinion from the electors on the issue which the Employers’ Federation desire to put before them.

Senator Fraser:

– I am only opposed to the policy now announced by the Labour Party, and not to the Labour Party as a party.

Senator PEARCE:

– That is the same thing, practically.

Senator Fraser:

– No ; they may come to their senses two days hence.

Senator PEARCE:

– If the next election is fought on the fiscal question we shall not have a straight out-fight as to whether the policy of the Labour Party should be adopted or not. The members of the Employers’ Federation, and the others who support Senator Fraser, have said that they are prepared to sink the fiscal issue.

Senator Fraser:

– I am not a member of the Employers’ Federation.

Senator PEARCE:

– I refer generally to the persons who support the honorable senator. Senator De Largie is here giving an. opportunity to those who represent persons opposed to the labour policy to sink the fiscal issue in a satisfactory. way for seven years. With Senator De Largie I supported the proposal he now makes, during the discussion on the Address in Reply and when the Tariff was introduced. I would remind Senator De Largie that we supported it together upon another occasion, and that was when we were before the electors of ‘ Western Australia. On every platform upon which we spoke in Western Australia, we advocated the reference of the fiscal question to the people, and I believe we secured a large amount of support for that reason. Because, while there is a large free-trade vote in that State, it was recognised that tlie fiscal question divided the issue upon other questions of importance, and that it was better that it should be settled by a direct reference to the people. There are other questions connected with the Tariff which might very well be submitted to a referendum. I am surprised that no honorable senator has contemplated the possibility of settling the question of preferential trade in this manner.

An Honorable Senator. - Who can tell us the details of the preferential scheme 1

Senator PEARCE:

– We know what the principles are. The Government say, “ We will raise the existing Tariff duties against the foreigner, whilst leaving the duties, as at present, against the old country “; and the Opposition say, “ We will allow the duties to remain as at present, against the foreigner, and will lower them as against Great Britain.” That is a clear cut issue

Senator Higgs:

– Does the honorable senator, as a free-trader, mean to support the last proposition ?

The PRESIDENT:

– I ask the honorable senator not to be led away into a discussion of that question.

Senator PEARCE:

– I do not propose to discuss it, as it is irrevelant to the motion. But it is a part of the fiscal issue, and it might properly be dealt with by a referendum. Will any satisfactory solution of the question by afforded 6y the elections 1 I will guarantee that the question of preferential trade will occupy a very small place in the minds of many electors, and yet honorable senators will come here, and by their votes will settle the question of preferential trade and the alteration of the Tariff necessary to give effect to it. That is one reason why this motion should be carried. It is said that the discussion is academical, but, if the motion is carried, and we send the resolution on to another place, and the House of Representatives carries a similar resolution, what is there to prevent it being put into force at the next general election 1 We could then get a direct vote from the people on the question, and we could have the next elections fought out on the other questions which will be before the people, such, for instance, as the amendment of the Navigation law and the passing of a Conciliation and Arbitration Bill. Senator Nield referred somewhat contemptuously, I think, “to the man in the crowd.”

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– It is a very old game for the honorable senator to put things in that manner.

Senator PEARCE:

– I will withdraw the expression if the honorable senator objects to it. At all events, the honorable senator asked us why we should refer this question to the man in the crowd, and the answer is that it concerns the man in the crowd.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– I said it was a shirking of Ministerial responsibility, and opposed to the principles of constitutional government to do so.

Senator PEARCE:

– That is a finesounding phrase, which seems to me to mean nothing.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– Because the honorable senator does not understand it.

Senator PEARCE:

– Possibly it is because of a lack of understanding, but the phrase conveys nothing to my mind. T shall vote against Senator Higgs’ amendment, and in favour of Senator De Largie’s proposal ; and I trust that the Senate will show its desire to obtain a straight-out vote by adopting the referendum.

Senator DRAKE:
Minister for Defence · Queensland · Protectionist

– With the first part of Senator De Largie’s motion - that it is in the best interests of Australian prosperity that a settled fiscal policy should be adopted. - I think we can all heartily agree. But when we come to the second and third parts of his proposal, the honorable senator himself sees great difficulties in the way of obtaining what he desires - a clear and definite opinion on the fiscal question. The honorable senator recognises that the difficulties are insuperable, because after providing in a foot-note to meet every particular shade of fiscal opinion he struck it out. 1 regard that as a kind of despairing note, indicating that the honorable senator has come to the conclusion that it is absolutely impossible, by any means that he can devise, to obtain through the referendum an expression of the views of the people upon a complex question like the Tariff.

Senator De Largie:

– The foot-note was omitted because the contingent vote was provided for.

Senator DRAKE:

– Then I beg the honorable senator’s pardon. He expects the people of the Commonwealth to be able to express their various shades of fiscal opinion under one of the other four headings. I think it is quite impossible for them to do that. The shades of fiscal thought are so. various that it would be absolutely impossible for a man, with the choice of those four headings before him to express whathis views were. Senator Higgs has endeavoured, but, I think, withoutsuccess, to simplify the matter, by submitting a question which he himself frames with a view of eliciting a simple “yes” or “ no.’ But I do not see what particular right Senator Higgs has - if he will excuse me for putting the matter in this way - to dictate the particular form’ of question which the electors are to be called upon to answer. Why should not another honorable senator have the right to state the question ? Why should we not specify five or ten years? Why, seven ? In taking a referendum, two things have to be decided. The first is to determine the question that should be submitted to the people ; and then the question should be reduced to such a form that it can be answered by a simple “yes” or “no.” The Swiss referendum has been referred to. But that referendum is intimately associated with the initiative. If there is a wish to take a referendum in connexion with a certain matter in Switzerland, first of all a number of electors can ask that a poll be taken as to whether certain action shall be taken. That is the initiative. If that is carried, the Government of the day is charged with putting the question into such a shape that the electors can next be asked to say “yes” or “no” to it. I thoroughly agree with the referendum for great national issues when it is conducted in that way. We have had- a very striking illustration of the referendum in operation in connexion with our own Commonwealth Constitution, when practically both the initiative and the referendum were applied. A very good occasion for the initiative to be put into force was when the people sent delegates - ten from each colony - for the express purpose of drawing up a Federal Constitution. When that task had been accomplished the Constitution was submitted to the people to obtain an answer, “ yes” or “ no.” That, to my mind, is the proper use and limit of the referendum. The honorable senator has not provided for the initiative in connexion with the Tariff issue. He proposes that certain questions shall be put to the people. But we want first of all to have an initiative from the people as to the particular work to be done. Then, when the work has been carried up to that point, the people of the whole of the States can be called upon to say “yes “ or “no.” That is the time to take a referendum. But no good will be obtained by asking the people to answer “yes “or “no” to a series of questions. Instead of simplifying issues at the time of the general election, it would introduce an element of confusion. That being the case, I must vote against the motion.

Senator DE LARGIE (Western Australia). - I desire to say a few words with regard to the amendment.

The PRESIDENT:

– The honorable senator can do so, but at this stage he cannot say anything more with regard to the original motion. Under the new standing order I shall put the amend ment before the honorable senator replies finally, because his final reply will close the debate. After the amendment has been disposed of the honorable senator will have a right to reply upon the whole debate. Senator De Largie can now speak upon the amendment only.

Senator DE LARGIE:

– The reason why I did not include the proposal of Senator Higgs in my motion was that I thought it would have the effect rather of complicating than of simplifying the question. I recognise the difficulty of drafting a ballot-paper that will be comprehensive and at the same time put before the electors the question of the Tariff in a clear .form. If I were to include the question - “Are you satisfied with the present Tariff?” and left it to be answered by a simple “ yes “ or “ no,” great complication would arise. For instance, there are numbers of protectionists’ at the present time who are very much dissatisfied with the present Tariff. There are a number of free-traders who are also dissatisfied with it. Therefore we should have both those shades of fiscal thought voting against the present Tariff from twodifferentstand-points. So that Senator Biggs’ amendment would make the result of the referendum worse than useless.

Senator Higgs:

– Does the honorable senator think there is a large body of people in the Commonwealth who want to reopen the fiscal question next year?

Senator DE LARGIE:

– I believe there is a large number of people, both protectionists and free-traders, who desire to allow the present Tariff to remain for a number of years at any rate. I believe that those people can. be given an opportunity of expressing their opinions clearly without any subsequent confusion arising. That is the reason why I should like to see the amendment defeated. Instead of simplifying matters, it will only make the confusion more apparent and worse than it is now. I recognise the difficulty of presenting the question to the people, and, therefore, I should like to keep it as simple as it can be kept. I hold that the form in which I have moved the motion is preferable to the form suggested by Senator Higgs.

Question - That the words proposed to be added be added - put. The Senate divided -

Ayes … … … 3 .

Noes……… 18

Majority … … 15

Question so resolved in the negative.

Amendment negatived.

Senator STEWART:
Queensland

– It may look almost like heresy on my part to. oppose any motion providing for the referendum, which is one of the planks of the labour platform, and one with which I am thoroughly in accord. But there are occasions when it might be easy and proper to utilize the referendum, and there are other occasions when the only result of bringing it into requisition would be to make “ confusion worse confounded.” The occasion suggested by Senator De Largie is one of the latter kind. The honorable senator says in the second part of his motion that “ recognising the difficulty of securing a clear, explicit, and definite expression of opinion,” he desires the whole question to be submitted to a referendum of the people. He proposes four questions. I would ask any honorable senator whether there is anything definite, anything clear, and anything explicit, in those questions? The first question which he asks the electors to answer is this - “ Are you in favour of a protectionist Tariff?” What is a protectionist Tariff? We can get a dozen definitions of that term. One honorable senator has one idea of what a protectionist Tariff is .; another has quite a different idea. One elector has one idea, and another elector has a different one - and so on ad infinitum. It is the same with regard to a free-trade Tariff.

Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP

– What is a free- trade Tariff?.

Senator STEWART:

– That is just what I want to know. We are told that Great Britain has a free-trade Tariff. I do not believe there is a single free-trade Tariff in existence on the face Of the globe to-day. Neither do I think there is a protectionist Tariff in existence. Then, again, we hear of a protectionist - revenue Tariff. Suppose the electors decide in favour of that? The members who are elected to Parliament will have to debate the whole question from Dan to Beersheba as to what a protectionist - revenue Tariff is. We should have Senator Smith saying one thing, Senator Macfarlane another, with Senator Gould taking a third view, Senator Millen a fourth, and so on right round the Senate ; each honorable senator having a different opinion as to what a protectionist revenue Tariff was. Then, again, there is the limit of time. Suppose a referendum be taken, and a particular policy affirmed. How long is that policy to last? Until there is another referendum, or not ?

Senator De Largie:

– Certainly.

Senator STEWART:

– I do not think that method of dealing with the question would be atall satisfactory. It wouldnotbesatisfactory to me. I hear a great deal about Tariff peace. I do not want Tariff peace except on one condition, and that is, the utter defeat of the free-trade party.

Senator Millen:

– This must be a war of extermination.

Senator STEWART:

– It may be put by the honorable senator in that way if he likes. I am so satisfied that protection is the only fit policy for Australia that I could not sleep at night if we had a free-trade Tariff..

Senator Pearce:

– The honorable senator means that he would not sleep under freetrade blankets.

Senator STEWART:

– No. I would much rather sleep under protectionist blankets, even if they were a little dearer than free-trade ones. I would know that Victorian blankets were manufactured out of pure wool, whereas the others would probably be shoddy. I am very sorry that I cannot support the motion. I should like to be able to vote for this proposal, but I cannot see how, if adopted, it would promote a settlement of this much-vexed question.

Senator DE LARGIE:
Western Australia

– I cannot understand the positionof Senator Stewart, or his quibbling about the terms used in the proposed ballot-paper, because I believe that the various shades of fiscalism are denoted as nearly as any person could denote them. I recognise the difficulty of getting a scientific definition of almost any kind of fiscalism. But if common-sense- is applied to the definitions it is not very hard to’ gather what is meant by “free- trade “ or “protection.” Every one would recognise that the term “protection” on the ballotpaper meant a very high protectionist Tariff. No one I suppose would suggest that we should prohibit importation. I do not believe that there are many fiscalists in Australia who would vote in that direction. Nor do I think that there are many free-traders who would wish to bring about a complete abolition of Customs duties. It is well known that the most advanced of the free-traders admit the necessity of imposingduties on narcotics and stimulants.

Senator Staniforth Smith:

– Unless a State monopoly is created.

Senator DE LARGIE:

– The institution of a State monopoly would not obviate the necessity for imposing customs duties.

Senator Staniforth Smith:

– We could prohibit importation.

Senator DE LARGIE:

– I think we can all readily grasp what is meant by a revenue Tariff according to protectionist ideas. I admit that it is somewhat difficult to define a revenue Tariff according to free-trade ideas, unless, as I proposed when the Customs Tariff Bill was before the Senate, excise duties were imposed on articles produced in Australia corresponding to the import duties. I should describe revenue tariffism, according to free-trade ideas, as the imposition of. a very small duty to bring in about one -half the amount which, is now collected at the Customs-house. I do not know if that would meet with the general approval of revenue tariffists. I have stated the common-sense definitions which might be applied to the different questions on the ballot-paper. I feel that if this means of settling the fiscal question is not adopted on this occasion it will have to be adopted on another occasion, after the people have had time to reflect on. the subject. At a general election now it is utterly impossible to elicit a clear expression of opinion from the people. The personal element enters so largely into the contest that electors will vote for a candidate no matter what his fiscal creed may be. Public opinion will never be ascertained on this question until a plebiscite such as I have proposed is taken.

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

AYES: 5

NOES: 16

Majority …. … 11

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 5348

PAPER

The Clerk laid upon the table the following return to an order of the Senate -

Eastern Extension Telegraph Co. : Correspondence

page 5348

QUESTION

PUBLIC SERVICE REGULATIONS

Motion (by Senator Stewart) proposed -

That the report be adopted.

Senator DRAKE:
Minister for Defence · Queensland · Protectionist

– At an early stage in Committee I said I would get the views of the Public Service Commissioner with regard to the amendments desired by Senator Stewart. I have already communicated to honorable senators his views with regard to each separate amendment. I asked him to furnish me with a statement of his views on the amendments generally, in order that it might be laid before the Senate when the adoption of the report was moved. The amendments are all in the direction of increasing the expenditure of the Departments, mostly the transferred Departments. We have always been in the habit of considering the expenditure, on those Departments from the point of view of its effect on the States Treasuries. Each amendment which has been made in Committee involves great expenditure. As it is not very long, I propose to read the report of the Commissioner.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– I rise to order. For the purpose of influencing the decision of the Senate the Minister proposes to read a document which he has obtained from a public officer. I recognise the propriety of a Minister using public documents generally, but I am now drawing attention to the use of a document which has been prepared to his order for a certain purpose. I submit that it is utterly opposed to the proper conduct of parliamentary business for a Minister to quote a document which has been specially prepared to his order, with the view of influencing the decision of the Senate.

The PRESIDENT:

– I do not see how I can say that a Minister of the Crown can be prohibited from giving information to the Senate on a question under discussion, when it comes from an officer in the Public Service who is in a peculiar position to give information. Whether the document was prepared to the order of the Minister or not I do not know. I have never known a Minister or any one else to be prohibited . from reading a document which did not come within the terms of a standing order. So far as I know, there is no standing order which would prohibit Senator Drake from reading this document. It may be that afterwards he ought to lay it upon the table, but that is another question.

Senator DRAKE:

– In ordinary circumstances I should prefer not to rely upon statements specially prepared by officers of a Department, but it should be remembered that I was asked to get this information from the Public Service Commissioner, and that on one occasion Senator Pearce twitted me with not having carried out my promise. The honorable member was probably unaware at the time that I had carried out my promise, and had actually obtained the information. There are two papers, one of which I have already read, and I think it my duty under the circumstances to read the other, seeing that it deals with the whole subject. The document is as follows : -

page 5348

NOTES ON AMENDMENTS IN PUBLIC SERVICE REGULATIONS AGREED TO BY THE SENATE

Amendment No. 1. - Regulation4 - Increase of luncheon time for general division officers from half-an-hotir to three-quarters of an hour.

No definite representations as to increased luncheon time have been made to the Commissioner by any persons qualified to speak on behalf of the General Division officers throughout the Commonwealth. Prior to the framing of the regulation it was understood that the majority of General Division officers in Victoria preferred to have only half-an-hour for luncheon, in order to complete their day’s work earlier. Under existing conditions, the actual working hours (exclusive of luncheon time) of the General Division officers are forty-six and a half hours per week. If the luncheon time be increased as proposed, these hours cannot fairly be reduced-, and, consequently, the men will be required to commence work earlier, or remain later in order to perform the day’s duty. The greater number of the General Division officers are not manual labourers, but are messengers, letter-carriers, sorters, &c, who bring their luncheon with them, and do not desire more than half-an-hour. An extension of the luncheon time has been authorized by the Commissioner in special cases where the public interest is conserved and the eight-hours principle is not interfered with. If it be found that any body of employes is desirous of an extension of the luncheon time on the understanding that the working day shall be proportionately lengthened, the Commissioner will be prepared to favorably consider the request. In the majority of cases, however, it is found that the existing regulation works satisfactorily, and that an increase in the time allowed for luncheon will not be welcomed by those concerned, seeing that it will not lessen the number of hours worked per week. The Commissioner, while at all times prepared to fully consider any representations made on behalf of officers of the service, is not satisfied that in the present instance the proposed amendment of regulation 4 is required.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3. - Regulation 66 - (a) Sunday pay to be contingent upon officers “ having already worked six da3*s a week in addition “ to Sunday ; (6) One and a half days’ PaY to be allowed for Sunday work in lieu of a day’s pay.

Large classes of officers, such as telephone attendants and telegraph operators, are connected with branches where, from the nature of the business, Sunday duty is unavoidable, and is more or less continuous throughout the year. It must be remembered, however, that there is no compulsion upon officers to work on Sundays, and that the difficulty is not so much to obtain volunteers for this work as to fairly apportion it amongst those who are anxious to earn an additional day’s pay. Sunday work is not exacting, but, on the contrary, is much easier than that performed through the week, the business on Sundays being intermittent and comparatively very light. Telegraph operators only work six hours on Sunday, and, where necessary, are” then relieved by fresh operators. The present cost, annually, of an extra day’s pay for Sunday duty is £7.500. The adoption of the amendment would increase the expenditure by onehalf the sum named, and the Commissioner is of opinion that such an increase is not justified by the circumstances of the case as set forth above.

Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 - Regulation 149 - Travelling allowances : - (a) Officers of General Division, receiving between fill and £200, to be paid a daily travelling allowance of Ss. iri lieu of 78., as heretofore;, (d) Officers of General Division, receiving £110 and under, to be paid a daily travelling allowance of 7s. in lieu of 6s., as heretofore.

The proposed increase of the daily allowance to officers of the General Division for travelling expenses will largely add to the cost of administering the service, as by far the greater proportion of travelling is done by officers of that division. For example, in Victoria during the past six months the payments for travelling expenses of General Division officers have amounted to £2,445, while for officers of the Administrative and Clerical Divisions the cost has only been £261. The Commissioner sees no adequate reason for -an increase of the present allowances, more especially as positions where travelling is involved are eagerly sought for by officers, and that there is no difficulty in filling the positions under existing conditions. The greater part of the travelling done by officers is necessary for the discharge of their ordinary duties, and is continuous throughout the year. It is considered that the present rates are ample to meet the expenses incurred by General Division officers, and the fact that there is no paucity of applicants for work which necessitates travelling is a sufficient answer to the demand for higher daily rates. In exceptional cases where it can be shown that the rates fixed by Regulation 149 do not cover actual expenses, provision is already made under .Regulation 154 for increasing the allowance. Under ordinary circumstances, however, the present scale rates are held to be sufficient to cover the expenses of officers. 10 z

It will be remembered that yesterday, in reply to Senator Glassey, I said that the Postmaster-General was making a precis of complaints which have been made in his Department, with the view of bringing the whole subject before the Cabinet, and, if it were found that genuine grievances existed, of taking steps to remove them. Senator Stewart has brought this master very prominently before the country by means of the amendment he has carried to the regulations, and I see no reason why these should not be taken into consideration by the Cabinet at the same time. But with regard to some of the suggested amendments, such as that referring to the lunch time, I ask the honorable senator whether in the interests of the men themselves he desires to proceed with it, after having heard the explanation of the Commissioner.

Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist

– The Commissioner, I expect, is in a better position than any one else to know the views of the men in the service on a matter of the kind.

Senator Stewart:

– I do not think so.

Senator DRAKE:

– I should imagine that the Commissioner is in a better position than even a member of Parliament to hear the views of all the employes affected.

Senator Dobson:

– Does the Commissioner not say that he could extend the time allowed for luncheon if good reason were shown 1

Senator DRAKE:

– Yes; the Commissioner says he is prepared to. consider the matter if the men are willing to start work earlier, or remain later, so that forty-six and a half hours per week be worked. The Commissioner also says that the greater part of the men bring their luncheons with, them, and prefer to take only half-an-hour, in order that they may finish their day’s work earlier. If, in consequence of the alteration which has been made in the regulations, it is insisted that the men have three-quarters of an hour for luncheon, the Commissioner will, against their wishes, have to make them start earlier or work later. Surely we ought, to be .able to trust the Commissioner in a small matter of this kind.

Senator Stewart:

– How is it that men in the clerical division have three-quarters of an hour for lunch and have not to work any additional time 1

Senator DRAKE:

– I do not know that that is the case. I suppose the men in the clerical division work the same hours as those in the general division.

Senator Stewart:

– No, they do not.

Senator DRAKE:

– The Commissioner points out that the men in the clerical division are a different class of employes. Supposing the Senate adopts the amendments,, what is the Commissioner to do? The Senate is one House of the Parliament, and how can it dictate an alteration in a regulation 1 1t is quite conceivable that the other House might come to a resolution of an exactly opposite character. What then have the Government to do ? Are the Government to instruct the Public Service Commissioner to make an alteration in accordance with the resolution passed by one House ?

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– That is the provision in the Defence Bill.

Senator DRAKE:

– Supposing the two Houses pass contrary resolutions, what is the Public Service Commissioner to do ?

Senator Stewart:

– Nothing.

Senator DRAKE:

– I submit that it is not a proper course to ask the Senate to insist on small alterations of this character being made in the regulations. A certain form is prescribed for making the regulations, which are very important as having the force of law ; and it does not seem right that they should be altered simply at the. wish of the majority in one House. Senator Stewart has had the matter thoroughly ventilated and discussed, and has explained what are the grievances of some of the civil servants, who I presume have been in communication with him ; and under the circumstances he ought to be satisfied to withdraw his motion.

Senator WALKER:
New South Wales

– Having devoted so much time to this matter, it would, I think, be well to adopt the report, and send the suggested amendments down for the approval of the other House. Unless we take some action of that kind, we shall have occupied a great length of time to no purpose. The remarks of the Public Service Commissioner are very well so far as they go ; but surely it cannot be that all the resolutions at which we have arrived are not wise. I suggest that Senator Stewart should move in the direction I have indicated.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:
New South Wales

– A considerable amount of time has been devoted to this matter, and we have now to consider how far we are justified, in view of the .report of the

Public Service Commissioner, in endeavouring to carry out the conclusions which have been arrived at by the Senate. Under the Public Service Act, provision is made for the preparation of regulation?, and also for the laying of these regulations on the table of both Houses within seven days of their publication in the Gazette if Parliament is in session, or, otherwise, within seven days after the commencement of the session. But there is no further provision as to what may then be done. The Senate having expressed disapproval, what is the effect ? The Act does not say that under such* circumstances the regulation shall be inoperative. The only meaning is that the regulations disapproved of will have to be reconsidered in the light of the debate, and-of the circumstances which have arisen. It is usual to - make provision in an Act that either House of Parliament shall have power to disallow regulations ; but somehow or another that power does not appear to have been inserted in the Public Service Act.

Senator Drake:

– I believe that that is so ; the only provision’ is that the regulations shall be laid on the table.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

.- -Of course Parliament may consider and deal with the regulations, but the present instance shows how desirable it is that either House shall have the power to disapproveordisallow them within a limited period. Even if the Sena be express disapproval, the regulation must, according bo the Acb, remain in existence until the Executive -.see fit to have ib repealed.

Senator Pearce:

– The Commissioner is the servant of Parliament.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

– Of course; but the regulations are made not by the Commissioner, but by the Executive.

Senator Drake:

– And the Commissioner is not the servant of one House of Parliament.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

– According to section 287 of the Public Service Act, the regulations are made by the GovernorGeneral, which means the Government of the day, who are responsible to, and who take their instructions from Parliament Ib is possible- to adopt the suggestion of Senator Walker, and send our proposals bo the other Chamber for consideration ; bub I ask whether this is a case in which that course should be pursued . . No representations have been made by . the public servants themselves to this Parliament.

Senator Pearce:

– According to , the Act, it is wrong for the public servants to approach Parliament.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

.- So far as Parliament knows, the public servants are perfectly satisfied with the regulations. Public servants have a way of signifying their dissent by approaching the Commissioner, and pointing out where the regulations affect them harshly or improperly.

Senator Walker:

– That might mean their having a black mark placed against them.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

.- Surely not. If the public servants, as a body, went to the Commissioner and expressed dissatisfaction with the regulations, what kind of a man would the Commissioner be if, on that ground, he placed a “ black mark” against any man ?

Senator Drake:

– When I was PostmasterGeneral, the public servants used to come to me with suggestions andrecommendations, and all of these I sent on to the Public Service Commissioner.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

.- I point out that so far we have no knowledge that these men are dissatisfied. The Public Service Commissioner says that no representations have been made to him, and he gives good reasons why no alteration of the regulations should be made at present. He says also that if it be shown that any hardship exists he will be prepared to make a recommendation which will remove it. Speaking as one who has known the Public Service Commissioner for a number of years, I say that his character is such that he would not willingly do a single unjust act to any member of the Public Service, and that any representations made to him would receive the fullest and most careful consideration. He has pointed out that to alter one regulation with regard to the lunch time” would mean that the men affected by the alteration would be required to give another half-hour’s service each day in order to make up the fortysix and a half hours which should be worked in each week. Honorable members may ask why it should be made up in that way, and why these public servants should be asked to work any longer than before ; but every quarter-hour or half-hour taken from a public servant’s time only means that additional assistance must be secured in order to cope with the work. In regard to travelling allowances, the Public Service Commissioner has pointed out that he has received no complaints. They have been fixed with a due regard to the circumstances in each State, and the persons who are called upon to travel. So far as we know, the public servants are satisfied with the rates fixed, but if in any case the allowance does not prove to be sufficient, the public servant may approach the Commissioner, who under another regulation may increase the travelling expenses if those allowed by the scale are proved insufficient. The Commissioner has given that power under the regulations. If we adopt the course proposed, and say that the allowances shall be increased, and that the hours of labour shall be shortened, we shall be increasing the public expenditure without adequate reason having been shown for so doing. I desire honorable senators to understand that I wish every public servant to be fairly paid for his work. I desire that no man should be asked to work for less than a living wage, or less than adequate remuneration for the services he renders.

Senator Pearce:

– Does the honorable and learned senator believe that a man should be paid less for Sunday work that for work on other days?

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

– No.

Senator Pearce:

– That is what is being done under the regulations at the present time.

Senator Drake:

– That is being corrected. I disapproved of that.

Senator Lt Col GOULD:

– I quite agree that a man should not receive less for work done on Sunday than for work done on Monday. The whole question has beenthoroughly discussed and ventilated in the Senate, and in view of the fact that there is no probability that the other House will be able to deal with the question during the present session, it would be better if Senator Stewart did not insist upon the adoption of the report. He might allow the settlement of the question to be postponed, and in the meantime permit of some trial of the regulations. If it is found that they work unjustly or unfairly, and the public servants feel that they are being treated improperly, I can promise the honorable senator that, so far as I am personally concerned, I shall do all I can to assist himto remedy what would be a manifest injustice.

Senator PEARCE:
Western Australia

– ‘I desire briefly tore mind Senator Gould that each of these regulations was debated on its merits in Committee, and nothing fresh has been brought forward to-day. I remind him also that this is not merely a question of the public servants and the Commissioner. There is more than that in it. I think that the public conscience of the Commonwealth is against Sunday labour, and would discourage it in every way possible.

Senator Drake:

– We desire to discourage it.

Senator PEARCE:

– How can we discourage it t

Senator Drake:

– Not by paying people more for Sunday labour.

Senator PEARCE:

– That is the proper way in which to discourage it. I know, as one who has had to work for his living, that so long as we did not insist upon overtime rates of pay, we were frequently called upon to work overtime.

Senator Drake:

– That was in private employment.

Senator PEARCE:

– The same thing would hold good in Government employment. When we were sufficiently powerful to insist on overtime pay, and double pay for Sunday work, Sunday work and overtime work generally disappeared.

Senator Drake:

– It would not disappear in the Public Service if we paid double rates.

Senator PEARCE:

– The matter largely rests with heads of Departments. They can do away with Sunday labour if they desire to do so, and they will be induced to do so if extra payment is demanded for that labour. I see no reason why the Senate should go back on what has been done by the Committee. Senator Gould’s proposal is that because the other House may not agree with what we have done we should throw the whole thing over. Why should we not ask the other House to pass these resolutions t

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– Let us have an opportunity of seeing how the regulations work;

Senator PEARCE:

– We have had that opportunity. Senator Gould says at one time that the Government make the regulations, and when we propose to hold the Government responsible to Parliament the honorable and learned senator tells us that the Public Service Commissioner is responsible.

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– Not at all ; the Government are. responsible for the regulations.

Senator PEARCE:

– The honorable and learned senator says that we should wait to see whether the public servants are satisfied, but I say that it is not sufficient to know that the public servants are satisfied with ordinary pay for Sunday work. Even though it were proved that they are satisfied, I, as a representative of Western Australia, am prepared to take the responsibility of saying that the Commonwealth should not give ordinary pay for Sunday labour ; and, on the question of the lunch interval, I am prepared to say that we should not limit the time allowed for lunch to half-an-hour, no matter whether the public servants are willing to accept it or not. It is detrimental to their health, and I am prepared to record a vote against it. I’ hope that Senator Stewart will move that the resolutions be sent on for the concurrence of honorable members of the House of Representatives, and I trust the Senate will not stultify itself by accepting the advice of Senator Gould and rejecting the report of the Committee.

Senator DOBSON:
Tasmania

– There are more ways in which we may stultify ourselves than that to which Senator Pearce has referred. We have appointed a Public Service Commissioner in order to remove the Public Service as far as possible from political control. That gentleman holds a most important office, and his duties are almost sacred, because in every instance justice is the underlying motive which should move him. If Senator Stewart will apply his cool logical mind to the question, he will admit that one link in his chain is wanting. The honorable senator has not taken us into his confidence. He has not told us upon what evidence he was induced to submit his criticisms of the regulations. We do not know whether he has been seen by one or by fifty of the public servants. We know absolutely nothing from the honorable senator’s point of view except that he is moving in the matter. But we do know from the Minister, under the hand-writing of the Public Service Commissioner, that he has received no ‘ definite complaint. It is probable that he may have heard a murmur from somebody who does not think the lunch interval is long enough, but he is certain to have made inquiries, and it is easy to believe that the public servants prefer that they should have half-an-hour for lunch if that enables them to get away earlier to their homes and gardens. The missing link in Senator Stewart’s chain to which I refer is the absence of evidence of dissatisfaction on the part of a substantial number of civil servants, and of any sufficient reason fpr the action the honorable senator has taken. Assuming that there are 100 men in a particular grade of the service, does riot the honorable senator think that before he is entitled to ask the Senate to take action in the matter he should be able to show that at least one-fifth, one-fourth, or one-third of the number are dissatisfied, and that they have appealed to the Commissioner in a proper way to reconsider certain regulations which they think unjust,’ or which they believe press hardly upon them 1 The Senate has not a tittle of evidence to show that any one civil servant has ever approached the Commissioner, or that the regulations have given the slightest dissatisfaction to any individual. There is no evidence whatever -that the public servants desire that these questions should be raised. The Public Service Commissioner has more experience of civil servants than have a score of honor-, able senators, and the only time when we should be called upon to act as a Court of appeal from that officer, is when it can be shown that the civil servants have approached him, that he has not given them satisfaction, and that there is a bond fide question of justice, either as to pay or hours, between them. I hope Senator Stewart will accept the suggestion of the Minister of Defence, and will be quite content with what he has done. “We may be certain that the Commissioner has most carefully considered the amendments made by the Senate in the regulations. These amendments were made by small majorities, because cases appeared to have been made out, and we had not the Public Service Commissioner present to give us the other side of the matter. The other side has been prominently brought before us again in a memorandum from the Commissioner, and in connexion with every . subject referred to, he has given good reasons why we should leave the regulations as they stand. We find that men who have to work on Sunday, work for six hours on lhat day, and for half the time they are standing idle. The work is nothing like that which has to be done on week days. We find that these men, getting the ordinary day’s pay for this work, absolutely rush forward to secure it. It appears to me that we cannot stop the desire of men to get on in the world by earning another day’s pay. The work required to be done on the Sunday is not to be compared with the work required to be done on the Monday or on the Saturday, and for the second time we have the statement from the Commissioner that, so far from the men being dissatisfied at being asked to. do this work, the great trouble is to divide it amongst the numerous applicants for it. Have we any right, on behalf of the taxpayers of the Commonwealth, to give them any more than the remuneration with which they are satisfied 1 Have we any right to give them for a light day’s work a bigger wage than they are now rushing forward to obtain. On the question of the payment of travelling expenses the Commissioner points out. that there is a great deal of travelling, to be done, but the regulation has proved ample in the past to compensate men for all their travelling expenses. He points out also that there is a regulation under which, if the expenses allowed are not sufficient, the Commissioner is empowered to make a further allowance. I hope honorable senators will recognise the importance of the duties the Commissioner has to discharge, and the desire that the Public Service should not be mixed up with our political life. I am sure that every honorable senator is willing at any moment to do ample justice to every public servant; to see that the wages paid are fair, that the hours worked are not too long, and that the conditions of labour are such as the men may fairly accept. It is the desire of the members of the Federal Parliament that we shall have a contented, satisfied, and prosperous Public Service, and we can well leave these matters in the hands of the Public Service Commissioner, until it is shown that’ he has been appealed to and appealed to in vain.

Senator Lt Col NEILD:
New South Wales

– So far as the Senate is aware no member of the Public Service is dissatisfied with the existing regulations. No communication upon the subject has been addressed t© us by petition,’ nor have we heard of any communication to the Commissioner. I may say that while these matters have been before honorable senators, members of the Public Service have been in communication with me about various matters relating to overtime payment, Sunday work, and other matters, and as the records of the Senate show I have asked a good many questions, and have also spoken upon these subjects.

Yet while these communications, both verbal and in writing, have passed to me continuously, strangely enough the matters involved in the proposed changes of regulations have not been whispered to me in any form. It does not follow that there are not hardships that it is desirable to obviate. It is also true that there are many members of the Civil Service who are not anxious to appear as applicants for .any attention whatever at the hands of members of Parliament. They are not supposed to communicate with members of Parliament, and it is very likely indeed that they may shrink from making representations that they would desire to make. I am inclined to think that Senator Walker’s-recommendation is a good one, namely, that we should carry the report and send it to the other House.- We have spent a good many hours in discussing these alterations in the regulations. I have spoken for them and voted for them, and I am not going to stultify myself by voting against the adoption of a report which partly owes its existence to myself. On the other hand I think it has been clearly shown that it will be necessary to pass a Bill to amend the Public Service Act, so as to provide an opportunity for Parliament to discuss these regulations exactly as we provided for the discussion of regulations made under the Defence Bill. . That measure provides that either House may, by motion, veto any military or naval regulation; and if that is proper with reference to defence, it is equally proper with reference to the Public Service. Under present circumstances, there is no method by which we can veto regulations. Senator Walker’s suggestion is about the’ only one we can adopt, unless we follow the course suggested by Senator Stewart, of moving an Address to His Excellency the Governor-General, in opposition to the existing regulations, and requesting the insertion of the amendments which this Chamber has agreed’ to. I shall support the motion for the adoption of the report, trusting to Senator Stewart to take whatever subsequent action he deems desirable. After having spent so many hours in debating the question, we should not be justified in wafting away the decisions we have arrived at merely because we are told that our amendments will cost so much money. No harm can possibly be done by adopting the motion, whereas if we refuse to confirm the report we may be doing a very serious wrong.

Senator STEWART:
Queensland

– I’ may say at once that I have no intention of withdrawing from the position I havealready taken up with regard to thismatter. We have thrashed out the wholething in Committee, and have arrived at certain decisions, after hearing the statements of the Commissioner and of the Minister. I hope that we shall not stultify ourselves in this last stage by refusing to adopt the report. As to the objection, taken by Senator Dobson that we have noevidence of discontent with the regulations.. on the part of the Civil Service, I may inform the Senate that in this matter I am representing the civil servants of four States. They are the States of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and. Queensland. I have brought up these matters directly at their . request. Probably if’ I had not been appealed to I should nothave taken any action in the matter. I can assure honorable senators that I did not move until I was completely sure of my ground, and until I had satisfied myself that there was a reasonable ground for dissatisfaction with the regulations. I should like to read a letter which I received only to-day with regard to Sunday work. The writer says : -

I was rather amused at the attitude taken ripby some members regarding Sunday overtime. Speaking of the office in which I work, and which. ‘ I suppose, is typical of many others in the Commonwealth, there is no standing by on Sundays. At least two-thirds of the staff have to work every’ Sunday, and that jolly hard, as it is our busiest, day, a big southern mail arriving, and western and northern mails being despatched, considerably over 200 bags of mails and parcels beinghandled on that day. Personally, and I know many others are of the same opinion, I should liketo see Sunday work abolished altogether, as there is no fun in working seven days a week all the year round ; and that is what the officers herehave to do.

That represents one particular office, and,, as the writer says, very probably that holds. : good all over the Commonwealth, more or less. I am really not in a position to form an opinion whether the amendments moved bv,me would lead to additional expenditure or not. The Commissioner evidently thinksthey would. But even if that be so, is it., right that men should be asked to work on Sundays for actually less than they receive for their work during the other six days, of the week I

Senator Drake:

– They will not work for less. That was indefensible, and I think it has been corrected already. ,

Senator STEWART:

– Probably that system would have been continued if attention had not been called to it in the Senate. Then, again, why should this time-and-a-half rate for Sunday work be departed from? The honorable and learned senator says that if the Commonwealth pays extra for Sunday work, instead of having less Sunday work, there will be more of it. But as Senator Pearce has pointed ‘out, and as, I believe, is the experience of every man who has had to work for his living in the open market, if higher rates are paid for Sunday work and overtime, they are reduced to a minimum. Why should not the same rule apply in the service of the Commonwealth? If it does not apply it is ample proof that there must be something radically wrong with the management of such Departments as are under the control of the Government. That is the only inference I can draw from the Minister’s statement that increased pay for Sunday work and overtime would simply mean more Sunday work and overtime. The very opposite is the result under private -management, and I cannot for the life of me see how, with good management, the same result cannot be achieved in the public service. I trust that the report will be adopted, and, if that is done, I shall have very much pleasure in moving, in accordance with the suggestion made by Senator Walker, that a message be sent to the other Chamber requesting their concurrence.

Question put. The Senate divided.

AYES: 16

NOES: 9

Majority…… 7

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Report adopted.

Senator STEWART (Queensland). - I wish to ask the leave of the Senate to move that the resolutions be communicated to the House of Representatives.

The PRESIDENT:

– It is not necessary for the honorable senator to ask leave, because standing order 322 says -

It shall be in order at any time to move, without notice, that any resolution of the Senate be communicated by message to the House of Representatives.

Senator STEWART:

– But I desire in the message to ask the concurrence of the other House in the resolutions of the Senate.

The PRESIDENT:

– If no objection is offered, the honorable senator may move that motion without notice.

Resolved (on motion by Senator Stewart) -

That the amendments proposed in the Public Service Regulations be communicated to the House of Representatives in a message, requesting the concurrence of that House thereto.

page 5355

POST AND TELEGRAPH ACT AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Senator DOBSON:
Tasmania

– I move -

That the Bill be now read a second time.

I regret that I have to begin my speech at this late hour in the afternoon. When I asked the Minister to allow me an hour or two this evening, he said that he could not accede to the request, and therefore I am bound to proceed now. I make no apology for introducing the Bill, because I regard section 16 of the Act as the greatest blot on our legislation. It appears to me that it is an insult to our unfortunate coloured fellow subjects; that, considering all the circumstances of the case, it is an act of the gravest cruelty towards them ; that it is absolutely embarrassing to the Colonial Office ; that it will endanger the proper carriage of our mails to the old country; and that it will dissever us for years from the federation with Great Britain in regard to mails. Hitherto Australia and the mother country have been one, so to speak, in postal matters. But, owing to our legislation, we have had to say that we can no longer join with her in any arrangement which may be made for the carriage of mails between Australia and Great Britain. I fancy I hear an honorable senator reply that if the motherland will only comply with our conditions, we can go on as heretofore, and have a joint contract. But he ought to know that certain Acts bind Great Britain to give to the King’s subjects in India the same rights and privileges as are given to his other subjects. It ought to have been known to honorable senators, as well as the Prime Minister, that it would be simply impossible for the British Government to comply with section 18 of the Post and Telegraph Act. We all know what took place owing to the use of a few greased cartridges, and how all India was deluged with blood, and our dearest ones were slaughtered. To pass an Act prohibiting the Government from entering into a contract for the carriage of mails on steamers which carry lascars is a far worse insult than that which caused the Indian Mutiny. The cruelty and hardship of the case are apparent when we come . to look into its history. When the East India Company was broken up, the trade between China and India was carried on by certain “ country “ vessels, as they were called, mostly manned by lascars, and commanded by European and Manilla officers. When the P. and O. Company came upon the scene, sixty odd years ago, they practically wrested that trade from them. But what did they do ? They transferred the black sailors to their own fleet, and for the last sixty years the black sailors, and the generations which have succeeded them, to the number of about 37,000, have been employed on British vessels. After having taken their trade, given them employment, and trained them, family after family - sometimes three generations being employed in the one steamer - it is very cruel to suddenly say that they are not fit to be employed in the vessels which carry our mails, that we shall not enter into a mail contract if one black man is employed on a mail steamer. Do we expect or desire the P. and O. and Orient Companies to dismiss all these men 1 If white men were treated in that way anywhere what an outcry would be raised !

Senator Pearce:

– White men have been discharged from the Orient boats to make room for black men.

Senator DOBSON:

– I am talking of the 37,000 men who are employed now, and I believe that 7,000 lascars are employed by the P. and O. Company alone. I contend that the only way in which the company can carry our mails and earn a dividend - for I do not believe that a dividend could be earned without our subsidy - is by getting rid of those 7,000 men. I ask honorable senators if that is what they expect t Would not that be an outrage on humanity 1 Is it not insulting to our fellow subjects, and dragging down the Empire, for Australia to have a law of this sort? My honorable friend retorts that the Orient Company have dis*missed white men in order to employ black men. He is turning the fact upside down - of course, unknowingly. I happen to know the fact. It furnishes a powerful ‘argument, I think, in favour of my Bill.- Within one week of the Senate’s agreement to the insertion of clause 16 in the Post and Telegraph Bill by the other House, it. was announced in the press that the Orient Company were compelled to give up the advantage which for years they hadhad over theP. and O.Company. and to employ lascars, because white men would not, and could not, work in the stoke-holds.

Senator McGregor:

– Oh, rot !

Senator DOBSON:

– I thought I should raise the ire of my honorable friend. I call attention to the fact that I am now discussing the employment of stokers and firemen in the tropics, and I propose to read certain quotations as to the incapacity of the white sailor to do the work, and the frightful strain driving him into intemperate habits. Any quotations I have to read are not directed against the ability and skill of the white sailor, but against the impossibility of getting the generality of white sailors to stand the strain of the stoke-hold in tropical and semi-tropical climates. I hope that my honorable friends will remember that remark, and not accuse me, as they did before, of saying that a black sailor is better than a white sailor, or that white, sailors are incompetent. .

Senator McGregor:

– The honorable and learned senator is going to try to do so now, but it is all rot.

Senator DOBSON:

– I think it is a rule of the Senate for one honorable senator to take the word of another.

Senator McGregor:

– I am declining not to take the word of the honorable and learned senator, but to accept the authority which he proposes to quote.

Senator DOBSON:

– The incident I cited about the Orient Company is an absolute condemnation of section 16 of the Act, and the best argument in favour of my Bill. I shall not allow any honorable senator to turn that fact upside down. The moment I heard of that incident I went down to the office of the company to ascertain the reason for the change, because for many years I had heard that passengers preferred to travel in the Orient boats; on the ground that, in their opinion, they carried safer crews. I was told that year after year the company had tried to run their boats to time, but had absolutely failed, not because of the incompetency of white men, but because of their inability to stand the frightful strain of working in the stokeholds through the tropics. We have the experience of not only the Orient Company but also the P. and O. Company. I have before me a letter in which Sir Thomas Sutherland points out that when the Suez Canal was opened the P. and O. Company understood that they would be able to man their boats with white sailors only. Why ? In order to please the members of the travelling public, who were prejudiced against the employment of coloured crews. An experiment was tried, and the company had to revert ‘to coloured labour. Yet, in the face of that fact, we find this wretched provision in our Post and Telegraph Act. Sir Thomas Sutherland, in his letter, writes as follows : -

With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1870, a new state of affairs arose. The services eastward and westward were no longer separated, and the same crew could serve in the ships alike in the Mediterranean, and in the Eastern seas. When the company’s lines began to be worked regularly nin the Canal, it was the - intention of the directors of the P. and 0. Company that the ships should be manned exclusively by Europeans, the employment of lascars being confined to the vessels running between India and China and on the coast lines. Accordingly the steamers leaving this country were provided with English crews, both seamen and firemen, but with results so unsatisfactory that the efficient working of the mail service was seriously compromised. It was no uncommon experience to have half a crew in prison for drunkenness and disobedience to orders, »nd the directors found themselves compelled, after a year’s’ experience of English sailors and stokers in the tropics, to make the experiment of employing Iascar crews on this side of Suez, in order to get the work of their ships properly done. I say against their inclination, because it was feared the Iascar would never stand the rigour of an English winter.

Here is history repeating itself. The experience of the P. and 0. Company in 1874 was also the experience of the Orient Company in 1901 or 1902. I know as a matter of fact that the Orient Company succeeded in attracting patrons of the P. and O. Company by reason of their employment of white crews. Yet they have been obliged to abandon that policy in the stokeholds. Senator McGregor and others may ask what ‘ :I know of the matter ; but surely the (‘chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and the officers of the Orient Company ought to know something, and I tate their evidence as disclosing actual facts. Sir Thomas Sutherland goes on to say : -

The employment of mixed crews on the company’s ships was brought about, therefore, by the impossibility of getting the work carried on satisfactorily in the tropics by Europeans

He then proceeds to show that so many more blacks than whites have to be employed for the work, and that, though the black men are not allowed exactly the same space as the white sailors, the former get double the space required by the Indian Navigation Act. Sir Thomas Sutherland adds : -

Of course the object which the trades unionists have in view is to throw difficulties in the way of employing lascars. The result maj’ be to diminish the numbers now carried in certain ships, but it will not be the ship-owner who will suffer, nor the English seamen who will be the gainers.

This question has very little, if anything, to do with the policy of a white Australia. If these 7,000 lascars were got rid of tomorrow, I ask my friends of the Labour Party to say how many Australian seamen would be taken on in their ‘ places ? To begin with, articles are signed at home, and no men would be taken on in Australia unless those who had shipped at home deserted at Australian ports or died. I do not suppose that if the 7,000 lascars were got rid of, employment would be provided for a score of Australian sailors. I ask my friends of the Labour Party, what is the use of insisting on legislation which embarrasses the Empire, is opposed to the Imperial spirit, and is positively an insult to British Indian subjects ?

Senator McGregor:

– What is the use of the honorable and learned senator persisting in a proposal which he has no. hope of carrying?

Senator DOBSON:

– I may tell the honorable senator that if every member of this Chamber were present, I should have a majority. Sir Edmund Barton was wrong in telling Mr. Chamberlain that this Parliament thought so and so, when the earnest conviction and opinion of Parliament was against this section of the Act.

Senator McGregor:

– The honorable and learned senator will not get all the senators present.

Senator DOBSON:

– That may be. The Labour Party, who are always here attending to their work, may gain a triumph in the absence of some of my supporters, but I tell Senator McGregor - and I tell the electors and also the Home Government, if our debate happens to come under their eye - that a majority of the Senate is in favour of repealing this section of the Act. As to benefiting the Australian or the English sailor, we ought to bear in mind that Great Britain possesses about 51 per cent, of the total shipping tonnage of the world, and that enormous shipping has to be supplied with men out of the 40,000,000 who constitute the population of the British Isles. Germany, with not one-tenth of the total tonnage, has a population pf 45,000,000 or 50,000,000 to draw upon ; and while other nations may have a much larger proportion of their own sailors on board their ships, that is absolutely impossible to Great Britain. We have to go all over the world for our sailors, simply because Great Britain, according to population, has more than her share of the world’s shipping. Is not that a fact to be proud of 1 Has not the commerce of Great Britain made the Empire ? And that commerce never could have been developed without the aid of the foreign sailor, and, to some extent,, without the aid of the black sailor.

Senator McGregor:

– British sailors are being driven out of the service.

Senator DOBSON:

– That is a very useless and incorrect interjection. Nothing of the sort is occurring. German, Trench, and Japanese vessels receive enormous subsidies from their several Governments. We all know what a howl there was when it was reported that the Morgan Trust had bought up some of the most magnificent vessels of the British mercantile marine. We also know now how the venture was over-capitalized and is not succeeding. We can quite understand what an important influence these enormous subsidies have in the commercial race for supremacy. When Sir Thomas Sutherland was before the Select Committee of the House of Commons which was inquiring into the effect on British trade of the subsidies granted to shipping by foreign countries, he was asked by the Chairman -

What amount of subsidy would put you on a level with the North German Lloyd, which receives £280,000 a year ?

The answer of Sir Thomas Sutherland isreported as follows : -

At least £50,000 a year more on account of the larger number of trips which the British vessels, make through the Suez Canal, as compared with the German vessels. In connexion with the subject of foreign mail contracts, he (Sir Thos. Sutherland) was of opinion that the comparatively short periods for which they . were made - seven years, as compared with fifteen in the caseof the North German Lloyd - represented a shortsighted policy in the best interests of the mail service. The present contract had only fouryears to run, and as they did not know what wasgoing to happen at the end of that time, they had to be very circumspect in regard to the outlay of capital for the purpose of constructing mail steamers pure and simple. If their contractwere for fifteen years his company would be* expending £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 more than they were doing at present in order to improve- and accelerate the future mail service.

That shows how large companies, like thePacific and Oriental and the Orient, depend on the mail contracts. Sir Thomas Sutherland advocates a longer period, becausethe .companies would then know that thesubsidy would continue, and they could therefore give to the Australian tradebetter ships, with greater speed. If we are to have a hand-to-mouth policy, with shortterms and restrictive enactments as to theemployment of black men, we are likely to get very few tenders indeed, and tohave a very poor service in comparison with that which we might hope to havein - the absence - of . drastic legislation. I have here an important document, which, may help to . answer some of SenatorMcGregor’s statements. It is the report of” a Committee appointed by the Board of” Trade to inquire into certain questions affecting the mercantile marine. One of” the points investigated was -

The causes that have led to the employment of a large and increasing proportion of lascars and. foreigners in the British merchant service, and the effect of such employment upon the reserve of seamen of British nationality available for naval purposes in time of peace or war.

The committee issued a report from which I propose to read several important extracts. The date of the appointment of the committee is the 13th January, 1902, sothat the opinions expressed are quite recent. The first extract I shall read is as follows : -

There is no doubt of the fact of the increase of foreigners employed and corresponding decrease– ;of British seamen employed in the mercantile marine. The statistics of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, obtained in the manner explained in question 12065, show that in 1S88 there were employed on British merchant vessels lf>8,959 British and 24,990 foreign seamen ; in 1901 the numbers were 151,376 and 37,174 respectively - a decrease of 7,583 British’ and an increase of 12,184 foreign seamen in 13 years thus in the quinquennial period from 1890 to 1901 the decrease in the number of British seamen amounted to 4,597, and the increase in the number of foreign seamen amounted to 5,168.

This increase of foreigners and decrease of Britishers arises from the fact that we have our mercantile marine all over the world. We have been increasing our navy, and no doubt the best sailors find their way into that service ; and the result is that there are not the men to keep pace with the enormous demands of the Empire.

Senator PEARCE:

– Nonsense !

Senator De Largie:

– The people are drifting wholesale from the old country to the United States.

Senator DOBSON:

– People may be drifting to the United States to start fruit growing or farming where they can get good land, but is it contended that two per cent, of those people would serve on board British ships. I do not mean to say that there are not men enough in the Empire, but in our land of freedom - although I fear it maybe found to be -a land of slavery - every man is allowed to -choose his own vocation. The British sailor is the best sailor afloat, but he does not come forward in such numbers as to enable us to dispense with the foreigner and the black man.

Senator De Largie:

– That is because the foreigner and the black man are cheap.

Senator DOBSON:

– That is absolutely -contradicted by men who ought to know. I hope my friends of the Labour Party have something better than those wretched, miserable parrot cries to use in reference to an important matter which affects the Empire at large.

Senator De Largie:

– I shall quote authorities - not of the Labour Party - who tell a different story.

Senator DOBSON:

– The report of the Committee proceeds -

Although lascars and other Asiatics are employed almost exclusively on steam vessels, they now exceed the total number of foreign seamen employed in all classes of British ships, and their increase during recent years has been much more rapid than the decrease of British or the increase of foreign seamen employed. . . . It is to be observed that the growth of the mercantile marine has been very great, and that the proportion of British seamen to the total mass of the population is still high.

That shows that the proportion of seamen to population is high, and that, therefore, the English service is a good one. The Englishman evidently appreciates the wages, comfort, and treatment received on British ships. The report further states -

It will be found that one in every thirty-six of the males over fifteen years of age in the United Kingdom is a seaman or fisherman. … As regards the increasing employment of foreign seamen, we do not think, speaking generally, that they are preferred on account of cheapness.

This Committee sat for forty-three days and examined sixty or seventy witnesses, and I believe this reports the last authentic utterance on the subject. It will be seen that it is not a matter of cheapness, but a matter of getting men to do work which must be done.

Senator McGregor:

– Britishers will not do the work at the price.

Senator DOBSON:

– Nothing seems to convince the honorable senator.

Senator McGregor:

– Because I know; I should not do the work myself at the price.

Senator DOBSON:

– Does the honorable senator know better than the members of the Board of Trade ?

Senator McGregor:

– Certainly -I do.

Senator DOBSON:

– Then I give my friend up as a bad job, and can only express the hope that he will not further interrupt me.

Senator Pearce:

– Is there not a great difference between the pay given by the North German Lloyd and the pay given by the Orient Company ?

Senator DOBSON:

– Yes ; but what does the honorable senator make out of that fact?

Senator Pearce:

– It shows that the foreigner works for less than the Britisher.

Senator Walker:

– Why should he not, if he is prepared to do so ?

Senator DOBSON:

– The report shows that there is a full proportion of sailors amongst the 41,000,000 people in Great Britain, and also that the employment of the foreigner is not on account of his cheapness. I know that my friends of the Labour Party think that everything resolves itself into a question of wages. They will find before they are much older, however, that the question is .one of character and ability, and of wise and fair laws under which we may all progress in accordance with our capacity. The report proceeds -

The superior contentment and docility of foreign seamen, certainly in the earlier stages of their employment in British ships, render masters and owners willing to take them. It is, however, satisfactory to find that no competent authority alleges that the foreigner is a better seaman than the British subject, especially at times of danger.

Lascars and other Asiatics who are British subjects stand on a different footing from foreigners. . . . We think that, in addition to their claim as British subjects, they have also some claim to employment because British vessels have displaced the native trading vessels.

That is what I alluded to a short” time ago. We have displaced their trading vessels and we have given them employment for sixty years, and it is now proposed that we should rob them. of their means of living. I quote further from the report : -

Lascars are in most cases hereditary sailors, and have special qualifications for work as firemen in hot climates. They are temperate, and those who came before us made a most favorable impression upon us. The evidence shows that th’éy make most amenable and contented crews. In consequence their employment as firemen has grown almost universal in the tropics, and they are also largely employed in vessels trading between ports within the tropics and the United Kingdom.

These Board of Trade experts have found that these lascars, being hereditary sailors, are able to stand the pressure of the stoke -hold. They are universally employed in the tropics, and yet Some honorable senators say we should have nothing more to do with the Peninsular and Oriental Company and the Orient Company, who have served us so well and so faithfully, and who are a credit to the flag under which their fleets sail, unless they turn our. fellow subjects out of their vessels.

They are so contented and so anxious to retain their situations in British ships, that it is not easy to be sure whether that service entails any hardship upon them. We believe, however, that there is no reason to think that many of them do, in any appreciable degree, suffer when employed in tho colder climates to the north of the Suez Canal, or even in the Atlantic trade. We do not, however, feel competent to express any decided opinion on their employment on men-of-war ; but we have no doubt of their desire to be so employed, or of their competency, at least in the capacity of stokers and firemen. We may add that those whom we saw belong for the most part to the northern and warlike races of India, and they certainly impressed us with their manly character.

I have said before, and I now repeat, that in the event of a great. European war, which resolves itself to a great extent into a naval contest, on the first check we should get, involving the loss of a few ships and the loss of a great ‘many men, these lascars might help to save the Empire by going into the stoke-holds of many of our mercantile marine vessels on which they are not employed now, and thus freeing the white stokers to go into the men-of-war. If my honorable friends opposite cannot see that, it appears to me that they are unable tosee that two and two make four.

Senator Higgs:

– Heaven help the Empire if it has to depend upon lascars.

Senator DOBSON:

– Does my honorable friend think that interjection worthy of his great intellect ? Whoever said that the Empire had to depend on lascars ?

Senator Keating:

– The honorable andi learned member is suggesting it.

Senator DOBSON:

– I have suggested that they might help to save the Empire in. the way I have stated, and in the same way that Indian troops might help to save the Empire. Surely some thousands of . them who are well-trained men, of the type of the men who were first into the forts at Pekin, might hereafter help to save the Empire, although they are not of the same colour as Senator Higgs.

Senator Higgs:

– They will be the> first to massacre the British troops in India some day.

Senator DOBSON:

– It is quite likely that they will if we continue to insult them.’ in every possible way, as this section 16 of the Post and Telegraph Act certainly does. I am glad that Senator Higgs sees it so< clearly, and on that ground I claim thehonorable senator’s vote, in order, that hemay do what he can to prevent British subjects in India being massacred as they werein the Indian mutiny. I quote furtherfrom the report : -

On the whole we feel that the objections whichmay be felt as to the employment of foreign seamen do not apply to the employment of lascarsand other Asiatics who are British subjects.

Here the Board nf Trade unanimously find that whatever objections there may beto foreign seamen, Scandinavians, Poles,. Italians or Greeks, they do not apply to thecoloured man who is a British subject, and. who owns the sway of the British flag.

Senator Lt Col Gould:

– There is no exception taken to these men under thePost and Telegraph Act.

Senator DOBSON:

– There is no exception taken to. these foreign seamen, as the,- honorable and learned senator points out. The Board of Trade further report -

One of the objects of a strong navy is to enable our merchant ships to keep the sea in time of war, and this object would be defeated if too many seamen and firemen were suddenly withdrawn from the mercantile marine and a considerable portion of it laid up in consequence of want of crews.

Will my honorable friends opposite consider that 1 There are from 30,000 to 40,000 foreigners now in the British mercantile marine service, and in the event of a European war more than half of those foreign seamen might be absolutely withdrawn from the vessels in which they are employed. We shall not have enough sailors to man our men-of-war and our mercantile, fleet, if we get rid of our 30,000 foreigners and 37,000 lascars and Asiatics. As Senator Gould has pointed out, under our legislation, we are absolutely preferring, to our own British subjects, men who are called the scum of the nations of the earth, men of all nationalities who go down to the London docks and seek employment on board British vessels. The Board of Trade also say -

The mercantile marine is, and should continue to be, a valuable source from which to draw a portion of the naval reserve. The Committee feel that the numbers which at present come from this source may, and should, be increased.

Orders of the Day called on : Debate interrupted.

page 5361

SUPPLY BILL (No. 3)

Eastern Extension Telegraph Company .- Papua Customs Preference : Pacific Cable : High Court Judges : Defence Force : Customs Bonding Rents and Charges : Tasmanian Cable : Preferential Trade : Moneys Due to Tasmania : Senate Elections : Deputy PostmasterGeneral, Western Australia.

Senator DRAKE:
Minister for Defence · Queensland · Protectionist

– I move -

That the Bill be now read a first time.

The Bill is for the purpose of voting two months’ supply, £658,500. I do not think there is anything in it requiring special remark. The amounts are all based upon the Estimates.

Senator Pearce:

– On what Estimates ?

Senator DRAKE:

– Upon the new Estimates. The Appropriation Bill for the year lias been read a first time in the House of

Representatives to-day. Probably we shall have it before us in a week, or perhaps within a fortnight.

Senator Stewart:

– Say a month.

Senator DRAKE:

– No ; probably within a fortnight, or even less.

Senator Higgs:

– Do these Estimates provide for the construction of a line for the Eastern Extension Company ?

Senator DRAKE:

– No; provision is made upon the Estimates for the construction of a telegraph line, under the agreement with the Eastern Extension Company, but nothing is asked for under this Bill.

Senator Higgs:

– If we pass this Bill, shall we be voting money for that purpose ?

Senator DRAKE:

– No; I do not think there is anything in the Bill for that purpose.

Senator -Higgs. - There are a lot of contingencies.

Senator DRAKE:

– That line is not provided for under the heading of “contingencies:” It is a special vote. This Supply Bill is required to pay the salaries for the month ; and, in accordance with the usual practice, the amount is made up as equivalent to two months’ supply.

Senator HIGGS:
Queensland

– I avail myself of this opportunity to refer to the conduct of the Government in regard to the Conference asked for by the Pacific Cable Board.

The PRESIDENT:

– Is not that question covered by a notice upon the businesspaper ?

Senator HIGGS:

– I think not.

The PRESIDENT:

– I think it is covered by the order of the day, No. 4 - “ Eastern Extension Company’s Agreement.”

Senator HIGGS:

– That is the agreement, but what I am discussing is the question of the Conference asked for by the Pacific Cable Board.

The PRESIDENT:

– Is that a different question ?

Senator HIGGS:

– Not entirely a different question, but still it is not the same. It will be remembered that the Senate carried an amendment which in the ordinary course should have led to the withdrawal of the agreement ; our object being to emphasize our disagreement with the attitude of the Government regarding the Conference asked for. We understood that the Government were going to negotiate for a Conference, on the lines of Mr. Chamberlain’s cablegram of 27th August.

The PRESIDENT:

– I beg the honorable senator’s pardon. I do not know exactly what he is going to say, but he will see that he has a notice of motion upon the paper in reference to that Conference, contingent upon a notice of motion in reference to the Pacific Cable agreement. Although it is admissible under one of our new standing orders to discuss matters which are not revelant to this particular Bill, still we have another standing order which provides that an honorable senator must not anticipate debate concerning a matter which is on the notice-paper. I am not sure, but it seems to me that Senator Higgs has a notice on the paper in reference to the question to which he is now alluding. He ought not to have anticipated debate on his own motion.

Senator HIGGS:

– I very much regret that it is in the power of the Government to put upon the business-paper a notice of motion which precludes me from discussing a certain matter.

The PRESIDENT:

– But the honorable senator has put this contingent notice on the paper himself.

Senator HIGGS:

– Mine is a notice of motion, contingent on a certain proposal coming before the Senate. But the Government do not intend to allow us to reach that item.

Senator Pulsford:

– The honorable senator should ask leave to withdraw his contingent notice.

The PRESIDENT:

– That cannot be done now.

Senator HIGGS:

– There are one or two other grievances which I will deal with. The first is in regard to the resolution carried by the Senate, that the Government should prepare a tabulated statement showing the rates of duty which will be charged on exports from New Guinea under the Papua Customs Preference Bill.

Senator Drake:

– Did not the honorable senator have that ?

Senator HIGGS:

– No ; we have had a substitute. The terms of the resolution were that the statement should be prepared in accordance with the terms of the Papua Customs Preference Bill, which provided that the duty on imports .from New Guinea should be thirty-three and one-third less than the duties on imports from other countries. At the time when Senator O’Connor opposed my proposal, he said that what I asked for was a simple matter which would only take each senator a few minutes to calculate for himself. I pointed out that it would take a little time. The Government officer who had to prepare the tabulated statement also evidently thought that it would take a little time, because, either on his own initiative, or acting under instructions from the Government, he has prepared only a partial statement of what that preference would be.

Senator Drake:

– The statement includes all the present imports. We are not going to import machinery or wine from New Guinea.

Senator HIGGS:

– The object of the Papua Customs Preference Bill is to encourage settlement in New Guinea, and to establish manufactures there. But the Government refuse to tell us what duty they intend to charge on New Guinea goods, although we have carried a resolution asking for the information. Instead of giving us a comprehensive statement setting forth each item in the proposed preference schedule, they only take a few imports from New Guinea I say, therefore, that the Government have not carried out the wishes of the Senate.

Senator Matheson:

– The order of the Senate.

Senator HIGGS:

– The command of the Senate that a comparative statement should be prepared. The Government have only given us an emasculated statement with regard to a few items which come from New Guinea at the present time. I have another grievance. Here let me say to those honorable senators who may be surprised that I am adopting the r61e of candid friend, that I am a Government supporter only so long as the Government do what I consider to be right. I am not a Government supporter of the kind desired by the late Sir John Robinson, of New South Wales. When a member of Parliament said to him, “ I support the Government when they are right,” Sir John Robinson replied, “We do not want supporters when the Government are right ; we want them when we are wrong.” I am not a Government supporter of that class. I do not support them when I think they make mistakes. My second grievance against them is that the Senate carried a resolution proposed by myself that there should be laid upon the table a copy of the cablegram sent by the Governor-General to Mr. Chamberlain. Honorable senators will recollect that Sir Edmund Barton wrote to the Governor-General, asking him to cable to Mr. Chamberlain, asking whether he was still anxious to proceed with the Conference in reference to the Pacific Cable. Mr. Chamberlain replied, and I imagine, from the terms of his reply, that the cablegram of the Governor-General to him contained something more than a mere request to know whether Mr. Chamberlain was still desirous of a Conference.

Senator Drake:

– That is unworthy of the honorable senator.

Senator HIGGS:

– If it is unworthy of us, how is it that the Governor-General’s cablegram to Mr. Chamberlain has not been laid before the Senate 1 We carried a resolution ordering them to lay it on the table a fortnight ago.

Senator Drake:

– I will tell the honorable senator why.

Senator HIGGS:

– Then that is all right ; but the honorable and learned senator will excuse me for thinking that there was something in the cablegram that was not contained in Sir Edmund Barton’s letter, seeing that Mr. Chamberlain cabled out that it was quite possible that the matter had gone boo far for the Commonwealth to withdraw from the agreement. The matter has not gone too far for the Commonwealth to withdraw from the agreement with the Eastern Extension Company, and I think that the cablegram from the Governor-General should have been produced, in accordance with our request. Another matter which I beg to bring underthe attention of the Senate is in connexion with the Pacific Cable. I want to know how it is that the Government ‘of the Commonwealth, being partners in the Pacific Cable, permitted the general manager to withdraw the canvassers who were working here in the interests of the cable. Why have the Government permitted Mr. Reynolds, the general manager of the Pacific Cable Board, bo dismiss the canvasser who was employed bo get business in Melbourne 1

Senator Charleston:

– Does he not know his own business best ?

Senator HIGGS:

– The honorable senator will recollect that the Commonwealth is a partner in the Pacific Cable scheme. It is in the interests of the general taxpayer that that scheme shall be a financial success. To make it a financial success the Pacific Cable Board, on which we have a representative, must try to attract business. It must adopt business methods. If the Eastern Extension Company employ a canvasser, the Pacific Cable Board should do the same. They were employing a canvasser until quite recently, but it appears that Mr. Reynolds decided that it would not be in the interests of the Pacific Cable to create any friction with the Eastern Extension Company, and dismissed the canvasser. I think that the Government is entirely wrong in allowing the company which is in opposition to the Pacific Cable to carry on business in Melbourne. Senator Drake has admitted, in reply to a question, that section 80 of the Post and Telegraph Act confers upon the Postmaster-General the exclusive privilege of transmitting and receiving telegrams and performing all services incidental to that business. Therefore, I think the Government are very wrong in permitting the opposition to the Pacific Cable to carry on business in Melbourne, when they must know that it will in all probability render the Pacific Cable a burden bo the general taxpayer. I find that a certain company, carrying on business in Melbourne, will register addresses for any firm, and that if the Pacific Cable Board wishes to register an address the Government charge a fee of half-a-guinea per annum. I allude bo Reuter’s Telegram Company - a “packer” of telegrams - which will register, free of charge, as many indicators as a firm desires.

Senator Matheson:

– It is a very great convenience to a business man.

Senator HIGGS:

– No doubt it is.

Senator Matheson:

– Which the honorable senator wishes bo reduce.

Senator HIGGS:

– I hold that if any private company can afford bo supply firms with such facilities free of cost, the Commonwealth ought to be able to do so. As a taxpayer and a representative of taxpayers, I hold that the Government ought to be censured for refusing to provide those facilities. I went bo the office of a firm in Bourke-street, Melbourne, and asked - “ Will you be kind enough to explain to me your method of transacting cable business 1 “ and I was shown a list of from twenty to thirty indicators - Latin words commencing with the letterS. An indicator, I may explain, is a substitute for the name and address of a firm in Melbourne or elsewhere. If a firm in Melbourne wishes to send an order to a firm in the old country, they go round to the office ofReuter’s Telegram Company and say - “ We do not wish to pay the registration fee of half-a-guinea to the Post and Telegraph Department, and we shall be glad if you will fix up an indicator for us in London.” Reuter’s Telegram Company will not only fix up an indicator for the firm, but will register their message. If a man is carrying on business with several firms and he wishes to order ten dozen hats in London, Reuter’s Telegram Company will register for him the name of the firm as “Secundus” and the firm in London will know when the message is received that “ Secundus” means a certain firm in Melbourne. It will mean a firm in London as well as a firm in Melbourne.

Senator Lt Col Neild:

– This has been going on for a quarter of a century.

Senator HIGGS:

– It has been going on for a long time, but the point is that the action of . the Government is causing an annual loss of from £20,000 to £30,000 to the Commonwealth. Some indicators have as many as fifty different addresses. When a firm in Melbourne which is doing business with fifty firms is called upon by the Post and Telegraph Department to pay registration fees to the amount of £26 5s. per annum, naturally they will go round toReuter’s Telegram Company where they will not only get these facilities for nothing, but get a rebate on their messages at the end of the half-year or year.

Senator Charleston:

– The Eastern Extension Telegraph Company deny all that

Senator HIGGS:

– It is just as well to lay the facts of the case before the Senate and the public, because the Government will not give us an opportunity to supply the information in any other way.

Senator Drake:

– The Government are not preventing the honorable senator in any way.

Senator HIGGS:

– What has been their attitude all along ? They did not want the Senate to go into Committee to consider a certain matter, and in every possible way they have tried to prevent a discussion on this subject. They refused to agree to a conference with the Pacific Cable Board for the purpose of preventing this discussion from taking place. I hold in my hand a card which reads as follows : -

The following particulars are givenon the other side of the card : -

page 5364

REUTER’S TELEGRAM COMPANY LIMITED

Telegrams forwarded to the United Kingdom, the Continent of Europe, the United States of America, India, and South Africa.

Rebate allowed to regular senders.

Addresses registered free of charge.

*Telegrams Coded-* - A new and complete code has been compiled especially to meet the requirements of senders on business and social subjects, andaffordsexceptionalfacilitiesforcheaptele- graphing.Telegramssocodedwillinallcases betranslatedbythecompanybeforedelivery. *Remittances of Money* received and forwarded between the United Kingdom and the Australasian States. Transfers from London effected by telegraph free of commission or exchange. Remittances from Australasia at lowest ruling rates, which can be obtained on application. *Advantages to Travellers.* - Letters addressed to the company's clients can by previous arrangement be sent to the care ofReuter's Telegram Company Limited, 24 Old Jewry, London. B.C., or to any of its numerous branches in the United Kingdom, the East, South Africa, and throughout Australasia. Here is documentary evidence that Reuter's Telegram Company are giving rebates to regular senders of cablegrams. Will **Senator Drake** explain how it is possible for that to be done if it is understood that the telegrams must be charged a uniform rate according to the Berne Convention ? {: #debate-14-s0 .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- Is not the "packing" carried on in competition with the Post and Telegraph Department, and in disastrous competition with the Pacific Cable *1* Renter's Telegram Company will probably take 100 messages for transmission in one telegram. Each person who takes a message in has to pay for the word " London." On a Reuter's telegram containing 100 messages, 100 charges of 3s. are made, but a portion of that sum - ls. 6d. or more - is returned to the sender. I asked **Senator Drake** the other day whether the PostmasterGeneral, had ever proceeded against any company or person for infringing the provisions of the Post and Telegraph Act by undertaking to deliver messages -or letters, and his reply was " No." But I remember reading in the Melbourne press some months ago a statement that the Post and Telegraph Department were interfering with an Express Messenger Company - Bell's, I think - which proposed to deliver letters throughout Melbourne for their clients. If I were to start a business in this city for the delivery of letters at one-half of the sum which is charged by the Department I should be brought before a Court and fined for the infraction of the law, bub here is a company which is allowed to collect and deliver' telegrams and perform all the incidental services, to compete with the Post and Telegraph Department, bo give rebates bo regular customers, and bo impose -upon the taxpayers the duty of making up a considerable deficiency each year. That is nob right, I submit. -If there is a lack of business method in the Department, surely -with an extensive revenue at our command and a considerable amount of ability to choose from, we ought to be able to secure the services of efficient officers *1* I am sure that **Senator Drake** will not declare that the men in the Department are not as good as the men who can be obtained by Reuter's or any other company. I find that Reuter's Telegram Company are influencing business over the Eastern Extension Company's cable. I am told on very good authority that if a person goes into their office and says that he wishes a telegram to be sent by the Pacific route, the clerk at the counter will say - "Are you in a hurry? Do you want the message sent before a couple of days ? I suppose you know that the line is not working very well, and that the Pacific Cable Board have only one line ?" Naturally if the sender is not well posted in the details of the cable system, and wishes his message to be sent away immediately, he will say - "Send it by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company's line." That is the very instruction which Reuter's Telegram Company desire to get. I am of opinion that there must be an arrangement with the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company for Reuter's Telegram Company to influence business over their line, and not over the Pacific Cable. I contend that th Government ought bo shut down on Reuter's Telegram Company under section 80 of the poSt and Telegraph Acb, and compel them to stick to their own business. It is a varied business, including the conveyance of press news and the transmission of money. As a taxpayer I object tj Reuter's Company stepping in to help the Eastern Extension Company, and thus making the Pacific Cable a burden on the taxpayers. **Mr. Warren,** the manager of the Eastern Extension *Company, who is an* astute gentleman in receipt of a salary of £3,500 a year, with £1,500 for expenses, wrote a letter bo the Commonwealth Government some time ago stating that he did nob know of any rebates having been granted When **Senator Drake,** as Postmaster-General, was opposing the late **Senator Sargood's** amendment on the Post and Telegraph Bill, to allow telegrams to be transmitted by the route prescribed by the sender at the tariff for that route, he pointed out that the proposal would disadvantage the Pacific Cable. On page 2576 of *Hansard,* of 17 th July, 1901, **Senator Drake** is reported as follows : - >I do nob think this amendment will be of any benefit, and it might under certain circumstances be'ver3' mischievous...... > >Where it will become positively mischievous will be in cases where we have two or more cable services and the published rates -are equal. The disadvantage will be that a provision of that kind will enable persons to make private arrangements with the cable company to have their messages sent at a discount, and that I think will operate very prejudicially against the cable that is owned by the State. Of course what the honorable senator is looking forward to is the completion of the Pacific Cable. {: .speaker-K54} ##### Senator Sir FREDERICK Sargood: -- Yes. {: #debate-14-s1 .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator DRAKE:
Protectionist -- When it is completed it will be the first State-owned cable from Australia, and no doubt it will be in competition with other cable services. An enterprise which is controlled by the State fs necessarily conducted in the open day. The rates by that cable will be published. The rates by a cable which is controlled by a private company will not necessarily be made public, or if published there will be nothing to prevent its proprietors from allowing a considerable discount. {: #debate-14-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- Is **Senator Higgs** not infringing the ruling I have given that he must not anticipate a debate on his own motion, which appears on the notice-paper'? I did not stop the honorable senator when he was referring to Reuter, because that is a different question, but I must really ask him not to anticipate a discussion on the motion which he himself has on the paper. The question of the cable has been before the SenatorI do not know how many times. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- There is not a word in **Senator Drake's** speech which has any connexion with the motion of which I have given notice. **Senator Drake** was merely describing what would happen if **Senator Sargood's** amendment were allowed to. find its way into the Post and Telegraph Bill. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I will take the honorable senator's word that he is not anticipating his own motion. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- **Senator Drake** went on to say - >If this sub-clause is put in it will enable a privately owned cable company to make arrangements with the users of the cable to send messages over their lines in preference to using the State line, by promising a certain discount. In that way the Pacific Cable may be made unremunerative. On page 2578 of the same issue of *Hansard* **Senator Drake** is reported as follows : - >It should be remembered that a State-owned cable is not in the same position as a privately owned cable, for the reason that the State-owned enterprise is conducted in the light of day. It has to publish its rates, and it cannot allow any discount. One man has to pay the same rate as another. But a privately owned cable can make secret agreements with certain persons to take messages at reduced rates. If a proposal of this kind is allowed to go in the Bill it will mean that the private cable company will be able to make such arrangements with the public as will enable, it to obtain all the cream of the business, and the State-owned cable will have to carry Such messages as come to it at its published rates. I have already pointed out that Reuter's Company, in Melbourne, are granting rebates to customers, and when **Mr. Warren** wrote saying that he knew of no instance of the kind, he was not telling the truth. I have shown honorable senators the card issued by Reuter's Company promising to give rebates to .regular senders ; and that system undoubtedly conflicts with the clause of the Berne Convention providing that all telegrams shall be charged at uniform rates. There has already been a loss of some £30,000 on the Pacific Cable; and the undertaking will be a financial failure unlessthe Commonwealth Government step in and stop the system of rebates by the private companies. **Senator Neild** says that this system has lasted for thirty years. If that be so, the system has now been perfected to the extent that not only the indicator but the very message is registered free of charge. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col Neild: -- The honorable senator means that the message is transmitted in code *t* {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- Yes, by means of a manufactured word. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col Neild: -- Immense code books have been prepared by different publishers, and have been in use for a quarterof a century. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- But the registering of the message is a new departure. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col Neild: -- The honorablesenator is mistaken ; I had such an arrangement with Reuter twenty years ago. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- So far as I can gather,, the system to which I am referring is a new one. For example, if the proprietor of Cole'sBook Arcade cables the .word "stogrim" the receiver knows at once that what is wanted are so many dozen stories for children, by Grim, at os. each. As I say, addresses and messages are registered free of charge. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT **-Col. Neild.** - Does the honorable senator knowthatif he travels to England by mail steamer, he can have a telegram, sent to Australia for half - a - sovereign announcing his safe arrival *1* {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- That is a slightly different matter from that of which I am speaking. I am talking about the registration, free of charge, of 50 or 100- different firms, .who, if they registered with the Pacific Cable Board, would have to do soaccording to the laws of the Postal Department, at a cost of £26 a year for 50 addresses, or £52 a year for 100. Business firms in competition are naturally careful of every shilling, and if they can save a penny or twopence a word they very properly doso. {: .speaker-KSH} ##### Senator Macfarlane: -- Then do not prevent them from doing so. {: #debate-14-s3 .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS:
QUEENSLAND · ALP -- The honorable senator, when advocating greater consideration forcable users, should remember that the general taxpayer is already bearing a' considerable share of the burden which results- from our telegraphic system. There is a loss at the present time on that system of thousands of pounds ; and though that loss may be incurred indirectly in the interests of the general taxpayer, it is to a greater extent in the interests of telegraph users. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator Matheson: -- All that the honorable senator is proving is that the management of the Government Telegraph Department is not up to date. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- The honorable member does not prove that. The meaning is that the business is carried on in such a way as to enable users to get telegraphic accommodation cheaper. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- I am anxious that the general taxpayer should be protected, and the Commonwealth Government are not going the right way to afford protection. The general public have been very generous to those who use the, telegraph lines, seeing that a business man may send a telegram to any part of a State for 9d., or to any part of Australia for 1 s. The loss caused by those great concessions is borne by the general taxpayer, and now there is to be Another loss caused by the administration of the Pacific Cable. This is an important matter, well worth the time devoted to its discussion. The Government can protect the general taxpayer by improving the facilities for using the Pacific Cable. I am told that at the General Post Office in Melbourne it is impossible to obtain a Pacific Cable form. An instance occurred very recently. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- The honorable senator did not test the matter himself. {: .speaker-KHE} ##### Senator HIGGS: -- No ; but a gentleman showed me the ordinary yellow form which he had been compelled to use in the absence of the proper form. The influence of some people is so great that facilities which the Postal Department may desire to grant are kept from the public. I am glad to have had an opportunity of dealing with what I regard as a most important matter, and I hope that the Government will endeavour to make some of its suggested alterations. Business people ought to be given every facility which would be granted by a private company. The Commonwealth Government have the public purse to draw on in order to provide facilities, and if they do not providethese, the public purse will have to be drawn on to a greater extent in order to make up the general loss caused by the failure to adopt business methods. Some one ought to be employed to canvass for business for the Pacific Cable in the same way as business is canvassed for in connexion with the private companies. My view is that these private companies ought not to have been allowed to enter "Victoria until Parliament had ratified the agreement. I trust that the honorable and learned senator's statement is absolutely correct, and that it is not intended that any of the money we vote this evening shall be spent upon the construction of lines for any persons outside the Post and Telegraph Department. The Minister in his reply should give us a statement as to the legal opinion which he said was being obtained regarding the status of the company of which I have been speaking. That company is, no doubt, fulfilling a public want in certain directions, in the transmission of money and of press news ; but I say that with regard to the system of packing messages for business people, they are competing with the Pacific Cable in a grossly unfair manner when they try to influence supporters of the Pacific Cable to send their messages over their lines. It is in the power of the Commonwealth Government to prevent this ; and, if they do not prevent it, it will be only another black mark added to the very many which have been piling up against them during the last year or so. The Government, being interested as they are in the Pacific Cable, and being the guardians of the interests of the taxpayers of all the States, should see that the various telegraph stations are supplied with Pacific Cable forms. They would appear to have some idea that they are apart and separate in some way from the Pacific Cable. I say, however, that they are absolutely interested in it; it is as much their child as the telegraph lines running through any of the States of the Commonwealth, and they should protect it when they see violent hands being laid upon it by opposing companies. {: #debate-14-s4 .speaker-K6D} ##### Senator STANIFORTH SMITH:
Western Australia -- I am quite with **Senator Higgs** in his desire to safeguard in every way the rights of the Pacific Cable. I think the honorable senator has done good service by the action he has taken in connexion with the Eastern Extension Company. But when in his commendable zeal he is led into what I consider to be an unwarrantable and unfair attack upon a private company, I must protest against the statement he makes. In my opinion, Reuter's Telegram Company is one of the finest and most useful companies we have in Australia. I can say, from personal knowledge, that that company has never done anything inconsistent with the highest commercial morality. It has a branch in every country in the world where there is a telegraph station. Its ramifications extend throughout the world, and it is of immense service to people requiring to cable messages to different parts of the world. According to **Senator Higgs,** this should be the one country in the world to take exception to the beneficent work of Reuter's Telegram Company, and it would seem that if the honorable senator could have his own way, he would close up the business of the company. . The honorable senator accuses them of granting rebates, and in that way violating one of the clauses of the Berne Convention. My honorable friend will find that for every word which Reuter's Company send over the submarine lines they pay exactly the same rate as is paid on messages sent by any other company. The rebate which they grant does not, therefore, violate in any way the Berne Convention. If, while they pay the same rate for messages, they choose to grant a rebate, to customers, the matter is one between the company and their clients, and it does not affect us in the slightest degree. **Senator Higgs** also referred to their code. It is true that they have a code which cost them thousands of pounds to prepare, and which enables their clients to transmit messages at a cheaper rate than they could be transmitted, probably, by any other code in the world. They have not only benefited themselves by the preparation of the code, but they have conferred a benefit upon the whole commercial community. It is ridiculous to say that while people are able to send messages by Reuter's code, they are unable to send them by any other code. If the honorable senator will go to Cole's Book Arcade, he will be able to purchase a Bedford and McNeil's code, an Al code,' or an ABC code, and he can send messages by those codes as well as by Reuter's code, though perhaps not so cheaply. The coding of messages is the invariable practice. No person would be so foolish as to send his cable message uncoded unless it were a press message, for which special rates are quoted, or a simple message of one or two words, which could not be conveniently coded, because the reduction in cost by coding messages amounts to at least onehalf, and sometimes more. I contend that the facilities offered by Reuter's Company have had the effect of largely increasing the cable traffic. Reference has been made to their indicators. I remind the honorable senator that people can register indicators with the Government, but with Reuter's specially prepared code, a man may send ' a cable for £1 which would otherwise cost him £2 or £3. I know, from personal experience, that when a man is able to register an indicator at Reuter's free, he will do so in the event of his requiring to send cable messages, whilst if he has to pay the Government 10s. a year for an indicator, he will not bother to register one. As a result of this system of free registration of indicators, men send cables which they would not otherwise send. A registered indicator will often save the cost of five or seven words, and a result of the free registration of indicators is to increase the business of the cable lines. I contend that when the Pacific Cable has to compete with the Eastern Extension Company's cable, there is no reason why the Pacific Cable Board should not adopt the same procedure, and allow indicators to be registered free. It is an improper, and an unfair, method tomake people pay a large price for indicatorsand the ordinary cable rates as. well. It would be all right if there were an absolute monopoly, but the Pacific Cable is in., commercial competition with the Eastern Extension Company, and the Government should allow indicators to be registered freeSenator Higgs infers that Reuter's Company have some agreement with the Eastern Extension Company, or are interested in. that company in some way. I have had six years' experience with Reuter's Company, and I have seen the general manager only within the last few days. He assures methat the company has no interest in common' with the Eastern Extension Company, and has no arrangement whatever with that company. I am absolutely certain thatthat is correct. It is quite immaterial to Reuter's Company whether the message* they receive are sent by the Pacific Cableor by the Eastern Extension Company's lines.* It must, however, be borne in mind" that messages sent to Europe are alwayssent ever the Eastern Extension Company's lines, because the rates for those messages are from 6d. to ls. per word' lower than the rates charged by the Pacific Cable Board. The sender of a cable on going to Reuter's Company simply states which line he desires his message to go over. The company are th,e servants of the public, and they comply with the wishes of their clients. I went to the company the other day to send a cable, and I simply asked that it should be sent *via* the Pacific, and it was sent by that line. Every message is sent by the company over' the lines selected by the sender without any demur. When we are dealing with a company like this, which carries on business in every country in the world and which has been of undoubted benefit to the whole of the mercantile community of Australia, and has been practically the pioneer of submarine telegraphy, it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that we should take any steps which would prevent them carrying on a legitimate and useful business. I agree with **Senator Higgs** that the Pacific Cable Board .should adopt proper commercial methods in carrying on their business. In the matter of the registration of indicators, the Eastern Extension Company charge exactly the same rate as does the Pacific Cable Board, and as only those companies have submarine lines connected with Australia, from that point of view it really does not matter whether the Pacific Cable Board reduces the indicator rate or not, because if it did reduce the rate on the Pacific Cable, the Eastern Extension Company would lower the rate on their lines in the same way. Reuter's Company is willing to send messages by the Pacific Cable or by the Eastern Extension Company's lines, and I am sure that **Senator Higgs** made his attack upon the company only because he did not fully understand the methods of the company, and the benefit it has conferred upon the whole of the people of Australia. I can say that in in a mining State, such as Western Australia', Reuter's Company has been of the very greatest advantage, and its transactions, instead of resulting in a reduction of the number of words sent over the cables, have enormously increased the cable traffic by reason of. the facilities afforded by the company for the sending of messages. {: #debate-14-s5 .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator KEATING:
Tasmania -- I take advantage of the present opportunity to refer to one or two matters in the hope that the Minister for Defence may be able to bring them under the notice of his colleagues before the termination of the presentsession. During the discussion with regard to the position of the cable companies, ithas been mentioned that the Commonwealth has been very liberal in providing telegraphic facilities for the people. **Senator Higgs** has pointed out that it is now possible to send a telegram within any one State for the sum of 9d., and throughout the Commonwealth for ls. It has been, brought forcibly home to my mind, as I am sure it must have been to the mind of every other representative of Tasmania, that that does not apply to our State. It will be within the recollection of honorable senators that rauch more than twelve months ago a resolution of this Senate was passed unanimously to the effect that it was in the interest of the whole Commonwealth that the cable connecting the outlying State of Tasmania with her sister States should as early as possible become the property of the Commonwealth, and that there should be uninterrupted telegraphic communication throughout the Commonwealth, with undivided control and undivided ownership, in order that the people of the States should be able to participate *to* an equal degree in the benefits of an amalgamated administration. During the last recess, the Minister for Defence, who then: held the portfolio of Postmaster-General, took some steps, I believe, towards giving effect to that resolution. He and the PrimeMinister interested themselves to some extent in doing that ; and during the course of those proceedings some officers were sent from the Commonwealth Post arid Telegraph Department to put a valuation on some of the properties of the Eastern Extension Company in Tasmania. I believe that the valuation put upon thoseproperties by these officers was not agreed to by the officers of the company. But it seems to me that, subsequently to that, Ministers have been in negotiation withthe company with regard to cable services between Australia and the outside world, and that they then undoubtedly had' an excellent opportunity of making a bargain in connexion with that little Tasmanian cable, that properly should belongto the people of Australia. But they neglected that opportunity, because, so far as I know, up to date nothing has been done togive effect to the resolution of the Senate. If nothing is done in the near future, the people of Tasmania are decidedly justified in crying out that . they are not receiving the advantages of the amalgamation of the Postal Departments of the States to which they are entitled as citizens of the Commonwealth. I hope that the PostmasterGeneral, when replying to the various criticisms that have been made concerning different matters, will be able to give the Senate and the people of Australia some assurance that definite steps are being taken which, it is hoped, will soon lead to some tangible results. I take it that the Senate, when it passed the resolution to which I have referred, did. not do so for academical purposes. We did not wish to affirm a mere academical principle that it was desirable that all the means of telegraphic communication within the Commonwealth should be the property of the Commonwealth, but we desired that that resolution should be given effect to at the earliest possible moment. If there had been no negotiations between the Government and the Eastern Extension Company, it might have been a difficult matter for the Government to approach the company and ask them to treat. I know that the cable owned by the company could only have been obtained by the Tasmanian Government under the existing agreement for a price, which, according to the valuation placed upon it by the company would have been utterly disproportionate to its value. But, as I pointed out during the course of our previous discussion, the Commonwealth Government did undoubtedly have " other fish to fry " with the company, and were in a position bo make a good arrangement with them - an arrangement at any rate under which the Commonwealth would not be fleeced, and which would enable the Government to put the people of Tasmania into the position in which they are rightly entitled to be put. I hope that the Minister foi*' Defence will be able to assure us that some definite action will be taken, so that the people of Tasmania will be placed on a similar footing to the people in the other States with regard to telegraphic communication throughout the whole Commonwealth. At present the position is this : We pay, first of all, a shilling for the same message as one shilling is paid for in the mainland States ; and over and above that we have to pay one halfpenny for every word, including the address and signature - which money goes wholly into the coffers of the Eastern Extension Company. Let me give an illustration. If a man goes into the Melbourne General Post-office to-night to send a telegram containing sixteen words, including address and signature, to Cape York, or to Boulder City, or to the Northern Territory - a message ° which 'has to go through two or three States - he has only to pay one shilling. But if he sends a message to Launceston - less than 300 miles distant from Melbourne - he will have to pay ls. 8d. That is to say, he will have to pay ls., which is the Commonwealth charge, and, in addition, he will have to pay to the company one halfpenny for each of the sixteen words. The company originally charged one penny per word, but from the 1st November, they have lowered that rate to one half-penny per word ; and the people of Tasmania and those upon the mainland who have business with Tasmania, have to pay in addition to the ordinary Commonwealth charge this additional half-penny charge, which is entirely appropriated by the company. The position is a most anomalous one. There is another matter which I should like to bring under the notice of the Minister. It concerns his own Department more particularly. I notice that in the amount set down in connexion with the Department of Defence, the sum appropriated for the Defence Forces in Tasmania looks like the amount that was voted in previous Supply Bills ; from which I gather that the Minister intends to continue the policy that has hitherto prevailed with regard to the treatment of the officers and men of the various branches of the Defence Forces in that State. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- I am proposing to put £600 more upon the Supplementary Estimates in consequence of the discussion that took place in the Senate. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator KEATING: -- I assume that that £600 is to be appropriated for a definite purpose. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- For camp pay; and it may not be enough. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator KEATING: -- But it is not merely camp pay that is the subject of grievance with the Tasmanian forces. The whole of their general treatment is the ' subject of their grievance, and the ' camp pay is only an illustration of that treatment. These men are undoubtedly legally militia. They are entitled bo be paid as militia, and theY believed that on coming under the Commonwealth regime they would be treated similarly to their brothers in arms in the other States. I know that the answer given to that is that for some years past the Tasmanian forces have not been receiving pay. I admit that. They have willingly foregone their pay, and no money was voted for that purpose by the Tasmanian Parliament year by year, simply because the Tasmanian finances were in such a state that it was necessary to retrench. These men, although legally entitled under the various Defence Acts of Tasmania, and by their status, to be paid as militia, willingly consented to forego that pay year by year, fully believing that as the finances straightened themselves their pay would be restored to them. But they certainly to a man believed that on coming under the Commonwealth regime the restoration of their pay would be hastened. But now they find that they are being treated as volunteers, and that there is no hope in the immediate future of their receiving what they are legally entitled to. As their terms, of service run out none of them will be inclined to renew their' service, and I tell the Minister, without any hesitation whatever, that unless this grievance is redressed - and redressed early - he can be prepared to see the forces in 'Tasmania diminished by at least 50 per cent, within a short space of time. The Minister has had the benefit of communications from Colonel Wallack in Tasmania. The correspondence between that gentleman and the Defence Department has been placed upon the table of the Senate, and has been printed and circulated. It goes to show that I am not exaggerating the condition and temper of the forces in what I have just stated. I hope that the Minister will not pursue the policy that has been pursued by his predecessor, but will see that simple common justice is done to these men. I trust he will see that a policy is not persisted in that will cause the Defence Forces of Tasmania to practically disband as the term of service of the various members expire. The Minister will notice from the correspondence that I have referred to, that Colonel Wallack- points out that an intense feeling of dissatisfaction is widespread throughout the whole of the ranks. He will see that these men claim this payment as their just right. It is not merely a State matter by any means. If they are denied this right they will, as I have said, simply take the course that I have suggested, believing that a gross injustice has been done to them. The Minister's predecessor pointed out, in justification of thisextraordinary and anomalous conduct, that it was in consequence of requests for economy to ,be practised with regard, to the Defence Forces of Tasmania. When I asked the present Minister for Defence whether those requests came from the Tasmanian Government or from somebody representing that Government, the answer was - "Yes." But when I moved that the correspondence should be tabled in the Senate, the Minister had to confess that after searching the whole of the records and papers of the Department, no such request could be found. It was simply the ordinary suggestion that came from the Governments of the States of Queensland and Tasmania a couple of years, ago to the effect that, as far as possible, the Commonwealth should not be extravagantBut there is a great difference between incurring unnecessary and unjustifiable expenditure, which is extravagance, and incurring expenditure that is legally due tocertain individuals, and which cannot be characterized as extravagance in any sense. There is one other matter to which I wish to allude, and which pertains to the Department of Trade and Customs. Since the taking over of the Customs Department by the Commonwealth authorities, and the passing of the Customs Act, a scale of bonding rents and charges has been drawn up for the whole of Australia. The new scale has superseded all the 'previousStates schedules. In Tasmania we have little, if any, private bonding - at any rate, in Launceston ; and the bonding rents and charges that have been fixed for the whole of the Commonwealth are so high as practically to be absolutely prohibitive. They are three times as high as the bonding rentsand charges in the private bonds in Melbourne. As a consequence, many Tasmanian merchants bond their goods in Melbourne, and draw them out of the Melbourne bonds into their own stores in Tasmania for sale as they require them. I hold in my hand a letter from a leading firm of merchants, in which they state - I£ we leave spirits in bond for six months before displacing them, our profits disappear altogether. Consequently, we pay duty on everything, on landing, if there be room for it in our own stores. So that these high rates that have been imposed for bonding, and which are in many instances two and three hundred per cent- higher than the old Tasmanian State charges, have defeated themselves. They have been so prohibitive that there is practically little bonding going on now, and the revenue received is not at all commensurate with what it would be if there was anything like a fair and equitable charge imposed. There is one other matter to which I wish to allude before sitting down. It does not concern Tasmania or any State particularly, but it concerns Australia as a whole. It has regard to certain notifications that have appeared in the newspapers during the last few days. It will have been observed by honorable senators that it has been reported that the Cabinet has decided upon filling the positions on the High Court Bench, and it is said that the gentleman who is selected for the position of Chief Justice is **Sir Samuel** Griffith. I wish to take this opportunity of publicly expressing my- disapprobation of such a selection. I make that remark advisedly, because I do not think that, for that high position, no matter how great and undoubted his abilities may be, a man should be selected without reference to his connexion with Australian Federation, and more particularly with that tribunal. If we glance at the history of **Sir Samuel** Griffith we shall find that he was undoubtedly a great friend of Australia and of Australian Federation, but, in his later days, his friendship for Australia and for Australian Federation existed while it suited him. When the crucial test came, and the Constitution, which had been framed in three Convention sessions, and which had been twice accepted by the people of Australia, and was sent home to receive Imperial ratification, that gentleman, in conjunction with another, departed from the traditions of his position, and intrigued as hard as he possibly could to have the High Court stripped of some of its most important powers. A man who was guilty of such . conduct - reprehensible in the extreme - ought not to be charged with the administration of the functions of the High Court. A man who lias expressed the opinion that it should not be charged with the powers with which the people of Australia proposed to endow it, who used his great influence to prevent its being endowed with those powers, should not be chosen for Chief Justice, particularly when we contemplate that, in many cases which must come up for consideration the limit of those powers will be very doubtful, and the subject of much argument. The conduct of **Sir Samuel** Griffith, in endeavouring to diminish the powers of that tribunal, when the delegates were trying to get the .Constitution Bill passed through the House of Commons, should have disentitled him from ever occupying a seat on the Bench. The selection of that gentleman for the position of Chief Justice will do the Ministers very little credit indeed. And it will not give satisfaction to those people in Australia who took a deep and undying interest in endeavouring to get the States federated on the terms which were laid down in the Constitution, and which he did, in that respect, all in his power to destroy. {: #debate-14-s6 .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD:
New South Wales -- I desire to call the attention of the Senate to a very extraordinary interference by the Federal Government with Ministerial affairs in the old country. Within the last ten days a Ministerial crisis occurred in England. When a well-known Minister retired, the Prime Minister of Australia had the monumental audacity to send, in the name of the people of Australia, a cable message to that gentleman congratulating him on the course which he had adopted, and inferentially stigmatising the Cabinet of Great Britain for the course which they were adopting. I would ask honorable senators to picture to themselves what would have been the state of feeling in Australia if, when the recent crisis occurred in the Australian Cabinet and a Minister retired, a cable message had been received by **Mr. Kingston** from the Prime Minister of Great Britain congratulating him, and assuring him that the people of England approved of the course which he had adopted, and wishing him entire success. From one end to the other Australia would have rung with denunciation of the unwarranted, unconstitutional, and unheard of interference in the politics of Australia. Surely if Australians would defend - properly so too - their independence in such matters, they ought to resent an interference by their Prime Minister in the affairs of the United Kingdom. It cannot possibly be forgotten that the matter in connexion with which the cable message was sent, has been studiously kept out of the reach of this Parliament. ' It has been talked about, but it has been withheld from parliamentary consideration. No step has been taken, no means have been devised to .elicit any definite expression of opinion; and yet the Prime Minister had, I repeat, the monumental audacity to speak in the name of Australia on this subject. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- "Who should 1 {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- Nobody should, because Australia has no right to interfere in a question of Imperial politics. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator Pearce: -- I do not think that Australia has any desire to interfere either. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- I believe that the honorable senator is quite justified 'in suggesting that there is no desire in the Legislatures, or amongst the great body of the people, to interfere in a great Ministerial crisis in any other country. I wish to say a few words about the Pacific Cable. There is no doubt that the position is a very difficult one. The trouble has arisen, I think, from the Governments not looking far enough ahead when they decided to go in for a State-owned cable. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I do not think that the honorable senator should discuss the Pacific Cable agreement, which is set down for consideration on the business-paper in two places. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- I do not wish to discuss the agreement, but to refer to the business arrangements. A State-owned cable has been laid, but prior to its construction companies such as Reuter's existed, cable codes existed, names were registered, and messages were sent by code which enabled something less than the amount payable to the Post and Telegraph Department to be changed to the public by those companies. When the Commonwealth entered into an agreement with Canada to lay a cable, and pledged itself to charge so much per word, it created a position of great difficulty. I think that the Government are called upon to very carefully consider the position in all . its bearings, and to do something as speedily as possible to obviate the loss which is being suffered. We ought to try to make the cable self-supporting, and certainly the arrangements which now exist - considering the amount of cabling which is being done and the limited amount which comes to the State-owned cable - reflect very, greatly on the business acumen of the Government. I very much regretted to hear **Senator Keating's** remarks with regard to **Sir Samuel** Griffith, because they were entirely uncalled for. I think that, considering the possibility of his being called to a seat on the Bench, he was not likely to lightly, or without justification, take any step or to do anything to belittle the position- And believing that he is a gentleman of not only high, personal character but of the greatest legal attainments, I must express my regret at the remarks which have been made, and say that if he should consent to take a seat on the Bench, Australia will have reason to congratulate herself. {: #debate-14-s7 .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON:
Western Australia -- I have very much sympathy with **Senator Pulsford** in hia attack on the Prime Minister for what I must characterize as the most outrageous telegram which he sent to **Mr. Chamberlain.'** He has no right to lead the public of Great Britain to believe that he speaks in the name of the people of Australia. We know that the Prime Minister in the next Parliament will equally have no right to speak in the name of the people of Australia Why *1* Because a most deliberate and premeditated attempt has been made and successfully carried out by the Government to rob the great bulk of -the electors of New South Wales and Victoria of the rights which they were given under the Constitution. It is a case of monumental audacity when a Minister, who represents a majority returned to the Parliament on the present franchise, dares to express himself as representing Australia. The Prime Minister does not represent the feeling of the people of Australia. He may represent a majority in the Parliament, but I contend that the Parliament does not represent the feelings of the electors of the Commonwealth, and it never will while this outrageous arrangement operates. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- On account of the Electoral Divisions Act *1* {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The conscience of the Minister for Defence leads him straight to the point. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- It was not my conscience, but the honorable senator who told me that it was on account of the Act. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The honorable and learned gentleman asked a question, and I admitted that he was perfectly correct. I should like to call the attention of the Minister to the fact that on the 7th August last a motion was carried in the Senate, after repeated attempts on my part, affirming that **Sir Edward** Hutton should prepare for the information of Parliament a full and detailed statement of the armament and equipment required to make the military forces of the Commonwealth efficient. Here we are now nearly at the end of September, and the return has not been furnished. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- I thought I had given the honorable senator a return with which he was perfectly satisfied. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The Minister should not think, but should read the resolutions of Parliament. I cannot be responsible for what the honorable gentleman thought. The resolution was explicit enough ; but it was with the greatest possible difficulty I could impart to the honorAble gentleman the least inkling of what I desired. I did really think, however, that I had succeeded in the end, and that we were going to have the report. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- I thought I had succeeded in placing the report in the honor- able senator's hands. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The Minister for Defence is very much mistaken. The report to which he refers was in the hands of honorable senators at the time my motion was carried, and special stress was laid on the fact that that report was inadequate. The special object of my motion was to have the fuller report in our possession before we deal with the Estimates. I have no doubt that later on somebody will suggest that this is an illustration of reports being called for and never used ; and I am afraid that under the circumstances we shall be compelled to discuss the Estimates without the proper information, and thatmy labours and those of Major-General Hutton will be absolutely wasted. I hope the Minister will look into the matter, and let us have the report, even if it be only one type-written copy, before the Estimates come before us, as I understand they will, next week. As to the cable connexion between Tasmania and the mainland, I remember seeing in the daily press a statement that the Eastern Extension Company were asking, I think, £300,000 for the existing cable. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- That is quite inaccurate; £70,000 is the amount mentioned. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -I desire to show what the cost of adopting the Marconi system would be, so that the facts may be recorded in *Hansard,* and there may be no misapprehension on this very important question. Otherwise we might be told later on that nobody was aware that telegraphic communication between Tasmania and the mainland could be established by the Commonwealth at a cost of less than £70,000. The Marconi Company charge an annual rental of £1 per mile, exclusive of the cost of the two installations, the latter being only a matter of a few thousand pounds. I am given to understand by **Senator Macfarlane** that the distance between the mainland and Tasmania is, roughly speaking, 200 miles, so that an annual royalty of £200 would be involved by the adoption of the Marconi system. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator Pearce: -- Would it not be £200 each way? {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- No. It is £1 per mile, and we may cable which way we like. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- That shows good grounds for caution in dealing with the Eastern Extension Company. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- That is why I wish the facts to be placed on record in *Hansard.* I understand that there is a strong prejudice against having any dealings with the Marconi Company - that there is an anxiety on the part of the Commonwealth Government to make a purchase from the Eastern Extension Company. I do not think such a tendency ought to be gratified. A royalty of £200 a year, capitalized at 3 per cent., means £6,700, and when the cost of the two installations is added, it will be seen that the Marconi system means a very much smaller expenditure than could possibly be arranged with the Eastern Extension Company. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator Pearce: -- What is the cost of the installation ? {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- I do not know exactly, but the cost is very small. The installation simply consists of a certain number of perpendicular rods, connected by a central rod, with an electrical apparatus below. I know that the Minister will say that the efficiency of the Marconi system has not been proved. But the English Lloyds, which deals with all telegraphic matter in connexion with shipping, spent £4,500 in testing systems of wireless telegraphy, and have now made a contract with the Marconi Company for fourteen years. The ships of His Majesty's Fleet are supplied with the same apparatus, and under the circumstances, it would be quite preposterous for the Minister for Defence to say that the efficiency of the system has not been proved. I should like to refer to the question raised by **Senator Higgs,** who, in his very interesting speech, proved what we all know, namely, that the telegraphic administration of the Commonwealth is capable of very great improvement. That administration is conducted on the most unbusinesslike methods which could possibly be conceived, and the advantages of cabling by the Eastern Extension Company or by Reuter's are numerous. In the first place, if a sender wants a receipt for his telegram, he may receive one from the private companies, without - as in the case of the Post and Telegraph- Department - paying a penny. It may be within the recollection of the Senate that I protested most strongly when this charge was first brought under my notice. The payment is demanded, not by receipt stamp, but by postage stamp, and the charge is one of the most outrageous which could possibly be made by the Government. The stamp is not for the purpose of legalizing the receipt, but simply for the purpose of robbing and mulcting the public when they ask for a document to which they are entitled in .the ordinary course of business, and which would be given by any com'mercial man. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- Nobody is entitled to a receipt. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- I never heard such a remarkable statement in all my life. In every State of the Commonwealth there is a special Act which provides not only that every man is entitled to a receipt, but that the receipt must be stamped when the amount involved is over a certain minimum. Time after time people are fined for giving receipts without stamps. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- There must be a stamp, if a receipt is given ; but no one can demand a receipt. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col Gould: -- Under the States' Acts, if a man demands a receipt the person who refuses to give a stamped receipt is liable to a penalty. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The Minister for Defence appears to hold that a person is not entitled to a receipt from the Government. This is one of the cases in which the Government simply play the ostrich - they bury their heads in the sand and say, " We are above the law, and will not give a receipt unless an unfortunate person pays a penny which we are not entitled to demand." It is an instance in which the Government of the Commonwealth deliberately set to work to spoil their own business. I should never send a telegram from a Government office, if there were any other channel. None of the private companies would dream, of charging for a telegraph form ; yet, if I. go to the Government Telegraph-office, and ask for a bundle of forms, I am asked topay so much per dozen. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- Why does the honorable senator want a bundle *t* {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The Minister forDefence may send one telegram a month, but I am a business man, and I want abundle of forms, because I send a number of telegrams. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- The charge is only 4d. per 100. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- Is that not somuch per dozen ? {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- But the honorable, senator might use them for writing hisspeeches on. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The Minister f or Defence always seems ready to impute the. lowest and most absurd motives. Why should ,1 endeavour' to get bundles of telegraph forms on which to write my speeches, when I can get unlimited paper of better quality at Parliament House? I have cited some of the little annoyances which prevent people from using the Government Telegraphoffice, and the Minister for Defence, if he were a business man, would understand, them. If I go into the Eastern Extension Company's office or Reuter's office with a, long message I find a civil clerk, who sits down and codes my message. The clerk takes all that trouble without extra payment, and I have so much less to pay for my message. Nobody would dream of affording a sender such a convenience in a< Government Telegraph- office, where I am charged the full value, word for word. It is,quite easy to understand why persons whocannot code a message go to the private companies in preference to the Government Telegraph-office. This is a facility which the Government might very easily afford their customers, but that is not afforded simply because they are a Government. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- Because they are incompetent. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- It may be that the Government are incompetent to carry on the business. I now come to another reason why people will not deal with the Government. I have here a most interesting letter from a Deputy Postmaster-General, and I shall read it, after explaining the clr. .cumstances under which it came to be written. On 2nd July I received a long;, cable from Perth, Western Australia, through the Government Post-office. Two of the words were wrong - they were not in my code - and on asking to have them repeated I was called upon to pay 2s. The repeat cable was asked for on 3rd July, and on the 7th of that month I got a message from the Government informing me that the words were wrong, and giving me the right words. Had I been dealing with Reuter's, for instance, I should with that last message have received a refund of that 2s. which I had paid for the repeat cable. But what is the practice of the Government *1* Week after week I had to make special visits to the telegraph office to ask why I did not get my 2s. back, and finally, on the 18th August, after a delay of nearly two months, I received the following letter : - > **Sir. -** With reference to the errors in telegram to your address, lodged at the Palace Hotel, Perth, on 1st Jury, I have the honour to state that inquiries show the mistakes were made between the Palace Hotel sub-office and the Central Telegraph Office, Perth. The Deputy Postmaster-General, Perth, expresses regret for the errors, and states that the officers in fault have been suitably dealt with. I beg to forward, herewith, 2s. in stamps, being a refund of cost of obtaining a repetition of portion of the message. > >I ask honorable senators what business is it of mine where the error took place, and what earthly concern is it of mine that the operator has been suitably dealt with ? I did not care twopence about that. All I desired was to get my 2s. back. **Senator Drake** appears to sneer because the amount was only 2s., but it might have been *£2.* {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- No ; I am sure the honorable senator attached more importance to the information contained in the letter than to the 2s. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- On the contrary J think it was a grave mistake to publish that information. I desire to impress upon the Minister the fact that people are kept waiting for a refund of money, whilst inquiries are being made as to who is reponsible for mistakes. The Telegraph Office was responsible to me for the return of my money. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- I know that there has been a difficulty in connexion with refunds. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- The honorable senator, who is an ex-Postmaster-General, admits that there is a difficulty in connexion with refunds, but he did nothing to overcome the difficulty, and that is what I complain of. The - Government know that there is something wrong, but they do not take steps to rectify it. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- I do not know that it has not been rectified. The difficulty is that the money has been paid into the consolidated revenue, and it is not easy to get it out. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- Our money goes into the consolidated revenue, and the PostmasterGeneral cannot pay it back for months, whilst Reuter's Company or the Eastern Extension Company can refund money in five minutes. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- The difficulty has engaged my attention already.' We shall try to correct it. {: .speaker-KSQ} ##### Senator MATHESON: -- I am glad to hear that the honorable and learned senator hopes to be able to correct it. It was obvious that the matter must have engaged his attention, but I did not think he had taken any steps to correct it, because it is just one of those official pieces of red-tape which Post Office officials revel in. I desire to make it clear that while the Telegraph Office is managed in that way it is hopeless to expect the public to send their messages by the Pacific Cable. **Senator Drake** must see the force of that. The only way in which we can hope to increase the business of the Pacific Cable is by seeing that the Cable Board give the public the same facilities as are afforded by private companies. **Senator MACFARLANE** (Tasmania).For some time past I have been asking the Government to refund a certain sum of money which is ' due to Tasmania. I have received various answers to questions I have asked which show that the money is due as the result of the laches of Federal public servants. The first claim for the money was made in May, 1902, by the Tasmanian Treasurer, and in August, 1902, he wrote to the Federal Treasurer, **Sir George** Turner, as follows: - I have the honour to call your attention to a return I have obtained from the Customs Department (copy of which is enclosed) showing what goods have been brought into Tasmania since 8th October, 1901, and down to 30th June, 1902, and on which no duty has been collected here, or no credit allowed, because duty equal to that now payable under the Federal Tariff had been paid in the other States prior to 8th October last. The sum in question is £11,000, more or less. The Federal Treasurer replied to the letter as follows : - I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 27th ultimo relating to goods imported into Tasmania since 8th October, 1901, on which dub -.had been paid in other States of the Commonwealth prior to the introduction of the uniform Tariff. In reply, I beg to inform you that, after full consideration, the right honorable the Minister for Trade and Customs ruled that section 93 of the Constitution applies only to duties collected under the uniform Tariff, and, after perusing the section referred to, I am of opinion that his ruling is correct. Should you have obtained any legal advice, however, as to the construction of the clause in question, I shall be glad if you will favour me with a copy. That showed that **Sir George** Turner had some doubts in his own mind. The Treasurer of Tasmania replied - >There cannot be a doubt about our *equitable* right to receive this sum, but.whether we have a legal right to it depends on the interpretation of sections 92 and 93 of the Commonwealth Act. I have been informed that the Federal AttorneyGeneral **(Mr. Deakin)** is of opinion that we are legally entitled to it. He took the advice given him by **Sir George** Turner, and got the legal opinion of the Solicitor-General of Tasmania, which was so worded that I am credibly informed it converted **Sir George** Turner to the view that Tasmania is entitled to the money. The opinion is somewhat lengthy, and deals with the question very closely. I propose to read one or two short paragraphs. The Solicitor-General said - >Where there are two constructions, the one of which will do . . . great and unnecessary injustice and the other of which will avoid that injustice, and will keep exactly within the purpose for which the statute was passed, it is the bounden duty of the Court to adopt the second and not to adopt the first of those constructions. That seems to be a very reasonable legal opinion. Then he says - >I think, for the reasons hereinbefore stated at some length, that the construction put upon section 93 by the Commissioner for Trade and Customs is not the true construction. This conclusion lias been arrived at by considering the matter as if it were merely a question of ascertaining by interpretation the meaning of a statute. But the Act to be construed is no ordinary statute. It is something more than an Act of the Imperial Parliament. It is a Constitution. Such an instrument is not to be interpreted on narrow and technical principles, but liberally and on broad general lines, in order that it may accomplish the objects of its establishment. It is a cardinal rule in the interpretation of Constitutions that the instrument must be so construed as to give effect to the intention of the people who adopted it. Then to summarize he says - >There are two constructions : one of them leads to great and unnecessary injustice. (To reply to this that the matter is left unprovided for is insufficient. To give credit to one State for the amount of duties paid in respect of goods consumed in another is unjust, and can be defended on no principle. Nothing but the clearest and most explicit language in the Constitution could justify it.) Section 93 of the Constitution does not justify it. On the contrary it provides that - >During the first five years after the imposition of uniform duties of customs, and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides : - > >The duties of customs chargeable on goods ' imported into a State, and afterwards passing into another State for consumption, and the duties of excise paid on goods produced or manufactured in a State, and afterwards passing into another State for consumption shall be taken to have been collected, not in the former but the latter State. That is the whole position, and it is of very little use for the Government in answer to my questions to say that the accounts have not yet been made up in consequence of the difficulty of arriving at the duties collected under the State Tariffs from the 1st January, 1901, to the 9th October, 1901, because it is due to the laches of the Commonwealth Customs officers that those accounts have not been made up. They ought to be made up. Tasmania is not to blame because they have not been made up, and she should not suffer. Another reason given for not paying the money is that the Premier of Victoria has intimated that he desires to test the question as soon as the High Court is established. That is no reason why Tasmania should be made a litigant at the High Court. The fault lies with. Federal officers, and the Federal Government should see Tasmania righted. The simple way out of the difficulty is for the Federal Government to pay the money which is due. I understand that **Sir George** Turner is of opinion that the Tasmanian estimate of about £11,000 is likely to turn out to be correct. I trust that if the money cannot be paid, over at once, as it ought to be, to the Treasurer of Tasmania, who expects it, it will at least be ear-marked in' order that it may carry interest from the time it was due. {: #debate-14-s8 .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE:
Western Australia -- There are one or two questions to which I should like to refer. I understand that the salaries set down in the Estimates to be paid to messengers and attendants connected with the Senate were reduced by a vote in another place. I should like to ask the Minister for Defence whether the Supply Bill now before us covers those salaries on the scale of the original Estimates or as reduced in an another place. There is another matter which, in my opinion, requires early and urgent attention. I refer to the methods to be adopted in the forthcoming elections to secure as large a vote as possible. Honorable senators will remember that when we were discussing the Electoral Bill we carried an amendment, the effect of which was to give power to the Government to" draw up regulations to enable voters to vote at any polling place in a State when voting for senators. A number of divisions took place on the question, because it was first of all. proposed to embody the provision in the Bill, and a compromise was arrived at by which it was agreed that regulations should be drawn up to safeguard the carrying out of the suggestion. So far no regulations on the subject have been submitted to us. Whilst there are honorable senators who desire that there should be the greatest latitude consistent with safety allowed in this respect, there are others who believe that the operation of the provision should be most carefully safeguarded. I am sure that both sections in the Senate consider that it is essential that we should have these regulations submitted to us before we disperse, and before -we allow a general election to be conducted under them. The question is one which specially affects tie Senate, because the method of election of members of the House of Representatives is laid down in the Bill, and electors are enabled to vote, at any polling place in a division for members of that House. It was practically promised by the Vice-President of the Executive Council that the regulations to which I refer would be submitted to the Senate. I consider that he should endeavour to get the Minister for Home Affairs to press this matter forward, so that the Senate may have an opportunity of discussing those regulations and of making suggestions upon them in order to bring about the result that we wish to achieve. I have heard that the Government are drawing up regulations, and that they are going to impose certain limitations as to the places at which electors may vote both for the House of Representatives and for the Senate. I hear that the electors will only be allowed to vote for senators at the chief polling places. I admit that that is only hearsay, but if ib is correct I do nob think it will be carrying out the will of the Senate. If I rightly interpret the desire of the Senate, it was that we were perfectly willing to allow voting at all polling places, providing the regulations weresuch that the voting could be properly safeguarded. But it will not meet tile case to say that at the chief polling places - which means at certain towns in each of the divisions. - voters shall be allowed to vote. The same safeguards which would apply in the towns, would also apply bo all polling places. I hopethat the Minister will urge this point upon his colleagues in order that we may have an opportunity of discussing the question, asibis only a question of a week or two w,hen the general elections will take place. Another matter which I wish to bring under: the attention of the Minister concerns theaction the Government are taking with respect to the retirement of the Deputy Postmaster-General of Western Australia. The representatives of that State have a right to know whether any communications: are in progress between the State Government and the Federal Government, with regard to the retirement of that officer., On a previous occasion,, when we had a. Supply Bill before us, I pointed out thathe had earned his pension. He has had. nearly half a century of State service,, and I believe that the State Governmentwould place no obstacles in the way of his retirement He is within three years of the retiring age, and wishes bo retire. In view of the fact that that officer, on account - of his age and long service, is somewhat out of touch with the Federal administration, I urge the Government to meet his wishes, and give him every facility to retireon his well-earned rights. I wish also to say a few words on the question of preferential trade which has been mentioned by SenatorPulsford. It seems to me that with regard to this question the Prime Minister is goingto try to adopt the same attitude that was so successfully adopted on theNaval Agreement. He has practically committed the Commonwealth Parliament and his supporters, and he hopes also that he has committed the people of the Com.monwealth, by his pronouncement upon the preferential trade question. By-and-by we shall be told that Australia is committed to this policy, and that we shall look small in the eyes of the English people L if we go back on it. If the Government wished to express any view upon preferential trade they had ample opportunities foreliciting an expression of opinion from the Senate or from the House of Representatives., Before the Premier of New Zealand sent a cable message to England in the name of his colony he consulted the representatives of the people in Parliament. If the Commonwealth Government are so confident that they are able to speak in the name of the people of Australia, I do not see why they should hesitate to consult the representatives of the people in this Parliament. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- Whatwas the result of **Mr. Seddon's** action? The defeated party repudiated what he had done. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- But seeing that he had a majority of the Parliament with him, I hold that **Mr. Seddon** is perfectly right in assuming that he has the people of New Zealand behind him. It was no assumption on his part to send that message to England. He had a complete warranty for sending it. But what warranty has the Prime Minister of Australia for sending a message to **Mr. Chamberlain?** Has Parliament ever pronounced any view -on the subject ? It seems to me that not only the members of this Parliament, but also the people of Australia, have been very cautious in expressing an' opinion. The only people who seem to be enthusiastic for preferential trade are the members of a little association that meets at a small hatter's shop in Bourke-street. It is somewhat amusing to notice the attempts of the supporters of this policy to make as much as possible of the powers which they have. For instance, we find the Prime Minister cabling in the name of the Commonwealth Government. Then the Minister for Home Affairs cables in the name of the Protectionist Association. Then there is a Protectionist Conference, and the same Minister cables to England as the representative of that body. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- Does the honorable senator object to the sentiments expressed in those messages ? {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- No ; but I object to the way in which public opinion is attempted to be manufactured. I also draw attention to the rather peculiar fact that when, on 19th September, **Sir William** Lyne sent his cable message to **Mr. Chamberlain** in the name of the Protectionist Conference, on the same evening an interview with the secretary of the Protectionist Association, **Mr. Samuel** Mauger, appeared in the Melbourne *Herald.* In that interview **Mr. Mauger** says - >The council of my association will meet on Monday week, and I will communicate with the leading members immediately with the view of sending a cable message to **Mr. Chamberlain.** Mark, that **Sir William** Lyne had already sent a cable message to **Mr. Chamberlain** in the name of this association ; but here is the secretary saying that he will call the members together, with a view of sending a message, assuring the right honorable gentleman in England of the support of the people of Australia. This reminds one of the three tailors of Tooley-street, only in this case I understand that it is the three hatters of Bourke-street who speak for the people of Australia. **Mr. Mauger** says - >I will also call together the representatives of the protectionist associations of the different States. So that **Mr. Mauger,** in speaking for the protectionist association, is rather unkind to his chief, because he" practically says that **Sir William** Lyne sent a cable message without the authority of the association which he represents. Practically what we have to face is this : - That we have the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth and the Minister for Home Affairs sending home to the people of England messages in the name of the people of Australia. I contend that unless the Government take the proper course of consulting the representatives of the people we shall be perfectly justified as a Senate in sending a message repudiating the action of the Prime Minister in this connexion. I wish to add that I thoroughly agree with the remarks of **Senator Keating** with regard to the appointment of the J udges of the High Court. We may perhaps in this matter be doing an injustice to the Ministry, but, as a student of Federal affairs and of the history of federation, I say that, if **Sir Samuel** Griffith gets the appointment of Chief Justice of the High Court, the Ministry of the day will have been traitors to federation. At the time that the delegates who represented Australia were working in England with a view to limiting the right of appeal to the Privy Council, what position did **Sir Samuel** Griffith take up? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The right one. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- Whether it was right or wrong, it was not so much the position he took up as the manner in which he took it up - in secretly, in conjunction with another Chief Justice, endeavouring to sap the position taken up by the rightly appointed delegates in England. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator De Largie: -- The most disgraceful thing in Australian history. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- If **Sir Samuel** Griffith thought that the position which he then took up was the right one his duty was clear. ' He should have gone to the Parliament of his country, or on to the platform ; he should have placed his views before the country, and should have been asked to be sent to England as an exponent of those views. But at that time the delegates of Australia were in England fighting for certain conditions. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col Gould: -- Which **Sir Samuel** Griffith thought undesirable. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- But he was then occupying an official position. He was a public servant. He was not a politician. We have heard the claim that the members of the Bench of Australia are paid big salaries in order to remove them from politics. When a man goes on to the Bench he is expected to keep himself aloof from politics. Did this man do so ? Is it not a well-known fact in the history of federation that, in conjunction with another Chief Justice, he did all he could to work against what the people of Australia believed, and showed by the action of their appointed delegates that they believed, to be in the interests of Australia ? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Queensland was not then represented in the Convention ; the honorable senator seems to forget that. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- Queensland by her subsequent action became a member of the Federation. The principle has at all times been laid down unmistakably in connexion with the practice of the Australian Courts that the Judges on the Bench are removed from all political associations. Will honorable senators, even if they defend the attitude which **Sir Samuel** Griffith took up on that occasion, defend the manner in which he made that attitude known - secretly, and by intrigue ? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- How does the honorable senator know that? {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- It is known throughout Australia. If the honorable senator will read the columns of the Adelaide newspapers of ' that time, he will find the whole correspondence in which the attitude of **Sir Samuel** Griffith was exposed by a legal member of the Senate. I contend that had it not been for the action of those legal gentlemen, the powers of the High Court would have been infinitely greater than they are, and infinitely more in touch with Australian sentiment. It was the traitors, to Australian sentiment who plotted and schemed in order to defeat the will of the Parliaments of *the* States. What is the reward which the Government in the first national Parliament propose to give to **Sir Samuel** Griffith - -the highest judicial position in the Commonwealth *1* It will be a shameful appointment if it is made, because, undoubtedly, he was opposed to the whole spirit of the Australian Judiciary. But I sincerely trust that the statement in the press is not accurate. I firmly believe that if **Sir Samuel** Griffith were made Chief Justice, the Parliament would resent his appointment, and so would the people of the Commonwealth when they were reminded of the part which he had played. I indorse the remarks of **Senator Matheson** respecting the report which the Senate ordered to be furnished on the armament required for Australia. The Government have no right to ask the Senate to vote any money for that purpose until it has been furnished. The' General Officer Commanding has formulated a scheme for reorganization of the Defence Forces, and why should we be asked to vote any money in the dark *t* {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col Neild: -- It is in force by virtue .of a regulation. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- The Senate called for a report from the military expert to whom we pay a high salary. It desired to know how much money is wanted, for what purpose it is required, and what sum it is imperative to spend at once. We have a perfect right to be supplied with the information, and should decline to vote any money in a blindfold way until it is forthcoming. I trust that **Senator Drake** will see that the order of the Senate is complied with before the Appropriation Bill is sent up. {: #debate-14-s9 .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD:
New South Wales -- **Senator Pearce** has devoted considerable attention to the question of the undesirability of the Government making a certain appointment to the Bench of the High Court which the press has stated it is their intention to make. I do not 'hold a brief for the Government with regard to the judicial appointments which it is stated in the press they contemplate making shortly. I believe that the people of Australia generally regard **Sir Samuel** Griffith as a man of great ability and high attainments in his profession, and recognise that he took a very prominent part in the Federal movement in its earlier stages. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator De Largie: -- He drafted the most conservative Constitution which it was possible to produce. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- It was not adopted by the people of Australia. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator De Largie: -- Thank goodness it was not ! {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- I agree with the honorable senator, that it is a very good thing that the Convention Bill of 1891 was not adopted ; but I would remind him that it formed the foundation of the present Constitution, and that we are under a debt of gratitude to the Convention, of which **Sir Samuel** Griffith was a prominent member, for the work which it did. So far as I can gather from their remarks, honorable senators seem to object to the selection of **Sir Samuel** Griffith, as Chief Justice, because he took certain steps with regard to the right of appeal to the Privy Council. I am told by an honorable senator, that in that respect he took a disgraceful line of action, and that, in his opinion, he is unfit to occupy a leading position on the Bench of the High Court, because he may be called upon to deal with many cases involving the extent of the powers which have been conferred upon that tribunal, or the powers which it may exercise. The right of appeal to the Privy Council is a question which, is fairly and legitimately open to argument. **Senator Symon** took a very strong view on this question. He considered it a mistake to retain the right of appeal to the Privy Council, but thattheHigh Court of Australia ought to deal with every appeal. It is open to argument whether we should give up the right of appeal to the highest Court in the Empire, composed as it is of highly cultured and trained men. When this question was being discussed in 1900, **Sir Samuel** Griffith was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland. With the Chief Justice of another Supreme Court, he made certain representations as to the undesirability of taking away the light of appeal to the Privy Council. It appears tome that whatever our individual opinions may be on that question, he was perfectly within his rights in making those representations, so long as they were honestly and fairly made, and did not misrepresent the position of affairs in Australia. {: .speaker-JTV} ##### Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP -- Does not the honorable and learned senator realize that he became a politician when he made those representations? {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- No. I deny that politicians are the only persons who are entitled to make any representations to the Imperial authorities in regard to any matters affecting the vital interests of Australia, because I hold that every person in the community possesses that right. I do not consider that on that occasion **Sir Samuel** Griffith was interfering in political matters. It is not fair to attack him as he has been attacked, and to say that it would be a disgrace to the Commonwealth if he were appointed to the Bench of the High Court. If it could be shown that he had been corrupt, or had shown himself incompetent, the position would be different. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- Why did he attack the proposed Constitution in an underhand manner, as he did ? {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- Was it not within the right of **Sir Samuel** Griffith as a citizen to point out the views which he held on the question of the right of appeal to the Privy Council ? {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- Yes ; if it were done in a proper manner, but he tried to belittle the High Court. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- Suppose he had said that the High Court would be composed of Australian lawyers, that the Privy Council would be composed of lawyers of far wider experience, and that therefore it would be better to allow an appeal to that body if desired. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- Evidently the honorable and learned senator does not know anything about the matter, or he would not put that case. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- It is a great pity that the honorable and learned senator did not express his meaning more clearly than he did. It is most undesirable to make an attack on any man unless it is well founded. I hold no brief for **Sir Samuel** Griffith, and I should have taken up exactly the same position if a Judge in any other State had been attacked. The Government will have to take the responsibility for the appointments, and if either House should think that a mistake has been made, it will be in a position to express its opinion. The newspapers seem to be quite satisfied with the appointments which are said to be contemplated. I desire to refer to the cablegram which was sent by the Prime Minister to **Mr. Chamberlain** on the subject of preferential trade. It may be that **Sir Edmund** Barton as Prime Minister claims the right to cable to the old country on any matter, of course taking the responsibility for his action. When he attended the Premiers' Conference the question of preferential trade was mentioned, and he promised that this Parliament should be consulted. Although it has been in session for a period of nearly six months, still not* one opportunity has been afforded by the Ministry to either House to discuss the question. In these circumstances I contend that no such cablegram should have been sent to **Mr. Chamberlain.** As a representative of the mother State, I entirely repudiate the message. There is no evidence to show that the people of Australia are in favour of **Mr. Chamberlain's** scheme, for they have been singularly careful not to express an opinion. Some newspapers have expressed their views, but has a vote of the people on the question been taken at a single public meeting ? Or has a vote of the representatives of the people been taken in a single House of Parliament *1* While I would give the Prime Minister the greatest possible latitude to speak on behalf of the people of Australia, I contend that when the Parliament is in session, he ought to consult their accredited representatives before he takes a line of action which may be regarded by persons in the old country as to a certain extent committing Australia to a particular policy. {: .speaker-JTV} ##### Senator DAWSON:
QUEENSLAND · ALP -- The case is even worse when we contemplate the possibility of the Prime Minister not facing the electors again. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT **-Col. GOULD.** - At the present moment we do not know whether he will appeal to the electors or not. Why was not a cablegram sent to **Mr. Chamberlain** to say that, while the protectionist party in this country were willing to treat Great Britain differently from other countries in the matter of preferential trade, they were not willing to lower a single duty on any imports from Great Britain, although they were willing to increase the duties on imports from foreign countries. In these circumstances, would not preferential trade with the Commonwealth be an utter farce and delusion from the stand-point of **Mr. Chamberlain** ? It is no use saying we will give something with one hand and then proposing to take it away with the other. In any case Parliament ought to have been consulted before any cablegram was sent. I hope that when the Estimates in chief are before us steps will be taken by this Chamber to insist on its equal rights in regard to its own officers. I can see no reason why the salaries of officers of the Senate should be less than those of the officers of the other House. The work of the officers of the Senate is quite as important and responsible as the work of the officers of the House of Representatives, and where we have two co-ordinate branches of the Legislature we ought to take care, in our own interests and for our own protection, that our officers are quite as well paid. We should not place ourselves in a position where it would be promotion for our own men to go to another Chamber ; we want the best men we can get to assist us in discharging our duties. It appears from the extracts read by **Senator Macfarlane** that there is some difference of opinion as to whether Tasmania was entitled, from a legal stand-point, to the amount of the duties she claimed. Prom an equitable standpoint, I think that State was absolutely entitled to the money. I understand that, instead of the goods being bonded in Tasmania, where the duties would have been paid, they were introduced in "Victoria, and after the duty had been paid on them, transferred to Tasmania for consumption. Whatever may be the strict technical meaning of the wording, it is patent that the law was never intended to have such an effect as that indicated by **Senator Macfarlane.** I notice that there is no opinion from the Attorney-General, though there is one from the Solicitor-General of Tasmania, who argues that, under the Constitution, Tasmania is entitled to the money as a matter of right. I understand that the Treasurer has virtually admitted that position ; and, if that be the case, or even if there be only an equitable claim, would it not be reasonable to pay the amount on condition that if on further investigation, or on inquiry before the High Court, it be found that Tasmania is not entitled to the money it may be deducted from sums due in the future, unless Parliament is prepared to pass a special Act? {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- If the money is credited to Tasmania it will have to be debited mostly to Victoria. {: .speaker-KSH} ##### Senator Macfarlane: -- Hear, hear. Victoria has had the money. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT **-Col. GOULD.-** I om satisfied as to the equitable right of Tasmania, though I offer no opinion as to the legal right, lt would satisfy Tasmania if it were shown that the Commonwealth Government desire to treat her as fairly as possible. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- Tasmania knows that. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD: -- I do not at this late hour propose to say anything on the equipment of the Defence Forces, because I shall have an opportunity when the Estimates in chief are considered. It is a matter of serious importance that the equipment of the Defence Forces should be completed at the earliest possible moment. {: #debate-14-s10 .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col NEILD:
New South Wales -- I wont particularly to draw the attention of the Minister for Defence to a matter of grave importance in connexion with the Defence Forces, namely, the. inadequate arrangements that have been recently promulgated by regulations for the partially paid or militia forces. As explained- to me by officers of the mounted service, the sum total that a mounted man can earn under the new regulations during six months is about £1 88., and he is supposed, to /keep a horse. {: .speaker-JXO} ##### Senator Drake: -- What,? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Lt Col NEILD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT -Col. NEILD. - That is all that is paid to the man ; anything more he earns is stowed away in some suspense account, to be handed over to him under certain conditions at some remote date. I assure the Minister that, while I am not in a position to give the exact details, I am speaking on statements made to me by permanent officers in the mounted service in New South Wales. I admit that I have no personal knowledge of the matter ; but the dissatisfaction is so serious that the men are simply declining to attend drill - the members of the militia force, particularly the mounted men, ore refraining from attending parades. I believe that the Minister for Defence called for a report as to whether the military arrangements made under the recently promulgated regulations were satisfactory to the forces, and that in a general way he has been informed that they are satisfactory. That may be so in four States of the Commonwealth, but the Minister ought to be informed if he does not not know that satisfaction does not exist everywhere. We all know- from what we have heard here that the Tasmanian forces are not satisfied. I can assure the Minister that in New- South 11 a 2 Wales there ismuch more than dissatisfaction. There is a degree of chronic discouragement that augurs the break up of the force. Persons in high authority, seeking to achieve out-of-the-way results, may consider everything happy and satisfactory, but from my knowledge of officers and men I can say positively that the partially-paid forces are in an eminently discontented condition. Amongst the volunteers, of which I have the most personal knowledge, the same dissatisfaction does not exist. There are grounds of dissatisfaction amongst the volunteers, but I am not referring' to them just now. I hope -the Minister will be as willing to accept the utterly disinterested opinions which I convey to him as he is, or may have been, to accept the statements of those who either do not know as much as I do or have reasons for crying " peace when there is no peace.''' No matter how highly placed those may be who greet the Minister with the cry of peace, they are either deluded themselves or are deluding the honorable gentleman'. My own opinion is that they are deluded themselves; Persons in very high positions do not always grasp the true facts which form the basis of dissatisfaction of the kind I have indicated. I am in a position to know the details, because the man in the ranks just as much as the commanding officer is' entitled to come to me as a representative of the people. That is not the case with officers in high positions, Whom the opinions of the rank and 'file do not reach. Unless the recent regulations undergo some alteration, the Minister may have the distinguished honour, so far as New South Wales is concerned, of being head of a phantom army. The Minister knows that I am speaking with no Sense of heat or animosity towards either himself or the Department. I am speaking with personal, knowledge, and with the full assurance that what I have stated can be abundantly proved if -the Minister cares to' make inquiries in other directions than amongst officers of the highest ranks. I make these remarks because I feel it my duty to' do so. {: #debate-14-s11 .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER:
New South Wales -- 1 desire to join Senators Gould and Pulsford in regretting, that cable messages should have been sent to **Mr. Chamberlain** in connexion with preferential trade. At the same time I admire the stand taken by **Mr. Chamberlain.** It is not to be supposed that because we do not approve of preferential trade we do not admire the independence of the man. I was absolutely pained to hear the remarks of **Senator Keating** and others in regard to **Sir Samuel** Griffith. I do not wish to refer to the High Court appointments particularly, but in my opinion it would be a great thing for Australia if that worthy and brilliant man had a seat on the Bench. Some honorable senators are not perhaps aware of how **Sir Samuel** Griffith for many years identified himself with the Federal movement. When he accepted the position of Chief Justice of Queensland he reserved the right, if the question of Federation arose, to express his views openly. If **Sir Samuel.** Griffith did desire, as many did, to maintain the right of appeal to either the Privy Council' or the High Court, he cannot be considered as having acted as a traitor.I desiro to express very warmly the respect I entertain for **Sir Samuel** Griffith, and I shall be glad if the Government have seen their way to offer him a seat on the High Court Bench. Debate (on motion by **Senator Dawson)** adjourned. {: .page-start } page 5384 {:#debate-15} ### ADJOURNMENT {:#subdebate-15-0} #### Post and Telegraph Act Amendment Bill Motion (by **Senator Drake)** proposed - >That the Senate do now adjourn. {: #subdebate-15-0-s0 .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col GOULD:
New South Wales -- **Senator Dobson** this afternoon was interrupted before he had concluded his remarks on the Bill to amend the Post and Telegraph Act, which he had introduced. I understand that **Senator Dobson** was anxious, after the Government business had been disposed of, toget leave to continue his remarks on the Bill on Wednesday next. {: #subdebate-15-0-s1 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: **- Senator Dobson** was interrupted not by his own act, but in pursuance of a sessional order, and, under these circumstances, I think the most convenient course would be to place the Bill as the first order of the day on Wednesday next. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Col Gould: -- Will **Senator Dobson** be entitled to continue his speech? {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- Yes. Senate adjourned at 10:30 p.m.

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 23 September 1903, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1903/19030923_senate_1_17/>.