Senate
3 December 1909
3rd Parliament · 4th Session
- QUESTION
- QUESTION
- INTER-STATE COMMISSION BILL
- PERSONAL EXPLANATION
- INVALID AND OLD-AGE PENSIONS (INCOME) BILL
- DEFENCE BILL
- NORTHERN TERRITORY ACCEPTANCE BILL
- NAVAL LOAN BILL
- ADJOURNMENT
The President took the chair at 10.30 a-m., and read prayers.
page 6795
QUESTION
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Senator MACFARLANE:
TASMANIA · FT
– I desire to ask the Minister in charge of the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill whether his attention has been called to a report in the Argus of this morning that in the House of Assembly yesterday the Treasurer of South Australia, in reply to a question, said that Oodnadatta would be taken over by the Commonwealth if that measure were passed? I want to know if it is in the power of this Parliament to take over South Australian territory.
Senator Vardon:
– He meant the Oodnadatta railway.
Senator MACFARLANE:
TASMANIA · FT
– The expression which the Treasurer used was, “ Oodnadatta went over to the Commonwealth.”
Senator Sir ROBERT BEST:
– Oodnadatta is not within the Territory which it is proposed to take over from South Australia, and I apprehend that the Treasurer of that State must have been referring to the Oodnadatta railway, whch, according to the terms of the agreement, it is proposed to take over.
page 6795
QUESTION
OLD-AGE PENSIONS
Senator VARDON:
– Has the Vice-
President of the Executive Council received any information regarding the causes of the delay in granting old-age pensions in South Australia?
Senator MILLEN:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · NEW SOUTH WALES · Free Trade
– From the Deputy Commissioner for South Australia the following telegram has been received -
Great amount of work in obtaining the necessary documentary evidence to allow claims to be finally settled is principal reason why work cannot be further expedited. Every effort is being made to have claims dealt with as rapidly as possible ; hope greater bulk be settled by end of year. Of six thousand one hundred odd claims received, four thousand eight hundred odd finally dealt with ; claims coming in daily ; those received from Adelaide and suburbs and from country magistrates prior to first July all virtually settled. Since first October four hundred fifty-five new claims received.
What the figures mean is that out of 1,300 outstanding claims 455 have been received since October.
Senator VARDON:
– Have the applications from persons in Adelaide and its suburbs been settled? My information is that they have not.
Senator MILLEN:
– The telegram states that all the. claims received from Adelaide and suburbs and from country magistrates prior to the 1st July have been settled. It is clear from the telegram that a number of claims have been received since October. Presumably some were received from Adelaide and suburbs, and have, I assume, been settled.
page 6795
INTER-STATE COMMISSION BILL
Senator GIVENS:
QUEENSLAND
– Is it the intention of the Government to proceed further this session with the consideration of the InterState Commission Bill ?
Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade
– Of course, it is the desire of the Government to proceed with all business standing in. its name on the notice-paper. But it cannot be blind to the fact that the time for closing the session is rapidly approaching. I should be trifling with the Senate if I were to say that at present the Government has much hope of being able to reach this measure.
page 6795
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
Senator Millen and the Labour Party.
Senator DE LARGIE:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
– It will be within the recollection of honorable senators that on the 25th November a certain passageatarms took place between Senator Millen and myself. I made a statement which he challenged, and went to the length of declaring it to be false. In order to be quite accurate, perhaps I had better read the report in Hansard, at page 6330 -
Senator Millen:
– Then it is like the honorable senator’s speech.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– My speech is on right lines, as Senator Millen will find out later on. I do not speak in one way here and in another way elsewhere. I utter the same sentiments this year that I gave expression to last year. I did not commence political life as a Labour man, and finish up as the champion of Toryism. I did not commence political life as a President of a Labour League and finish up as the champion of all that is reactionary.
Senator Millen:
– Has any one here done that ?
Senator DE LARGIE:
– Yes, the honorable senator has done it. Senator Millen. - That is absolutely false.
Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade
– Hear, hear.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– I do not notice any record that the President desired that that word should be withdrawn. 6796 Personal [SENATE.] Explanation.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– Will the honorable senator deny that he was President of the Bourke Labour League?
Senator Millen:
-I do absolutely.
Senator Millen:
– And do now.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– The report proceeds -
Senator DE LARGIE:
– I can prove it up to the hilt. I know why the honorable senator was made president, and I know that he sat side by side with a member of the Senate at a Labour Conference.
Senator Millen:
– I make this offer to the honorable senator. If the statement he makes is proved to be correct, I shall resign my seat if he will resign his seat if it is proved that it is not correct.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– As I am shortly about to resign my seat there is not very much in the honorable senator’s challenge, but I undertake to prove what I have said before many days are over.
Senator Millen:
– I make this statement without any qualification at all-
Senator DE LARGIE:
– I remember the attitude the honorable senator took up. He may have been successful in covering up his tracks, but I can prove that he was a Labourite so far as words and outward position are concerned.
Senator Millen:
– I make this statement without any qualification at all–
The honorable senator repeated that statement in several places, I repeated practically what I had said before, and he wound up by saying, “ I ask Senator de Largie to prove his words.” Since then, sir-
The PRESIDENT:
– Order ! I would point out to the honorable senator that if his object in making a personal explanation is only to renew, or prove, a charge which has been made against another senator, he is not in order. The right of personal explanation is allowed solely for the purpose of enabling an honorable senator to explain where he may have been misrepresented or misunderstood, but it does not permit an attack to be made on another senator. If’ Senator de Largie has been misreported or misrepresented in Hansard, he has a perfect right to have the matter corrected, but he cannot carry on a dispute between himself and another senator as to the correctness of a certain position which may have been occupied by either of them previously.
Senator Givens:
– On a point of order, sir, I would submit that, according to the Hansard report, Senator de Largie has been wilfully misrepresented. He has claimed that he was wilfully misrepresented by Senator Millen, who stated that what he said on Friday last was absolutely false. Is he now to be deprived of the opportunity of removing that misrepresentation.
Senator Dobson:
– He will have other opportunities
The PRESIDENT:
– Order ! Under the privilege of personal explanation, Senator de Largie has no right to carry an attack into the camp of another senator. Of course, there may be another opportunity of dealing with a matter of this kind, but the business of the Senate must be conducted in an orderly way. IfI were to allow this matter to proceed any further now, Senator Millen would naturally desire to reply to Senator de Largie, and that might provoke other senators into saying something. It will not be in order to discuss the matter at this stage.
Senator Findley:
– Statements have appeared in the press, and the public want to know something about them.
Senator Lynch:
– On a point of order, sir, did you hear the Minister just repeat that what Senator de Largie said the other day was “absolutely false”?
Senator DE LARGIE:
– I can prove what I said if I am permitted.
Senator Dobson:
– That took place five minutes ago.
The PRESIDENT:
– If the Minister did make that remark to Senator de Largie, exception should have been taken to it at once.
Senator Millen:
– I did not say it.
Senator Needham:
– The honorable senator did.
The PRESIDENT:
– I ask the honorable senator not to interject. The Minister has made a statement, and according to the Parliamentary rule it must be accepted. With regard to Senator Findley’s remark that certain matters have been reported in the press, and it is desirable that they should be explained, I would point out that this is neither the time nor the occasion when an explanation of that character can be given.
Senator DE LARGIE:
– I have no complaint to make regarding the Hansard report of what Senator Millen and I said. But I did understand that in a matter of this kind it was quite competent for me to explain wherein I had been misrepresented. It was because I was misrepresented by Senator Mil ten’s declaration that something I had said about him was “ absolutely false “ that I desired to make an explanation.
Senator Sir Robert Best:
– That is a mere statement.
The PRESIDENT:
– Order ! The honorable senator seems to misapprehend the purpose of a personal explanation, or my object in intervening. My desire is to pre-
Minister of Trade and Customs · Victoria · Protectionist [10.45]. - I move - >That this Bill be now read a third time. Honorable senators will remember that I deferred the third reading until to-day, with the object of enabling inquiries to be made by the Treasurer and by honorable senators to discover whether there are any other funds established in the Commonwealth on exactly similar lines to the New South Wales Miners Accident Relief Fund, payments from which it is the object of this Bill to exempt from the definition of the word " income." The inquiries made by the Treasury Department have led to the conclusion that there is no other fund similar to the Miners Acci dent Relief Fund of New South Wales. Payments by way of relief under such funds as the Watson Fund in Victoria come within the exemption contained in the definition of "income" in the principal Act. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a third time. {: .page-start } page 6797 {:#debate-5} ### DEFENCE BILL Motion (by **Senator Millen)** proposed - >That the report be adopted. **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [10.47]. - I move - >That the Bill be recommitted for the reconsideration of clause 17. There is a certain amount of ambiguity in proposed new section 123A of the clause, and I desire to suggest a change of phrase - ology, which will make the meaning of that provision more clear, while it will not in any, way affect the decision arrived at when it was passed by the Committee. >No intoxicating or spirituous liquors shall be sold or supplied, and no person shall have such intoxicating or spirituous liquors in his possession at any naval or military canteen, camp, fort, or post while held or occupied for the training of persons as prescribed in paragraphs *a, b,* and *c* of section one hundred and twentyfive except as prescribed for purely medical purposes. The Minister will see that I am raising a question purely of draftsmanship. I hope he will agree to the recommittal of the Bill in the circumstances. {: #debate-5-s0 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- I shall certainly not resist the recommittal of the Bill. It does appear, as the honorable senator has stated, that there may be some little doubt as to the effect of the amendment we have made. As to the merits of **Senator Neild's** proposal, I shall have an opportunity when we get into 6798 *Defence* [SENATE.] *Bill.* Committee again to consider whether the amendments he suggests would be an improvement. Question resolved in the affirmative. *In Committee* (Recommittal) : Clause. 17 - >After section one hundred and twenty-three of the Principal Act the following sections are inserted : - " 123A. No intoxicating or spirituous liquors shall be sold or supplied and no person shall have such intoxicating or spirituous liquors in his possession at any naval or military canteen, camp, fort, or post during such time as training of persons as prescribed in paragraphs (a), (A), and *(c)* of section one hundred and twenty-live is proceeding in such naval or military camp, fort; or post, except as prescribed for purely medical purposes." **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [10.54]. - I move - >That the words " during such time as," line 8, be left out, with a view to insert in lieu thereof the words " while held or occupied for the." It will readily be seen that my amendment would simplify the meaning of the clause, while it would in no way alter the effect of the previous decision of the Committee. {: #debate-5-s1 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- I quite recognise that **Senator Neild's** object is to make the meaning of the clause abundantly clear, but I am not certain that in proposing to remove one doubt he is not creating another. If amended as the honorable senator proposes, the clause would read - and no person shall have such intoxicating or spirituous liquors in his possession at any naval or military canteen,camp, fort, or post while held or occupied for the training of persons as prescribed-- It is clear that that would require further amendment.' The latter portion of the clause speaks of the training " proceeding in such naval or military camp, fort, or post," and the honorable senator proposes to leave out those words. We cannot say that a canteen is held for the purpose of military training, and, while I recognise the honorable senator's desire to improve the clause, I think it will be better to leave it as it is. {: #debate-5-s2 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS:
Queensland -- **Senator Neild's** objection to the phraseology of proposed new section 123A is hypercritical. The amendment he proposes is a supercilious and finicking one, and as **Senator Millen** has pointed out, would make the phraseology of this provision ridiculous. It would make it appear that a military canteen is held for the training of persons. The amendment is a ridiculous one, and I shall vote against it. **Senator Lt.-Colonel** CAMERON (Tasmania) [10.59]. - Loath as I am to vote against any suggestion by an experienced military man like **Senator Colonel Neild,** I am afraid I cannot support his amendment, which, I think, would make the meaning of the clause extremely involved. I should like to be sure that the consideration of this amendment will not make it impossible for me to propose, as I desire todo, an amendment confining the training referred to to that prescribed in paragraphs *a* and *b* of section 125, and eliminating the reference to paragraph *c.* **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [11.0]. - I ask leave to withdraw my amendment. I may explain that the revised copy of the Bill only reached me whilst the bells were ringing, so that I had not sufficient time to look into the clause thoroughly. I recognise the justice of the criticism which has been levelled at my proposal, because of the presence of the word " canteen." But I would point out that the retention of that word is absolutely unnecessary. If we exclude intoxicating liquorsfrom military camps, *Sec,* obviously the word "canteen" is not required. I therefore ask leave to withdraw my amendment with a view to moving the excision of that word. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment (by **Senator Colonel Neild)** proposed - >That the word " canteen," line7, be left out. {: #debate-5-s3 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · New South Wales · Free Trade -- I quite agree with the remarks of **Senator Neild.** If the supply of intoxicants in military camps is prohibited, it is obvious that they cannot be obtained in any section of those camps, and consequently the retention of the word "canteen " is unnecessary. {: .speaker-K3S} ##### Senator Lt Colonel Cameron: -- But intoxicants may be supplied just outside the limits of a camp. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- It is impossible to have a military canteen outside a military camp. {: .speaker-K3S} ##### Senator Lt Colonel Cameron: -- If the Vice-President of the Executive Council wishes to give effect to his desire he will insist upon the retention of this clause in its present form. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- I wish to retain theclause in its integrity, but I confess that I am unable to see how it is possible to have a canteen apart from a military camp, fort, or post. If the Committee are prepared to stand by the clause in its present form, I shall be perfectly satisfied. Amendment negatived. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Colonel Sir ALBERT GOULD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913 -Colonel CAMERON (Tas>mania) [11.5]. - 1 move - >That after the letter " *a,"* line 9, the word "and" be inserted, and that "and *c"* be left out. I regret that the author of this clause is not present to hear what I am about to urge. Under it a prohibition will be imposed upon the sale of intoxicating liquors in camps in which citizen soldiers between 18 and 20 years of age are undergoing training. Now we all know that a camp is of a limited extent, and, although we may prohibit the sale of intoxicants within its boundaries. we have absolutely no control over the sale of liquor immediately outside those boundaries. Where measures of this kind have been adopted, it has been my experience that a most pernicious system has arisen - a system under which slygrog selling has become rampant. We have not the slightest power to prevent that. I do not wish to in any way wound the feelings of those who desire to do all that they can to promote temperance both in the community at large and in our Defence Forces in particular. But in their endeavour to accomplish one good, I ask them to be careful lest they do a much greater evil. Experience everywhere has shown that it is better to control the sale of liquor than to endeavour, to suppress it. Everybody knows that in a celebrated State in America, liquor may be purchased anywhere save at the hotels, where it is most required. I fear that by attempting to treat as children our virile intelligent men to whom we look for the defence of this country, we shall reproduce that condition of things here. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- We wish to keep them sober. {: .speaker-KLZ} ##### Senator Lt Colonel Sir ALBERT GOULD:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913 -Colonel CAMERON.- If we give effect to this proposal, we shall sap the morality of the youth of Australia. I ask the Committee to treat this matter as one of serious national concern. No more nonsensical clause was ever inserted in a Bill relating to the manhood of a nation, and if I were a member of the Government, I should be ashamed of it. {: #debate-5-s4 .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I take an entirely different view of this question from that entertained by my honorable friend, **Senator Cameron.** I do. not think it is a good thing to have intoxicants sold in a military camp. **Senator Cameron** holds that to prevent liquor being sold there, is a reflection upon the manhood of our country. I say that there are men and women in the Commonwealth today who would be far better off if they were prohibited from getting intoxicating liquors. In these circumstances, I am justified in saying, so far as our military camps are concerned, " Lead us not into temptation." If we are going to compel the young men of this country to undergo military training, in the interests of humanity and Christianity, I ask the Committee, notwithstanding the speech of **Senator Cameron,** to stand by the Government, and by that which is right. I am very glad indeed that **Senator Millen** has taken up a firm attitude upon this question, notwithstanding the opposition of **Senator Neild** and others, who are endeavouring to cover their tracks. They are opposed to any amendment whatever. They would like the canteen to be open to everybody and anybody, and to the officers in particular. **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [11. 16]. - It has occurred to me that in this clause we are proposing to enact that which we have no power to do. The whole area bounded by Botany Bay on the south to some distance north of Sydney, suburbs, and bounded again by the seacoast, and running how far inland I do not exactly know, is " Sydney fortress " under the military organization. The area teems with hotels. Yet we are proposing to enact that on all occasions when compulsory parades or drills are held all the public-houses in the area are to 'be shut, and any one who has liquor in his possession - every merchant, every publican, every householder with liquor on his premises - is to be fined. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- If the honorable senator can prove that, it will be a strong point. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- There is a given area which includes Sydney city, and the whole of that area is a military fortress. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator Lynch: -- Does it include Chowder Bay? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Yes, and there is an important hotel at Chowder Bay now. If any compulsory training is going on within the limits of Sydney fortress, any one who sells any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or has them in his possession, will under this provision be guilty of an offence. If **Senator Millen** happens to have half-a-dozen of the best champagne in his cellar he will be penalized. **Senator Walker** will find himself subject to severe penalties if his house is searched. Perhaps the military authorities might get out of the difficulty by withdrawing the term "military fortress" from the area in question. But there is another point. The training specified involves both day and night drills. There is one place in' Sydney that is used for drilling purposes. That is the barrack square. It is tar-paved and well lit, and consequently can be used for night drills. Under the clause as it stands, without stretching it in any way, the military canteen at the barracks will have to be closed while any drill is proceeding. Further, the clause will necessitate the removal from the barracks of all liquor in the canteen, the officers' mess, the sergeants' mess, and from the quarters of the officers and non-commissioned officers. It actually makes the whole area subject to the prohibition. Every drop of liquor that is to be found anywhere at the Victoria Barracks will have to be removed whenever there is a parade of young soldiers on the barrack square. Are we really going to enact such an absurdity as that? {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It will never be carried out. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Of course it cannot be carried out ; and, therefore, under the pretence of protecting our young men, we are deliberately putting something in the statute-book which we know to be a transparent absurdity. Under the pretence of having a moral disposition towards our youth, we are enacting that which' must be a farce. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Sobriety does not always mean morality. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- No; and there are various kinds of sobriety. I have referred to forts, now I will speak of posts. In carrying out defensive manoeuvres military posts are established temporarily, of course, in the vicinity of, and including, areas occupied at present by licensed premises. I will take a case in point. There are two or three hotels at Coogee Bay. During the Easter training there is generally a military post at Coogee. All the licensed premises there will be affected by this clause. The proposal as it stands is a transparent sham, for the Commonwealth has no power to interfere with public houses. No doubt it will please certain good folks who have strong views on- the question of liquor consumption. But it will do a great deal of harm, first, by enacting that to which effect can never be given; and, second, by leading to the smuggling of liquor into camp, and its secret consumption. It is ah offence fur men to drink in their tents, but this is a proposal which will undoubtedly conduce to the illicit consumption of strong drink. If it be possible to raise a prohibitionist army, well and good'; hut do not let us profess to do that which is palpably a sham and1 a nullity, worthy only of political ostriches sticking their heads in the sand of a silly proposition. This provision will not protect those whom it is desired to protect, but will create more temptation and damage than could ever result from the consumption of liquor under military regulations ; because it is a military offence, punishable by reduction in rank of non-commissioned officers in charge of canteens, to permit the improper consumption of liquor. To show that I am not speaking without knowledge on this matter, may I say that I commanded for nine years a regiment whose offices and head-quarters were within the Victoria Barracks, Sydney? Probably there is not another member of this Parliament who has commanded a regiment whose head-quarters were in the very heart of the military organization of the State. It is common for regiments to have their head-quarters at a little distance away, or' in the city. But, from the start, I asked that my regiment should be "quartered in the very centre of military control. Therefore, I have seen more of the working of military canteens and messes than falls to the lot of most, whose duties have not taken them, as mine took me every day of my life, for months together, to the barracks. In consequence, I learnt more of barrack life than falls to the lot of most citizen officers. It is on this account that I feel I have a right to express my views, not as sentimental propositions, but as the result of the actual observation of facts. I again point out to the Minister that, under this clause, it will not be possible to conduct training in the admirable Barrack Square, Sydney - the best drill ground of the kind in Australia, where fairly large bodies of men can be handled - -without the closing of the canteen of the Permanent Artillery, the messes of the officers and non-commissioned officers, and the removal
New South Wales -- As one of those who voted with the minority, I think it only right to say that I am now strongly with **Senator Cameron** on this matter. As an old volunteer, I know that lads from eighteen to twenty years of age are very touchy about being treated as children. **Senator Cameron** has shown pretty conclusively that it such lads are under military control, they will be well cared for. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- But his amendment does not touch those who are under eighteen years of age. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- **Senator Cameron** has shown that it will be all right for lads up to eighteen years of age; but he wants to remove the temptation from those who are between eighteen and twenty years of age. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- Does not the honorable senator think that those who are a month short of eighteen years of age will be just as liable to temptation? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- Up to eighteen years of age, the lads will be under military control. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- Does not the honorable senator think that the younger the lads are the more liable they will be to temptation? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- My honorable friend probably agrees with me that the military authorities will be quite capable of looking after the lads. I am in favour of the amendment, which will leave the matter to their own control. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- The honorable senator will leave the sly-grog shops open to boys up to eighteen! years of age? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- Between eighteen and twenty years of age is a time when lads like to feel that they are young men, not children. {: #debate-5-s6 .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator CLEMONS:
Tasmania -- **Senator Cameron** has had considerable experience with regard to canteens, and I, as a layman, am decidedly inclined to pay serious attention to his suggestion. He has moved to delete the reference to paragraph *c* of section 125, with the object of keeping the canteen open to men, but shut to boys. The reason which he gave for his proposal seemed to me to be a very sound one. He said that if the canteen were closed against men, it would promote a worse form of liquor consumption, that is to say, drinking in sly-grog shops, whereas if the canteen were retained, so far as men were concerned, it would be under the best possible control, and that is military control. Apart from my honorable friend's experience, it seems to me that the one thing we must do is to try to control the liquor traffic, as it cannot be stopped. My honorable friend's point of view is that if we closed the canteen the military authorities would be brought into conflict with the local authorities in each State, and that the latter would have their way, to the great discomforture of military order and discipline. I am quite willing to be guided by his experience. I also agree with him about the provision with regard to boys under eighteen years of age. I think it is desirable that there should not be any liquor available while they are undergoing training. Owing to the interruption, it must have been difficult for some honorable senators to gather the intention of **Senator Cameron,** and I hope that with these remarks it is now clear to every honorable senator. {: #debate-5-s7 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- At this late stage of the discussion I do not propose to traverse the grounds, weighty though they are, advanced by **Senator Cameron** and supported by **Senator Clemons.** The whole question is- Shall we try to suppress the liquor traffic, or place it under control? That is too large a question for me to discuss to-day. What I propose to do is to vote to retain the proposed new section 123A as it stands. Whatever may be the merits of a fullydeveloped canteen where there are adult troops, it should be remembered that we shall be bringing into the camps a number of youths who may, as **Senator Walker** said, think that they are men when they are only lads. A percentage of them will not have reached their eighteenth year. In a military sense they will be counted as being of eighteen years of age, though they may be only seventeen and a half years of age. We "shall be bringing into the camps a large number of mere lads, and the question is whether we ought not to endeavour, as far as possible, to keep even the appearance of the temptation away from them. For that reason I ask the Committee to stand by the provision. **Senator Sir JOSIAH** SYMON (South Australia) [11.40]. - I feel compelled, in some respects against my will, to support the view which **Senator Millen** has put. I am one of those who believe that there is no reason why the old system of canteen should not continue, and beverages, more or less intoxicating, perhaps, be sold there under proper military regulations. My belief is that there is very little likelihood of abuse. If it is impossible for the authorities of a camp or a fort to safeguard the consumption of intoxicating beverages in the canteen, there is a very poor outlook for the Australian soldier. If I had been here the other evening - and I am sorry that I was not able to attend - I would certainly have voted with those who desired to continue the old system. If this were a proposal to strike out proposed new section 123A, and restore the old system, I am not sure that I should not, if it were not too late in the session to again deal with this matter, be found rather favoring that side. But it has been decided, so far, that there shall be a sort of modified canteen. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- None at all. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- The canteen is prohibited as regards those who come under, paragraphs *a, b,* and *c* of section 125, but there is another class, which is defined in paragraph *d,* and which) is not included in the prohibition. {: .speaker-K3S} ##### Senator Cameron: -- While the youths arein training, no canteen can be opened. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Under paragraphs *a, b,* and *c* the canteen is prohibited as regards youths, lads from twelveto fourteen years of age, and from eighteen: to twenty years of age, but there is no prohibition with regard to a camp at which: there are men from twenty to twenty-six. years of age. **Senator Cameron's** amendment is founded on a sentiment with which. I agree, that if we prevent the consumption of intoxicating beverages in thecanteen, we shall probably encourage slygrog shops in the vicinity. That is probable, and my honorable friend says, and' says very truly, of course, that there will be a temptation for those in camp to go tothose places, if they have a consuming thirst upon them, and probably the results may be worse than if they had consumed theliquor under regulation in camp. The viceof the amendment, to my mind, is that my honorable friend wants to protect, against, the allurements of the sly-grog shops, thosewho are between the ages of eighteen and. twenty years, but there is no protection extended to those of tenderer years, namely,, those between twelve and fourteen years of age, and between fourteen and ' eighteenyears of age, who are, I should think, quiteas liable, if not more liable, to temptationand to mischief, than those between eighteen, and twenty years of age.' If we are to deal with the matter at all in this form, it seemsto me that we ought to strike out all the restrictions, and protect all youths in. training. We certainly ought not to protect from the inducements of mischievousplaces, young men who are between, eighteen and twenty years of age, and to leave unprotected youths of seventeen years of age, who are at least asliable to temptation as those who are a month or two over eighteen years of age. With great deference, I think that what **Senator Cameron** proposes would be ineffective and insufficient. If we are to extend protection to persons under training, there is no reason why it should be afforded* to trainees between eighteen and twenty years of age, and taken away from thosewho are not yet eighteen years of age. The amendment would only be a partial curefor an evil which I agree with **Senator Cameron** exists, and should be abolished, and I am, for the reasons I have stated,, unable to support it.
Western Australia -- I desire to move the insertion of certain words in proposed new section 123A. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- I rise to a point of order. A division has just been taken as to whether this provision should be eliminated, and the Committee have decided that it shall remain in this Bill. I wish to know whether it is now competent for us to go back upon it with a view to amending it? {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- I gave way to **Senator Neild** on the distinct understanding that he had a prior amendment to submit. It will be recollected that I rose and stated that I desired to move an amendment, whereupon **Senator Neild** interjected that he had a prior amendment to submit. Accordingly I gave way to him. His: amendment subsequently proved to be a proposal in favour of the omission of the clause. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- No, of a subclause. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- It is quite clear that if I am prevented from moving my amendment I have been jockeyed out of my right. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: **- Senator Lynch** did give way to **Senator Neild,** but, nevertheless, 1 am afraid that he has now lost his chance of moving his amendment, because the Committee have already decided to retain proposed new section 123A. {: #debate-5-s10 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- Let me point out a remedy which is open to **Senator Lynch,** and which is equally available to **Senator Neild.** Honorable senators will understand that my only desire is to obtain the sense of the
Free Trade -- I am desirous of saving time, and I would suggest that the honorable senator should submit his amendment as a distinctive proposition. The Committee can then vote upon it. {: #debate-5-s12 .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH:
Western Australia -- I move - >That the following proposed new section be inserted : - "123B. That the prohibition in section 123A apply to the persons in training under paragraph *(d)* of section125." There is no need for me to occupy the time of the Committee in discussing this proposal, further than to point out that, as the clause stands, it draws a line between persons of twenty and twenty-one years of age who are in training, and thus creates a most inexplicable anomaly. My amendment will simply provide for an annual registration of these trainees. Under proposed new section 123 a, when the annual parade occurs, the man who has reached twenty years of age and one month will be at liberty to go to the canteen and purchase liquor, whilst his comrade in the same squad who is only twenty years of age will be prevented from so doing. Such a provision cannot fail to create dissension in the ranks. We must either abolish the canteen in its entirety, or wipe out this discrimination. If my amendment is agreed to, it will mean that the clause will be passed in the form in which it originally came to the Senate. That, it seems to me, is the best way to remove temptation from the men who will come into camp for training. By perpetuating the canteen we are simply keeping up a relic of bygone days, when the soldier of fortune wanted a place to which he could arrract his buccaneering followers. As I saidyesterday, there are many callings pursued by men in Australia, especially in the warmer parts that are far more arduous than is the training to which voting soldiers are subjected. Yet this work is done without resource to canteens or similar establishments. Proposed new section 123A draws a line which will create an undesirable distinction in the ranks of men undergoing training. When Bill Jones says to his mate. "Come and have a drink," his mate will have to reply, "No; I am not yet up to the whisky age, and cannot come." That will be absurd. Amendment negatived. Bill reported without further amendment. Motion (by **Senator Millen)** agreed to - >That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the Bill being passed through its remaining stages without delay. Reportadopted. Motion (by **Senator Millen)** proposed - >That this Bill be now read a third time. **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [12.20]. -I move - >That the Bill be recommitted for the reconsideration of clause 17. I desire to have an opportunity to move - >That section 123A be left out, with a view to insert in lieu thereof the following : - " No intoxicating or spirituous liquors shall be sold or supplied at any military canteen, camp, fort, or post to any member of the Naval or Military Forces under the age of twenty years." The matter has been threshed out thoroughly, and had it not been for a certain *contretemps* in Committee it would not have been necessary for me to take action now. {: #debate-5-s13 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- I ask **Senator Neild** not to persist in his proposition. I should have shared his desire for a fresh division on the subject had not the view of the Committee been expressed by a substantial majority. In view of that majority it seems to me that there is very little hope of obtaining a different verdict on a fresh trial. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- I would comply with the wish of the Minister, except that the question which I now desire to submit was not put to the Committee which, therefore, had no opportunity of voting upon it. Question - That the Bill be recommitted - put. The Senate divided. AYES: 6 NOES: 23 Majority ... ... 17
Queensland -- I shall endeavour to address myself to this question in as temperate language as I can use. I trust that every honorable senator, no matter what his views may be, will receive credit for submitting what he believes to be the facts of the case. In view of the stage of the session which we have reached there is an evident desire that short speeches shall be the order of the day ; and I shall not offend in that respect. We are called upon to accept the Northern Territory under an agreement. That agreement was made by the Prime Minister with the former Premier of South Australia, **Mr. Price.** I do not feel bound by that agreement in any shape or way. I had no hand or part in it. I cannot see why I should be asked by the Government to approve of the agreement. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- That is why I opposed a Bill this week. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- I should not be standing here at this moment to oppose this Bill if, like the measure to which my honorable friend alludes, it had to be referred to the people of the Commonwealth. I oppose the passage of the Bill simply because it will increase the burdens of the people without their consent. It has been repeatedly stated that if the agreement is accepted it will involve an. additional burden of £2 14s. on every man, woman and child in the Commonwealth. On that ground I think it is the duty of honorable senators to resist the imposition of such taxation until the people have had a chance of saying whether the Commonwealth should accept the Northern Territory or not. I want it to be thoroughly understood) that I am not against the acceptance of the Territory, but am against its acceptance on the proposed terms. Suppose that a syndicate engaged in mining, pastoral, or commercial pursuits had started out with the best of intentions to develop the Northern Territory, but had failed to achieve its object. And suppose that another syndicate was asked to take over the Territory with all its liabilities, but with the proviso that it should be developed on exactly the same lines as the previous syndicate laid down. How could any business man or body of business men accept a proposal of that character? Yet that is what this Parliament is now asked to do on. behalf of the Commonwealth. Notwithstanding his great abilities, the Prime Minister is, to my mind, a very poor business man. The late Premier of South Australia was a hard, practical business1 man, and , undoubtedly he drove a very good bargain with the Prime Minister. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- No. This is the Commonwealth's proposition, not the State's. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- I understand that the agreement to take over the Northern Territory was made between two parties, so that both must have been consulted. One man cannot make an agreement. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- It was drafted by the Prime Minister. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- It was drafted, not by the Prime Minister, but by some of his officials. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- It was his drafting. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- The matter must have been talked over times without number, and an agreement come to, so that the drafting represented what had been agreed upon by the two parties to the proposal. From a common-sense stand-point, was it not a one-sided bargain for the Prime Minister to agree to debit the Commonwealth with the cost of the Northern Territory, to take over certain railways, and to build a railway from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek ? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- We are paying a great deal more to keep Queensland white. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- That is an uncalled for interjection. The Government of South Australia helped more to bring coloured labour into the Commonwealth than did any other State Government. With Chinese labour they made the railway from Pine Creek to Port Darwin at a cost of £7,000 per mile. Yet the Commonwealth is supposed to construct a railway in the Territory for about ,£4,000 a mile. We all know that the country from Port Darwin to Pine Creek is the best watered portion of the Territory. If it cost the State £7,000 a mile to build the railway between those points with Chinese labour, what is it likely to cost the Commonwealth per mile to build a railway through the driest and most inhospitable part of this continent. I hope that it is not to be built with Chinese labour. That is my reply to the honorable senator's uncalled for interjection. Honorable senators who are advocating this measure are not prepared to trust the Commonwealth Parliament to take over the Territory. I heard an honorable senator, for whom I entertain a great respect, argue here the other day that we should trust the Parliament. Now, in this matter we want to trust the Parliament. We want South Australia to hand over the Territory at the price of its cost to it, and trust to this Parliament to take action in the best interests of the people of the Commonwealth. Some honorable senators are not now prepared to trust the Parliament of the Commonwealth, but want to bind the Commonwealth down to an agreement which, so far as I know, was entered into without the consent of any man, except the Prime Minister. I object to the Commonwealth being bound down in that way, and I hope that the Senate will do so, too. I think that it would be a fair thing for the Commonwealth to undertake to take over the Northern Territory, and pay all the debt thereon, to be determined by any court or body of men chosen by the Commonwealth and the State. I do not wish to be understood as advocating the construction of a line frum any particular State to the Territory. I do not care from what State a line is constructed to open up the Territory, so long as the determination of the route is left to the Parliament of the Commonwealth. At the next general election this proposal will be brought before the people more definitely than it has even been before. The representatives who will then be chosen should be left absolutely free to decide what is fair in the interests of all the States. In 1907, the population of South Australia was 392,000, and no doubt by this time it has increased to 400,000. If the Commonwealth takes over the debt on the Northern Territory, say, £4,000,000, it will take over a debt of £10 for every man, woman, and child in South Australia. Under the agreement we are required to build a railway which is computed to cost a certain sum. I very much doubt the accuracy of the estimate. I know of many cases where the cost of public works has been more than double the estimate. What will it cost the Commonwealth to build 1,000 miles of railway in the driest and most inhospitable part of the continent if it cost South Australia £7,000 a mile to build a railway in the best watered portion of the Northern Territory with Chinese labour? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- And a narrowgauge line at that. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Chinese labour is not cheaper than European labour. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- It has been denounced all over the country as cheap labour. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- One Englishman is worth three Chinamen any day. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- I quite agree with the honorable senator in that regard. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Chinese labour is not cheaper than European labour, and that the railway will cost nearly double the estimate? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- It is only fair to say that the South Australian Government tried to build the railway with white labour, and that the men threw- up the job. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- To my mind, that makes the matter actually worse. Because the State Government could not get white labour in the Northern Territory, they had to employ Chinese labour. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Why could not the State Government get while labour? {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- I suppose it was because the wages were not high enough. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- Does not the honorable senator think that the climate had anything to do with it? {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- The interjection brings me to another phase of the question. With what people does the Commonwealth propose to settle the Northern Territory ? We have not yet heard one word from the Government on that point. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir Josiah Symon: -- Will not the honorable senator trust) the Parliament r 6808 *Northern Territory* [SENATE.] *Acceptance Bill.* {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator SAYERS: -- I am prepared to trust the people first, and the Parliament next. We ought to be told what class of people the Government intend to employ in opening up and' developing this country. My experience of forty odd years in the tropics teaches me that the introduction of a number of men from the Old Country, to build a railway or to settle and develop the Northern Territory, would result in a huge failure from the very start. It can only be developed by men who have been inured to climatic changes, or by the native population. It would be murder, so to speak, to bring a number of persons from a cold climate into the tropics, where water is so scarce, to build a railway. Even if we are willing to take over the Northern Territory, we should be told where the settlers are to be brought from. I know that a number of men left a district in which I was living to go over to the Port Darwin rush, and that after being there for nine or ten months they deserted the country and returned to the district. This country will be taken up, as country that was at one time considered quite unsuitable for settlement has been taken up in the United States, when we have a population in Australia of from 20,000,000 to 30,000,000, and when the good land nearer the coast and closer to markets has all been occupied and railways have been extended to the boundaries of each of the States. I asked a gentleman, who, I believe, is an explorer, and who has taken a great interest in the Northern Territory, what could be grown or produced there which would bear the transport charges from the centre of the Territory by the proposed railway to Port Darwin or to Adelaide. The only product he could mention was wool. I remember a time, forty-five years ago, w hen wool produced in some parts of Queensland was taken to the nearest port by bullock teams and other means, and was six months on the road. I am quite satisfied that if the lands of the Northern Territory were suitable for sheep, they would be taken up. We are told that there is a large amount of settlement in the Territory, and I believe that there is, of a kind. I have here an extract from the *North Queensland. Register* of 10th May, 1909, containing an advertisement of the offer for sale of three very large stations in the Territory. It will indicate what land there is worth, and what the Commonwealth is likely to get for it if we take over the Territory. This is the advertisement referred to - Hodgson Downs and Elsey Stations. The properties of the Eastern and African Cold Storage Supply Coy. Ltd. To be sold by. auction at the Royal Exchange, Sydney, on Wednesday, 26th May, 1909, at 2.30 p.m. Situated in the Northern Territory, on the Hodgson River, the nearest portion of the property being about fifty miles from the Katherine Telegraph Station.
Victoria .- I cannot allow a division to be taken on the motion for the second reading of this Bill without saying a few words. I am almost afraid to speak, because I have been ordered not to do so. I also feel a great responsibility in following my dear friend **Senator Symon.** He has made a strong case out of a bad one. It grieves me to have to speak in such strong terms about the matter, because I acknowledge that I should be delighted to vote for the Commonwealth taking over the Northern Territory on other conditions. Forty years ago, or more, the people of South Australia had great ideals and very proper aspirations. They' decided to build a transcontinental railway. Thirty years since I was one of three men who undertook to build what was called the first section of the line from Port Augusta to Government Gums. There was 200 miles of line in the one section. Naturally, I took a keen interest in the country in which we were working, and I havetaken an interest in it ever since. I have also been over a great part of Northern Quensland, and at a time when travelling in that country was downright pioneering. As I understand it. no one in this Senate is opposed to taking over the Northern Territory. The whole difficulty lies in the matter of committing this Commonwealth to a dreadful bargain. South Australia, of course, has found that the work of developing the Territory is too great. Practically, she has had to abandon it. The Commonwealth must, therefore, be extremely careful in what it does. Of course, if the Commonwealth hereafter came to the conclusion that the continuation of the line from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek would be the best method of developing the Territory she would adopt it, but I am so bitterly opposed to that view that I desire to leave the Commonwealth Parliament with a free hand. **Senator Symon** has referred to the narrowness and paltriness of the views of those who sustain this position. Well, I am not committed to the Government on this matter. They have not bound me, nor have they asked me to support this agreement as a *sine qua non.* It would be ridiculous to expect supporters of the Government to pledge themselves to such terms. The members of our party were never consulted about the matter. It is, therefore, the duty of every honorable senator to justify his own vote to his constituents. If I did not feel very strongly I should not dream of opposing this Bill, but as I do feel strongly I am bound to do so. Any one who will carefully study the map of the Northern Territory will see that the railway has been built so far west as to make it impossible to connect it with trunk lines in the other States. The country beyond Oodnadatta is a kind of *terra incognita.* I have been over it, but it is known to very few. The fact that it has been open for nearly a century and is not yet occupied indicates the kind of country that it is. The truth is that it is quite unsuitable for settlement. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- What about the country around the MacDonnell Ranges and beyond ? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- The great point is that it would be impossible to connect the projected railway with lines in other States, whereas if the Territory were taken over and the Commonwealth were to build a line across the continent it would be a good scheme. I should be heartily in favour of that. If the line from Port Darwin to Pine Creek were run down to the Queensland border, it would be infinitely more advantageous to the people of the Commonwealth than would the continuation of the line from Pine Creek to Oodnadatta. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator Lynch: -- Would not such a railway run near the honorable senator's place? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- That interjection hints that I am interested. I am not. I have properties on the Georgiana, the Flinders, and the McKinley, but they are hundreds of miles from the route of the railway I have suggested. We have a railway practically at our doors, and send down our stuff to Townsville, as the Queensland senators know. I repeat that if we want to develop this country, we must build our line to the east, 500 miles away from the route of the Pine Creek-Oodnadatta connexion. Why should the Commonwealth be compelled to build a railway over worthless country when, by a deviation to the east, we could connect the railway with four or five places communicating with populous centres? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Is not a railway required to develop the Territory. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- We want railways to develop the Commonwealth, not a certain portion of land where nothing will grow. We are here to do the best we can for the people of Australia. It is not our duty to build railways in uninhabitable, and, more or less, desert country where there is no rainfall, and only sand and drift. Surely it is better to build a line connecting with occupied country ? It would be infinitely better and wiser for the Commonwealth to take over the Territory, recoup the Government of South Australia for the expenditure incurred in running the railway from beyond Quorn to Oodnadatta, and then break up the line; which is no good. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- South Australia does not want charity. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- I am simply stating what would be a wiser thing to do. If I were a millionaire who had undertaken the task of developing the Northern Territory as a " spec," I would pay the South Australian Government for what she has incurred on the line from 50 miles or so beyond Quorn, and then I would take up the rails. Having done that, I would extend the railway from Port Augusta to Pine Creek to the east, so that it could be connected up with settled portions of the country. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- If the country is so bad, why is the honorable senator favorable to the Commonwealth taking it over at all? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- If such a line as T' have suggested were built, many millions of sheep could be carried where it is impossible to carry any now. You cannot move wheat more than a certain distance if it is to pay. You can, however, grow wool and carry it 600 or 700 miles by rail at payable rates. You can do the same with cattle. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Cattle are now brought to market by the existing railway and the trade pays. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- Yes, in good seasons. Surely we want no better evidence of the nature, of the country in question than the fact that it is unoccupied, whilst the country to the east is settled by happy and prosperous people. The reason is that one part of the country is more or less of a waste, while the other is habitable. Furthermore, a line built further to the eastwards, could be more cheaply constructed, because four or five sections could be commenced together, whereas, if we had to commence from two ends, many years would be occupied in the work. What a nice condition we should be in if Australia were invaded, and the troops from Townsville, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Newcastle, and Sydney, had to be sent round by Adelaide in order to get to the north. **Mr. Gwynneth,** who was* our engineer when we were building the line, has distributed maps, and so has **Mr. Wilson,** of New South Wales. The former is a very clever engineer, who understands his work, and he strongly recommends the line to the eastward. He says that its construction would not be at all serious or expensive, and that it would be a dreadful thing for the Commonwealth to do anything else. I sincerely hope that no honorable senator will support this proposal. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Taking Camooweal as a centre, what is the character of the country through which the railway would go? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator FRASER: -- On the southern side of Camooweal there is good country, but when you get away from that point the vast bulk of the land is not suitable for settlement as the map indicates. The good country is occupied with sheep and cattle, and is being developed. Moreover water is very scarce over the great area of the country north of Quorn. For five years we had to employ seven or eight engines in pumping water from great depths. For three or four days our eng'ines would be in the hospital getting repaired, so bad was the water. Further, if our bullock yokes were not put on end against each o':her, in the morning they would be covered with drift sand. People in this part of the Commonwealth have no conception of the state of that country. My suggestion is that some future generation should be left to deal with this problem after a thorough survey of the country has been made. I should dearly like to be able to help South Australia. It grieves me "to have to oppose good senators and good people, but in the interests of the Commonwealth T do hope that this project will not be carried out. Certainly it is a matter of great public importance, but it should be left to be determined after due inquiries have been made into the character and possibilities of the country. The best men who could be found in the States should be sent out to inspect it. If what we say is not true, let the truth be ascertained, but do not let us now commit the Commonwealth to the expenditure of £10,000,000. If I were the dictator of this country, I would tell honorable senators where that money could1 be expended with immense advantage and yield a very good return. We should be no better off after we. had built the railway. Suppose that an emergency arose, and we had to send round our troops to Port Darwin, the country would be taken before we could get our men there. The proposal will not bear examination. What an eminently clever man **Senator Symon** is in making a good case out of a very bad one ! I should not be greatly opposed to the Commonwealth telling South Australia that it would pay the cost of a line from beyond Quorn to Oodnadatta, and the cost incurred up to date. But by all means leave the Commonwealth to deal with the development of the Territory in a proper fashion. As regards population, I would point out that if the line were built in the way I suggest, 10,000,000 persons would be nothing to settle along it. You could carry, perhaps, 40,000,000 extra sheep in that part of the Commonwealth if you had a railway constructed to develop it. As wool is getting scarce all over the world, that is the best thing you could do. You would have then any quantity of products to export, and the country would be settled by a prosperous and contented people **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [3.50]. - I think that **Senator Symon** almost eclipsed himself this afternoon, with a combination of pathos, invective, threats. He not only did his utmost to convince us who listened to him, but he laboured, evidently strenuously, to convince himself. - He refused to discuss milsons, but every acre pf land worth an alleged threepence could be reckoned up with a nicety of arithmetic which would have done honour to a skilled pedagogue or a chartered .accountant. I was a little sorry, that he went so far as he did, because he did not, in mv humble opinion, deal fairly with the question. He would insist that the line which forms the chief feature of the whole project could be built practically anywhere so long as it passed through the northern boundary of South Australia. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- That is what the agreement says. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I know that it is in the agreement. Having received a great deal of valuable information from a gentleman who is acting as a sort of advance agent for either South Australia or certain persons therein, I have learned from him that the proposed line of railway as figured on the map is the only possible line which can be built. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- To develop the country. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- No, the only possible line which can be built. It was pointed out to me that all the land between the proposed railway eastward to the borders of Queensland and New South Wales consists of tremendous sandhills through which it is utterly impossible to construct a railway. I allowed this gentleman to convince me if he could, but he did not succeed. I congratulate him on his eloquence. He was very kind in giving me a lot of information, he was most courteous, but he certainly satisfied me that to the eastward of the proposed line through the centre of the Territory, you could not construct railways because of the terrible nature of the sandhills. As regards carrying a line to the westward, that is really too absurd, of course, to be discussed, because you would be merely throwing it utterly out of the reach of civilization, you would be throwing it into a country of' which no man living seems to know anything. Nothing is shown on the map. This is a no-man's land. Those who have ventured into it have, in many cases, never returned. Others have been more fortunate. It is pathetic to hear the appeals which are made about the value of the Territory. How is it that when it was settled by the British Government about 100 years ago in the best watered portions it was shortly afterwards abandoned and has never been re-settled ? If you look up the maps of the northern portion of the Territory, starting some years back, you will find that there have been fresh names plotted, and for the same areas, year in and year out. Twelve or thirteen years ago I took up 4,000 square miles of the country, so that I ought to know something about it. I took up at 6d. per square mile per annum what was alleged to be the pick of that portion of the Territory. It included an abandoned cattle station, that had been owned by a **Dr. Brown,** and was known as the Delamere station. There was a fine stone house on it, but it was all abandoned when I took it up. , {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Why did the honorable senator take it up? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- For grazing and mining purposes. What I wanted to do thirteen or fourteen years ago is on the *tapis* now . amongst some of the large run-holders there. I wanted to see a port, a township, and meat works established on the Victoria River, and there seemed to be a prospective chance in connexion with minerals. When I was in London a few years ago a great gold property in the Territory was floated with a capital of £3,000,000, and the shares were put off at a premium. The thing was underwritten and offered to the public at £3 10s., a premium of £2 1 os. making the value of the property £10,000,000. No one ever got anything out of it except the pleasure of paying calls. I do not suppose that the place could now be found on a map. All the timber has been eaten out by the ants, and the place over-run with vegetation. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- I hope that the honorable senator was not a promoter? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- No, I had nothing to do with it, but I read about it in the English newspapers from day to day. I was interviewed about it, but I could not give any information, because I knew nothing. However, that is by the way. There is no doubt that portions of the country are good, and well watered, but this project is launched here on half-a-dozen different grounds. It is advocated, first, for defence purposes; second, because the Territory is of immense value; and, third, because South Australia cannot carry the baby any longer. These are three of the leading reasons which are put forward for our not doing an act of charity, but approving of this agreement. It does strike me as a most remarkable thing that a proprietor, having in his possession something of which he can make no use, and the cost of maintaining which is draining his pockets and beggaring him, should ask another proprietor to take it off his hands, pay all his liabilities and then insist that he shall spend millions upon it. I have looked up the position of the Northern Territory. Speaking in round figures, it seems to me that the debt on the Northern Territory plus interest is about £3,500,000. Then there is to be added the cost of the Oodnadatta railway, which stands at about £5,500,000. I speak subject to correction. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- No. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- It is a little over £2,250,000. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I make the total about ,£12,500.000. I took these figures this afternoon from a *Hansard* report, and if there is any mistake it is not my mistake. If what I am told now be correct, I have been misled by the report to which I have referred to the extent of some £2,500,000. The amount would still represent more than £10,000,000. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- A couple of millions is nothing. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- They would probably be nothing to the honorable senator when he wishes to' have that sum voted. But it is my business, and it is the business of the other members of the Senate, to see that the people of the Commonwealth are not lightly rushed into the most serious responsibility they have yet .been asked to take in this Parliament. To show the absolute recklessness of this proposal, some honorable senators are seeking to secure approval of a proposition, which, at least, would involve the Commonwealth in an indebtedness of £10,000,000. I remind honorable senators that in connexion with the valuation of the transferred properties we have had some of the highest officers- in the employment of the Commonwealth with professional assistance engaged for years trying to arrive at a valuation where the total amount involved is not more than £5,000,000. Here we are being asked to vote £10,000,000 or more without the smallest information from anybody but the *ipse dixit* of those who have interest in promoting or in opposing the proposition. The proposition is one which appals me. I find a number of members of the Legislature banded together to force through Parliament a proposal 'involving £10.000,000 or £12,000,000. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- More than that. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- It will certainly involve in the1 long run a grent deal more than that, as I shall show directly. The proposal has so many ramifications that I arc afraid [ shall be obliged to speak at greater length upon it than for my personal com lort I should like to do. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St LEDGER:
QUEENSLAND · ANTI-SOC -- When we learn that it cost £7,000 per mile to build the line from Port Darwin to Pine Creek with Chinese labour we must double the amount of the official estimate. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I am obliged to the honorable senator, but really a few millions do not matter in the way in which we are dealing with this question. If we can sling away £10,000.000 without inquiring what we shall get for it, we might as well be criminally reckless and throw away more. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Is the honorable senator referring to the Federal Capital ? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- My honorable friend has been a good old supporter of Canberra. After having saved the situation, and having secured that the principal avenue of the new Capital will be named after him because of his magnificent patriotic services in connexion with that question, it is a pity that the honorable senator should now attempt to belittle himself. I am reminded by his interjection of another which was made by **Senator Dobson** to the effect that a gentleman from Sydney, with narrow selfishness, tried to get the Federal Capital established right off. Let me say in reply that an honorable senator from Hobart, with an equally narrow selfishness, has tried for years to prevent the fulfilment of one of the best known conditions of the Federal Constitution. From the last information we have on the subject, we learn that there is an annual loss of £175,000 a year on the 150 miles of railway from Palmerston or Port Darwin to Pine Creek. That is as nearly as possible an annual loss per mile of £1,200. We are asked not only to take over that line, but to pay for it, although it will be of no value to us The line from Oodnadatta to Port Augusta will be of no value to us if we get it-, because it is. built on a 3 ft. 6 in. gauge, and we could not use a 3 ft. 6 in. line for the transport of troops, horses, and supplies in a country through which we would have to earn' food and water. Are honorable senators aware that the railway from Palmerston to Pine Creek is built with iron sleepers, because the white ants ate out the wooden sleepers as fast as they were laid down ? Those iron sleepers would not be worth twopence to us for any purpose. They would be too short for a standard gauge line. To say that we should pay the full price for a railway that has no prospective usefulness for the Commonwealth is a liberal enough proposition without asking us to build a railway over the rest of the distance. **Senator Fraser** very properly pointed out that it is a perfect absurdity from a defence stand-point. The honorable senator used an argument which I intended to use, but I hope I may amplify his observation without being considered guilty of plagiarism. If we require to. take troops to Port Darwin for defence purposes, they have to be transported for. an enormous distance from the larger centres of population of the Commonwealth. I take Sydney as fairly representing the centre of the population settled in the eastern portion of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- As the hub of Australia. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Oh, no. There is, of course, no place equal to the farinaceous village from which **Senator Vardon** comes. I am speaking of Sydney now as a point of latitude in connection with the railway systems of Australia, and where there at present exists, and probaby will continue to exist, the largest .section of the Military Forces of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- I think we might have a quorum. *[Quorum* *formed:]* {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- From Sydney to Adelaide the distance by rail is about 1,000 miles, from Adelaide to Port Augusta 250 miles, from Port Augusta to Oodnadatta 700 miles, from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek at least 1,100 miles, and from Pine Creek to Port Darwin or Palmerston 150 miles. This makes a total of 3,200 miles from about the centre of the eastern settled portions of Australia to the point that it is proposed to defend. I ask any man who knows anything of the handling of men, horses, cannon, goods, forage, and water, to say nothing of ammunition, whether it would be possible to transport them successfully over 3,200 miles of railway built on three different gauges, and for the "greater part of the way on a narrow gauge? The New South Wales railways are built on -the 4 ft. 8£ in. gauge, through Victoria, and through part of South Aus-; tralia the gauge is 5 ft. 3 in., and for the rest of the way the Une would be of a 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. I should like to have the opinion of such a man as Colonel Foster, the military lecturer of the Sydney University, as to the possibility of moving troops and horses such a distance on railways built on three different gauges, and with most of it a narrow gauge. What would1 the horses be like when they got to the end of the journey? They would be " puffed " beyond recovery, and would not have a leg to stand on. **Senator Fraser** accurately gauged the situation from the defence stand-point when he drew attention to the impossibility of carrying out the defence of Port Darwin by the transport of troops from the eastern portion of the Commonwealth by a narrow-gauge railway through a desert. That it is a desert no one can deny. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- Need it be a narrowgauge railway. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- All that has been built so far of the proposed transcontinental line has been constructed on a narrow gauge. I have been arguing that the Commonwealth is being asked to pay the full price for railways which will have t. be destroyed. The earthworks will remain, but the sleepers, rails and rolling stock will have to be provided anew. If, on the other hand, a line were constructed further east than the proposed agreement will permit, the New South Wales lines could be linked up with it and the Queensland lines could be connected with ' it, at least from the points of transfer from the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge to the 4 ft. 8J in. gauge upon which any trunk line must be built. It is well known that on lines of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge trains cannot travel more than about 25 or 30 miles per hour. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- I have travelled 50 miles an hour upon narrow-gauge lines. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- I have travelled 45 miles an hour on the Oodnadatta line. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Then my honorable friends have enjoyed travelling under circumstances which are opposed to the testimony of the best engineering experts. It stands to reason that the possession of the whole of the Northern Territory is not necessary to the Commonwealth for defence purposes. As a matter of fact, its possession would be a burden rather than an advantage to the Commonwealth. For -the purposes of defence, the possession of a few- points only are necessary. But instead, it is proposed that we should take over an immense area - an area equal to one-sixth of that of Australia. For what can it be utilized? I have been told by a gentleman whom I regard as a high authority that if this line were 'constructed sheep stations could be established throughout the Territory. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- The country could be used for breeding horses for defence purposes. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- No doubt the same proposition will be brought forward another day in a different form. But even my honorable friend does not want onesixth of the Commonwealth for the purpose of establishing a horse-breeding station. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- We want to settle men and women there. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- The honorable senator cannot point to any period at which more than a mere handful of whites 6826 *Northern Territory* [SENATE.] *Acceptance Bill.* have remained in the Northern Territory. The climate is too " enthusiastic. ' ' India has been a possession of the British Crown for Heaven knows how long; settlements of white people formerly existed in the tropics of America, the Dutch have been resident in Java for a long time, and so throughout the equatorial belt of the world the whites have been the masters, but they have never been anything more. They have never lived there in any numbers. They have been bosses, overseers, and buccaneers, but never settlers. I say, God help every useful effort to develop Australia in all its parts ! But those who sincerely wish to push forward the development of the Northern Territory must recognise that in such a tropical country, where there is a heavy rainfall - it is about the best watered portion of Australia with the exception of Cairns on the eastern coast - a tremendous heat is experienced as well as a tremendous rainfall, which produce conditions eminently unsuitable to the white races, who are accustomed to cooler latitudes. What do our friends from Tasmania say about the splendours of the Tasmanian climate? Why do they go into ecstasies over that climate? Because it is cooler than is the mainland. We know, too, that the residents of the southern portion of Australia like to point to the splendid climate which they enjoy, because it enables them to do things which cannot be done in warmer latitudes. It will be remembered that only a few years ago a Sydney newspaper published the opinions of prominent men in that city and in Melbourne in regard to which was likely to be the future commercial capital of Australia. On that occasion one of the unfailing arguments used by Melbourne merchants was that the climate of this city was much more suited to the white race than is the alleged enervating climate of Sydney, and that consequently Melbourne must always outrun any bid for commercial supremacy which Sydney might make. But the Northern Territory is about the hottest spot in Australia. I know the Gulf country, which is hot enough. I have also had experience of Thursday Island and the whole of the Queensland coast. I have known it intimately for nearly thirty years. I am also acquainted with the west coast of Australia as far as Derby, but I can truthfully say that I have never struck any place quite so hot as is Port Darwin, although I visited it during the cool portion of the year. The heat which I experienced there was quite equal to that of Colombo. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- I hope that the honorable senator remained there for a longer period than he was occupied in travelling on the railway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I was there a fortnight, and I never struck a climate more enervating. As illustrating this, I may mention a little incident which occurred during my visit. I was wearing an ordinary pith helmet, such as most men wear in Queensland, and when I proposed to leave the hotel at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon the proprietress positively forbade me to do so without first securing some better protection from the sun. That was in May. The incident ended with my being informed that I must not go out into the sun until I had purchased a pith hat nearly the size of an umbrella and almost three-quarters of an inch thick. I should not have gone 100 yards along the streets of Port Darwin if I had not had some equally useful covering. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- The honorable senator had a soft head. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I ask you, sir, whether that remark is in order. I know that you are perplexed in your endeavour to maintain order in the case of the honorable senator. {: #subdebate-6-0-s3 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I must ask **Senator Needham** not to interject. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Such interjections are calculated to prolong my remarks. **Senator Symon** took great credit for South Australia for her plucky action in taking over the Northern Territory, and spending money upon it. I regret that he is not now present, because I would like to remind him of the fact that, until a not very distant date, the Northern Territory was attached to New South Wales. I remember perfectly well when it was taken over by South Australia. Apart from the building of the overland telegraph line, and the construction of 150 miles of railway in the northern portion of the Territory, South Australia has not succeeded in developing that country at all. Indeed, she has done nothing more than attempt to lease its lands. It is true that she has used it to make experiments in plants, which have become the most obnoxious of weeds - vegetable pests which are now destroying even the natural scrub of the country. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Where did the honorable senator get that information? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- I have myself witnessed the ravages of these pests, and I
Victoria -- I have very little to say upon this Bill. - What strikes me chiefly is the helplessness of the Commonwealth, with reference to this enormous Territory. It is partpf the continent of Australia, yet it is practically under no effective control. It is dangerously accessible to outsiders, who might be hostile in their intentions. For that reason it; ought to be, if possible, under the control of the Commonwealth Parliament. It ought to be under the control of such an authority as could be reasonably expected to make an effective effort to secure its occupation. Its present unoccupied state is a constant menace to the safety of the Commonwealth. That is, I think, a reason for making a very great sacrifice for the purpose of securing it. For many years the people of South Australia have made a most valiant effort, with their necessary limited means, to develop the Territory, and the fact that they have not been more successful is due not to their lack of desire, but to their lack of means. In their efforts they have been put to a very considerable expense - an expense which so small a community could indeed very ill afford. Therefore, without regard to the question of whether the expenditure was well or ill advised, I think that we should willinglyrecoup the State for any expenditure which it undertook in its effort to maintain the integrity of the Commonwealth. That is my view with reference to the desirability of taking over the Territory. But, having agreed to take it over, and to be anything but huckstering in considering the price, it ought to be transferred to us absolutely free from any restriction. As the Bill contains provisions compelling us to take over a railway which we may or may not require, and to build a railway in what may or may not be the most suitable position, I
New South Wales -- I regret that the Ministry have seen fit to bring forward this important measure at such a late period of the session as to almost prevent the proper consideration of the terms of the agreement which it asks the Senate to ratify. In his speech **Senator Symon** drew attention to the enormous area of the Territory. The facts which he mentioned satisfied me conclusively that an important measure of this kind should have been submitted at a time when it would have been possible for us to examine all the details and incidental obligations, in order to arrive at a just decision in the general interests of the Commonwealth. At present, the Senate has not the necessary time at its disposal to deal with the measure as it deserves. Understanding that an amendment is likely to be carried which will make the Bill more equitable, and certainly more Federal in spirit, I have decided to curtail my remarks. In my opinion, **Senator Symon** has made a most unjustifiable and inexcusable attack on the general policy of New South Wales. If there is one State which has been generous in regard to Commonwealth obligations and necessities, it has been New South Wales. It is not only untrue, but ungenerous, for a representative of South Australia to speak of New South Wales as a selfish and grasping State, considering what she has done for the Commonwealth at large. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- What has she done? {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator GRAY: -- Time will not allow me to go into that question or into the details of this Bill. I believe that New South Wales is quite favorable to South Australia being refunded every penny piece which she has spent in trying to develop the Northern Territory. In doing that, the Commonwealth will only be doing what is just and equitable. I contend that the Commonwealth has treated South Australia in a most generous and equitable spirit in agreeing so far to recoup her what she has spent in that direction. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- You are very generous. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator GRAY: -- We are very generous, and, if time permitted me, I would show that during the past twenty years, the most prominent and successful politicians of South Australia have again and again ex- . pressed the opinion that the Northern Territory must be got rid of. The State appointed a Royal Commission, which reported that the Territory could not be developed except with coloured labour. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- That was a foregone conclusion. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator GRAY: -- Again and again that view was affirmed in the Parliament of South Australia. I hold in, my hand a report in which a Governor of the State declared that the future of the Territory so far as finance was concerned, must be dependent almost entirely upon the proper use of coloured labour, presumably under restrictions similar to those under which kanakas were imported into Queensland. Every evidence which can be found in *Hansard* points to the fact that, from the very first, South Australia has done her best to test the mineral and other possibilities of the Territory. She has tried in every way to develop the Territory, and has had to confess through her public men that she has failed. Representing the people of New South Wales, I say that they are willing that South Australia should be paid every penny-piece she .has expended upon a Territory, the occupation of which has been proved to be unprofitable, in spite of every effort made to develop it. When South Australia took over the Northern Territory she was indebted to the Old Country. She had not paid her interest, and that is one reason why she took the Territory over. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- South Australia never repudiated her interest obligations. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator GRAY: -- Apart from that, let me- ask **Senator Vardon** whether, if her occupation of ' the ' Northern Territory had been a success, if the intelligence and business capacity of her people had enabled her to develop it successfully, she would now be asking the Commonwealth Parliament to take it from her. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Did! the honorable senator say that South Australia did not pay her interest? {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator GRAY: -- I did not make any remark of the kind. I ask **Senator Vardon,** as a business man, to say if the money which South Australia has expended on the Northern Territory had resulted in its successful development, we should ever have heard of the proposal to hand it over to the Commonwealth. It is only because the small population of South Australia has expended proportionally a very large amount of money on the Territory without success, and because her public men realize, that under the White Australia policy, which I hold to be right in principle, its development is very improbable, that she is now willing to part with it. It must be admitted that the Territory can only be developed after many years of trial and expense, and South Australia proposes that the Commonwealth should incur the expenditure necessary for the experiment. No honorable senator from South Australia will pledge himself that the Northern Territory is likely to be a prosperous State of the Commonwealth for a very long time to come. Who can say what expense the Commonwealth would be obliged to incur in developing the Territory? At present the loss upon it runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds, and if we do what South Australia desires, it will run into anything from £20.000,000 to ^£30,000, 000. In view of the liabilities already undertaken by the Commonwealth, with our population of 4,500,000, I venture to assert that he would be a very bold man who could pretend tosay how many years must pass before the Commonwealth would securea reasonable return from the money expended in the development of the Northern Territory. In agreeing to take over the Territory at its cost to SouthAustralia, we should be acting most generously, and in the circumstances it is very unreasonable that South Australia should' seek to make conditions as to the way in which the Commonwealth shall proceed todevelop it after it is taken over.. AsSenator Symon has so often said, the people of South Australia should trust the Federal Parliament, and the people of the 'Commonwealth in this matter, to dowhat will be best in the interests of Australia.. **Senator Symon** referred in the most eloquent way to the advantage from? a defence point of view which the Commonwealth would derive from the acquisition of the Territory. I join issue with the honorable senator on that aspect of the question. It is true that the Northern Territory is much nearer the Straits Settlement and Java than are other parts of Australia, and it might, perhaps, be of advantage to us in years to come that the Commonwealth should hold the Territory. But I should like to ask what money South Australia has spent on the defence of that Territory? Twenty years ago (Federation was scarcely thought of in Australia, and I would ask how much South Australia spent in the defence of the Territory up to the establishment of Federation? I would ask also in what way the conditions, from the point of view of defence, have altered since? It is true that the position of Japan has been changed, but no one who knows anything of Java, the Straits Settlement, and the other island" of the North Pacific will believe that we are in any danger of attack from the people of those countries. Should we be in danger of attack through the Northern Territory, does any one realize ' what it would cost to defend that Terri- ' tory - to protect" a coast-line extending for over 1,200 miles? It is absurd to suppose that the Japanese or the Chinese, assuming that they were in a position to make an attack upon Australia, would land their forces in the Northern Territory, when they might land them on the eastern and southern toasts. No one can tell what might happen in fifty years' time, but it is fair to say that in the near future there is likely to be no more reason why the Commonwealth should spend large sums of money -on the defence of the Northern Territory than there has been for such expenditure during the forty years it has been under the control of South Australia. I have here a list of the Premiers and the Cabinets who have administered the affairs of South Australia since the Northern Territory was annexed to that State. The list includes many of the ablest and best citizens of that State. I venture to say that every one of them in his time did his best to develop the Northern Territory, but without success. I applaud the people of South Australia for the efforts they have made, but it must be admitted that, although they have incurred enormous expense, they have failed. Can any' representative of South Australia point to the probability of any revenue from the occupation of theTerritory which in the near future would make this agreement a remunerative one for the Commonwealth? If the Commonwealth acquires the Northern Territory it will be with a knowledge of the loss South Australia has suffered in attempting to develop it, and that the Commonwealth, following upon similar lines, can hope to derive no profit from it. I ask the people of South Australia to take a Federal view of the question, and to admit that we shall be dealing with them in an equitable spirit if we agree, on acquiring the Territory, to recoup them for all they have lost on a bargain which they acknowledge was a bad bargain. If a man buys an unprofitable business, he requires to know how it can be turned into a profitable one. We know that in connexion with this matter the Commonwealth might be called upon to spend £20,000,000, but we do not know what we should get for it. I sent a representative of my firm to the Territory some eight years ago, and on the journey to Oodnadatta there were on the train with him two Chinamen and one white man who had a pass. At that time the railway was running once a fortnight. I ask any reasonable man who will look the facts in the face to say whether we should not be treating South Australia in a generous way if we agreed to take over the Territory at cost? I venture to say that we should not, as a Commonwealth,, be required to make such terms with any outsider. I have evidence here which it would take me hours to read, showing the views held by members of the South Australian Parliament as to the value of the Northern Territory before it was proposed that it should be taken over by the Commonwealth. Whilst I hone that the future will reveal that the Commonwealth Parliament has acted wisely in this matter, I fear that the taking over of the Northern Territory will result in a very serious loss. {: #subdebate-6-0-s6 .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON:
South Australia -- - I do not intend to detain the Senate very long, but I think there are one or two gaps which I may be able to fill before the vote upon the second reading of this Bill is taken. With one or two exceptions no serious objection has been raised to the proposal that the Commonwealth should take over the Territory. **Senator St.** Ledger is the only honorable senator who has ventured to say that he will vote against the second reading of the Bill. His reason for so doing I should like to commend to the Senate. It is that somewhere about i860 the Duke of Newcastle recommended that the Northern Territory should be attached to Queensland, and his recommendation was not given effect to. Simply because his recommendation was not accepted, the proposed transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth is wrong, and **Senator St.** Ledger will oppose the Bill. His opposition, therefore, arises from a piece of petty State jealousy. To my mind, Queensland already possesses sufficient country to occupy her undivided attention, so far as development is concerned, for the next half century, so that she is scarcely justified in casting covetous eyes on the Northern Territory. **Senator Neild** has also indulged in what I can only describe as vague generalities. He devoted a good deal of time to the discussion of matters which were entirely irrelevant to the Bill and wound up his speech with a kind of doublebarrelled amendment, the intention of which is either to waste time or to kill the Bill. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- Clearly to kill the Bill. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- His intention is to kill the Bill and to afford other honorable senators an opportunity of assisting him to do so by speaking upon his amendment. **Senator Gray** has stated that he could prove by quotations from the South Australian *Hansard* that members of the South Australian Parliament had strenuously opposed the taking over of the Northern Territory. That statement is absolutely true. . There were men in the Parliament of South Australia, who bitterly opposed that State ever touching the Territory. **Sir Richard** Baker, your predecessor in the chair, sir, was one of them. He declared that the Territory would be nothing more nor less than a white elephant to South Australia. A number of other gentlemen consistently opposed that State touching the Territory from the very commencement of negotiations in respect to it. But amongst politicians differences of opinion will always exist, and there will always be somebody ready to cry "Rocks ahead" ! It is not to be assumed that the South Australian Parliament is different from any other Parliament in that connexion. This discussion has disclosed that there is a general consensus of opinion that the Commonwealth should take over the Northern Territory. Opposition to the Bill has dwindled down to objection to the conditions contained in the agreement which is embodied in it. I do not propose to waste time in reviewing the history of the Northern Territory or of the efforts which have been made for its development. The chief objection urged against the Bill relates to the construction of the proposed line of railway from Pin° Creek to Port Augusta. It is argued that the Commonwealth should take over all the monetary obligations of South Australia, that that State should be recouped every penny of liability which she has incurred on behalf of the Territory, but that when once the Territory has been taken over this Parliament should be at liberty to do what it chooses with it, and that South Australia has no title to any further consideration. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Hear, hear ! {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am sorry to hear **Senator Gray** say, "Hear, hear," because it shows that he takes that very narrow view of the situation. I repeat that the only objection to the Bill is based upon the claim that South Australia has no title to consideration when once the Commonwealth has taken over the obligations which she has incurred in the ' development of the Northern Territory. The line to Oodnadatta was constructed as part and parcel of a transcontinental railway. It would never have been carried into that dry, arid, and almost waterless country if it had not been regarded as the first section of a line which was ultimately destined to cross Australia from south to north. South Australia would probably have completed the next section as far as the MacDonnell Ranges, but for the bad times and droughts which she has experienced. But there was a period when the South Australian Parliament could have granted permission for the construction of a transcontinental line upon the land grant principle. Had she done so, the company which laid that line would have introduced coloured labour into the Northern Territory - not Japanese or Chinese - but British subjects from India, and the Northern Territory, instead of being an empty space to-day, would have been populated by tens of thousands of coloured labourers engaged in tropical production. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- The mines of the Northern Territory would have been developed ten times more than they are if Chinese had not been employed in them. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am not advocating the introduction of coloured labour. I am merely stating that had the necessary Parliamentary authority been forthcoming at the time of which I speak, coloured labour would have been introduced for the purpose of developing the land, which would have been granted to the company in return for its construction of the transcontinental line. But the South Australian Parliament refused to authorize its construction on the land grant system. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Does not the honorable senator think that the Commonwealth Parliament should be left equally free? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am not complaining of the position which the honorable senator has taken up. I am merely urging that the result of the action of the South Australian Parliament on the occasion in question has been to keep this Territory white from then till now. She is thus in a position to hand it over to the Commonwealth as a white man's country. **Senator Givens** has stated that he is prepared to take over the Territory and to pay the whole of the monetary obligations incurred by South Australia in that connexion. But he wishes to take the heart out of this agreement. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- I want to free the Commonwealth from conditions. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- The honorable senator wishes this Parliament to be allowed to do with its own territory just what it chooses. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- In doing so, South Australia, through her representatives, would have her full say. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- In ordinary circumstances, I should be found indorsing the proposition, of my honorable friend. Under ordinary conditions, his attitude is a perfectly reasonable one. But these are not ordinary conditions. They are altogether extraordinary. I give my honorable friend credit for the straightforward attitude he has adopted. But **Senator St.** Ledger has complained of the obligations which the Commonwealth will incur in taking over the Territory. Now, it seems to me that, as a senator from Queensland, he should have been the last to raise an objection of that kind. What has the Commonwealth done for Queensland? South Australia has kept the Northern Territory white. But did Queensland keep her Territory white? Did she not pollute her Territory by the introduction of black labour, and when that black labour was deported, had not the Commonwealth to pay for its deportation? We were then called upon to assist the Queensland sugargrowers to produce sugar exclusively by white labour, and we cheerfully responded to the call. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- We help South Australia to carry on her industries in the same way. They receive just as high a measure of Protection as does the sugar industry. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- Prior to Federation, South Australia obtained a revenue of from £30,000 to £40,000 per annum from imported sugar. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- We are paying taxes on South Australian salt and wines,1 and we do not complain. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am not complaining of the sugar bounty. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Then, why bring the matter up? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- It was **Senator St.** Ledger who raised the question. I say that he should have been the last to do so, in view of the great consideration which Queensland has received from the Commonwealth. If sugar can be grown successfully by white labour in Queensland today, obviously, it could have been successfully grown under similar conditions years ago. We are now helping Queensland to develop her resources by! means of the sugar bounty, and we are only asking that a little consideration shall be extended to South Australia. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- We are helping the industries of South Australia, too. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- South Australia has no industries which are helped in that way. What does the agreement ask? It asks that South Australia shall receive some recognition for the enterprise and pluck which she has exhibited in times past. **Senator Gray** paid an eloquent ' tribute to the heroic work which has been done by South Australia. She undertook the exploration of the country from south to north, and did it successfully. She carried the telegraph line right across at her own expense, whilst Queensland, according to **Senator St.** Ledger, was pleading with the other States to help her to do a similar work. If Queensland had had as much pluck, she would have had an overland telegraph line of her own. The agreement asks that the Federal Parliament shall recognise the sacrifices that South Australia has made. She has carried on the overland telegraph line so far at a considerable loss. But she recognises, as she was bound to do, that she has taken up too big a contract. She realizes that for a State with a population like hers to construct a railway across the Territory is altogether too big an undertaking. For that reason she has been simply holding it in the interests of Australia as a whole. The line at present ends in a *cul de sac.* Had it been carried on to the MacDonnell Ranges,, which was to be the next section constructed, my belief is that it would have been immediately profitable. A great deal has been said about the conditions binding the Common wealth to construct a certain railway. They do not, however, bind the Commonwealth to construct a line from Oodnadatta <> to Pine Creek. I believe myself that that central route is absolutely the best that the line can traverse, but I have not the least objection to an inspection of the country being made, and, if necessary, to the line being built further to the east. All that is demanded is that the line shall come up to the northern boundary of South Australia. **Senator Neild** declared that he had had' a talk to a gentleman who is in Melbourne in the interests of this measure, and that **Mr. Lindsay** had told him that the country east of the MacDonnell Ranges was all big sand hills, and that it was impossible to build a railway there. **Mr. Lindsay** authorizes me to say that that is an absolute misrepresentation, and that what he told **Senator Neild** was that for 60 miles in the south-east corner of the Northern Territory the sand hills were so big that a railway could not be built there. That is a very different statement from the one which the honorable senator made. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- If it is impossible to build a railway through the 60 miles, it is impossible to complete the whole line. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- The railway can deviate to the one side or the other. There is nothing in the agreement which says what route' it is to take. There are about 580 miles from east to west, and according to this agreement the line can be built anywhere in that country. It is said that a transcontinental railway is required for purposes of defence. We have heard from- **Senator Fraser** and from that eminent military authority, **Senator Neild,** that troops could not be taken from the eastern and southern parts of Australia to the Northern Territory readily enough over the projected line. I do not suppose they could be. Though not a military authority, I can easily recognise that. But what is the best defence of this country? Our best defence is population. The Territory is open now. If we had a line to develop it, and could settle 10,000 or 20,000 people, we should have a means of defence, and then we should not need to think about shifting troops 2,000 or 3,000 miles at a few hours' notice for the purpose of repelling some invader. The best defence, of the Northern Territory; I repeat, is population. A railway is required to enable population to settle, and also for the development of the country itself. What would be the use of taking a line from Pine Creek for two or three hundred miles, and 0then running it into another country? {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- The honorable senator proposes to run the line into another country - South Australia. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- But if the line is to be taken completely out of the Northern Territory, how can it be useful for the development of that Territory? It should go through the centre of the Territory. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- - Every white man I spoke to up there was asking for development from Queensland. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am afraid that the honorable senator had his Queensland spectacles on, and when his vision is so affected he is unable to see things in their proper light. A railway running through the MacDonnell Ranges would open up a vast mineral country. It is known that there are rich deposits there, but the cost of producing them is so great as to make their working unprofitable. It is said that this is a dry country and not capable of agricultural development. But in the MacDonnell Ranges there is a rainfall of between 10 and 11 inches, and it increases as one goes north until it reaches 60 or 80 inches. The country is capable of agricultural development, and will evert grow wheat. It cannot be condemned asbeing arid and dried. There is a good rainfall immediately the MacDonnell Rangesare passed. The route of the projected railway is open for inspection. 1 have noobjection to the best experts in the Commonwealth being sent there for the purposeof deciding the route of the line. I haveno hesitation in saying that I believe they would declare that for the development of the country itself a line from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek would be the best. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- The proper course topursue is to have an investigation madeby experts, and then leave Parliament todecide for itself. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- There is nothing; in the agreement which prevents that policy. There is only one condition of importance, namely, that the line should come to the northern boundary of South Australia. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Leave that out. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- Why should weleave that out? The honorable senatorwants it left out in order that when theTerritory is developed its resources shall benefit eastern States. They would haveits products brought down to Brisbane and Sydney. I am not here to speak for theParliament of South Australia, but, sofar as I can interpret the minds of the people of that State, I believe that this agreement represents the ultimate limit towhich they will be prepared to go. It isreasonable and fair to Australia as a whole, and to South Australia. It is a just agreement. There has been an outcry as to theenormous liability of £10,000,000, with the £5,000,000 extra which will have tobe spent if the railway line is to be completed. But, on the other hand, the Commonwealth would take over a Territory with over 330,000,000 acres of land. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- On which South Australia is losing hundreds of thousands a year. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- There is no reasonwhy there should be a loss if the Territory is developed; and that is the very object of this agreement. The total liability of £15,000,000 represents only is. 3d. per acre for the whole land taken over. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Dear, at that price ! {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- In the honorable senator's view it would be dear at any price. He does not want the Territory taken over "because he considers that these terms would affect his State. He contends that his State would be called upon to bear a large part of trie loss. It is impossible for him to look at the question from a broad standpoint. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- The honorable senator wants his full pound of flesh. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I believe that if the Commonwealth took over the Territory on the conditions mentioned in the agreement, and decided to build a railway through the country, it could be constructed on somewhat the same principle as the land-grant system. It could vest in a Commission appointed to construct the railway 75,000 acres of land per square mile, or a total of 123,000,000 acres which, if realized at 2s. 6d. per acre, would cover the whole of the liability. The Commission could use the land for the benefit of the Commonwealth; it could let or sell the land as it thought fit, and by doing so enough would be realized to cover the whole of the liability. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Does the honorable senator know that every statesman in South Australia has said that the Territory cannot be developed except with black labour? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am one of the statesmen of South Australia, and I have never said anything of the sort, either as a Minister or otherwise. Of course, the pessimists in the community always look upon the dark side of a picture. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Does the honorable senator consider that the railway could be built with white labour? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I do not see any reason why it could not. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Was not the Pine Creek-Port Darwin line built with white labour ? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- No; it was started with white labour, and finished with Chinese coolies. The climate of the MacDonnell Ranges for hundreds of miles northward is not like the climate in the tropical part of the Territory. It is simply raising a bogy to say that the line cannot be built except with coloured labour. I think that if the Commonwealth took over the Territory it would experience no difficulty in that regard. It should be placed in the hands of a Commission, with the right to use, let, or sell the land, and, in my opinion, enough money could be raised not only to pay for the construction of the line, but also to cover the total liability taken over from the State. Some objection has been raised to the working of tha present railway. Some honorable senators say, " Yes, we will take over the line, but we do noc want to work it." I do not imagine that the Commonwealth would be called upon to undertake that duty, because South Australia could carry on the work on behalf of the Commonwealth until the latter was prepared to commence the construction of a railway either from one end or from the other. The responsibility for whatever consequences may result from the rejection of this agreement must rest with the Senate. The Bill was passed in the other House by a very substantial majority, and if it is rejected here, and the State as a consequence agrees to build the railway on the land-grant principle and give away millions and millions of acres of land, nobody will be responsible but the members of the Senate. Only a week or two ago a gentleman came to me and said, " If you throw out this agreement in the Senate, on the next day I will put down £10,000 as a preliminary deposit, and guarantee to carry out the line on the land-grant principle." {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- What road does he take when he goes home at night ? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- I am not going to tell the honorable senator. If the agreement is altered, the alteration will have to be referred to the Parliament of South Australia for ratification. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- They would jump at it. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- No. Whether the State Parliament would accept or reject the alteration I cannot say. But I do know that very strong pressure would be brought to bear upon its members not to budge one inch from the terms of the agreement. I feel quite sure that very strong pressure would be again brought to bear upon the State Parliament to agree to the construction of the railway upon the land-grant principle. So far, the State has refused to allow the Territory to be exploited in that way, and if it should have to give way now for financial reasons, I do not think that it could be blamed by the Senate. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- What price did the man ask who undertook to construct the line on the land-grant principle? {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: -- He agreed to accept the conditions which were laid down in the Act, that is, to take so many acres in alternate blocks on either side of the route,' which would have absorbed a very large area of country. If the Bill is not passed this session, it cannot be taken up next session as a lapsed Bill, because a general election will have intervened. Everything must be begun *de novo.* So far as the . agreement is concerned, the State Parliament has fulfilled its conditions. A great deal has been said with regard to its being an agreement, and to South Australia having got by a long way the best of the bargain. It has been said that the late **Mr. Thomas** Price was too shrewd for the Prime Minister, and got at him. 1 do not share that view. I believe that the proposal was discussed by the Prime Minister and one or two of his colleagues and by **Mr. Price,** and, if I remember rightly, the result of their deliberations was published almost every day in the press.' The agreement was not in any sense arrived at secretly, because the two parties threshed out the matter, and decided what, in their minds, was fair to both the Commonwealth and the State. The State Parliament has passed a Bill which empowers the Government to surrender the Northern Territory, and it has received the King's Assent, but, of course, unless the agreement is accepted, the Act will be a dead letter. I think that the Senate ought to pause before it decides to take the serious step of refusing to ratify the agreement. I have endeavoured to look at the proposal from a fair stand-point. I believe that in accepting it no wrong will be done to the Commonwealth, nor do I consider that anything more than justice will be done to the State. For that reason I hope that honorable senators will be prepared not only to agree to the second reading, but to pass the Bill through Committee without amendment, and take over responsibilities which rightly belong to the Commonwealth. This Parliament passed an Immigration Restriction Act which is intended to keep the continent white, and I think it is quite up to the Commonwealth to see that the spirit of that law is carried out in all things. I do not think that I am making an unreasonable request when I ask the Senate to ratify the agreement as it stands, and thus settle a momentous question on lines equitable to both sides. {: #subdebate-6-0-s7 .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY:
Victoria .- I give way to no honorable senator in the view that this Bill is of the highest importance to every citizen. I regret very much that some of the discussion has proceeded on a very narrow line. There has been almost complete unanimity that it is extremely desirable that the Commonwealth should acquire this enormous area. Honorable senators must know that unless the Bill is passed as it is there is no hope of the Commonwealth having another opportunity to take over the Territory. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Do not be afraid about that. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- Because if the amendment foreshadowed by - **Senator Givens** is carried, the heart will be taken out of the measure, and a mere skeleton left. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Nothing of the sort. We shall have agreed to take over the Territory and develop it. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- We may not have another opportunity presented to us. If I took the dismal view of some honorable senators, I would not desire that the Commonwealth should acquire the Territory. I believe that in the course of perhaps the next quarter of a century, it will be found to be one of the Commonwealth's most valuable assets. It is undoubtedly one of the most highly mineralized parts of Australia, and time alone can determine whether minerals will be found to any great, depth. If they are found no one can foretell the richness of the country. Almost every known mineral has been discovered there. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Imagination will do a lot. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It is not a matter of imagination ; because official information is at the disposal of those who doubt my statement. It is said that the Northern Territory is a waste, dry, barren land, although it contains some of the finest navigable waterways in Australia. **Senator Vardon** incidentally referred to the rainfall throughout various portions of the Territory. According to **Mr. H.** A. Hunt, the Commonwealth Meteorologist, there are 6,300 square miles with a rainfall of 10 inches. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- In how many days ? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I am unable to answer the question. Perhaps if we took the daily rainfall in some parts of Queensland it would not look too well in cold print. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- I daresay it would not, but we are not asking the Commonwealth to take Queensland off our hands. **Senator- FINDLEY.** - The honorable senator knows that it is impossible for me to supply the information he asks for. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- It is in the records. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I am giving the information which has been supplied to me by the Government Meterologist. He states that 213,430 square miles have an average rainfall of from 10 to 20 inches; 96,790 square miles, a rainfall of from 20 to 30 inches; 120,600 square miles, a rainfall of from 30 to 40 inches ; and 86,500 square miles, an average rainfall of over 40 inches. Less than 1 J per cent, of the total area has an average rainfall of under 10 inches. From remarks which have been made in this chamber, one would think that the whole of the citizens of South Australia are pathetically pleading that the Commonwealth should take over this area. Let me tell honorable senators that there is a division of opinion in South Australia on the question. There are many influential men in the State who have an extensive knowledge of the Territory who believe that it would be better for South Australia to hold on to it. In confirmation of that statement, I have here a resolution which was passed by the Adelaide Chamber of Commerce. The members of that Chamber came to a unanimous conclusion that - >Negotiations with the Commonwealth should be discontinued, and that facilities should be given for the construction of a railway from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek on the land-grant system. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- What is the date of ' that? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I quote the resolution from a pamphlet published by **Mr. Robert** Barr Smith, a prominent citizen of South Australia. The pamphlet w;as printed in 1907, and I assume that the resolution was passed shortly before the printing of the pamphlet. We know that there has been in South Australia for a long period of years a very strong desire on the part of certain people to develop the Northern Territory in a particular way. It is believed by a section - though it may be a small section of the citizens of that State - that the only way in which it can be developed is by the construction of the transcontinental railway on the land-grant system. I say that there could be nothing more inimical to the interests, not merely of South Australia, but of the whole of the Commonwealth, than that that Territory should be' handed over - for that is what it would mean - to a private syndicate. I believe that some time ago the promise was made that if a private syndicate would construct this line, involving an expenditure of £6,000,000 or £8,000,000, they should be given land on either side of the line to the extent of 90,000,000 acres, an area equal to more than one and a half times the size of Victoria. We know something of the history of syndicate railways in different parts of the world, and if such an area of land on either side of the railway were given to a private syndicate they might just as well be given the whole of the Territory. I am glad to say that it was mainly through the instrumentality of the late **Mr. Thomas** Price that the proposals then put forward for the construction of this railway on the land-grant system were defeated. A high tribute is paid to the late **Mr. Thomas** Price, and the party with which he was associated, by **Mr. Barr** Smith in the pamphlet which I have here. He says - >Fortunately for South Australia, the Labour Party as a party is altogether opposed to landgrant railways, and is even willing to make a stand against a popular cry for an expenditure which seems to go in the direction of helping labour. All honour to them. The State has good reason to rejoice in such a stand. It shows a statesmanship of a high order. Have we no reason sometimes to fear Governments putting the exigencies of party life and- party gain before the manifest interests of the State? It is therefore- matter for national congratulation when any party has the conscience and courage to strenuously object to a policy which they know to be unsound, even when it seems to give a temporary advantage to their supporters and friends. Common sense will applaud, and all experience hereafter justify the stand made by the Premier. The late **Mr. Price** has gone where we all must go sooner or later, and there is in power in South Australia to-day, not a Labour Government, but a Government that has coalesced with its one-time bitterest enemies. It is difficult to prophesy what that. Government might be disposed to do if this Bill were not agreed to. Certain honorable senators have said " Let us take over the Northern Territory by all means, but let the Commonwealth decide what route the railway shall take." Some have made no secret of the fact that they are interested in this question, not so much from the point of view of the Commonwealth as from the point of view of what they believe to be the interests of the States they represent. If it were possible for the Commonwealth to acquire the Territory without agreeing to any condition as to the route of the railway, I can quite imagine that in future Parliaments we should have the State Righters, with all their armour on, fighting, as perhaps they have never before fought in this chamber, for advantages for their own States from the construction of this transcontinental line. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- As a member of the Senate, I hope the honorable senator is a State Righter. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It is true that I am here as a representative of the State of Victoria; but in this matter I consider the interests of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is because I am satisfied that it would be to the material advantage of every citizen of the Commonwealth that I am extremely anxious to see this Bill go through. It is, I think, remarkable that the Government have not sought to exercise the same power over their supporters in dealing with this measure that they did when the financial agreement was before the Senate. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- Has the honorable senator done so with his colleagues on the other side? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- That is scarcely a fair reply to my remark. **Senator Best** must be aware that we did not on this side make the Constitution Alteration (Finance) Bill a party question. It is true that honorable senators of the Labour party voted in opposition to that Bill. But every member of the party had an absolutely free hand in dealing with it. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- They voted solidly all the same. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- That is true, but it was merely a coincidence. The Ministerialists voted as a party for the Bill.- {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- No, there were two honorable senators on the Ministerial side who voted against it. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I do not regard **Senator Symon** as a supporter of the Government. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Tn the debate on the financial agreement the honorable senator reminded us that he was one. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I did not know until now that Senators Symon and Keating were members of the Fusion party. That is news to me. If the Government were really in earnest in their desire to see this measure passed in the Senate as it was passed in another place, there 'would not be any doubt as to the number of votes that would be recorded in favour of the Bill. . {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- I do not know that there is any doubt now. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- **Senator** Chataway did his duty as the Government Whip in rounding up Ministerial supporters to vote for the Constitution Alteration (Finance) Bill, but he has been inactive in trying to secure the passage of this Bill -through the Senate. If the honorable senator has shown any activity in the matter at all, it has been in his efforts not to secure the passage of the Bill, but to kill it. I say that this is a remarkable attitude for Government supporters to take up. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- This is altogether above party. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It is a part of the Government programme, and I was always under the impression, that when a Government introduced their programme their supporters did what they could to carry it into effect. I have heard the statement made within the precincts of this chamber that this Bill is not likely to go through the Senate. When certain honorable senators expressed surprise that it should have been passed in another place, the remark was made by one honorable senator, "You need not be afraid; it will not get through the Senate.' ' Let me say that in the consideration of this measure there has been too much of the huckstering spirit displayed. It has been suggested that South Australia is desirous of making a good bargain with the Commonwealth. Honorable senators appear to forget that the Northern Territory is a part of the Commonwealth. Although it has not yet been taken over by the Commonwealth from South Australia, surely they are as much interested in that part of the Commonwealth as in any other. Every one regrets that this immense area, which is six times the size of the State I represent, should have remained so long unpeopled and undeveloped. It has been said that its vastness and emptiness make it a menace to the whole of Australia. If the statement be correct, and I do not doubt it for a moment, how is it that there should be so vigorous an opposition in this Chamber, which is supposed to be a national Chamber, to a national question? As **Senator Vardon** has said, South Australia has shouldered the burden of the Northern Territory for nearly half -a -century. I say, with **Senator Symon,** that the people of that State have made heroic attempts, and very great sacrifices to do what they considered was in the interests, not merely of South Australia, but of the Commonwealth as a whole. They incurred an initial expenditure in connexion with the Territory of nearly £500,000 for the construction of the overland telegraph line. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- A good scheme. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It was a work which, in my opinion, ought to have Been undertaken by the whole of the Colonies of Australia at the time. South Australia took upon herself the responsibility of constructing it alone, and has had to bear an annual deficit in connexion with it. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- Queensland made an offer at the time. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Queensland wanted the other States to help her. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- The fact remains that South Australia built the overland telegraph une at a cost of nearly £500,000, and there has been a deficit in the working of it during the last twenty years amounting to nearly £300,000. The State has made an heroic attempt to span the Continent with a railway. She built from Port Darwin to Pine Creek what was, perhaps, one of the most costly lines ever constructed in Australia, because it had to be constructed upon iron sleepers. That was found necessary because of the ravages of white ants. In the building of the jetty and pier, similar precautions had to be adopted. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- The railway from Normanton to Croydon, in Queensland, is built upon the same principle. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It has been said that in Committee the heart is to be taken out of this Bill. In the interests of Australia, I hope that that is not so. I believe that a golden opportunity is now afforded the Commonwealth to do what is right in the interests, not only of South Australia, but of the whole of Australia. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- What about the future of the Northern Territory? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It is a future which is full of great possibilities. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Potentialities. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It scarcely becomes a member of the National Parliament to deride any portion of the Commonwealth for which he is called upon to legislate. When **Senator Gray** was speaking, he expressed a doubt as to whether the proposed line from Pine Creek to Oodnadatta could be constructed by means of white labour. But, even if he thinks that that railway cannot be built except by coloured labour, does he imagine for a moment that the Commonwealth will develop other portions of the Northern Territory with coloured labour ? We know that white men have lived and worked in the most trying portions of Australia. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- They lived a little while and have been dead a long time. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I regret that there seems to be a disposition on the part of several honorable senators to treat this matter lightly. No measure has come before the Senate in which I feel more interest than I do in this Bill. I am aware that influences have been at work in various directions with a view to winning votes. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Have those influences been all on one side.? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I can assure **Senator Givens** that nobody has attempted to exert influence with me. Had the attempt been made, it would have been fruitless. When I visited the Northern Territory about two years ago, and covered about 1,000 miles of it, I determined that, if I was afforded the opportunity, I would raise my voice in favour of the acquisition by the Commonwealth of this immense Possession. From time to time innumerable pamphlets and papers have been published with a view to refuting the statement so repeatedly made that the Territory is an arid waste. As a matter of fact, in some portions of it, cattle and sheep fatten much more rapidly than they do in any other part of Australia. Moreover, they realize higher prices. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- There are nearly 400,000 cattle there now. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Would it not be quite enough if the honorable senator said that the Northern Territory is as good as other parts of Australia? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- Expert evidence can be cited in confirmation of my statement. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Not one of the advocates of the Bill has ever invested a shilling in the Territory. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- That statement may be perfectly true. But it may be equally true that honorable senators have never invested a single shilling in enterprises in other parts of Australia which today are highly profitable, which are returning big dividends and paying reasonable wages. It is a fact that during the past few years there has been little or no development in the Northern Territory. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Why? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- Because South' Australia has been quite unable to deal with it in a systematic manner. But if the Commonwealth acquired the Territory it would have behind it a population of 4,000,000 and moneys which would enable it to conduct experiments upon up-to-date scientific lines. Nobody can dispute the fact that a Territory possessing good soil, and having the advantages of sunshine, a good rainfall, and navigable water-ways, is capable of sustaining a large population. Some years ago Western Australia was regarded as an absolutely waste land. Even when the gold-fields were discovered men who were considered experts declared that it was altogether unsuitable for cultivation. Yet those who are familiar with that State to-day say that portions of it are producing heavier wheat crops than are being produced in any other part of the Commonwealth. In the early stages of the gold fever, too, Western Australia imported considerable quantities of fruit, and it was then alleged that the country was absolutely unsuitable for the production of fruit. But to-day fruits of all kinds are grown in abundance there, and Western Australia, which was at one time considered a barren waste, has now a fairly large population. What will be gained by casting this Bill into the waste- paper basket? Will any good purpose be served by the Commonwealth refusing to do its duty? Now that we have begun our career as nation builders it is the duty of the Commonwealth to build upon a concrete foundation, and it is impossible to do that whilst we neglect any portion of it. Some honorable senators profess to believe that if we reject this Bill, the South Australian Parliament, after more mature consideration, will eliminate from the agreement which we are asked to ratify the condition relating to the construction of a line of railway from Pine Creek to Oodnadatta. I do not think it will do anything of the kind. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- What if it does not? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- It may be that the South Australian Parliament will take a course of action which those who have assisted to defeat this Bill will live to regret. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- What is that? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- Earlier in my remarks I said that it will probably make overtures to syndicates in other parts of the world for the construction of that line on the land-grant system. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Every State is at liberty to do the same thing now. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- But it has been definitely decreed by the people that the railways shall be controlled and owned by the State. Consequently, there is very little likelihood of a departure being made' from the existing condition of things. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- And does the honorable senator consider that South Australia will be less Democratic in that regard than is any of the other States ? {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator FINDLEY: -- I know that today an undemocratic party is in power in South Australia, and that when a similar party was in office there not long ago it made an effort to complete the transcontinental line upon the land-grant system. It was only when the Democratic party came into power, led by the late **Mr. Price,** that that system was given its quietus and that negotiations were opened up with the Prime Minister - negotiations which resulted in the agreement which is now before us. It is because I believe that the transfer of the Northern Territory would be in the best interests of the Commonwealth that I intend to give a whole-hearted support to this Bill. *Sitting suspended, from 6.30 to 7.45 -p.m.* {: #subdebate-6-0-s8 .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator DOBSON:
Tasmania .- It seems to me that the question of developing the Northern Territory is one of the most difficult problems, and certainly one of the gravest financial responsibilities, with which this Parliament has ever been faced. It cannot be complained that we have debated the subject at undue length. The result of the debate will be to inform the Prime Minister on the one hand, and the Government of South Australia on the other, concerning the defects which some of us see in the agreement now presented for our acceptance. It is perfectly plain to me that the Northern Territory must be taken over by the Commonwealth, and that South Australia will have to part with it. I am particularly anxious to treat South Australia fairly, and even generously. But on behalf of the Commonwealth I am bound to exercise such business capacity as I have in the interests of the electors who sent me here; and I must see that the agreement does not unduly fetter the Commonwealth in developing the Territory in the best possible way. As to the question of defence, let me say, in a sentence or two, that I do not attach the same importance to land defence as some of our professional soldiers do. I suppose that *I* ought to say that with apologies to mv honorable and gallant friend, **Senator Neild.** I also do not pay much attention to what a general may have said ten or twenty years ago. The existence ot trie Empire to which we belong must depend upon the maintenance of our supremacy at sea; and whether we have a railway built more orless to the eastward or the westward for carrying troops to Port Darwin is a minor point. But considerations of defence alone ought to prevent us from entering into this agreement, because it is perfectly apparent that most of our troops will come from the country between Melbourne and Brisbane, which lies more to the east. The great crux of the question, however, is: How are we to develop the Territory? It cannot be developed without railway communication, and consequently we are at once faced with the consideration of the way in which the railway is to go. Immediately after I left Port Darwin, having availed myself of all the opportunities that presented themselves to gather information about the Territory, I ,came to the conclusion that the railway should run from Pine Creek down towards Cammoweal, and that we should not build that line until we had an assurance from the States concerned that it would be connected with trunk lines. I find that a line, such as I contemplate, would be about 650 miles in length as against 1,063 miles, which is the estimated length of a line from Pine Creek to Oodnadatta. I have been told by people in the Northern Territory, and the statement has been confirmed by **Senator Fraser,** that there is in the north-eastern part a considerable strip of good pastoral country. I was also told that this country extends over the border until you come close to Cloncurry, which is a mining centre. If we have three or four hundred miles of good pastoral country fit for all kinds of settlement, and the line thus built is three or four hundred miles shorter than the one which South Australia desires, that surely opens up a grave question as to whether the north-eastern line is not the better one to build. I admit at once that a line down the centre of Australia seems to be the better one for the development of the Northern Territory itself. All other things being equal, I should be inclined to vote for that line in the interests of South Australia. But as I find that that would be in every sense the worst line to build, and that that would not be the best plan of developing the Territory, I shall have to vote against it. It is because we have not sufficient information before us on a dozen vital points that I cannot consent to an agreement binding us to construct a line to the northern boun dary of South Australia. For the purpose of opening up the Territory, I should like to see a line built down the centre, but when I commence to study the map I am faced with difficulties. I notice red patches on the map exhibited in this chamber. I understand that they represent pastoral leases which have been issued by the State. I see a patch of pastoral leases to the south of the MacDonnell ranges. When we look at the north-east portion, near the Queensland border, we see that there is there a tremendous amount of pastoral settlement. To the north-west there is a still larger amount of settlement on the banks of the splendid Victoria River. But from the MacDonnell Ranges upwards there does not appear to be a single settlement. There appear to be hundreds of miles of country north, east, south, and west, which up to the present have been deemed to be absolutely unfit for settlement. Of course, we have to take into consideration that there have been few facilities for settlement. But when we remember that droves of cattle are driven seventeen hundred miles, we may take it that if the centre of that country had been worthy in any way of the risk of settling it, there would have been a great many red patches on the map showing that pastoral leases had been taken up there. My honorable friend, the Minister of Trade and Customs, gave us the estimate that the projected railway, 1,063 miles in length, would cost about ,£4,500,000. I have been furnished with a document which was prepared for the information of the members of the Federal Convention by **Mr. A.** G. Pendleton, Railway Commissioner, South Australia. He estimated that the 1,063 miles of railway would cost £7,004 per mile, or a total of £7,447,321. That is a very much larger sum than that mentioned by the Minister in introducing the Bill ; and the disparity between the figures shows at once how absolutely deficient we are in real facts as to the Territory. Of course, it is admitted that there has been no survey. There has not even been a flying survey. The figures supplied to us represent merely a rough estimate. I am certain from my knowledge of what narrow-gauge railways cost in Tasmania and New Zealand, and from what the Pine Creek railway cost, that £4,500,000 would not be sufficient for the construction of even the greater part of -the 1,063 miles of line. Another reason against constructing / this railway is that we can gain some knowledge from the experience of South Australia. We all know that the financial undertaking of developing that great Territory was too big for South Australia. It was almost too big for any State. But, still, South Australia has tried to do it. She has spent and lost enormous sums of money. What are the results ? One thing amongst others has been made plain, and that is that the Territory up towards the MacDonnell Ranges and towards the centre of Australia, the country all about Oodnadatta and towards Port Augusta, is hardly worth settling. The railway which has been running for so many years would have occasioned more settlement than there is if the country had been worth developing. Therefore it appears to me that the experience of South Australia is a warning to us, because, although we may desire to treat the State generously, we must admit that her attempts to develop ihe Territory have resulted in failure. Can anybody indicate how the Territory can be made a. success? Can any one point out any reason why it has not been developed? There is a railway upon which the loss is £72,000 a year. If we sign this agreement from the date when it becomes law we shall be losing £72,000 a year on the Oodnadatta railway alone. We shall also be losing, from the moment of taking over the Territory. £46,000 a year on the Pine Creek railway. I travelled over the latter line from Port Darwin to Pine Creek and back again. I kept my eyes open, looking out of the -windows of the railway carriage perpetually. I must confess that the country I saw was very disappointing. There were a few mines. Some of them, have been doing well. Some of them have good prospects. Some of them have ruined their shareholders. Every now and then there were Chinese along the line who came with supplies of beef and vegetables. I was told that a few miles back the land was good enough for cattle. But if there is a great mass of country like . that which I saw, I do not hope for much from it. and if there is some which is worse, I am perfectly certain that the railway never will, and never can, pay. If such has been the experience of South Australia in regard to the Oodnadatta and the Pine Creek railways, is there any better hope of developing the Territory from the eastern States? Tt is to be regretted that perhaps both New South Wales and Queensland are deeply interested in this question. I be- lieve that every one of the senators from those States who has spoken honestly believes what he has said. Nevertheless, we cannot help our unconscious bias; but, apart from their State interests, it appears to me that there is a great deal to be said for their contention that there is not much hope for the development of the Territory from the South Australian end. Can any one suggest what we could do to cause the 1,063 miles of railway to bring in revenue and to develop the Territory, if we try it from the Oodnadatta end? I must say that I do not think the prospect is very bright. On the other side, however, there is a brighter prospect. First of all, Queensland would have to build, and I believe would be willing to build, 250 miles of railway. Then we should have to build 650 miles to the Queensland border. The whole of that country, or nearly the whole of it, is fit for settlement, both for pastoral and agricultural purposes. I have heard a great deal about the Northern Territory being fit to grow tropical products. The Minister of Trade and Customs stated that at Port Darwinalmost every tropical plant .that can bementioned is growing. But to those of uswho know the place, that statement appears to be a little misleading. We visited the Botanic Garden at Port Darwin with very great interest, and had numerouschats with **Mr. Holtze.** We saw thesevarious agricultural products being; grown in a rather amateurish fashion. But to say that because a product or aplant will grow in that garden after having been properly cultivated, you could" cultivate the product, and market it profitably is another thing. I am inclined tothink, especially since my visit to Port Darwin, that our tropical Australia is a very much exaggerated property. It was an unfortunate circumstance to me thatwhen I got into the Northern Territory, among the buffaloes, I did not see any fruit. I could not find out that there was a single fruit that would keep manalive which was indigenous to the country. I found that oranges, lemons, and fruitsof that sort could not be grown on account of the white ants. I was faced with' the labour problem. We are informed that the Pine Creek-Port Darwin railway was commenced with white labour, that sometime afterwards the men began . to throw up their jobs, and that finally it was completed with 'Chinese labour- However much we may love our doctrine of a White Australia, there is the fact that close to Port Darwin, to which delicacies could be carried by ships, and sent down the line, white men threw up their jobs before its construction was finished. It has been stated that had the Northern Territory been peopled with natives of India, whom ex-Senator Playford selected after he had made many inquiries, we should have had tropical products of all descriptions growing there, as well as a great amount of settlement. If we admit those two things as facts, what is the logical conclusion to draw therefrom? If ever we want to develop the Northern Territory, and effectively settle it, we shall have to make some little exception to our White Australia policy. 'It is of no use to say one thing and mean another. To my mind, it is a very grave problem whether we could effectively settle the Territory by means of white labour only. I gained one or two facts which prove to me that it could be developed with white labour. In the railway workshops I came across two men of splendid physique, one being about 5 ft. 10 in. high, and the other 6 feet, weighing about 14 stone each, and looking the picture of health. The men who were working in the shops under cover told me that they had worked with navvies on the line, and that a white man could do so if he would only keep away from alcohol. I came across another splendid specimen of a man, standing about 6 ft. 3 in. high, and when I asked him the same question about developing the Territory with white labour, he replied, "I took the contract for putting the iron roofs on all the ^buildings in connexion with the Pine Creek railway. I was engaged on the work for seventeen months, and had forty-three men in my employ during that time, and every one of them - Japanese, Chinese, and white men - sooner or later, chucked up their jobs." It will be seen that we are faced with great difficulties. I believe that it will be found a most difficult problem to start tropical agricultural industries unless we employ other than white labour. Let me refer to one or two industries which, I think, might be made to flourish with white labour. I allude to the growing of tobacco and maize, and the rearing of pigs. I believe that such industries might be started side by side with cattle or sheep breeding, and by degrees it could be ascertained to what extent we could grow cotton, coffee, and other crops of that description. It will be found that the labour question is a very troublesome one. Suppose that we were to take over the Northern Territory under this or an amended agreement, how is it to be developed? We are bound to lose an enormous sum before we have scarcely made a start. Before we have got a railway built our losses will have piled up, and I do not think that anybody will be able to foresee the end of it. Still, we must take over the Territory, and face the problem. I do not believe for a moment that if this agreement is rejected the Government of South Australia will be unwise enough to do anything but confer with the Prime Minister, with a view to seeing on what terms fair to both the Commonwealth and the State a new agreement can be made. I do not desire to drive the unfortunate taxpayers of the State into striving to get this railway built on the land-grant principle. If they did, I believe that they would live to regret their action, and that no good would come of it. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Let them do it. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator DOBSON: -- For their sake, as well as our own, I do not want to see them do it. For twenty-five years this will be nothing but a great financial burden - all outgoings and no incomings worth talking about I do not know how we are going to tackle the question of the gauge to be adopted for the railway. Has any honorable senator considered for a moment whether the railway to develop this vast area should have a 3 ft. 6 in. or a 4 ft. 8J in. gauge? The Pine Creek railway has a 3ft. 6in. gauge, and so have the Queensland railways. That, to my mind, is a very strong reason why the Territory should be developed from the eastward. The Bishop of Carpentaria told me that he had travelled down the central telegraph line, and that he was astounded at the barrenness of the country through which he passed. He told me that he had four horses to take the buggy, himself, and another man over the sandhills. I gathered from him that there were from 50 to 70 miles of sandhills going clown the central track. But I gathered from **Mr. Lindsay,** whose lecture I heard with very great pleasure, and with whom I have had the advantage of conversing, that the land a little away from the railway line is, to some extent, better than one would think. He gave me a far more favorable impression than that I gathered from the Bishop, who only travelled down one track where the boggy could go, and what he said is confirmed by the report of some of the engineers. I look forward to the time when a railway will go from Constantinople, across Persia, across India, and down to Singapore, and we shall travel from London to Port Darwin without spending more than three nights at sea, that is, from Singapore to Australia. If we cannot develop the Northern Territory without tens of thousands of persons from the Mother Country or elsewhere to help us, are we going to bring every visitor from the Old Country along 1,500 miles of railway with little or no good land visible from the train? I do not suggest that we should build a railway by any route simply to enable persons to get a good view from the carriage windows. In that distance of 600 odd miles to Cammoweal there is some splendid pastoral country, but between Port Darwin and Port Augusta a distance of 1,500 miles, there is little or no good land except through the MacDonnell Ranges, and if the railway is constructed by that route we shall give every visitor a most terrible idea of the barrenness of the Territory. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Has the honorable senator ever crossed *the* Nevada Desert? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator DOBSON: -- No, but I have crossed the Texan Desert for a distance of about 200 miles. One fancied that he saw nothing but grass, with every now and then a cactus 30 feet high sticking up, but, as a matter of fact, there was no grass' as there was little rainfall. Let me now touch on a point which I have not heard dealt with, and it certainly is' in favour of the railway being taken through the central part of Australia. What are we to say with regard to the development of Western Australia, which embraces an enormous' area? I take it that some day the northeastern part of that State will have to be developed. There is an enormous water frontage from which our enemies will come if ever they do come. We all know of the pastoral leases on the Victoria River or in that direction. The question is whether, to a very great extent, a railway constructed by the route which the people of South Australia desire would not open a very vast area to the west of the Territory and in the north-east corner of Western Australia. If we are to take a national view of these things, as I think we should do, there is something to be said in favour of that idea. But, without the thought of developing Western Australia, and without the thought of developing the country up by the Victoria River, there is no sufficient reason, according to the map, to warrant a man in building the proposed railway if it cost only £1,000 a mile, and I feel quite certain that it would cost £7,000 a mile. But, having regard to the whole of the continent, to my mind we shall have to carry out the old English policy of taking one- step at a time. I do not think that any man can foresee how we shall develop the Territory. We must proceed very slowly, and if we can, at a cost of £3,000,000, link up the country by way of Cammoweal with the eastern States, knowing that we shall be doing, a good thing, Will not that be better than to spend £7,500,000 in opening up a Territory which, on the face of it, does not disclose good land or possibilities of settlement or hope of marketable products? I shall be very sorry indeed to find any honorable senator voting against the second reading of the Bill. We should pass the motion to show that we approve of the principle of taking over the Territory on terms fair to South Australia. But what those terms are to be will require a. great deal more consideration and negotiation than either **Mr. Price** or **Mr. Deakin** has yet given to the question. This is the most difficult problem with which we have ever been faced, and it _ will take months, of negotiation to discover what is the right thing to do for the Commonwealth and the just thing to do for the State. {: #subdebate-6-0-s9 .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART:
Queensland -- I have no intention of speaking at any length. This subject has been very well' threshed out, and while honorable senators are unanimous as to the desirability of" taking over the Territory there seems to besome difficulty with regard to the terms. I think that South Australia ought to berelieved of a burden which has become too heavy for her to bear any longer, and which she ought to be glad to get rid of on almost any terms. I am surprised that the Commonwealth Government should haveaccepted such terms as are contained inthis agreement, and, further, that the SouthAustralian Government should have dic- *tated them. It appears to me to be only fair that if the Commonwealth takes overthe Northern Territory with all its obligations, the development of it should be left entirely in the hands of the people of theCommonwealth without any fetter, and! without any conditions being previously laid down. That would be only fair. If I am in business and get into trouble, and some kind friend comes to my relief and engages to carry on the business in future after I have bungled it, I think he would open his eyes if I, having previously failed in the undertaking, endeavoured to lay down the lines on which he should conduct the business in future. If any man takes over my business after I have failed in it, I think he is entitled to carry it on in the future in his own way, when, if he fails, he will have to pay the piper, and if he succeeds he will secure the benefit. While I believe that that is a principle which may very fairly and justly be laid down, and one to which every honest individual and every fairminded public body would at once agree, we may go even further with regard to this agreement and say that the policy which has been laid down by South Australia in this agreement is one which is not in the best interests either of South Australia herself or of the Commonwealth. I had the privilege of going to Oodnadatta as the guest of the South Australian Government. I felt very grateful to that Government for giving me that opportunity, but I can assure honorable senators that my journey to that place was an eye-opener. I was surprised that any poor, sparsely-populated State like South Australia ever had the courage to build a railway to such a place. I have been over a very considerable portion of Australia, but I never saw. country so barren, so inhospitable, and so unfit for settlement as I did on that occasion. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Then why did the honorable senator say that he was in favour of the Bill? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- I never said anything of the kind. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The honorable senator did say it. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- It is possible that I may have said it in jest. I do not believe in people trying to lobby me. I have stated here on several occasions in distinct and clear terms what I intended to do. If **Senator W.** Russell had had his ears open he would have heard me, or he might have read in *Ilansard* what I said. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I took the honorable senator's word. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- The honorable senator never got my word. If he asked me whether I intended to support the Bill and I said "Yes," I did so merely in the spirit that he was asking me a question which I was not inclined to answer, or which I had answered previously if he had taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the facts. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- That is an evasion. I am justified in what I said. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- The, honorable senator had no right in any case to come asking me what I proposed to do. I resent any man asking me how I am going to vote on matters of this kind. I say that it is exceedingly improper that any honorable senator should go round trying to induce other members of the Senate to vote against their previously expressed convictions. I have never privately asked any man to vote in a particular way. I may have directed arguments to honorable senators in this Chamber, but I have tried in no other way to influence the vote nf a single member of the Senate. I think it is improper to do so. I was speaking of the country around Oodnadatta. It was exceedingly poor. Of course, we wore told by some people there that a few miles back the country improved. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- It is always better further out. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- Yes, that is an old story which I have heard a hundred times. I admit that I saw a few horses in excellent condition, but they were very few. The very fact that a train is run along that line only once in two weeks is abundant evidence as to the character of the country. We have in Queensland a line constructed from Rockhampton right out to Longreach. On that line there are two or three trains run on some days ; there are two or three mail trains every week, and there is constant communication between Longreach and the coast. The same thing applies to the railway from Townsville to Cloncurry, and to the railway fi om Brisbane to Cunnamulla. All the backcountry served by those railways is settled, and the pastoral industry carried on there is in a prosperous condition. Here we have a railway line from Port Augusta to Oodnadatta on which a train is run only once every two weeks, and on which there is an annual deficit of between £70,000 and £80,000. We have heard a great dealabout the MacDonnell Ranges. We are told that they are a kind of oasis in the desert ; but we have no certain information upon the matter. Then, with regard to the Northern Territory, I have heard honorable senators dilate upon the splendid soil,, the good rainfall, the climate generally, and the various advantages possessed by that portion of Australia. My onlyanswer to that is, I think, an all-sufficient one - the Territory has been known for forty years, and there is no settlement there worth mentioning. I say that if the country had been worth settling it would have been covered with sheep and cattle many years ago. In Queensland, at any rate, our great squatting companies have men continually on the look-out for fresh country. If this country had been of such a character that it might be put to profitable use, it would have been taken up and stocked many years ago. It has not been taken up or stocked, and it is almost an empty land. I have come to the conclusion that it is not quite of the quality we have been invited to believe. We are told that the transcontinental line proposed in this agreement is necessary for the purposes of defence. I think that is the very weakest link in the whole chain of the argument in support of this measure. Any man looking at the map must see that. The great bulk of the population of Australia is settled between Melbourne and Brisbane, and if it were necessary for defence purposes to send troops to Port Darwin they would have to be taken all the way round to Port Augusta in the first instance, and would then have to be carried north to Port Darwin. They would have to be brought south from Townsville, Rockhampton, Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, and then from Melbourne right round to Port Augusta before they could be forwarded on by the proposed line to Port Darwin. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator Story: -- The honorable senator does not believe that? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- I do believe it. and if other honorable senators have not sufficient intelligence to see that it is true I am sorry for them. There is another view to take of this aspect of the question. We know that eastward of the MacDonnell Ranges, between Queensland and the Northern Territory and between Queensland and South Australia, there is country which might be much more closely settled than it is at the present moment. We know that if a transcontinental line were run from Palmerston in such a way as to tap that country, the State Governments of Queensland and New South Wales would construct lines to link up with that line. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- How does the honorable senator know that? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- I know it, because even now the policy is to push out into that country from the coast. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Is that the Kidston ticket? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- Kidston is not Queensland. He is only one man, and I say that the policy of the people of Queensland is to extend the railways of the State continually westward to tap new country and open up fresh territories capable of development. If a transcontinental line from Port Darwin were 'built by such a route as I have suggested, there would be an additional inducement to extend lines from the coast westward to connect with that line. If those connexions were made, troops could be sent at once from Sydney, Brisbane, Rockhampton, and Townsville, and could be massed at Port Darwin in a comparatively short time, instead of having to be sent round *via* Port Augusta. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- We should have four or five short lines instead of one long one. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- Exactly. I think it would be very much better, even in the interests of South Australia, that the transcontinental railway should be constructed by such a route as I have suggested than that it should be built right down the centre of Australia. A line down the centre of Australia could not possibly pay for the next fifty or 100 years. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- Would the honorable senator leave central Australia without railway communication for 1,000 miles? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- Central Australia has no railway communication now. In every State in Australia the people desire that railways shall be constructed in districts suitable for closer settlement. If in the course of time it is found that the very heart of Australia is suited for closer settlement, railways will be constructed there, but that time is not now. We want railways constructed nearer to the coast now, and even from the defence point of view such railways would serve us very much better than a railway right down the centre of Australia. I believe that the day will come when there will be more than one line down the centre of Australia, and perhaps across Australia. But that will not be in our time. It is enough for us that we should do the work which lies to our hands without trying to encroach too much upon what should be done by future generations. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- If the Bill goes through in its present form, the transcon- tinental railway might not be constructed for the next thirty or forty years. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- I am desirous of seeing a transcontinental railway constructed in my time. We have now a railway from Sydney to Bourke, in New South Wales. Queensland has pushed her southern and western railway out to Cunnamulla; her central railway to Longreach ; and her northern railway to Cloncurry, and any one looking at the map will see how readily those lines might be connected with a transcontinental railway which would not be quite so far out as the route proposed by South Australia. If the railway, right through the centre of the continent, for which South Australia bargains, be constructed, the Commonwealth will also have to build a number of spur lines to connect with the various State railways - to connect, for example, with the Cunnamulla line, the Charleville line, the Longreach line, . the Cloncurry line, and the Bourke line. In other words, it will have to build five spur lines, in addition to the main line. That is an undertaking which under present circumstances the 'Commonwealth ought not to be called upon to face. It may be urged that the opponents of this agreement are dealing very unfairly with South Australia. I give that State every credit for having held the Northern Territory so long, and for having kept it white. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- Fairly white. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- I suppose that if it had been as capable of settlement as is the eastern coast of Queensland, it would have been something less than fairly white. It might have been fairly black or piebald. I do not think that any particular desire has ever been exhibited even by coloured persons to settle that portion of the country. Had there been, I am not quite sure that the South Australian Government would have placed any obstacle in the way of such settlement. But the country is fairly white, and if South Australia be entitled to any credit in that connexion I willingly concede it. I am quite prepared to do what is fair by that State. I think that if the Commonwealth becomes responsible for every liability which South Australia has incurred on behalf of the Northern Territory, it will have done everything that it is incumbent upon it to do. For South Australia to attempt to lay down the lines of future development is to usurp a position which she ought not to occupy. The future development of the Northern Territory wilt have to be paid for by the people of the Commonwealth, and those who pay thepiper are at least entitled to call the tune. If I paid for the development of a particular piece of country, naturally I should- expect to have some voice in determining how that development should beeffected. **Senator Symon** has suggested that if the Commonwealth does not take over the Northern Territory on the terms laid down in the proposed agreement, the South Australian Government may hand it. over to a syndicate. I do not believe that there is a syndicate in creation which would have anything to do with it, unlessthe country is very much better - a hundred times better - than any which I saw on my recent visit to Oodnadatta.. Nosyndicate would invest a single shilling in such an enterprise. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- One syndicate is offering to take it over now. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- There may be some bluff of that sort going on, but such a threat has no terrors for me. If **Senator Symon** thinks that because I am opposed to land-grant railways I am prepared toswallow any bargain which South Australia may wish to thrust upon us, he is very much mistaken. Unless that State is prepared to part with the Territory upon just terms, by all means let the syndicate have it. Syndicates are not philanthropists. They have no national policy to pursue. They are only after dividends, and I fail to see where dividends are to be obtained from the sandy desert which lies between Quorn and Oodnadatta, and which I believe extends for hundreds of miles beyond Oodnadatta. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- We lost the honorable senator at Port Augusta. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- But the honorable senator found me again. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- We had to send a train back for the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator STEWART: -- That is so. The South Australian authorities wanted tohustle me out of Port Augusta in a summary fashion, but I was not to be dealt with in that way. I went there to see things, and I saw them. Of course, I quite understand the position of **Senator W.** Russell, **Senator Vardon,** and other representatives of South Australia. They are bound to advocate the cause of their own State. I' can excuse provincialism, but I cannot approve if it. I am a Nationalist. I believe in a policy for Australia, not in a policy for any State, or for any particular portion of a State. I believe that Australia is one and undivided, and that whatever is good for a portion of Australia is good for the whole of it. Similarly, what is bad for a portion of Australia is bad for the whole of it. It would be the acme of stupidity for the Commonwealth to agree to the conditions imposed in the agreement which we are now asked to ratify. Look at our present financial obligations. We are compelled to go into the loan market for the means with which to build an Australian Navy. Further, there is no prospect of any money which we may invest in taking over the Northern Territory returning interest during the next hundred years. To subscribe to the proposed agreement would be an act of folly on the part of the Commonwealth, and one which would not benefit South- Australia one iota. I shall vote for the second reading of the Bill, because I believe in the principle underlying it, which is that the Commonwealth should' take over the Northern Territory, but I reserve to myself the right to vote against "certain conditions contained in the agreement. {: #subdebate-6-0-s10 .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY:
Tasmania -- The very importance of this question justifies me in making a few observations before the Bill gets into Committee. I am as much impressed with the importance of this measure as is any honorable senator, and with the obligation that we owe to South .Australia as a State, and to Australia as a whole to take over the Northern Territory. As a representative of Tasmania, I wish to say that that State is in a position to deal quite impartially with the matter, as she can have no selfish interests, and is not particularly concerned with the route which the proposed railway through the Territory may traverse. Tasmania merely desires that the Territory shall be developed in the best interests of Australia as a whole. I should like to vote for the Bill, with a view to bringing about an agreement which would prove acceptable both to South Australia and the Commonwealth. But I am confronted with a very great difficulty, in that when we pass an ordinary Act of Parliament, we know that it is susceptible of amendment or repeal should experience justify the adoption of either course, whereas in this instance the Bill involves the ratification of a solemn compact which was entered into between the Premier of South Australia and the Prime Minister, and which, when once accepted by Parliament,- cannot honorably be altered. That is one reason why we should carefully scrutinize the nature of the contract into which we are entering. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- We all know that. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY: -- That is my principal objection to the Bill in its present form. There is just one other aspect of the matter with which I should like to deal. The Northern Territory that we wish to acquire is merely a part of the northern territory of Australia. Its acquisition will therefore establish a precedent, because it is inevitable that in the future the States must be divided into smaller areas for the purposes of better government. What has already occurred will surely be repeated. All the arguments which have been advanced in favour of the acquisition of the Territory for defence purposes, apply only to the defence of about 1,300 miles of our coastline. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- But that coastline is near to Japan. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY: -- What about the other miles of seaboard to the north of Australia? Is it conceivable that the mere handful of people who own nearly a million square miles in Western Australia will continue to be responsible for that Territory for all time? Certainly not. What has happened in the case of New South Wales and will inevitably occur in Western Australia. That State will find itself compelled either to subdivide to a certain extent, or to approach the Commonwealth with a demand that the northern portion of it shall be taken over by the Central Authority. When that time arrives it will strengthen its demand by advancing similar reasons for the acquisition of that territory to those which have been advanced here to-night, and the terms now asked will be taken as a guide then. I am sensible that we should not look at this matter in a sordid way. It involves . large financial responsibilities; but they are really insignificant in comparison, with the magnitude of the Commonwealth, and the vastness of its resources. I do not look at the question merely from a monetary point of view. Let us decide it in the most generous way towards South Australia. But we have a greater responsibility than that which we owe to that State. When once we acquire the Territory, we should have no more concern for South Australia than for Queensland on the one side or Western Australia on the other. Our task will be to develop the Northern Territory as a part of the Federal Dominion, .and we must have regard, not to any one State, but to all the States. A great deal of information has been brought forward as to railway routes. I was one. of the party that accepted the hospitality of the South Australian Government by visiting Oodnadatta. I was very pleased that I went, though I must frankly acknowledge that the effect of the journey was to assure me of the impossibility of obtaining useful information on such a trip. The country that I thought was almost desert was, I was informed, very good for sheep and cattle raising. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The honorable senator did not see much of the country. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY: -- I went honestly desiring to learn all about it that I could. I shall not offer an opinion as to whether the railway to be constructed should proceed from Oodnadatta in the south, or from Pine Creek in an easterly direction. Before a person like myself could form an opinion upon the matter- at all, he would have to obtain the opinions of experts. There will have to be a thorough investigation by the most competent men we can commission to inquire into such a matter. We should have to build a railway primarily for developmental purposes, but also with an eye to its strategical possibilities in case we should have to defend the Territory in time of war. It is idle for a senator to express an opinion as to whether the railway should go entirely through the Northern Territory and South Australia, or by way of Queensland and New South Wales. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- Who will express an opinion, then ? {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY: -- Competent experts. If the Federal Government acquire the Territory from South Australia, it will be their duty to send experts up there to determine the best way of developing the Territory in the interests of Australia. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- Is there anything in this agreement to prevent that? {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator MULCAHY: -- The agreement binds us to construct a railway from Pine Creek to some part of the frontier line dividing the Northern Territory from South Australia. A further part of the obligation is that we must connect that point with some point on the Port Augusta railway. That seems to me to be equivalent to say- ing that we must connect Oodnadatta, or some point near it, on the Port Augusta, railway with the Pine Creek line. Is it likely that the Federal Government, after acquiring that railway, and having the responsibility of working it and assuming the annual loss for its working, would construct another line through some other part of South Australia ? It seems to me, therefore, that we are really binding ourselves by this agreement to one line and no other. I say, with all- sincerity, that I am very sorry that I cannot see my way to support this Bill in its entirety. I should like to do so for many reasons. It is a pity that we are asked to deal with the matter at the end of a very important session, because it imposes vast obligations and responsibilities upon the Commonwealth. We are launching out in a new direction. We are concerned, not merely with the acquisition of the Territory, but with the taking over and working of railway lines and the initiation of a policy of railway cons'truction. The acquisition of the Territory will involve a change in our immigration laws; or, rather, it will involve the creation of immigration laws, because, after nine years of Federation, the only measure on our statute-book dealing with immigration is an Immigration Restriction Act. How are we to people the Northern Territory unless we invite immigrants to come there? We have, therefore, to re-shape our policy in that direction. In the circumstances, though I have a disposition to treat South Australia in- the fairest way, and to give her everything that she is entitled to, I am nevertheless equally convinced that it is my duty to treat the whole of Australia fairly, and to leave the Commonwealth free and untrammelled in the handling of this matter, and the management of it afterwards. {: #subdebate-6-0-s11 .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The case for South Australia has been very well put in the speeches delivered oy Senators Best, Symon, and Vardon. **Senator McGregor** went away to-day expressing his anxiety that the Bill should be dealt with one way or the other. I am of the same opinion. On that account, it is not my intention to speak at any length. But I wish to point to some references to South Australia which have been made by the last speaker, and others. These honorable senators have said, "' We have great sympathy for South Australia, and admire what she has done. We are thankful that she has kept the Commonwealth white." But, their sympathy once expressed, they are not prepared to go any further. My own opinion is that South Australia does not ask for anybody's sympathy. If this Bill is altered in the way suggested, I am convinced that South Australia will shake herself clear of the agreement altogether. But what I complain about principally is that since this agreement was made by the late Premier of South Australia, **Mr. Price,** and **Mr. Deakin,** several years have elapsed. In the meantime, South Australia has expected the question to be settled. Her people believed the Prime Minister to be in earnest. They expected the question to be grappled with. But what has been the result? The Bill was kept low down on the notice-paper last session. This session, it has been on the paper for months. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- What was the position of the Bill during the *regime* of the late Government? {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The late Government had not time to deal with it. While they were in office, **Senator Best** was like a fish out of water. South Australia expected, when the Prime Minister entered into this agreement, that he and his Government meant business - that they would stand by it, and insist upon a settlement at the earliest possible opportunity. But, in the circumstances in which we are placed, I intend to go in for a little plain speaking, though I shall be moderate. I watched the passage of the Bill in another place. It had not the support of the whole Government. One Minister did riot vote at all. Had it not been for the members of the Opposition - the party to which I belong; the Labour party - the Bill would have been thrown out by a large majority. Then, again, in the Senate, I look across the Chamber and see the Fusion party- {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- Look in. the Opposition corner ! {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am just now looking at the honorable senator, whom I sometimes call the Vicar of Bray. I find that the opponents of the Government, with the exception of the Queenslanders, are supporting the Bill. The supporters of the Government, on the other hand, apparently, including their Whip, are doing all they can against the measure. I want South Australia to know that the responsibility really rests with the Government. If this Bill be thrown out, I think I can succeed in showing to South Australia that the fault rests with the Government. If **Senator Best** had sent round his Whip in the right way, instead of allowing him to do as he pleased, the Bill could have been carried without any trouble. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- That is just about the remark that I should expect from the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The Government do not mean it, and must take the responsibility. Why not be honest and say straight out, " This is not a Ministerial Bill " ? Why leave it- to the Labour party to fight the battles of the Government? This is inconsistency in the extreme. I wish that those who profess such wonderful love for South Australia would come forward in their true colours, and throw the Bill out at the second-reading stage, if they really are opposed to it. The South Australian Parliament is now sitting ; but its session is drawing to a close, lt is necessary that South Australia should know the fate of this agreement at the earliest possible moment, and- if they are informed that the Bill has been carried or rejected they will be able to meet and take someaction. That is one reason why I ask the Senate to come to a decision at once. Let the Government show their courage, let them say that they did not mean what they promised. It seems ridiculous to me to find the supporters of the Government in each House with a free hand on this important question. Whoever heard before of a Government whip having a free hand as **Senator Chataway** has in this instance? It is a hollow pretence. I desire to say a few words about **Senator Stewart,** who is in the same swim as the others. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- Have I not the right to vote as I please? {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Undoubtedly. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- Did I object to the honorable senator voting for the Federal Capital site? {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- What I object to is that when I asked the honorable senator how he intended to vote he replied that he was going to vote for the Bill. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- I said that to get rid of the honorable senator. {: .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir Robert Best: -- And I do not wonder at it either. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- The honorable senator knew that I did not mean what I said. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I did not. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- I told the honorable senator anyhow. I wanted to get rid of him. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The honorable senator told me a little too late, because in South Australia when we were counting the senators on whom we could rely I said to him, " On the Labour benches out of fifteen senators we have thirteen in favour of the Bill." {: .speaker-KSH} ##### Senator Macfarlane: -- That was at the picnic. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- No. It was said, not in the caucus, but in the Federal members' room when we were discussing the matter and counting numbers. I did not know that **Senator Stewart,** my countryman, indulged in talking nonsense and trying to mislead persons. I always thought that the honorable senator, being a Scotchman, was straightforward and honest. I do not want to cast any reflection upon him. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- I am too honest for the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Nor do I suggest that he should not vote as he likes. When any one asked me how I intended to vote on an occasion when those sitting on this side were at daggers drawn against me I did not hesitate to say that I had decided to adopt a certain course; and neither de'il nor man would have prevented me from doing so. I have been told' in South Australia, and also within the precincts of Parliament House, "Ah, Russell, what a mistake you made when you voted for Canberra. Where are your Canberra fellows now? Not one is alongside of you." It is very hard for me to endure it. It is very hard for my State to suffer. I cannot forget the persecution I have been subjected to. Were it not that I had some backbone I would have given in. I do hate to see anything that is crooked. I hope that even now **Senator Best** will try to improve his reputation and that of his Government, and will send round the Whip to get one or two more votes so as to carry the Bill. ' If he does not intend to do that, let him say straight out that he and his colleague here never meant to fight for the Bill. {: #subdebate-6-0-s12 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- The last speaker has struck a note which I am sure warrants a reply, so far as I am concerned. He has practically made against the Government an accusation of want of sincerity- {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Yes. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Which he now repeats by interjection - in their treatment of this measure. I desire to remind the Senate, as I know that it is useless to remind the honorable senator, that there are a few facts connected with this question which cannot be overlooked. First of all, I want honorable senators to recollect that this is not the first time that this measure has made its appearance here. I think I am correct in saying that it is five or six years since it was first introduced to the notice of the Senate. A large number of those who are present now were present then, and a large number of those who have expressed opinions now expressed opinions then. I remember distinctly the occasion when the Bill made its first or second appearance. Those who opposed it then are opposing it now, and those who supported it then are supporting it now. I want to know whether simply because the revolution of the 'political whirligig has brought about on certain matters an amalgamation of those who were previously opposed, we could expect those who were opposed to this agreement to immediately become its friends. Is it reasonable to suppose that this, or any other Government, could call upon those who were good enough to extend them their support to immediately change their opinions, to reverse their previous form, on a matter of this kind ? It would be insulting the intelligence of the Senate to assume that any Government would have the audacity to ask for such a complete change of front as that. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The Government have done more than that. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Let me now say a few words with regard to the position taken up by the Government Whip. I want to make it perfectly clear that **Senator Chataway,** before he accepted that position, made a distinct stipulation regarding this matter. In doing that, he did what previous Whips had done. He followed a practice which has been recognised as the only honorable course open to any one, who, being in agreement with the Government on a large number of measures, still claimed a reasonable measure of liberty in respect of one. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- I can indorse that statement, because I was the first Government Whip in the Senate, and reserved to myself the right to differ from them on certain questions upon giving a notification to the' Government. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- We can all remember that the honorable senator took up that attitude, and as I believe I was the first Minister who conferred with **Senator Chataway** as to accepting the position of Whip, I am in a position to speak with authority as to what his attitude was then. I regret very much to have to introduce the personal element, but I am doing so as a reply to any insinuation which has been made as to the action which the Prime Minister has taken. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- It is not an insinuation, but a straight-out statement." {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- When I joined the Ministry, I made a reservation in regard to this matter. In common with many of my honorable friends here, I felt that the agreement might be modified with advantage to the Commonwealth, and without injustice to South Australia. And feeling that, I put my position before the Prime Minister, who - as was done in the matter of the Government Whip in the Senate - left me an absolutely free hand. When it became obvious a little later that the Bill was going to be in jeopardy here it was the Prime Minister who came and asked me if I would review my decision, and see if I could throw in my lot with the rest of the Ministry. Does that look as if the Government were trifling with the question? The Prime Minister did a thing which he was perfectly entitled to do. In view of the fact that we had . enormous Commonwealth responsibilities, and believing also - and this was the one argument that prevailed with me - that unless ' there was something vitally wrong, there is an obligation on a Ministry to try to carry out an agreement made by its predecessor, provided, of course, that there is no violation of principle, I decided to give a vote to carry this Bill through the Senate. I mention that fact in order to clear the Prime Minister from the very gross imputation which has been made against him, and to clear the Ministry from the accusations which have been made by **Senator W.** Russell. In this case, it amounts to something like ingratitude that he should make an accusation of that kind, in view of the facts that I have just related. I regret, indeed, that this note has been sounded. I have stated my position fully and frankly. I have stated how it is that, instead of voting to-night against the Bill, as I was at liberty to do until a few days ago, and had decided to do until the Prime Minister came to me, I intend to vote for it. I have offered, I think, the greatest guarantee as to the sincerity of the Government in trying to carry out the agreement. May I, in conclusion, express the hope that, having heard my statement, there is no other member of this Chamber who will follow the lead given by **Senator W.** Russell. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am sure that there is. {: #subdebate-6-0-s13 .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY:
South Australia -- I do not think it is worth while to continue the debate. I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of Ministers. They have been sincere, I think, in pushing on the consideration of this question, with a view to getting it settled this session. But I cannot help noticing the difference between the attitude of the Government supporters on this agreement and the action which they took in connexion with an agreement which was recently ratified. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- There was a very great difference between the agreements. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- The object in view was certainly different. Apparently the honorable senator is about to do the same thing in connexion with this agreement as he did in connexion with the previous one. He professes a desire that the Commonwealth should take over the Northern Territory, and yet he- intends to vote for an amendment which he knows will make that absolutely impossible. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- It is impossible for the Commonwealth to take over the Territory, if that condition is in the agreement, without doing an injustice to itself. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I wish to repeat that any honorable senator is under a delusion who thinks that South Australia is anxious to get rid of the Territory. If any honorable senators imagine that it is begging the Federal Government to take off its hands something which is of no use to it, they are mistaken. Undoubtedly, in its present condition, the Territory is a burden on the State. But the Commonwealth Parliament is partly responsible for the present annual loss, because, when the agreement was arrived at, the State Government ceased to carry on any developmental work, or to entertain any applications for the sale of land. It has received such applications, and possibly it could have disposed of a very large area but for the existence of this agreement. The State Government felt in honour bound not to sell or let another acre of land until the agreement had been dealt with by this Parliament. To that extent, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament is responsible for not having come to a decision sooner. I have heard a number of the opponents of the measure describe the Northern Territory as a desert. I refer to gentlemen like Senators Gray and Neild, who have never seen the country, and do not know anything about it. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- The honorable gentleman does not know what he is talking about. I know more of the country than he does, anyhow. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I apologize for offending the honorable senator. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Put all the blame upon me. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I know that the honorable senator is very sensitive, and is impatient of interjection when he is himself addressing the Senate. My statement is that I do not think Senators Neild and Gray know very much about Central Australia. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Nor does the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- It is true that I have not been there. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Well, I have. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- As I have been challenged I propose to read an extract from a pamphlet written by a man who has been there, and who contradicts the statement that this country is a desert. This pamphlet was written by **Mr. David** Lindsay, who has been over nearly the whole of the country from north to south and from east to west, and who as an explorer may be regarded as a very good judge of the quality of land. I have no intention of_ reading the whole of the pamphlet, but I wish to refute the statements of honorable senators who claim to know so much about the Northern Territory, and have said that it is barren. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- I did not cry " stinking fish " about the Northern Territory. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I am not complaining of **Senator Givens.** He dealt with the question very fairly. But I am complaining of honorable senators who have not done so. After giving a number of reasons why the transcontinental line should follow a certain route, **Mr. Lindsay** says - >Unless the Commonwealth agrees to the condition that the transcontinental railway shall be kept within the boundaries of the Territory, as mentioned in the agreement, South Australia will be fully justified in refusing to transfer it, and take all the risk and profits consequent upon building the railway, introducing immigrants and developing one of the finest coun tries in the world - one-sixth of the whole continent of Australia, having a frontage to the Indian Ocean of 1,240 miles, a length north and south of 1,100 miles, and a width of 560 miles; an area of 335,116,800 acres, of which only 472,232 acres have been alienated. > >From Oodnadatta to the boundary is 120 miles - in South Australia - the driest part of the route. Yet this dry region is a fair pastoral country, and is within the artesian water area. I do not think that any honorable senator who was a member of the party that recently visited Oodnadatta will deny that the whole, of that dry country is good pastoral country. Those who saw the stock on it - the cattle rolling fat and the horses looking as sleek and as well almost as those that were recently shown at Flemington - will admit that it is at least fair pastoral country. **Mr. Lindsay** continues - >What is needed for successful irrigation settlement is soil, sun, water. The soil and sun are there, and water can be brought from the bowels of the earth. > >I venture to predict that this dry region will, when we need it for the overflow of our people, become closely settled under irrigation. > >Before Renmark was irrigated it only supported 500 sheep ; now it supports over a thousand people. > >As we go north, directly we cross the boundary line we find a great change in the country ; the stony plains are left behind, and timber, bushes and grass become plentiful - a sandy country, intersected by the Finke, the Goyder, the Hugh, all large water-courses, in the channels of which water can be obtained by sinking - a good stock country, supporting now over 15,000 head of horned cattle. Approaching the MacDonnell Ranges the country improves, as does the rainfall, which, at Alice Springs, averages n inches per annum. This mountain range, extending east and west for 400 miles, attains an altitude of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, giving it a most excellent climate - Professor Spencer said the finest in the world. A grand pastoral country. Sheep, horses, cattle, all do exceedingly well. Agriculture, too, is possible. From here right on to Powell's Creek good country extends for a considerable distance westwards and eastwards, right to the Queensland border. I estimate that there are 87,000,000 acres of land, with a rainfall of from 10 to 15 inches, with permanent water and springs capable of, with a railway, supporting profitably large herds of cattle, horses and flocks of sheep and Angora goats, besides some cultivation. If half of this area were lightly stocked with sheep - say, 60 to the mile - we would have over 4,100,000 sheep. Now, taking an average of 6 lbs. wool to the sheep, the annual product would be. 24,600,000 lbs. of wool - about 11,000 tons - value, at 6d. per lb., ^615,000. > >The greatest distance to be railed is goo miles. The schedule rate in South Australia for that distance is under id. per lb. > >Freezing works in the centre of the continent would enable the yearly increase of, say, 1,000,000 sheep, to be sent to the southern markets. > >The freight would pay the interest on the construction of 700 miles of railway. > >These figures show that sheep can be profitably grown on this vast area, providing there is a railway, but not without. > >We still have in this area over 40,000,000 acres for cattle and sheep and agriculture. > >There are possibilities of irrigation, about which I have not time to speak. > >Wheat grows in nearly every climate, and is one of the easiest crops to grow and garner. Europe produces more wheat than the whole of the rest of the world put together, and yet needs to import 500,000,000 bushels each year. Australia produces 68,000,000 bushels, Great Britain 58,000,000, and has to import 170,000,000 bushels each year. The population of the United States is increasing so fast that in another ten years it will total 100,000,000 - enough people to consume the whole of the wheat produced in Canada; so here is a chance for Australia, with its immense areas and its few people, to cut in and supply the European markets, and that is what I expect to see the great Northern Central division of the Northern Territory doing. > >Between Powell's Creek and the Katherine, stretching east and west right across the Territory, is a magnificent country, embracing the Barclay tablelands and the Victoria River district. > >As a result pf much research, I am strongly of the opinion that this region of 80,000,000 acres, with an average rainfall of 15 to 40 inches, will prove to be the future wheat granary of Australia. > >While the railway survey is being made, which will take two years, we should send expert agriculturists to establish experimental farms for the growth of wheat. All we want to find out is the right sort of wheat to plant, and the time of the year in which to sow the seed. > >This country has an elevation of from 200 to I,500 feet above sea-level, has a good climate, and no part of it is more than 350 miles from the ports of Wyndham, Darwin, Roper, McArthur, or Burketown. > >If this great region of 80,000,000 acres were brought under successful wheat cultivation, and only half of it actually producing the moderate average of 10 bushels per acre, we should have an output of nine times the present total production of Australia. > >Forty million acres - 400,000,000 bushels (over r 2,000,000 tons), which, at 3s. 4d. per bushel, would be worth over £66,000,000. > >There would still be 40,000,000 acres in this division on which to depasture cattle, horses, and sheep. > >It has been proved to be an excellent sheep country, and, under closer settlement, would carry 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 sheep. > >For a moment think of the value of the lands with railways. The 80,000,000 acres extending from Queensland to West Australia, embracing the Barclay tablelands and the Victoria River country, if sold at only 5s. per acre, would bring in /20.000,000; or, if leased at id. per acre, would yield a yearly revenue of £333,133, which, capitalized at 3^ per cent., is £9,523,800. I would refer honorable senators who are so much afraid of a possible liability of £10,000,000 being undertaken by the Commonwealth, to those figures, which, I am sure, are not exaggerated. They prove that the produce from one small section of the Territory, if peopled and developed as I presume it would be under Commonwealth management, would be of sufficient value to pay the interest on very nearly the whole of the £10,000,000 which it is estimated the liability of the Commonwealth for the whole Territory would be. **Mr. Lindsay** goes on to say - >And we should have 250,000,000 acres left todeal with. > >It is only the building of railways, as inCanada, that can make this possible. > >Remember, the ports referred to, from which this vast tonnage would be shipped, are within 10 days' steam of the insatiable markets of the East, and a week nearer England than is Sydney or Melbourne. > >Is there, then, a more attractive problem in. any country in the world to-day? > >But, you will ask me, how can we finance all the railways and other works? > >Have we not 334,000,000 acres of land to sell and lease ? > >The tropical portion contains about 75,000,000 acres, a considerable portion of which is suitable for cattle and horses. > >Of the agricultural products which can be grown successfully and profitably without the aid of coloured labour we must name rice (upland variety), which, according to **Mr. Holtze,** the curator of the gardens at Fort Darwin, has proved very satisfactory, yielding 1 ton per acre, and can be harvested by machinery, as in America, where they grow rice cheaper than the Chinaman can in China. **Mr. Holtze** thinks rice will be to the Territory what wheat is to South Australia. Maize, sisal hemp (an easilygrown, profitable article), cocoanuts and tobacco. > >On these coast lands, where the growth of everything is so prolific - where maize, corn, melons, sweet potatoes, yams, &c, grow almost wild - the pig industry will be one of the most profitable to enter upon. With freezing and cooling chambers, bacon for export could easily be cured. The proof that pigs do well is shown by the following facts : - > >In 1902, **Mr. Laurie** took two sows and a boar to his cattle station on the Adelaide River; for three years no attention was paid to them, and then they were herded and given one feed a day of yams, 1 illy roots, and bulbs boiled together. He has now 150 on the station, and has sold between 700 and 800 - truly a wonderful increase in seven years. > >Tigs can be driven to market or to the slaughter-houses, for Laurie travelled a mob of 60 in December - the worst month in the year - 40 miles in four days. > >A shipment of 4,300 frozen pigs has just been sent from China to London. The Northern Territory' could do the same. > >Time will not permit me to touch on the ease with which this country can be occupied, the magnificent harbors and the splendid river waterways leading right inland - rivers whose waters can be so easily used for irrigating the great plains. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator Pulsford: -- We have all read that pamphlet. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I am reading it because I am anxious that these statements, by a gentleman who has travelled over the Territory shall appear in *Hansard* alongside the ridiculous assertions which have been made here to-day. **Mr. Lindsay** continues - >South Australia has not settled and developed the Territory, simply because she has had no surplus population seeking lands to occupy. **Senator Stewart** and others have inquired why South Australia has not developed the Northern Territory. The reason is that the development of the southern portion of that State has absorbed all her resources. The few attempts to grow sugar and coffee failed, simply because the land selected for the first experiments was utterly unsuited for the growth of those products. There is any amount of land eminently adapted for sugar-growing. The first five years in the history of the Territory probably did more to prevent the settlement of its lands than anything else - five years of muddle, mistakes and waste of money. With the exception of the coastal fiats, the Northern Territory is a white man's country, and can be occupied satisfactorily by people of our own race and colour. {: .speaker-KSH} ##### Senator Macfarlane: -- The reading of these extracts will accomplish no good. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I quite believe that. Honorable senators have made up their minds what they intend to do with this measure. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Is it not a fact that Chinese were employed on the Port Darwin to Pine Creek railway ? {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I am inclined to think that **Senator Dobson,** in his statement upon that point this afternoon, was slightly in error. I believe that tenders were called for the construction of the line from Palmerston to Pine Creek, and that the tenderers had the option of employing either coloured or white labour. They were asked to put in alternative tenders. There was a difference of some thousands of pounds between the two tenders, and the South Australian Government accepted the lowest one, which permitted the contractor to employ Chinese labour. To that fact, more than to anything else, may be attributed the present position of the Northern Territory. Had the South Australian Government imported one or two thousand British navvies, probably a large number of them would have settled there and would have peopled that portion of the country with good White Australians. During the course of this debate, reference has been made to the climate of the Territory. Now, like **Senator Dobson,** I had an opportunity of visiting the Northern Territory some two years ago, and from my own observation I can say that it will produce almost anything. It will produce hardy, healthy men and women. At Brock's Creek, 70 miles south of Palmerston, I met a lady and her daughter who were as fine samples of womanhood and girlhood as can be found in any part of Australia. The lady, I imagine, was between thirty and thirty-five years of age, and her daughter was about fifteen or sixteen years of age. Both of them were born in the Northern Territory, and the girl's grandmother was still resident in Palmerston. These facts prove that the climate of the Territory is a healthy one. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Only last month I met a lady who had lived at Croydon, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, for nine months, and she told me that frequently she was so weak that she had to crawl along the floor to open the door. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I have no doubt that **Senator Dobson** could find similar cases in Melbourne. In addition to tropical products, the Northern Territory will produce nearly every product of the temperate climes. About 100 miles up the Victoria River there is a station which is owned by a man named Bradshaw, and when I visited the Territory he had growing in a little plot on the bank of the river nearly every variety of English vegetable to be obtained in the southern part of Australia, including cabbages, cauliflowers, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, and onions. I have no desire to prolong this debate. I understand that the motion for the second reading of the Bill will be carried without a division. Honorable senators are willing to show their sympathy with the proposal to take over the Northern Territory by affirming the principle which underlies the Bill. But immediately after they intend to evidence their insincerity by voting for an amendment which will render its transfer to the Commonwealth practically impossible. I know the feeling of the people and Parliament of South Australia upon this question. When this agreement was before the South Australian Parliament, the greatest difficulty was experienced in inducing the Legislative Council to indorse it. Member after member emphasized the great value of the Territory, and argued that South Australia was parting with it too cheaply. I am satisfied that if the agreement be not adopted, the Commonwealth will never be afforded another opportunity of taking over this magnificent country. South Australia was only prompted to offer it to the Commonwealth by the consideration that in the interests of Australia as a whole it was essential that it should be developed more' rapidly than she could develop it. Realizing the possibility of an invasion by Asiatics in the near future, she made a substantial sacrifice when she subscribed to the agreement which is now under consideration, and thus made it possible for the Commonwealth to take over the Territory and develop- it in the best interests of Australia. During the course of his speech, **Senator Stewart** compared South Australia to a man who had failed in business, and who waited upon a friend to ask for financial assistance, and then attempted to dictate the rate of interest which he should pay for that assistance. The honorable senator appeared to think that the friend was entitled to charge the man who was in financial straits 1,000 per cent. When the Premier of South Australia made this agreement with the Prime Minister, he realized that he was giving more than good value for what South Australia was getting. He also knew that unless the provision regarding the railway formed part of the agreement, there was not the remotest hope of getting it through the South Australian Parliament. **Mr. Price** would have been wilfully throwing away the rights of his State if he had agreed to the Commonwealth taking over that great Territory with a free hand to build the suggested serpentine railway through New South Wales and Queensland. Pie realized that the railway from Port Augusta to Oodnadatta must always be a drain on the resources of South Australia, until it is pushed further and taps the good country that will furnish it with freight and make it a paying proposition. That is the reason why the whole question hinges on the route of the railway. Honorable senators who vote for the agreement on the understanding that they will afterwards vote against the railway provision, ought to know that an alteration of the agreement in that respect means the rejection of it. No doubt the numbers are up ; but those honorable senators who are sincerely anxious that the Commonwealth shall have the Territory may as well be quite sure that the rejection of the clause relating to the railway will make it absolutely impossible for the Commonwealth to secure possession. {: #subdebate-6-0-s14 .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH:
Western Australia -- I intend to support the Bill in its entirety. One of the strongest reasons in favour of it is that it is desirable to place on the shoulders of the Commonwealth the task of proving what our tropical and sub-tropical areas are capable of producing. If we do not undertake that task, we may rely upon it that South Australia will set about it in a lame and halting fashion through want of means. It is not reasonable to expect that a small population, heavily indebted, can carry on the burden as South Australia has done in the past. One of the strongest reasons advanced against the Bill is that South Australia ought not to dictate to the Federal Parliament as to the mode of developing the Territory. I remind those who entertain that view that Australia is indebted to South Australia for bearing this burden. Had she not done so, the Northern Territory would, in all probability, have been a Crown Colony, and perhaps large settlements of alien labour would have been implanted there. The connexion of South Australia with the Territory would be regarded in an entirely different light if it were remembered that that State has stood in the breach and held the Territory in trust. South Australia, having been in the position of an- .agent in trust, we must surely allow her to insist upon some conditions on resigning her trust. The condition on which she insists is a very reasonable one. It simply means that when the Territory is taken over by the Commonwealth, a line of railway shall be built connecting with South Australia. . What disadvantage is there in that? If the other suggested course is taken, and the railway is taken out of the Territory, the result will be to develop portions of the eastern States which are already well looked after, whilst ignoring the development of the Territory itself, which should be the principal object of our concern. As to the resources of the Territory, if honorable sent.tors will only read the reports of men who have travelled there, they must be driven to the conclusion that it is a very rich patch indeed. Even if there be a large margin of waste land, there is still within the 500,000 square miles plenty of valuable country. There is in the MacDonnell Ranges gold and coal. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- It is a geological impossibility to have both gold and coal in the same country. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- Not at all; in Colorado there are coal, gold, and silver alongside each other. In one of the pamphlets which I have read on this subject, by **Mr. O'Loughlin,** the South Australian Minister controlling the Northern Territory, it is stated that - >Professor Tate and Experts Watt and Achimiovitch (members of the Horn Expedition) all stated that the best indications of diamonds exist to the west of Charlotte Waters. Coal of good quality is found in the MacDonnell and more northern areas. . . . The extent of auriferous country is simply unknown, and a railway would increase all these resources a hundredfold. Looking at this proposition in the light of a good bargain, I submit that it is cheap at the price. Let honorable senators recall the purchase of Louisiana by the United States. The American Government paid to the French something like £5,000,000. Certainly, the population was larger than that of the Northern Territory ; but, on the other hand, there were no railways in Louisiana, which was described by some of the Jeremiahs of the time in similar terms to those used by some honorable senators concerning the Northern Territory, lt was said that the land was so poor that the bones of those who tried to work it would be all that would be left to tell the tale. But to-day Louisiana is one of the richest parts of the United States. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- Even Jefferson, who took over Louisiana from France, was doubtful about it. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- Quite so ; he was halting in his attitude. But those who prophesied that Louisiana would prove a hopeless waste, have been shown to be utterly wrong. I am convinced that portions of the Northern Territory will prove to be most useful for purposes of tropical and sub-tropical agriculture. Already the temperate parts of Australia are fairly well occupied, and people are being forced into the arid portions of the country. Opportunities will be needed for white men to develop the north. Why should we palter about the terms, in face of the fact that South Australia up to the present has manfully borne the burden in the interest of Australia as a whole? I consider that, in refusing to concede the terms for which she asks, we shall be acting in a paltry huckstering spirit. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Why does Western Australia want to force terms on South Australia ? {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- I am quite content to leave the enunciation of Western Australia's interests until the occasion arises for stating them. Although it is true that Queensland has made a success of her tropical areas, I would remind the honorable senators from that State that they had the advantage of rich gold-fields which attracted a large population; and when the gold-fields were exhausted, the people were naturally attracted to other occupations in the same region. Unfortunately, rich goldfields have not yet been found in the Northern Territory, although there are fairly reliable indications of auriferous areas, which will .repay the prospector. In the MacDonnell Ranges, there is a chance of founding a very flourishing settlement. Already, there are miners there who are working 2-oz. shows, and carrying their stuff 200 miles, and yet making a success of them. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- We had to do that sort of thing in Queensland for thirtyyears. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH: -- I do not know of any such case in Queensland. Croydon was only 120 miles from the coast, and the Queenslanders thought that that was a wonderful field to work. I think that we should come to terms with the State. We are offered a Territory with limitless possibilities, and the obligation is placed upon our shoulders of trying to discover what that large tropical area of Australia is capable of producing. When that work is carried out in a systematic way by an authority which will have unlimited funds at its disposal, it will prove of immense benefit to both Queensland and Western Australia- As regards the financial aspect of the question, certainly the Commonwealth is offered a very fair asset by South Australia. Even though the agreement may appear to be favorable to the State, we should never forget that but for its heroic action we might have had a far more formidable problem to deal with, indeed one which would have taxed all the wisdom, diplomacy, and force of -the other States to solve. I intend to support the Bill, believing that in doing so I am taking the true Australian course, and that after all is said and done South Australia will not have very much the best of the bargain if the agreement is ratified. **Senator DE** LARGIE (Western Australia) I"10-2]- - I only propose to speak for a few minutes, because I recognise that the agreement has been debated so exhaustively both here and elsewhere that there is not much left to be said. Unlike some of the preceding speakers, I cannot say that I have a personal knowledge of the character of the land in the Northern Territory. But I can speak with some knowledge of the Kimberley country in Western Australia. Round Wyndham and Derby in that State there is, I suppose some of the finest grazing country to be found in Australia. I have been informed that the country from there to Port Darwin, and a great deal of the country back from Port Darwin, is somewhat similar to the country in the Kimberley district. If that be true, I think it can be accepted that the land in the Northern Territory is very fair. I do not think that the land in any part of Australia is so extremely rich that it can be boasted of in comparison with the land in other countries. We know that, so far as much of our land is concerned, there is not a great deal to boast of. But that fact should not, in my opinion, enter very largely into the question of taking over the Northern Territory. If the. country is poor, that is an additional reason why the Commonwealth should relieve South Australia and accept a load which all the States should bear. In the consideration of a great national question the parochial spirit should be excluded as far as is possible. I regret that the tone of many speakers to-night was decidedly parochial. We have dealt with many great national questions in this Parliament. *I* am pleased that on every occasion, whether it was to make Queensland a white man's country by giving an enormous advantage in the shape of the sugar bounty or to establish the Federal Capital in New South Wales, my vote was cast on the national side. I would be very sorry indeed to give a vote of a parochial nature. Consequently. I intend to support the second reading of this Bill, believing thatI am taking up the national attitude on a great question. Amendment negatived. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. *In Committee:* Clauses1 to 4 agreed to. Clause 5 - >The Agreement is by this Act ratified and approved. {: #subdebate-6-0-s15 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS:
Queensland -- I move - >That after the word " Agreement " the following words be inserted, " with the exception of paragraphs *b, c, d, e,f, g,* and *h* of clause i thereof." The insertion of the amendment would meanthat the Committee approved and ratified the agreement, with the exception of the paragraphs relating to the construction of a railway from Pine Creek to a point on the southern border of the Territory, and thence to a point on the Port Augusta railway, and the taking over of the Port Augusta railway. This question was debated very fully on the second reading, and I do not propose now to go into any elaborate disquisition, because I believe that every honorable senator has made up his mind. What I am standing out for is the complete power of this Parliament to deal with the Northern Territory, in the light of full knowledge, in anyway which it may think proper. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- The Commonwealth cannot acquire the Territory if the amendment is carried. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I refuse to have a pistol put to my head by any State when itwants something done by the Commonwealth. If South Australia sought to impose far stricter conditions upon the Commonwealth, would the honorable senator say that we must accept the agreement? {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- We cannot insert other conditions. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Suppose that the State did, would the honorable senator still say that we must accept the agreement? It contains several extraneous propositions to which I object. I' want to know why, in order to develop the Territory, we must take over the Port Augusta to Oodnadatta railway? Every other State has developed its territory by running railways from its seaboard into the interior, and when necessary a State has connected its railways with the railways of adjoining States. Why should not the Commonwealth do the same thing with the Northern Territory? {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- Is there any geographical comparison? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Yes. The Territory adjoins two States, and that is, I think, the most which can be said of any State. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- South Australia runs from one end of the continent to the other. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- South Australia proper would not extend half way across the continent after the Territory was taken over.I am not going to argue the merits or demerits of any railway. What I contend is that we should not be bound down when we have not sufficient knowledge to enable us to arrive at a just conclusion. When the Commonwealth has taken over the Territory, as by my amendment we would propose to do without any hampering conditions, I want this Parliament to be free to arrive at a conclusion which will be fair to all sides, especially to the Commonwealth, in the light of f'ill knowledge. South Australia has nothing to fear. If she has the best route I am satisfied that the Commonwealth Parliament will do the best thing for her, and in arriving at any conclusion hereafter the State, through her representatives in this Parliament, will have a full voice in common with the representatives of every other State. At present she wants to tie the National Parliament hand and foot before she will agree to surrender the Territory, which she is only maintaining at a severe loss to herself. We do not want the State to sacrifice herself for the Commonwealth. We desire to relieve her, but instead of being glad, she replies, " We will not allow you to do so unless you agree to these conditions." I do not think that that is fair. I am inclined to do a fair thing by the State. I want to take over the Territory- with every fraction of financial obligation which properly belongs to it, but when it is taken over this Parliament should have its hands free to develop the country for national purposes, and for the benefit of all the States in any way which it mav think proper. {: #subdebate-6-0-s16 .speaker-JPC} ##### Senator Sir ROBERT BEST:
Minister of Trade and Customs · Victoria · Protectionist [10.15]. - I intend saying but a few words. This question has been so thoroughly threshed out during yesterday and to-day that it is necessary only that I should point out that .the carrying of the amendment means, as a matter of course, the defeat of the Bill, and honorable senators must accept that responsibility in voting for it. Honorable senators have asserted the principle of the desirability of the acquisition of the Territory by the Commonwealth, and if they carry the amendment they will run the risk of subsequently discovering that it will be doubtful whether the Commonwealth can secure the Northern Territory. This will be the test vote, and it is useless to argue the matter further, having regard to all that has taken place. {: #subdebate-6-0-s17 .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON:
South Australia -- I agree with the Minister of Trade and Customs that it is of no use to discuss this amendment at length. If it is carried, the heart will be taken out of the agreement and the Bill wall be destroyed. But I wish to say that South Australia is not here as a mendicant. She is not here asking for any charity. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel^ Neild: -- It is a verycolourable imitation. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator VARDON: **- Senator Neild** may be fond of asking for charity but South Australia is not. This matter has been under consideration now for some years. Recognising that the Commonwealth should take over the Northern Territory the Prime Minister discussed the question with a Premier of South Australia. I do not think that South Australia was pressing this question forward or asked for the Conference about it. - The negotiations, I believe, were initiated by the Government of the Commonwealth. The Prime Minister and -the Premier of South Australia at the time came together, threshed the matter out, and came to an agreement which would provide for the taking over of the Territory by the Commonwealth, and, at the' same time, for doing that which would-be absolutely just and fair to South Australia. To that agreement there is attached the signature of the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth and the signature of a Premier of South Australia. Now, I say that if that agreement is to be torn up the responsibility will rest with the Senate. If South Australia, recognising that there is no hope of the Commonwealth taking over the Territory under a fair agreement such as this is, seeks some other means of developing it the Commonwealth Parliament must not complain. If the people of South Australia say that there is no way of developing the Northern Terri tory in the circumstances, except by the construction of a. transcontinental railway on the land grant principle, then I say that, although I do not believe in that kind of thing, I for one shall be inclined to say that I will agree to it. If that course should eventually be adopted the responsibility for it will rest, not upon South Australia, but upon the Senate for carrying this amendment. {: #subdebate-6-0-s18 .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY:
South Australia -- I wish only to urge that the condition with respect to the route of the transcontinental railway does not present such a formidable difficulty as some honorable senators seem to imagine. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator Givens: -- Then let it go. 6860 *Northern Territory* [SENATE.] *Acceptance Bill.* {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I believe that if honorable senators will listen to me for five minutes I shall be able to convince them that they would be doing wrong by carrying the amendment. It is admitted that the Northern Territory cannot be developed without a railway. There are some honorable senators who want to develop it by building railways in Queensland and New South Wales. But does any one believe that an intelligent Federal Parliament would spend the money of the Commonwealth in building railways in Queensland and New South Wales to develop Federal territory ? {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Nobody ever suggested such a. thing. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I am endeavouring to convince honorable senators that this condition as to the route of the railway which is attached by South Australia should present no difficulty to them at all. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -It was not attached by South Australia. It was made by the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I wish to say. as briefly as possible that the only way to develop the Northern Territory is to build a railway right through the centre of it. Such a line must be the best to construct if we desire to develop the whole of the country. That should be clear to any intelligent man. Why then do honorable senators cavil at this condition which was inserted probably at the instance of the late Premier of South Australia? The sensible way to develop the Territory, and the way which will, without doubt, be ultimately adopted by the Commonwealth, should it acquire the Territory, is to build a trunk line as nearly as possible through the centre of it, and allow the States to connect with it on either side by branch lines. The agreement gives Queensland the right to connect with the transcontinental line by a line from Brisbane, Rockhampton or Townsville. No doubt it would be to the advantage of Queensland ports that they should capture some of the trade of Central Australia. It cannot be imagined for a moment that the whole of the trade of this great country will go to Port Augusta on the one hand or to Port Darwin on the other. If there is a port nearer either in Queensland or in New South Wales that port will be certain to secure a portion of the trade. It would be better for the State of Queensland to have a trunk line constructed through the centre of the Northern Territory than to have a huge line brought through Queensland which would be from 500 to 700 miles longer than a direct line from Port Darwinto Port Augusta. **Senator Neild** is a great authority on defence, and he will agree that a difference of 560 miles in the distance over which it would be necessary to transport men and horses by rail would mean a very considerable difference in expense. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- We should take them over 1,000 miles to avoid having to take them over the 560 miles? Yes, that is clever. {: .speaker-K7L} ##### Senator STORY: -- I again urge that the railway condition need not be a difficulty. There is no limit as to the time within which the line should be constructed, and the Federal Parliament might be left to decide upon the route already suggested as the best possible route by which to take the railway. Question - That the words proposed to be inserted be inserted - put. The Com mittee divided. Ayes ...11 Noes ... ... 9 Majority ... ... 2
Western Australia -- This morningI raised a question to which I now take the liberty of again referring. I then read from *Hansard* an extract which I do not propose to repeat, because I think that honorable senators are already familiar with it. It related to an incident which occurred in this chamber exactly a week ago, when the Vice-President of the Executive Council denied the accuracy of certain statements made by me and challenged me to prove them. Since then I have secured the proof, and I am now about to produce it. Upon the occasion in question **Senator Millen** said that my statement that he was at one time the President of the Bourke Labour Electoral League was false. He added that he was prepared without any qualification to resign his seat if I could prove that he had ever belonged to the Labour Party. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator has to show that I was President of the Bourke Labour League. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- I think that I shall be able to show that. I hold in my hand the statements of witnesses whose testimony will carry considerable weight. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Well get on with it. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- I intend to proceed in my own way, and I hope that the Vice-President of the Executive Council will abstain from making ill-mannered interjections. The first witness from whom I propose to quote is **Mr. Rae,** who has been a member of the New South Wales Parliament for some years, and who has long been identified with the Labour movement. He will be a candidate for the representation of New South Wales in the Senate at the forthcoming general elections. He declares that he can vouch for the statement that **Senator Millen** was a member of the Labour party, having been present at a gathering of what was then known as the Bourke Labour Electoral League, which was presided over by that gentleman. His telegram reads - >Can vouch **Senator Millen** once chairman Bourke Labour League. Am wiring for evidence. The next witness from whom I propose to quote is **(Mr. McDonnell, who is also a member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, and a western repre sentative, hailing from the same district. He says -** >Millen member Labour Electoral League Bourke end of ninety-one, attended special Labour League Conference Sydney November, ninety-three, as delegate Bourke Carriers' Union. That statement accords with my own declaration that **Senator Millen** had attended a Labour Conference in the capacity of a delegate. My third witness is a gentleman who is well known to **Senator Millen** - I refer to **Mr. White,** of Bourke. I dare say that he will recognise the name. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I know them all. They are all political enemies. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: **- Mr. White** and **Senator Millen** were political friends at one time. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Never ! {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- The fact that both were nominated for the position of President of the Bourke Labour Electoral League may have made them enemies. At all events I have evidence that **Senator Millen** stood for election to the presidency of that League against **Mr. White** and **Mr. Ring.** These three gentlemen were nominated for the office, and **Senator Millen** was elected. In 1891 the honorable senator attended a meeting in Bourke and was elected the chairman of that gathering. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- That is eighteen years ago. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- At that meeting a motion was submitted and carried, affirming that a branch of the Labour Electoral League should be formed. The statement I have here proceeds - >The next business of the meeting was the election of a chairman, and the persons nominated were D. Ring, T. White, and E. D. Millen. The last-named was elected. At the same meeting **Mr. E.** D. Millen paid his halfyearly contribution in advance. He again presided at a committee meeting held on 2nd December of the same year, at which by-laws were adopted. He was one of the committee which drafted them. **Mr. Millen** also presided at a committee meeting held on 12th December of the same year, at which a member of the League took exception to **Mr. Millen** as president, making certain charges against him. The result of the discussion was that **Mr. Millen** tendered his resignation as president of the branch in writing. The resignation was accepted on the understanding that he would retain office until new officers were elected. All these statement are based upon records taken from the minute-book of the present League which is still in existence in Bourke. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- It is not still in existence in Bourke. 6862 *Adjournment.* [SENATE.] *Adjournment.* {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- The Labour League which exists there is the successor of the original Bourke Labour Electoral League, and took over the books from that body. The extracts which I have read have been taken from those books. The proof of my statements is to be found in the document which I hold in my hands, and which has been forwarded to me by **Mr. '** White, who is still secretary of the Shearers' Union in that district. He vouches for the accuracy of the statements which he has supplied. **Senator Henderson** has more than once stated in this Chamber that he sat beside **Senator Millen** at a Labour Conference which was held in Sydney, and at which the latter represented the Carriers' Union of Bourke. His statement is corroborated by **Mr. Arthur** Rae and **Mr. Donald** McDonnell. All this took place prior to **Senator Millen** standing for the New South Wales Parliament in 1894. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Before then ? **Senator DE** LARGIE.- The incidents to which I have referred took place prior to 1894, and I do not think that the honorable gentleman became a Parliamentary candidate till 1894. It was at the conference which was held in 1893 that the great debate took place regarding the pledge which should be adopted by the Labour party. I do not know whether it is necessary for me to read the documents which I hold in my hand. I have outlined the contents of them, and, therefore, I do not think it is necessary for me to do so. If **Senator Millen** desires to examine them he is at liberty to do so. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator might have given me that opportunity before. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- The VicePresident of the Executive Council did not appear to be very anxious to be afforded the opportunity of reading them this morning. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Because I could not then have replied. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- The documents are open to examination, and the facts will be found to be as I have stated them. I think I have proved the charge which I made in this Chamber last week, and as **Senator Millen** then declared that he would resign his seat if I could prove it, I now await his resignation. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I say so now. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator DE LARGIE: -- I can only wait for the honorable senator's resignation to be handed to the President. J have no doubt that he will be as good as his word and tender his resignation at the first opportunity. This is not the first time that **Senator Millen's** connexion with the Labour party has been referred to here, but it is the first occasion upon which documentary proof of that connexion has been forthcoming. I now leave it to **Senator Millen** to hand in his resignation. {: #debate-8-s1 .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON:
Western Australia -- As I have on one or two occasions mentioned this matter in the Senate, I feel that I am justified in endeavouring to substantiate the statements which I made here two or three years ago. I forget the debate which was then in progress, but I remember the circumstances well. I remember a statement made by way of interjection by **Senator Millen,** and by way of retort I said that he had, like a good many other men, endeavoured to get into public life by the aid of the Labour party - the party which at that time he was doing all he possibly could to ridicule. I made another reference quite recently to the same matter ; and on that occasion **Senator Millen** stated that the conference to which I referred was a very special conference, called for a very special purpose, and that he was there as a very special delegate, representing a special section of the people in Bourke, namely, the Carriers' Union. He said that the only question dealt with at that conference- {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I did not say that. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- He said that the question with which he was delegated to deal was one having reference to the employment of Afghans in Bourke. I thought my memory was really not so defective as **Senator Millen** imagined. I had an idea that I recollected that **Senator Millen** was the same gentleman of that name as had sat beside me in that conference. I also remember that that gathering was one of the most important conferences ever held in connexion with the Labour party. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- One of the rowdiest. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- Honorable senators will see that he knows all about it. There is an admission. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I am going to tell the Senate more about it. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- The honorable senator knows that he was there. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Hear, hear. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- The very question upon which the great split in the {:#subdebate-8-0} #### Adjournment. [3 Dec, 1909.] Adjournment. 6863 Labour party in New South Wales arose, was practically initiated and dealt with at that particular conference. {: #subdebate-8-0-s0 .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- There are many things that the honorable senator does not know, and that might go into his book ; and the inclusion of them would considerably improve it. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- But they would not improve the reputation of the honorable senator's party. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- They would improve the book, and make it more like a work written by a man who knew what he was talking about. This conference, as I say, dealt with the question of the pledge, which brought about the division of parties. That is to say, it gave room for the Labour "rats" to get out. And they took advantage of the opportunity to get out. When **Senator Millen,** time after time in this Senate, so emphatically denied his connexion with the Labour party, I candidly admit that I had to think seriously over the matter, and to ask myself the question whether I had really made a mistake - whether I had unjustifiably accused the honorable senator of having been connected with the party. But now the evidence to hand is such that I am absolutely confident that all I said was correct. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator will not be so confident when I have finished. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -The honorable senator has often emphatically said "No"; but I want to point out to him that the evidence now brought forward will require more than a passing denial. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -i am going to give it more than a denial. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- The honorable senator is at all times ready to wriggle out and give a denial of everything we say in respect to this matter ; but the very fact that he and I sat side by side in conference, he representing one section of unionists, and I representing another section {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Will the honorable senator say whom he represented? SenatorHENDERSON.- I represented the Illawarra coal miners. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- Good men, too. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- I represented a much larger body of unionists on that occasion than the honorable senator has ever represented. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- Did both honorable senators represent unionists on that occasion ? {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- We both represented unionises. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Was **Senator Needham** present also? {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- He was not; and these things occurred before **Senator Gray** was ever thought of in public life. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Or **Senator Henderson** either. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- No ; **Senator Henderson** was heard of in those days, and was in the middle of it all. He played a very important part in Labour affairs even before this conference of November, 1893, and did a great deal towards securing the election of a Labour man as his representative in the State Parliament. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Did the honorable senator know at that time that I was fighting **Mr. Langwell** for Bourke. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator HENDERSON: -- I know that the honorable senator was looking for **Mr. Langwell's** scalp. I am satisfied that there was a feeling of that kind at the conference to which I have referred. Indeed, I believe that **Senator Millen's** very presence there was particularly concerned with a desire to take the scalp of " Hughie " Langwell; rather than representing the unionists of Bourke. However, there are the facts. I claim now that something more is required at the hands of the VicePresident of the Executive Council than a mere denial of the facts which have been brought forward. They are facts that may be said to be indisputably correct. They are facts that have been drawn from the record of the present **Senator Millen,** and they prove his presence at various meetings that have taken place in connexion with the organization and general conduct of the Labour party. Therefore, I think it is fair that the honorable senator should carry out his promise to **Senator de** Largie. He should be as good as his word and send his resignation along. {: #subdebate-8-0-s1 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- I feel that,quite apart from the fact that I am personally interested in this matter, it is not a very edifying spectacle for the Senate of Australia to be occupied in listening to matters which evidently proceed from personal venom, and which are directed to no public question. They involve no principle, and are not connected in any way with the welfare of this country. Before I proceed to deal with the matters which have been raised, and to show to what extent venom can hurry people into making statements and can blind their judgment as to the meaning of ordinary words, let me congratulate **Senator de** Largie upon his method of attack. He endeavoured to bring this matter forward this> morning under circumstances which he knew would prevent me from giving a denial at that time. I am unlike **Senator de** Largie and **Senator Henderson** in this respect - that I do not regard it as a disgrace to a man to have been a member of a Political Labour League, and if I had ever been a member of one I should not have been in a hurry to repudiate it. The whole position is this : The honorable senators have allowed their desire to attack me in this matter - a desire which has been ceaseless and sleepless - to impel them to rush away, wire all over Australia, and scrape up the records of twenty years, for the purpose of coming here and making a statement in the hope of damaging me. I shall leave it to the Senate, after I have concluded, to decide whether they have succeeded or not. I wish to say first of all that, had I been a member nf a Political Labour League, I certainly should not have felt any inclination to repudiate it. Had I been a member of an other political bodies and had seen reason for changing my views and for leaving them, I should not have felt under an obligation to repudiate my former connexion with them. It is quite clear, however, that the honorable senators who have spoken "dc not regard it as a particularly outrageous thing for a man to leave a political body with which he has formerly been associated. Otherwise they would have nothing else to do but to preach sermons against several members of the very party to which they belong. Indeed, I might- say that half the members of their party from New South Wales are men who within recent times were applicants for nomination from the party to which I belong. It is obvious, therefore,- that the members of the Labour party do not mind recruits who have left another party to join their own. They do not object to a person leaving a political party, provided it is their own party which is joined. They keep all their venom for those who hold a contrary view to their own. Let me come now to the actual facts of this case. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- The honorable senator has admitted that he was at the conference ? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- I have admitted that I was at the conference, but I deny that it was of the nature indicated. It is quite obvious from the statement by my two accusers - if I may dignify them with that name - that they are not aware of the facts. Let me state them. Is **Senator Henderson** aware that at the time when I was present at the conference to which he has referred, I was actually a candidate in opposition to the Labour candidate, **Mr. Langwell.** I stood again in 1894. From 1891 to 1894 I was the avowed candidate for Bourke in opposition to **Mr. Langwell.** This being so, how was it possible for me to join the Political Labour League? What k;nd of labour league would have tolerated in its midst any one who had just defeated its own candidate, and who was openly avowed as the opponent of its candidate at the next election? I ask honorable senators to put to themselves the question whether any Political Labour League would have tolerated such conduct on the part of one of its members ? {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- Is that why the honorable senator was turned out? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Where did the honorable senator get that from? {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- From **Mr. White.** {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- If **Mr. White** said anything of the kind it would be untrue. On that point I can appeal to the Senate to take my word, unsupported as it is, against the equally unsupported word of **Mr. White.** I will ' presently give the reasons why I represented a body at that conference at all. It must be remembered that the Labour Leagues in those days were purely industrial bodies. They were quite distinct from the Political Labour Leagues of to-day, which are their successors. They were, I will admit, extremely radical in their views, and were largely composed of those who to-day form the Political Labour Leagues. But the League referred to formed' itself on such a basis that when it secured the selection of **Mr. Langwell** as its candidate, he was repudiated by the Labour bodies of Sydney. It is quite clear that the Labour body at Bourke, call it what von will, was not in touch with, or a branch of, the existing central Labour organization in Sydney. **Mr. Langwell** was not admitted as a member of the Labour party until some time afterwards. I mention that fact to show that the Labour body at Bourke was not a Political Labour League. I have never denied that I was present at a conference, or that I was a member of the Labour body at Bourke. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- What did the honorable senator deny, then? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- I denied that I was President of a Political Labour League. I denied then and I deny now that I was ever present at a Political Labour League conference. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- I did not charge the honorable senator with being present at such a conference. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- The honorable senator charged me 'with being President of a Political Labour League. I was never a member of a Political Labour League. There was not a Political Labour League at Bourke at that time. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- There was. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- There was a league at Bourke which, as I said, adopted such a constitution that tHe central League repudiated **Mr. Langwell** when he was the selected candidate of the former. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- What was its name? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- The Labour Electoral League. The reason why I left that body, and the central body refused to recognise **Mr. Langwell,** was that they had inserted, as ohe of their planks, Protection. At that time the Labour body in Sydney was either Free Trade or had declined to accept Protection as a plank. That is why I left the Labour Electoral League. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- Was the honorable senator a Protectionist then? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- No, I was a Free Trader, and that is why I left the League. Let me get on to the question of the conference. I cannot do better than give some quotations from the newspaper re- ports of the gathering. The *Sydney Morning Herald* of the 10th November, 1893, contains the following report : - >The most important labour conference yet held in New South Wales commenced its sittings at the Seamen's Hall, Princes-street, yesterday morning. Nearly 200 delegates, representing the various branches of the Labour Electoral > > League and Labour Unions were in attendance ; and the business-sheet contained an almost endless variety of notices of motion. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- That is good enough. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- It is not good enough. No Political Labour League is mentioned in the report. If it was a conference of Political Labour Leagues, how did **Senator Henderson** manage to be there representing a miners' union? {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- We were a political body. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- The honorable senator knows perfectly well that this was, as. the report sets out, a meeting of representatives from electoral leagues, industrial unions, and other bodies, as I shall show if I am allowed to read on. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- We were a political body from 1890 onwards. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- The honorable senator's league may have been, but I shall give the names of delegates of unions which were not. {: #subdebate-8-0-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- 1 ask honorable senators to allow the speaker to proceed without these constant interjections of an irritating character. Certain statements have been made in regard to him, and it is only fair that he should have the opportunity of replying to them. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- I have already read a statement which affirms that the representatives were from electoral leagues and labour unions. That conference was distinctly apart from the Political Labour League conferences which are held to-day. Industrial bodies were represented there, and I have **Senator Henderson's** statement that r was there not as the representative of a Political Labour League, but as the representative of the Carriers' Union at Bourke. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator Lynch: -- Was the subject discussed at that conference? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- My honorable friends have given me such ample opportunity to look into the matter that I can only speak from memory. My impression is that the subject was discussed, and also the fiscal question. I went down from Bourke for a specific purpose. At that time the very big question agitating the people of Bourke was the introduction of camels and Afghan drivers. The Carriers' Union, which was a fairly strong body, was organizing an agitation for legislation to suppress the introduction of those aliens. At that time the matter was of great importance to Bourke, which was a large distributing centre. The Carriers' Union consisted, not as its name would imply, of carriers only, for I venture to say that nine out of every ten business men in Bourke were members of it, as the only means they had of assisting the carriers to protest against the introduction of coloured aliens. To that extent it was a political league in the sense that it was aiming at a political object - legislation to suppress the introduction of aliens. It invited me to attend the conference as its delegate. I had never attended a meeting of the union in my life, but I had taken an active part in the agitation to close the door against the introduction of Afghans. I was presented by the Carriers' Union with a ticket of honorary membership, and on that I went down with one specific mandate only, which was to endeavour to get the conference to deal with the question of coloured labour. But I regret to say that it was so busy wrangling over its pledge that that question was never dealt with until towards the last, when, perhaps, five minutes was all the time that could be devoted to it. Owing to the frequency with which the gag was applied there, I never had an opportunity of fulfilling the mission with which I was despatched from Bourke. I have now made my statement on the matter. To summarize it, in 1891 I was opposing **Mr. Langwell,** the Labour candidate. I could if time had permitted, or it was worth while, have produced ample journalistic evidence that from 1891 to 1894 I never ceased to oppose **Mr. Langwell,** and in the latter year I again stood against the Labour candidate. That is the first thing I put before honorable senators to show that it would have been impossible for me to be a member of a Political Labour League, either in that district or in any other. The next thing I put before honorable senators was an extract from the *Sydney Morning Herald* showing clearly that the conference I attended was not a conference of Political Labour Leagues as understood to-day, nor was it so called. It was a meeting at which industrial unions as well as political bodies were represented. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- -So it is yet. It is exactly the same combination. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Are members of single-tax organizations, and members of socialistic leagues, admitted to the honorable senator's conferences to-day? No; yet all those persons were present on that occasion. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- There is nothing to prevent them from attending if they comply with the conditions of membership. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- They were all present on that occasion. The honorablesenator knows that to a conference of Political Labour Leagues, delegates from a. Single-tax League would not be admitted. But they were admitted to that conference. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- A delegate from, a union is always admitted. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Would the representative of a single tax league be allowed to attend a Political Labour Leagueconference to-day? {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- If he was a member, certainly. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN: -- Would the honorable senator admit there to-day as delegates the representatives of socialistic or single-tax leagues? Certainly not. Yet such persons were at that conference. The conference of that day and the conference of the present day are two different things. I attended the conference as the representative of an industrial union in pursuit of a mission of which I have no reason to be ashamed. That was one of the first steps taken in that far-back country to voice a growing protest against the introduction of coloured aliens. I have made a clear statement on the matter, and I am not at all sorry that my honorable friends havebrought it up. If they think that in someway or other it stands to my disgrace that in the earlier days of the Labour movement, thinking that it would travel along safe lines, I was inclined to take a kindly interest in it, they are welcome to whatever satisfaction they can get out of that. When I look back to the beginning of thegreat Labour movement, I simply regard' anything which I did in the light of a dose of political measles. I express the hope that I have done with them. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator Lynch: -- **Mr. President-** {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The honorablesenator cannot speak, as the debate is closed. {: .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator Lynch: -- But, sir- {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The VicePresident of the Executive Council moved the adjournment of the Senate, and when he rose to speak I called him distinctly in reply, and no other honorable senator sought to rise then, so that the debate cannot foe re-opened. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at n. 11 p.m.
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 3 December 1909, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1909/19091203_senate_3_54/>.