Senate
11 July 1907
3rd Parliament · 2nd Session
- QUESTION
- QUESTION
- QUESTION
- PARLIAMENTARY WITNESSES BILL
- MR. J. K. REID
- PAPERS
- CARRUTHERS’ DELUDED IMMIGRANTS
The President took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.
page 353
QUESTION
PAYMENTS TO STATES
Senator GIVENS:
QUEENSLAND
asked the Minister re presenting the Treasurer, upon notice -
- What was the total amount paid to each of the States respectively from1st January, 1901, to 30th June, 1907, in excess of the threefourths of the net revenue from Customs and Excise required to be returned to the States by section 87 of the Constitution Act?
- What was the excess amount so returned to each of the States respectively during the last financial year?
Senator BEST:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · VICTORIA · Protectionist
– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : -
All the figures in1 and 2 are subject to slight revision, which will probably be found necessary when the entries for the month of June, 1907, have been made in the Treasury books.
page 353
QUESTION
REPORTS: PAPUA
Senator PEARCE:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
asked the Minister representing the Minister of External Affairs, upon notice -
Has any report on the copper fields in Papua by the Director of Mines and Agriculture been received by the Government; if so, will the Minister cause the same to be laid on the table of the Senate? Will the Minister also supply members with copies of the monthly report of the Director of Mines and Agriculture of Papua ?
Senator BEST:
Protectionist
– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -
Yes. A copy of the report will be laid upon the table of the Senate as soon as practicable.
Copies of the monthly reports of the Director of Mines and Agriculture will be laid on the Library table as received.
page 353
QUESTION
MILITARY UNIFORMS
Senator PEARCE:
asked the Minister representing the Minister of Defence, upon notice -
- What are the names of the contractors for the supply of uniforms to the Military Forces in Western Australia?
- What are the prices now paid to such contractors for garments supplied by them, in detail ?
- Who is responsible for securing the observance of the conditions laid down by the Department in such contracts?
Senator KEATING:
Minister for Home Affairs · TASMANIA · Protectionist
– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : -
- The name of the contractor for the supply of uniforms to the Permanent Troops (R.A.A.) is McIver and Morden, of Perth. Contracts for the supply of uniforms to Militia and Volunteer Units are let by Commanding Officers, and particulars in regard to these contracts have not yet been received in Melbourne.
- McIver and Morden’s rates are as follow : -
- The District Commandant in the case of contracts for the Permanent Troops (R.A.A.). In the case of Militia and Volunteers, the
Commanding Officers of Units make the contracts, and are responsible to the Commandant that the conditions aic observed.
Senator PEARCE:
– -Arising out of the answer, I desire to ask the Minister whether the information regarding the Militia will be given to the Senate as soon as it is received.
Senator KEATING:
– I see no objection to that.
Senator PEARCE (for Senator Lynch) asked the Minister representing the Minister of Defence, upon notice -
What precautions, if any, were taken to insure that fair conditions obtained in the manufacture of military uniforms, as supplied to the Western Australian Division df the Federal Defence Force.
Senator KEATING:
– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -
The labour clauses in the conditions of contract supplied by the Department to Commanding Officers of the Militia and Volunteer units for use by them when entering into contracts for the supply of uniforms to their commands, read as follow : -
No sub-letting of this contract, or any part thereof, will be permitted. All work must be carried out in the factory of the contractor within the Commonwealth; and the contractor shall at all times permit and allow any person authorized by the District Commandant full access to such factories, and to inspect the work therein being carried out in this behalf.
The contractor shall pay all persons employed by him in connexion with this contract not less than the minimum rate of wages in accord with the ruling rate of wages in the District in which the contract is to be carried out ; and the hours of labour of all persons employed by him under such contract shall not exceed the maximum hours of labour ruling in such Districts. Any infringement of this or the preceding clause, numbered 23, in the opinion of the Minister, will subject the contractor, on report, to such mulct, not exceeding ^50, as the Minister may direct; and the amount may be deducted from the contractor’s account or from the security money, and the Minister’s decision shall be binding, final, and conclusive as to the act of infringement,, and in all other respects.
The Commandant of Western Australia has been informed that the prices paid by State Tender Board for police uniforms are, as far as possible, to be regarded as the ruling rate of wages required under the conditions of contract.
page 354
PARLIAMENTARY WITNESSES BILL
Motion (by Senator Keating) agreed to-
That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act relating to parliamentary witnesses.
page 354
MR. J. K. REID
Motion (by Senator Macfarlane) agreed to-
That there be laid on the table of the Library all correspondence between the Commonwealth Government and Mr. John Kidston Reid, the Clerk of the House of Assembly of Tasmania, relative to Mr. Reid’s application for a position in the Parliamentary Service of the Commonwealth.
page 354
PAPERS
MINISTERS laid upon the table the following papers : -
Transfers under the Audit Acts in connexion with Accounts of the Financial Year 1906-7. - Approved 5th July, 1907.
Amendment of Public Service Regulation 231 , Statutory Rules 1907, No. 69. Repeal of Regulation 66, and substitution of new Regulation ir> lieu thereof, Statutory Rules 1907, No. 70.
Report of Meteorological Conference held in Melbourne, May, 1907.
Report on Water Supply for the Canberra Capital Site by Mr. S. H. Weedon, InspectingEngineer, and Report by Mr. L. A. B. Wade, Chief Engineer, New South Wales.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S SPEECH r ADDRESS-IN-REPLY.
Debate resumed from 10th July (vide page 296), on motion by Senator Lt.-Col. Cameron -
That the following Address-in-Reply be agreed to : -
To His Excellency the Governor-General. May it please Youn Excellency -
We, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to expressour loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speechwhich you have been pleased to address to Paliament
Senator FINDLEY:
Victoria
.- The programme of the Government, containing, as it does, twenty-four paragraphs, reminds me of a bill of fare which was presented to me at a hotel in Hong Kong; about two years ago, and which was about as heavily laden as any bill of fare I had! ever seen. It contained, if my memory serves me rightly, about the same number of items as are included in the GovernorGeneral’s Speech.
Senator Best:
– Did the honorable senator enjoy himself on that occasion?
Senator FINDLEY:
– After carefully perusing the bill of fare, I found that it contained only two or three substantial courses, the rest being so much surplusage. So, in a measure, it is with the bill of fare which has been submitted for our consideration, because whilst it contains two or three substantial items, and a couple of what I might call palate ticklers, the rest is so much padding. It contains one item, however, which ought to soothe that small band in Sydney that has become somewhat notorious, and is known in certain quarters as “ Sydney secessionists,” who, if the press reports be correct, have had day-dreams and nightmares ever since the inauguration of the Commonwealth, and the assembling of the Federal Parliament in Melbourne. I had hoped, in common with many thousands of the citizens of this Commonwealth, that with the establishment of Federation, the creation of the Federal Parliament, and the removal of Inter-State barriers, much of the jealousy which had formerly existed would entirely disappear, and that there would be a sincere and honest desire, especially on the part of the daily newspapers of the various States, to create a genuine bond of friendship and a feeling of unity between the people of Australia. But, as things have eventuated, such has not been the case, and the sinners in that respect exist principally in the State of New South Wales. One would really think that the selection of the Capital Site for the Commonwealth - the place at which the Commonwealth Parliament is in future to assemble and deliberate, - was a matter that concerned only the State of New South Wales. According to the Constitution, the Federal Capital must be situated in New South Wales. The Constitution is in no way contravened so long as it is there situated. It rests entirely with the representatives of the people in this Parliament to decide what site shall be selected. It was agreed by the majority , of the members of this Parliament that Dalgety was the most suitable site. That site was offered to the Federation by the Government of New South Wales.
Senator Walker:
– Not by the Parliament of New South Wales.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It was offered, if I remember rightly, by the New South Wales Government to the Federal Government for Federal purposes. But, after that site had been selected, certain wirepullers - certain interested people, I believe - set to work to do al! they possibly could to prejudice the minds not only of the people of New South Wales, but of the other States, against the selected site, and to create a feeling of petty . provincialism and narrow-minded parochialism. I have followed carefully the speeches delivered on this question and the tenor of them has been essentially unpatriotic, unfederal, and anti-Australian. The chief sinner in that respect is the present Premier of New South Wales, Mr. Carruthers. What does he propose to do? He is proposing just now that a referendum should be taken as to whether the people approve or disapprove of Dalgety, and that unless that site secures as many votes as all the other sites put together, it shall be rejected. But, as I said a moment ago, it is not for New South Wales to approve or disapprove of the Capital Site. That is a matter of national concern.
Senator Gray:
– Why did the Constitution give New South Wales anything to say in the matter?
Senator FINDLEY:
– As a matter of common courtesy, I suppose, her opinion was solicited, but this Parliament has a perfect right to select the site of the capital provided we do not in any way infringe the Constitution. One would have expected that the daily newspapers would assist to create a truly Federal feeling of friendship.
Senator Givens:
– Did the honorable senator expect it?
Senator FINDLEY:
– So far as the Victorian newspapers are concerned - and I do not know that they are particular friends of mine or of the party to which I belong - I will say that they have, since the inception of Federation, done all they possibly could to further the Federal cause.
Senator Pearce:
– What ! Did the honorable senator read what the Age said with regard to what it called the “ Desert Railway “ ?
Senator FINDLEY:
– Well, I do not agree with that term.
Senator Millen:
– Nor does Senator Pearce !
Senator FINDLEY:
– I am certain that honorable senators would not accuse a member of this Chamber of being unfederal merely because he opposed the construction of the proposed railway, or did not approve of the survey.
Senator Pearce:
– But look at the lies the Victorian newspapers told about it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I do not know that there were any deliberate’ untruths. However, that is by the way. The Age, while it is a powerful newspaper, is not the only newspaper in Victoria. One swallow does not make a summer, even though what Senator Pearce says may be correct.
Senator de Largie:
– Does the honorable senator call the Age a powerful newspaper ?
Senator FINDLEY:
– Any journal that has an immense circulation must be a power in any community, and the Age, according to its own statement, has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Victoria. I do not agree with everything that it serves up each morning, but that does not warrant me in saying that it is not a powerful journal. But there have appeared from time to time in the Sydney newspapers - in the Daily Telegraph particularly - articles with scare headings, such as “ Another Injustice to Sydney.” These head-lines are almost as bi’g as the hand that penned them, and they mostly relate to imaginary grievances of New South Wales. The cause of them is that the Seat of Government happens for the time being to be in Melbourne.
Senator Mulcahy:
– The sooner it is removed from Melbourne the better, anyhow.
Senator FINDLEY:
– No doubt it would be a good thing if the Seat of Government were in Tasmania to shake up some of the dry bones and the sweaters over there. On the 18th May last, there appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph an article headed, “The Federal Capital,” from which I will make a few extracts. It said: -
The Deakin Government has no intention, has never had any intention, will never have any. intention, unless it be forced bv party or by outside pressure, to arrive at an effective determination. Mr. Deakin has always played with the question, and he will continue to play with it. It is so far no part of his programme for next session. It will never be a serious part of his programme for any session while political means can be adopted to prevent it.
Now, there is no member of this Parliament who has adopted any political means to prevent the Government of the day from dealing effectively with the Seat of Government question. I do not believe that any member of this Parliament has used any political influence, or any influence whatever, to prevent a practical result being arrived at. On the contrary, I feel certain that most members of Parliament desire to hasten the establishment of the Federal Capital, because .most of us are agreed that it would be a good thing to remove the Seat of Government from the large centres of population. To do so would be to foster a more Federal spirit, and a truly national sentiment, and to create opportunities for the promotion of national aspirations. The article went on to say -
The Federal Parliament has developed into almost a Victorian institution. The influences of its environment are manifested in every de bate. The wire-pulling to secure purposes thai are advantageous to Victoria is not only constantly exercised, but is continually successful. Members from distant States living in Melbourne develop into mouthpieces of Melbourne opinions.
On minor, questions, where Victorian interests are involved, a hearing can be obtained and a settlement effected, while the ventilation of a grievance from a distant State would be treated as an intolerable infliction. If a small factory in a Melbourne suburb is in trouble the House is hushed, while an eloquent Victorian pictures its insufferable wrongs. If a factory on the northwest coast of Australia attempted to ventilate its grievances, the Victorian benches would rock with laughter.
A back-country town in New South Wales, the capital of Queensland, a district in Tasmania can make its representations a hundred times to the different Federal bureaux. It will receive a polite rejoinder - a stereotyped promise of consideration. A Melbourne suburb or a Victorian country town wants a post office or a Customs officer. … It lays hold of its member, gets, a personal interview with the Minister, and has its request granted. This sort of thing goes on every” day.
Senator Gray:
– Hear, hear; perfectly true.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The quotation continues -
The officials in the Post Office are in trouble, the Minister rushes down to the building, sees for himself what’s the matter, writes a vigorous minute, and deals with the complaint. A similar grievance in the Post Office in Sydney would lead to a report. The report would filter throughto Melbourne, the Melbourne head would takeit, read it, sign it, docket it, pigeon-hole it.
As it is with the Post Office so it is with the Customs. And, as it is with the Customs, so. it is with the Home Office. And as it is with: the Home Office, so it is with Defence.
I heard a New South Wales senator say “ Perfectly true.” I say that that statement is absolutely incorrect.
Senator Gray:
– I say, as a person who has had experience, that the remark that I cheered is true.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Does the honorable senator indorse the sentiments expressed in the extract?
Senator Gray:
– Not all of them. I said that one of them was true - that relating to the Customs.
Senator FINDLEY:
– So far as I am aware, there is no representative of the State of Victoria, or of any constituency in it, who is treated differently from the representatives of any other State. If it be correct that because the Seat of Government is located in Melbourne, the representatives of Victoria receive favorable treatment, it is the duty of the representativesof other States to point that out ‘in Parliament, and not by way of interjection to indorse statements in an anonymous article.
Senator Millen:
– The only objection I have to the extract read by the honorable senator is as to the painfully weak way in which the writer expresses himself.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Articles of this kind are creating anxiety amongst the people of New South Wales, some of whom evidently really think that Victoria is gaining an immense advantage because the Federal Parliament meets in this city.
Senator Gray:
– That is a fact.
Senator Stewart:
– Look at the money we spend here.
Senator FINDLEY:
– But look at the money that has been spent on behalf of this Parliament by Victoria. Since the establishment of Federation, this magnificent building, costing many thousands of pounds, has been placed at the disposal of the representatives of the other States absolutely free of charge.
Senator Gray:
– We appreciate that.
Senator FINDLEY:
– In order to facilitate and convenience the Federal members in that respect the Victorian Parliament had to alter and add to the Exhibition Building at considerable cost. The Federal Parliament had its choice of the buildings, and it selected the one in which we are assembled, but the amount expended by the Victorian people in connexion with the matter ought to be remembered. To make the Exhibition Building suitable as a place for the meeting of the Parliament cost the taxpayers of Victoria .£41,760 5s. iod. In addition to that amount, at the initiation of Federation, many other conveniences, especially in the way of housing Federal officials and departments, were placed at the disposal of the Federal Parliament.
Senator Gray:
– Were not those offices paid for?
Senator FINDLEY:
– Not at the inception of the Federal Parliament. Anyhow, the large item I have mentioned has not been repaid, and the Victorian people have never asked that it should be.
Senator Millen:
– The honorable senator has forgotten one other act of courtesy
Senator FINDLEY:
– What is that?
Senator Millen:
– The attempted raid by the Victorian Government upon our incomes by the imposition of- the State income tax.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Their example in that respect has been followed in the State from which Senator Millen comes, because the New South Wales Government are petitioning the Privy Council toset aside the judgment of the High Court.
Senator Millen:
– Not in connexion with our salaries.
Senator FINDLEY:
– In connexion with the salaries of the Federal Public Service,, but that is only a forerunner of a similar demand upon members of the Federal Parliament.
Senator Givens:
– We do not receivesalaries, but allowances.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The honorable senator may call them what he likes, but we get them at the end of every month, and very convenient they are, too.
Senator Givens:
– They are all right for Victorian members of the Federal Parliament, but they serve only to pay the expenses of men attending this Parliament from distant States.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The allowance isnot too much for a Victorian representative, who has many calls made upon him. and I think none of the Victorian representatives are very wealthy men. I was talking of the anti-Federal spirit displayed in certain quarters, and I remind honorable senators that when the States Premiers assembled recently at Brisbane, though it might have been thought that as representatives of the peoples of the various States they would set them a good example, one gentleman present, Mr. Carruthers, the Premier of New South Wales, never rested until he showed his hostility to the Federation in a matter of national importance to every State in the Commonwealth. I refer to the transfer of the Northern Territory. Mr. Carruthers at the Conference moved the following resolution : -
That this Conference objects to the proposed agreement for the transfer of the Northern Territory from South Australia to the Commonwealth.
What right had he to move such a motion? The matter is not one which concerns New South Wales alone, but one which very seriously concerns the people of every State in the Commonwealth. I have no hesitation in saving that I believe whole-heartedly in the Northern Territory being taken over by the Commonwealth, and the sooner the transfer is made the better I shall be pleased. It is a lonesome land, with an area four and a half times as great as that of Great Britain, six times as great as that of Victoria, and nearly twice as great as the area of New
South Wales, while it has a population of only 3,000, and only 1,000 of that number are white people.
Senator Gray:
– And it has taken forty years to secure that population.
Senator FINDLEY:
– In my opinion South Australia is to be commended for having shouldered the burden of the Northern Territory for such a long period of time. It was refused by New . South Wales, and, in my judgment, South Australia adopted a magnanimous attitude in taking the responsibility of its occupation. The Commonwealth would never be worthy of the name if that portion of Australia were occupied by an unfriendly people. It is, as I have said, a lonesome land, and is within a few days’ steam of 750 millions of coloured people, including those of ambitious and audacious Japan and awakening China, and a restless and discontented India. Any man who can look lightly on the vastness and emptiness of the Northern Territory is no true Australian, or he fails to realize the dangers that confront us every day through that vast area of unoccupied territory.
Senator Gray:
– Does the honorable senator think that a foreign nation desiring to come here would come to the Northern Territory rather than to the front door, where they would have something to get?
Senator FINDLEY:
– It all depends on what kind of burglars they are. They will come to the most convenient “ door, back or front, and in all probability those who might desire to invade Australia would consider the Northern Territory as affording the most convenient door by which they could enter.
Senator Pearce:
– It would be the front door for them.
Senator FINDLEY:
– That is so. The question is one of very grave importance, and the sooner we realize that it cannot tie toyed with the better it will be for the Commonwealth. During this debate _ I have listened, in some cases with great interest, and in others with very great surprise, to the speeches that have been delivered. The speech delivered by Senator St. Ledger, while displaying a pleasing choice of language, was so full of paradoxes that I have read and re-read it without being able to come to any definite conclusion as to some of the statements that honorable senator made. He worked himself up into a high state of enthusiasm in regard to the glories of the United
Kingdom, referring particularly to the last period of fifty years of free-trade in the old country.
Senator St Ledger:
– I am proud of it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The honorable senator said -
The United Kingdom has rested upon the principle of free-trade for about fifty years, and during that period the British Empire has raised itself to a pinnacle of prosperity and magnificence unequalled not only in its own history but in the history of the whole world.
It is true that the wealth and power of the United Kingdom have immensely increased, but it is also true that during the half century referred to, side by side with the growth of that wealth and power, there has grown up, and has been visible on every hand, the most grinding poverty. And those who have been mainly responsible for the immense increase in wealth and production have not received the due reward for their efforts.
Senator Gray:
– But we have improved upon that.
Senator FINDLEY:
– We have improved since the time of the flood. I hope we shall bring about some improvement in the honorable senator, and shall be able to shake him up to such an extent that he will get rid of some of the free-trade fallacies to which he clings so tenaciously. After all, is the honorable senator a freetrader ?
Senator Gray:
– I do not know.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I should like to know. If Senator Gray were a real freetrader he would not believe in obtaining revenue from Customs at all, and yet he contends that we should not get revenue from a land tax, or from an income tax, or any other taxation which would bear on those best able to bear it, so long as all taxation can be shouldered on to the poorer classes in the community.
Senator Gray:
– How does the honorable senator know that?
Senator FINDLEY:
– That has been the honorable senator’s doctrine and gospel ever since he has been alive. It is the doctrine of the school to which he belongs, and is in the atmosphere he breathes every day in coming in the train from New South Wales. In “regard to the glories of the United Kingdom, Senator St. Ledger exhibited one side of the picture; I have another, the . industrial side, to show.
Senator St Ledger:
– I know it just as well.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If the- honorable senator does know it, why did he not speak of it? It is said that one-half the world does not know how the other half lives.
Senator Givens:
– And does not care.
Senator FINDLEY:
– And probably does not care. Statistics at hand enable us to show how some of the people of the United Kingdom live.
Senator Gray:
– I hope the honorable senator will show how people in protectionist countries live also.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If the honorable senator has patience, I will state the conditions. In London, which, we are told, is the greatest city on earth-
Senator St Ledger:
– So it is.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Well, I should not care to live there twenty-four hours so long as I might live in sunny Australia. In London, the home of the brave and the free, and as one facetious member in the Victorian Parliament said many years ago, “ of the half-starved as well,” 1,250,000 persons get less than a guinea a week per family.
Senator St Ledger:
– By the way, what is the honorable senator’s authority?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I am quoting statistics compiled from official journals published in the old country. I find that -
During every year more than 2,250,000 persons receive poor law relief in the British Islands. In England and Wales 72,000 die each year in workhouses, hospitals, infirmaries, or asylums. In London alone there are 100,000 persons in workhouses, hospitals, prisons, or industrial schools. And an army of nearly 100,000 out-of-works. In London one person out of every four will die in a workhouse, a hospital, or a lunatic asylum.
So much for glorious free-trade.
Senator Pearce:
– Does the honorable senator think that that is entirely due to free- trade?
Senator FINDLEY:
- Senator St. Ledger claimed that the conditions to which he referred as existing in the United Kingdom were due to free-trade. I do not claim that ; far from it. I shall endeavour to show that grinding poverty exists in freetrade and in protectionist countries alike. There is something more than the fiscal question at the bottom of it.
Senator St Ledger:
– If the honorable senator will refer to my speech he will find thatI did not put it as a consequence of free-trade.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I have referred to the speech so often that every time I refer to it againI become only the more mixed up.
Senator St Ledger:
– The speech was intended to mix the honorable senator up.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I can give honorable senators some further information as to the conditions existing in England. I find that-
Throughout the British Islands a high percentage of the working-class children die before they reach five years of age.
That is England and London. Now let us go to Scotland.
In various parts of Scotland 22 per cent, of Scottish families still dwell in a single room each, and the proportion in the case of Glasgow rises to 33 per cent. The little town of Kilmarnock, with only 28,447 inhabitants, bundles even a slightly larger proportion of its families into single room tenements. Altogether, there are in Glasgow over 120,000, and in all Scotland 560,000, persons (more than one-eighth of the whole population) who do not know the decency of even a two-roomed house.
Now I propose to refer to Ireland.
Senator Givens:
– A country that has lost half its population in the last century.
Senator FINDLEY:
– A country that has lost 4,000,000 of human beings in a period; of sixty years, and that, as the writer of the publication from which I am quoting; says, is a record of national wastage unparalleled in the history of the world. Let us see how the people of Ireland live, so far as their habitations are concerned. I quote from a work entitled, The Outlook in Ireland, by Lord Dunraven, the late Viceroy. It was published within the last few months, and may be obtained in our Public Library. The author supplies the information that in Ireland there are over 79,000 tenements of one room, occupied as follows : -
There is nothing much to enthuse about in those statistics, and if any one endeavours to show the glories of the Empire by picturing to the people of Australia the unbounded wealth that the United Kingdom possesses to-day, the other side of the picture should also in fairness be shown.
Senator St Ledger:
– And it would be a splendid speech in the House of Commons.
Senator FINDLEY:
– As we are part and parcel of the British Empire, anything that affects one part of the Empire is a matter of serious concern to every other part, and I am just as much entitled to refer to the United Kingdom in this Senate as the honorable senator was to dilate on the unexampled prosperity that the United Kingdom was enjoying as the result of fifty years of free-trade. Let us take the wages in that country. The writer says -
Nearly 900,000 persons in Ireland are engaged in agriculture. Since the total population is not quite 4,400,000, and 2,500,000 are returned as “not producing,” it will be understood how large a proportion comes under the head of agriculture. Probably in no other part of the British Empire can be found a body of men who are paid at as low a rate as the agricultural labourer in Ireland. … In Ireland, the average earnings in seven counties are less than ros. a week, Mayo being lowest with 8s. gd., while in Sligo the average is Ss. nd., and in Roscommon 9s. id. The fact that Irish agricultural labourers - many of them with wives and families to support - can keep body and soul together on such a small income, without assistance, is one of the marvels of the time. … In Ireland itself, out of every 1,000 of the population, there are 64 men and 63 women of 65 years of age and upwards, while in England and Wales the figures are 42 and 41 respectively.
Senator Trenwith:
– Are those wages with or without maintenance ?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I think they are without maintenance.
Senator Sayers:
– I think the honorable senator is wrong.
Senator Pearce:
– If they are with maintenance, the honorable senator need not go to Ireland. He could have found here in Victoria a few years ago, men working for 10s. a week on the farms.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If that is so, and I have no doubt it is, then I suppose those men also got their keep. The writer continues -
Again, take the figures of pauperism ; one out of every 100 persons is an inmate of a workhouse, and one out of every 44, including those receiving outdoor relief, keeps body and soul together by rate aid:
I could go on reading extracts from this interesting and informative book, but I am not going to weary the Senate with it further. I think I have said sufficient in reply to Senator St. Ledger’s statements to prove that, whilst it is true that the wealth of the United Kingdom has increased enormously, poverty and sweating and their concomitant evils have increased side by side with it.
Senator St Ledger:
– I do not think the honorable senator can substantiate his latter statement.
Senator Gray:
– I suppose the honorable senator recognises that during the last fifty years the wages paid in the United Kingdom have greatly increased all round - that is, since the days of protection.
Senator de Largie:
– So has the cost of living.
Senator FINDLEY:
– We often hear about the increase of wages, but as Senator de Largie rightly says, if wages have increased they have not increased proportionately to the amount of effort that has been put forth by the workers of Great Britain, and, in addition, the purchasing power of those wages has absolutely lessened.
Senator Gray:
– It is absolutely the re- %’erse in England.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Senator St. Ledger said also that he would not hesitate to give his unstinted and whole-souled support to assist in bringing immigrants to Australia. I shall not, in this Senate or outside it, assist in luring people to any part of the Commonwealth, until first of all work is found for those out of work, who number many thousands throughout Australia to-day, until sweating, if not entirely eliminated, is at any rate materially minimized in all the States, particularly Tasmania, where it has reached the border line of white slavery, and until also land is provided for that army of landless people who’ are clamouring for land in Australia, but are unable to get it. Where are the opportunities offering for able-bodied men to labour under reasonable conditions and for reasonable hours in Australia? Can any honorable senator who desires to flood Australia with the cheap labour of other lands, point to the avenues that are open? Senator de Largie dealt yesterday with sweating in Tasmania. Sweating is always a sure barometer of bad times in any State, and the barometer as far as sweating is concerned has got down to almost its lowest level in Tasmania, which is called “ The land of No Desire.”
Senator Mulcahy:
– Is there anything worse in Tasmania than is to be found in the Victorian starch trade?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I am not going to make any invidious distinction between any of the States.
Senator Mulcahy:
– The honorable senator has not mentioned any State but Tasmania up to the present.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I have a long distance to travel yet. Tasmania, like Ireland, is rapidly becoming a State of old men and women, and youths and girls, because there is a very dismal outlook for the manhood of Tasmania. I have often heard some of our friends say that but for the existence of wages boards in the various States prosperity would reign, and that there would be a period such as the working classes had never enjoyed in their lifetime.
Senator de Largie:
– It is said that they are driving capital out of the country.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Yes, it is claimed that the wages boards have a. tendency .to drive capital out of the country, as though the capitalists, most of whom are very fat men, had wings, and could fly hither and thither at their own sweet will. I have often asked what country they would migrate to, because there is a disposition 011 the part of the masses of every country to get that which is their due. The Royal Commission in Tasmania was brought about mainly because of the verysad circumstances in which a young girl over there came to her untimely end. She was in the employ of a draper who, I do not expect, is very seriously affected by Federation. Senator Mulcahy, if I followed him rightly yesterday, said in an interjection to Senator de Largie, that the sweating in Tasmania was in a measure due to Federation.
Senator Mulcahy:
– I said in the boot trade.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Then if it affects that trade, why does it not affect every other trade? I shall endeavour to show that sweating exists in every line of industry in Tasmania.
Senator Gray:
– In the world.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If it does so all over the world, as we know it does, it cannot be the fault of our Federation, because that as yet does not extend to every part of the world. That young girl, who was seventeen years of age, was in the employ of a firm whose turnover was about £30,000 per annum.
Senator Mulcahy:
– How does the honorable senator know that?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I know it from the evidence tendered at the inquest which was held after the girl had committed suicide.
Senator Mulcahy:
– There was no evidence as to the turnover.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It was so stated at the inquest. It was also shown that this young girl, who was of an age bordering on womanhood, was intrusted with the handling of thousands of pounds every year, and as she found it impossible to live respectably and virtuously on 7s. 6d. a week, she “ commandeered “ some of the money belonging to her employer.
Senator Givens:
– And only a trifle at that.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It was only an infinitesimal sum, but she was detected, and sooner than face the shame of exposure she ended her existence. At the inquest the jury returned this verdict -
That the salary paid to the deceased - 7s. 6d. per week - for discharging the responsible duties of cashier in a firm whose cash takings were estimated at over ^30,000 a year was a scandal.
I hope Senator Mulcahy is listening.
Senator Mulcahy:
– I know all the circumstances.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Why then did the honorable senator ask me where I got the evidence as to the turnover of £30,000 a year? Evidently the honorable senator did not read the verdict.
Senator Mulcahy:
– I thought the honorable senator was reading a part of the evidence given before the Royal Commission - evidence which it was said would not be published.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The circumstances called for that indignant ‘ protest from the jury. So aroused was the public of Tasmania by the jury’s finding that a Royal Commission was appointed by the Tasmanian Parliament to make furtherinquiries into the sweating conditions existing in that State. Senator de Largie read from the report of that Royal Commission, and if he felt so disposed, he could have quoted very much more. As. Hansard is frequently read by people abroad, who want to know something about Australia, I am going to supplement the honorable senator’s remarks about the finding of the Commission. The honorable senator pointed out that there was sweating in various directions. According to the sworn testimony given before the Commission, bakers in Tasmania worked from fifty to sixty-three hours for as low as 30s. a week, bakers’ drivers worked from fifty to sixty-five hours a week for 25s., biscuit-makers from forty-eight to fifty and a half hours PeI week for a wage of from us. to £2 10s.
The wage was 30s. a week after eight years’ service. The bootmakers worked from forty-eight to fifty hours per week - there is very little recognition of the eight hours’ principle over there - for a wage of from 22s. 6d. to £2 10s. for males, and from 4s. to 20s. for females. In the breweries, which are said to do exceptionally well in Tasmania, because they brew very fine beer, the employes work from fifty-four to sixty-four hours per week for a wage of from 25s. to £2 8s. The brickmakers work from seventyseven te ninety-one hours a week, According to the finding of the Commission, for -from 25s. to £2 7s. Brushmakers work fifty hours a week at £2 for males, and from 8s. to 15s. for females. Butchers work from fifty-seven to sixty-four hours a week at from 20s. to 50s. ; while butchers’ assistants get from :17s. 6d. to 20s. a week. In the clothing trade there is no pay for twelve months, and then the pay runs from 2s. 6d. to 10s., and from ros. to 15s. for piece-work. I do not know that Federation has affected the coffee palaces and cafes.
Senator Mulcahy:
– I never said that it did..
Senator FINDLEY:
– I do not say that the honorable senator made that statement. In those institutions the waitresses work from’ seventy-nine to eighty-five hours a week, and get from 8s. to 15s., while the porters work eighty-four hours at from 17 s. 6d. to 20s. The Commission found that flour millers and gas stokers worked the year round, without Sundays or holidays, twelve hours a day, and that the wages paid to women and girls at knitting factories are too low to admit of even the barest existence. Having read carefully every line contained in their report, I assert that, bad as were the conditions in Great Britain when Tom Hood wrote the Song of the Shirt, it may be safely said that in Tasmania to-day some of the women using machines are threading the needles with the threads of their lives, because it is impossible for them to live any length of time under the sweating conditions which are recognised there. The Commission reported that the piece-workers at shirt factories have to toil excessive hours to keep body and soul together; that the- river steamer employes graft from fifty to eighty-four hours a week for from 15s. to 30s. ; and that the women employed in the Government clothing factories can only average from 10s. to us. a week. How long would a Labour Government remain in power if it paid such a pittance to those who make clothing for the use of Government servants? There would be a hue-and-cry raised from one end of the State to the other. However, because the Labour Party is not yet in a majority in Tasmania, those conditions continue.
Senator Mulcahy:
– I think that the honorable senator will find that they will be remedied so far as the law can do it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– By whose instrumentality will it be done? These conditions have existed in Tasmania for a long period, but it was not until the advent of the Labour Party to its Parliament, in spite of almost insurmountable difficulties, that a Royal Commission was appointed, and the information I have quoted was elicited. Because of the wide publication of the startling conditions in regard to’ many of these trades no doubt measures will be introduced in the Tasmanian Parliament, if not- to eliminate, at any rate, to greatly minimize them. I do not know that the efforts will be altogether successful, because, whilst it is true that public opinion has been focussed upon the sweating conditions in the various States, there are other influences at work in order to prevent the working classes from getting fair remuneration for- their labour.
Senator Mulcahy:
– Human nature is there all the time.
Senator FINDLEY:
-“ Hum Human nature” ! The rapacity of some employers knows no bounds.
Senator Mulcahy:
– - And the desire for cheapness with some purchasers knows no bounds either.
Senator FINDLEY:
– In a measure the purchasers are to be sympathized with, because, whilst I am not one to encourage the buying of cheap articles, many folks who are in receipt of a beggarly wage, have either to do without that which they want or to purchase goods which have been made under sweating conditions. They must get the cheapest goods which it is possible to obtain. One would really think that the employers of the various States were in sympathy with the desire to see the workers fairly remunerated for their labour, but it is not so.
Senator St Ledger:
– - Many of them, are.
Senator FINDLEY:
– There are, it is true, isolated cases, but these are very few and far between. If we are to take the opinions expressed by .those who represent the Employers’ Union, their hand is against every kind of reform intended to advance and improve the working classes.
Senator Turley:
– Does not the antiSocialist always support the system which produces that state of affairs?
Senator FINDLEY:
– To my mind, the anti-Socialist is a humbug, because he has as much knowledge of Socialism as a grasshopper has of golf or lawn tennis.
Senator Gray:
– Does not the honorable senator know that some employers are self-made men?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I have often heard that remark about self-made men. There is no one, either here or outside, who has, by his individual effort or enterprise, become a wealthy man, but he has, by the united effort and industry of other folks, who have materially assisted him, and who sometimes have been mainly responsible for his success. I was mentioning the fact that influences were at work to prevent legislation from being introduced in the various States to bring about a discontinuance of the sweating conditions I have named. On Wednesday night, according to the daily .newspapers, there was a meeting of the Employers’ Federation in Melbourne. That body, I think, embraces, if not the whole, ;the principal employers of the States. At its recent meeting a gentleman named Mr. Aves was introduced, and after complimentary reference had been made in “ regard to his visit, Mr. Fairbairn, who is president of the federation, and represents Fawkner in another place, expressed himself in the following terms in regard to proposed remedial legislation affecting the working classes: -
On behalf of the members of the federation he could say that though they understood that the present Wages Boards had mitigated sweating in certain trades where women were largely employed, they did not believe in the principle of wages being fixed by Act of Parliament, and only accepted the Wages Boards as the lesser evil of several proposed panaceas for the settlement of industrial strife.
Senator St Ledger:
– Mill and Spencer say exactly the same thing.
Senator FINDLEY:
– What did Adam and Eve say ? Mill says many other things which the honorable senator could say in support of the policy which is put forward by the Labour Party.
Senator St Ledger:
– I do not say that the statement is correct, but I point out that those men say that.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Evidently the honorable senator approves of what they, say.
Senator St Ledger:
– No,- that is unfair.
Senator FINDLEY:
– We shall test the honorable senator’s sincerity when legislation is introduced which will embody fi principle to protect the workers in protected industries. Mr. Fairbairn goes on to say that he accepts the Wages Boards as the lesser evil. We can take it then that if there were no Labour Party in ‘Parliament there would be no Wages Boards, and that sweating would be rampant in every State. I have now finished with Tasmania. Victoria is not altogether a “ working man’s paradise.” There is sweating in every direction here. It is notorious that the clerical workers of Victoria are aBout the worst sweated workers in Australia. In warehouses, drapery shops,, .financial institutions, and banks, men are expected to clothe themselves in fine raiment, to pay their way, and to live decently on a wage amounting in some cases to from 17s. 6d. to 30s. a week. Financial institutions are, it is said, to-day in more than favourable circumstances. They have had exceptionally good years, and in consequence they have, for some time past, been paying good dividends. One would naturally think that, in such circumstances, their employes would receive some consideration.
Senator Gray:
– Some have received very material consideration.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Evidently not, judging by the numerous letters on the question of long hours and short pay in these institutions which have appeared, not in the Labour newspapers, but in the daily newspapers of Victoria. In the Argus last April there was a letter headed, “Bank Clerks,” and signed “ Threadneedle - street.” The writer says -
During the past few years I have had to place four well-educated nephews (the sons of two deceased brothers) as they matriculated from one of our public schools. Being the sons of two old London bankers, banking seemed to run in the blood, as they all desired to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. My eldest nephew is admittedly smart at banking, likes his work, and is said to have got on - well ! He was sent into the country, on ^50 per annum, to take the place of a man on £70. After 12 months he received a rise of £10, and was promoted to another country town to do the work on £60 of a man receiving ^85 - and so on.
That is the kind of promotion he got. Whilst he got a. slight increase in his wage (he had to do the work of a man who was formerly paid considerably more than he received.
To-day, on £g$ per annum, he is handling thousands over the counter and relieving an -accountant on ^145 - this after six years’ service.
So that, after six years’ service, this welleducated young man, coming from a good family, is getting less than -£2 a week, although he is handling thousands of pounds of other people’s money.
Senator St Ledger:
– I wonder why he stayed there, and did not push out.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I shall tell the honorable senator why the men stay in the institutions if he will have a little patience -
Much might be said in reference to night work, which is never paid for j to the fortnight’s annual leave, as against three weeks enjoyed by most other clerks; to youths being obliged to leave home for some up-country town, where board is higher ; to Christmas and Easter holidays often being lost through the branch needing a clerk’s presence at night, &c. Why are the employes of the Savings Bank paid well by Act of Parliament, and those of the associated banks so -wretchedly ?
The answer is plain. Some are in the employ of anti-Socialists. Those employed in the Government Savings Bank are under a socialistic employer. Consequently they are better paid and better off. ‘
Senator St Ledger:
– They are under the control of the Government.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Exactly, and the honorable senator does not believe in anything that does not suit him being under the control of the Government. As to banking, I met a man the other day, who said to me, “I am tired of living a single life.” I said, “ Why do you not go into the matrimonial market; there are over 60,000 more marriageable women in Victoria than there are marriageable men.” He said, “ I should like to get married, but if I did I should lose my job.” I replied, “ Then you will have to remain single; but why should you lose your job ?” He said, “The regulations of the financial institution in which I am employed lay it down that a man cannot get married unless he is .in receipt of at least £200 per annum. I am not getting anything like that. I have gone carefully into the matter, and find that if I secure promotion no quicker in the future than has been the case in the past, I shall be sixty-nine before I get ^200 per annum, and then I shall be too old to think of matrimony.” The Labour Party are sometimes accused of being opposed to the marriage tie, but what about these financial institutions? If they were owned by the people, depend upon it the condition of those engaged in them would be very much better than it is to-day, and a man certainly would not have to wait until he arrived at nearly three score years and ten before he received £200 per annum for his labour. These evil conditions apply not only to banks, but to insurance offices. A writer, signing himself “Humanity,” wrote to the Age with regard to clerks in insurance offices. He said-
I desire to direct public notice to the cruel manner in which the clerks in insurance offices in Melbourne are being sweated. These clerks have to be on duty at g o’clock each morning, and for four or five days each week all the year round do not leave off work till 9 or 10 o’clock at night, with a short interval for tea. Should any of your readers doubt this statement they can easily verify it by visiting Collins and Queen streets any night. They will find all the offices lit up, and the clerks at their tasks. Numbers are married, and for the sake of economy in house rent, live in distant suburbs, consequently they have to leave home by 8 o’clock in the morning, and do not reach it again till near midnight, suffering from brain-fag caused by pouring over intricate calculations during the long day and night, his only desire being to creep wearily to bed. No relaxation, no time even for those home social intercourses which are the salt of life. Such an existence must, sooner or later, impair and undermine the most robust constitution.
It may be asked, “Why do the clerks submit to such treatment?”
A question upon that point was put to me a few minutes ago by Senator St. Ledger. I will reply to it in the language of this* clerk -
It is because they are powerless. If one of their number, more venturesome than the rest, complains, he is met with the reply, “ If you are not satisfied, you have your remedy ; there are plenty I can get to take your place.” The fact that these clerks have to work such long hours daily is conclusive evidence that the offices are greatly undermanned, this, notwithstanding the fact that there is quite an army of unemployed clerks whom it would be an act of mercy to employ.
Senator Millen:
– Does the honorable senator know, of his own knowledge, that these insurance offices, from year’s end to year’s end, work up till 9 o’clock at night? That is an extraordinary statement.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I am not a private detective, but I have occasionally been along Collins-street at night, and have seen the offices lighted up. Moreover, I am informed by reliable folk, that the offices do work late at night, without paying their employes overtime or even “ cigarette money.”
Senator Millen:
– I am not in a position to dispute the honorable senator’s statement, but it seems extraordinary.
Senator Gray:
– It is not so in the insurance offices in New South Wales.
Senator Givens:
– They are just as bad as those in Melbourne.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Evidence was tendered before the Clerks’ Union at the Trades Hall some time ago, confirming many of the statements made in the letter published in the Age in April last, extracts from which I have just read. There are. other industries in which sweating prevails. There is the starch industry, for instance. It has been mentioned several times in another place, and once or twice in the Senate. The whole of the evidence in connexion with that industry has not, and probably never will be published, because some of it was taken in camera.
Senator Millen:
– Where ?
Senator FINDLEY:
– By the Court.
Senator St Ledger:
– On what ground?
Senator FINDLEY:
– On the ground that it was not desired to disclose the private business of employers. The State Government was moved to establish a Wages Board in connexion with the starch industry, consisting of an equal number of employers and employes, with an independent chairman. There was a section in the Factories Act introduced by Mr. Irvine, now member for Flinders in the House of Representatives, but formerly Premier of Victoria, providing that Wages Boards might fix a rate according to the highest wage paid by reputable employers. The starch trade Board met, and had before them all the reputable employers in the industry. But they could not find one who paid what was considered to be a “ reputable “ wage, notwithstanding that one of the principal manufacturers of starch is a representative in another place, in a very big way of business. The Board, not being able to come to a decision, and to fixa wage which in their opinion was a just and living wage, sent the case on to the Court. The Court sat. Evidence was taken by Mr. Justice Hood. Some of it is very bad reading indeed from an industrial point of view. It is said that we want immigration to Australia - that we want more people here.
Senator St Ledger:
– Not to interfere with the starch industry, but to go on the land and develop it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I shall deal with the land question directly. I wonder how many thousands of people would be placed on the land if the honorable senator had his way. They would hardly get enough land to bury them decently.
Senator St Ledger:
– The State Government of Queensland is doing admirable work in that direction.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It is time something was done up there. They have been a long time thinking about it.
Senator Millen:
– Queensland is the one State that is making a decent effort to settle people on the land.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Let me relate the conditions prevailing in the starch industry in Victoria. Messrs. Robert Harper and Company employed twenty-four adult males at an average wage of£1 14s.5½d. per week of fifty-four hours. That payment was equivalent to only 30s. per week of forty-eight hours.
Senator Millen:
– Was this information given to the Court ?
Senator FINDLEY:
– Yes. The same firm employed 75 females at an average wage of 13s.1d. Messrs. Parsons Bros, employed 16 males at an average of £1 9s.10½d. per week of 50 hours. Messrs. Lewis and Whitty employed 8 adult males, averaging £2os. 5½d. per week of 48 hours, but the average was much reduced when the salaries of highly paid experts were excluded from the calculation. One married man supplied the Court with a list of his household expenditure per week. Let me quote the details. Rent came to 5s. Honorable senators know what a palatial mansion can be got for that sum in Melbourne ! The amount paid to the baker was 3s. 6d. ; to the butcher, 5s. ; groceries, including tobacco, 12s. ; hospital box,1d. I may mention incidentally that, if the evidence be correct, it is almost compulsory for these employes to deposit something out of their wages every week in the hospital box, which is set aside for that purpose. There have been occasions when some of the employes have not had the wherewithal to place contributions in the box. and have borrowed small sums in order that they might not lose their job.
Senator Givens:
– Who takes all the honour and glory of the hospital donations?
Senator FINDLEY:
– The philanthropic employer, who likes to see charitable institutions maintained by deducting sums from the wages of his workpeople.
Senator Pearce:
– These starch manufacturers got a heavy duty put on in order that they might be able to pay their employes properly.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The party to which I belong will endeavour to take the stiffening out of these people when they come along and ask for more duties, if the new protection is not recognised in connexion with the industry. The other household payments in the case I have mentioned were : firewood, 2s. 6d. ; vegetables, 2s. Milk there was none - it was a luxury which the employe could not afford. He had even to borrow a newspaper from his next-door neighbour, not being able to afford one of his own. I suppose that if all the people in the street had been employes at a starch factory, none of them would have been able to keep in touch with the times through the press.
Senator Gray:
– How much does the honorable senator think that those people have to pay indirectly in protective duties?
Senator FINDLEY:
– This sort of thing obtains in free-trade countries as well as here.
Senator Gray:
– It is a fair question.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Let the honorable senator ask me when I am not busy with something else. Another employe said - that he was paid 30s. for the week of 54 hours. He had a wife and three children, aged 6 years, 3 years, and 8 months. His weekly household expenses were : - Rent, 7s. 6d. (four rooms) ; grocer, 8s. (he did not smoke) ; baker, 3s. ; butcher, 2s. 3d. ; milk,1s. 6d. ; potatoes (once a week), 6d. ; time payment on sewing machine, 1s. 3d.; firewood, 2s. 6d. ; Scott’s emulsion, 2s. 6d. ; malt extract,1s. ; total, 30s. He had no pocket money and no pleasure. His mother kept him and the children in clothes, and his wife earned a few shillings by sewing.
That is a nice condition of affairs for the State of Victoria. We are told by some persons that sweating does not exist in New South Wales, but those who make that statement evidently do not read the newspapers.
Senator Gray:
– Who made it?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I have heard it said in this Chamber that sweating did not exist in that State, because there were Courts of Arbitration and other means provided there for the settlement of disputes between employers and employes. But according to the report published by the Sydney Trades and Labour Council, sweating exists in New South Wales in as acute a form as in any other State in the Commonwealth. Recently evidence was tendered before the New South Wales
Arbitration Court concerning the conditions under which those engaged in the drapery business are working. A witness named Fredk. Montague Girdler gave evidence before the Court, and said that he started work at Mark Foy’s. Honorable senators are aware that Mark Foy is a very big employer. He lives in a palatial mansion, keeps innumerable quadrupeds, some fast and some slow, and a number of yachts, and lives generally in the finest style when in Australia or when abroad. According to our friends opposite, he would be described as a self-made man. Let us see how Mr. Girdler, one of his employes, is paid for his services, and we may be sure that he would not be kept by Mark Foy if he did not render some useful service.
Senator Pearce:
– If he did not help to make him.
Senator FINDLEY:
– His evidence was that -
He started at Mark Foy’s about four years ago as a shopwalker and superintendent of the fancy goods and sporting material department.
That would appear to be a pretty important post. As shopwalker, the man would be supposed to dress well, and he must have occupied a somewhat dignified position, or he would not be called the superintendent of a department -
He started at 30s. per week.
Senator Lynch:
– As superintendent?
Senator FINDLEY:
– As superintendent and shopwalker.
About three years ago he got2s. 6d. rise.
He did not say whether he got it all in one lump or in instalments, but he got it, anyhow. He is now in receipt of 32s. 6d. per week, and when asked if he was married on such a pittance, the witness replied -
Are you joking? No, I am not married; I cannot afford luxuries.
We have heard a good deal of the need for population in Australia, and if those who are employed were given a wage on which they could afford to get married, there would not be so much to be said about Australia’s need forpopulation. Another witness before the Court named Edward Harvey, said -
He was classed as senior hand salesman and stockkeeper in connexion with the dress department. He was engaged nearly six years ago by Mr. Mark Foy at 35s. a week. He got married, but found it hard tolive on 35s. a week, and got into debt. His commission last year amounted to1s. 6d., and this year it amounted to 2s. 6d.
I could enumerate many other cases of sweating in New South Wales, but if honorable senators have read the columns of the daily newspapers, and are familiar with the documents published by organizations whose duty it is to watch over and guard the interests of the working classes, they will consider it a waste of time for me to deal at length with the subject of sweating in the various States. I say that there are no opportunities offering in Australia for artisans, and so far as my knowledge goes, there is no suitable employment in any one of the States that can be offered to immigrants, if we first of all provide employment for the people who are already here. There are in every one of the States armies of unemployed. At a meeting of the Trades Hall Council of Victoria on Friday night last, the following resolution condemning the action of the present Government in introducing contract labour to work on the cane-fields in Queensland, was carried unanimously.
Senator Givens:
– To work at reduced wages; that needed condemnation.
Senator FINDLEY:
– Yes; to work at reduced wages. This is the resolution -
That this Council, in the best interests of the workers of Australia, enters its most emphatic protest against the insidious attempt to thwart the condition of the Act providing against contract labour by the Sugar Refining Company and growers of cane in Queensland, and condemns the introduction of workers from other countries while there are large numbers of Australians willing to undertake the work, and that a deputation wait on the Prime Minister, and protest against the waiving of conditions that permitted it.
Mr. Hannah, who moved the resolution, pointed out that the wages offered ranged from £1 2s. 6d. to £1 5s. per week of fifty-eight hours. That worked out, means the very small sum of 4½d. per hour.
Senator Millen:
– Was that wage exclusive of board and lodging?
Senator Best:
– Yes.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If the board and lodging offered those employed under the contract is no better than the board and lodging sometimes offered men in Victoria and elsewhere, it is likely that they will very soon get sick and tired of it.
Senator Givens:
– It would be worth about 8s. per week.
Senator Millen:
– The evidence given before the Federal Arbitration Court in connexion with the Shearers’ Union does not bear that out.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It is true that the Government have consented to the intro duction of these labourers under contract. I strongly object, and shall continue to object, to the introduction of contract labour into any part of the Commonwealth, because it is bound labour.
Senator Millen:
– Or any other labour.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I object most strongly to the introduction of contract labour, and I do not hesitate to add that I object ‘to the introduction of any other kind of labour until Australians are first provided for. When Senator Chataway was speaking of the efforts put forward by Senator Givens and others, to get workmen in Australia to supply the cane-growers of Queensland with labour, he said that the Socialist Party in New South Wales had written to an Italian paper to say that the cane-fields of Australia were no place for Italians to work in. If I understood the honorable senator, he further said that the publication of that letter in the Italian newspapers was the chief reason why Mr. Hughes, acting on behalf of the monopolistic institution, known as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, was unable to obtain labour in Italy. But in the Age of two days ago, there appeared an article headed, “European Labour Supplies,” in which I came across this significant paragraph
Mr. Hughes, the travelling representative of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, was discouraged very firmly when he sought permission to engage men in Italy. “ Nothing could be done,” he was told, “ until the return of the Commission that is visiting Australia with a view to ascertaining whether it is suitable or not for Italian immigrants.” According to information received in London, the Commission has informally reported against Australia.
The reference there is to an official Commission appointed by the Italian Government that has made an extensive tour and an exhaustive inquiry into the industrial conditions obtaining in every part of Australia, and, up to the present time, according to the report appearing in the Age, the Commission has informally reported against Australia as a suitable place for Italians. The members of the Commission have probably noted the kind of work the Italian immigrants would be asked to perform, and the low wages they would receive when they had performed it.
Senator Gray:
– Princely wages as compared with those they would get in Italy.
Senator Sayers:
– We have had some very good Italian immigrants.
Senator FINDLEY:
– I do not wish any member of the Senate to imagine that I or any other Labour man objects on the score of colour or nationality to the introduction of any man on earth, but we have the very strongest objection to the introduction of labour from other countries with a view to bringing down wages in Australia, and to making the existing conditions of labour ire this country less bearable than they are to-day. Immigrants have been, I will say, lured to New South Wales. When in that State a short time ago, I got hold of a copy of the Sunday Times, in the columns of which appeared a short article describing interviews with three or four young fellows who had been introduced to that State by the New South Wales immigration agent. They said that they were told when in England that they would have no difficulty whatever in obtaining suitable employment as farm labourers in New South Wales. Believing that what they were told was absolutely true, they made the voyage to that State, and they further said that after making many tramps through various parts of New South Wales, the only employment offered them was farm work at10s. a week and keep. They also said that had they known that, before they left the provinces in which they resided in England, they would not have come to Australia, because in England they had been receiving from12s. to 14s. per week, and in addition were allowed to cultivate a certain area of land for their own use and benefit.
Senator Millen:
– No man who knows the conditions of the farming districts of New South Wales to-day, would believe that statement.
Senator FINDLEY:
– If my honorable friends opposite doubt the accuracy of the statements made by these young fellows to the reporter of the Sunday Times, I will ask them to turn up the files of the New South Wales dailies, and particularly of the Saturday issues, and unless I am very greatly mistaken, under the heading “ Situations Vacant,” they will find not one, but a number of advertisements for farm labourers at from10s. to 12s. per week, and keep.
Senator Millen:
– Nothing of the kind.
Senator Gray:
– I was prepared to give 20s. a week, and could not get labour when I required it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– The honorable senator is a philanthropist. I am sure he has no desire to sweat those whom he employs.
Senator Gray:
– I would not do it.
Senator FINDLEY:
– But the fact that the honorable senator is prepared to give 20s. a week does not prove that a wage of only 10s. a week is not offered by other people in New South Wales.
Senator Gray:
– In my district, I have never heard of a wage of less than 15s. a week and keep being offered.
Senator FINDLEY:
– That does not apply throughout the State of New South Wales. Bearing upon the desire expressed to introduce immigrants to Australia, and particularly to New South Wales, I have in my hand a letter written by a Scotchman to the New South Wales Worker. He gives his experience of a visit to Australia as an immigrant, and writes -
As an emigrant who was enticed over to. Sydney under the lies circulated by your Government and agents in other countries, I think I should be allowed to express my opinions and experiences. I was informed by circulars, and also articles in newspapers in South Africa, and remarks passed by Valder, that there was abundance of work in Australia for all classes of people. I am not the only duped one; but, fortunately, I am better off than others in that I have enough money left me to take my passage out of “ God’s Own Country.”
Personally, I believe it is God’s own country, and with good management and good administration it will probably be one of the finest countries on God’s earth -
I have been in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and in all cases I found that there was a shortage of labour certainly, but it is of boys, youths, and girls; as in this thrice-blessed country you cannot afford to pay the prices for men’s labour unless it is “ improvers.” As a stranger, I was quite unable to understand before I came here how labour required to fight every inch of the way to get a living wage, but, after a few months’ knockaround looking for an opening that is not here, I have come to the conclusion that Australia does not need help, but she has plenty of her own people to help first, without inducing poor and confiding strangers to her doors, where, if starvation does not meet them, it is merely a question of time before they are down to the submerged tenth, or, at least, they have to accept a pittance, and so keep the existing labouring people and artisans with their noses to the grindstone.
Senator Gray:
– The honorable senator does not believe that, does he?
Senator FINDLEY:
– I do believe it, because I know that many of the statements in that letter are correct. The writer says, further -
Collectively you are calling for immigrants ; individually you do not want them. That is; the whole answer in a nutshell. Even though your Governments and officials are unmitigated liars, I would ask you, as a community, to be honest and straight, call a spade a spade, and, as you do not need any imported labour, say so; stop all these lies as soon as Parliament meets, and, if you really want labour, bring out what is wanted, viz., boys, youths, and girls, so that you can get things cheap, and, as soon as they are men and women, dump them and raise a fresh supply.
That is the experience of an immigrant, and it is the experience of many others. I have always believed in the future of Australia, and I dare say I am as patriotic as most men. Its population is not in keeping with its enormous area. In the course of years, with wise and judicious administration and just laws, the probabilities are that its population will be doubled, but that period will never arrive until the Government of the day recognise that the main causes of sweating, overwork and under-pay, are not traceable either to free-trade or protection, but wholly and solely to earth monopolization. The land question must be grappled with. The Labour Party propose to tax the big estates in order to break them up. They say that the unimproved land values tax is scientific and just. There are others who ask, “ Why tax land and no other form of property ?” There is no analogy between land and any other form of property. Every other form of property is the creation of industry ; land is the creation of the Almighty, intended, not for the people of to-day, but for the people of all time. It is because we have been foolish in our day in parting with the people’s heritage that we are suffering so acutely in Australia at present.
Senator Millen:
– Suffering acutely ?
Senator Gray:
– That is news.
Senator FINDLEY:
– It may be news to some honorable senators, but there are many who cannot see daylight in front of them. Probably it is because they will not. Efforts have been made in other States to settle people on the land, and to every effort there has been more than a ready response from landless people. Whenever land is made available there are, as a rule, nearly three times as many applicants as there are blocks available. It is an admitted truth that for every, man placed permanently on the land two others are provided with employment. It should, therefore, be our desire to consider the question of land taxation, not from the point of view of any State, but rather from a national stand-point. The Federal Parliament has power constitutionally to impose uniform land taxation throughout the various States, and the Labour Party will not be satisfied until it succeeds in that direction. We are told that our land tax will drive the poor farmers to destruction.
Senator Gray:
– Who said so? ,
Senator FINDLEY:
– The honorable senator’s party said so. The antiSocialists said that the Labour Party’s proposed land tax would ruin the poor farmers, and they said it not once, but every time they had an opportunity. We were told also that the land tax would cheapen land. So it will, but is there any virtue in dear land? The complaint in every one of the States is that land is too dear. If, then, the Labour Party’s proposal will cheapen that land without affecting the fertility or productivity of the soil, so much the better for those who want land and for every, citizen of the States. In Victoria there is a sort of land tax which is contributed to, if my memory serves me rightly, by only about 889 persons. The amount of money realized is very small. I shall quote official figures in order that the public may have some idea of how the land-owners of this State have been advantaged by the expenditure of public money and public effort. In Victoria, we have about 56,000,000 acres of land. Of that area, about 26,000, 000 acres have been alienated. The amount of money the Government of the day received for that area was £31,561,439. The value of that land today, with improvements, is £222,598,941. Exempting the effort and enterprise of those who possess the land, it is worth today, without improvements, £131,599,078, leaving a margin of community-created values of about £100,000,000. What have the people of Victoria done to advance the price of that land ? First of all, they built railways, and for that purpose money, was borrowed. The State of Victoria borrowed for railway construction and rollingstock £41,398,037, and we have paid back in interest on that sum no less than £44,877,000. That means that we have paid . £3,478,963 more by way of interest than the total principal, and yet the principal remains unpaid. We have borrowed £14,993,837 for public works, which has all gone to enhance the value of land, and on those loans we have paid in interest £15, 01 7,000, and yet that principal remains unpaid. All that the land-owners have contributed by way of taxation to the State of Victoria is £3,371,854. The least they can do is to pay the interest on the money borrowed to enrich them. That is the least, in fact, that they ought to do, and if it was done we should have a different tale to tell about land settlement and industrial conditions generally. I feel that this land question might be much more exhaustively treated, because it is one on which I feel very keenly and deeply. I believe it is the one paramount question that concerns not only Australia, but every country on God’s earth. As, however, there will be time and opportunityfor me to speak on that and other questions at a later period of the session, I shall say no more. In conclusion, I desire to thank honorable senators for the patience with which they have listened to my remarks, and to express the hope, in all sincerity and all earnestness, that this session will be fruitful of results, and that the legislation passed will be in the interests of the people, and make for the advancement and prosperity of theCommonwealth.
Senator GRAY:
New South Wales
– I must congratulate Senator Findley upon the ability he has shown in the speech we have just heard. He must have taken great pains to get at the figures which he has quoted, and which, speaking as a whole, I have no doubt are perfectly correct. I am sure I speak for all honorable senators on this side when I say we as deeply deplore the conditions which Senator Findley has portrayed as do honorable senators on the other side. It would be a sad day for Australia if those conditions were its normal conditions. I take it, however, that they are conditions that exist in every civilized country on the face of the earth. They have existed in America, Canada, and Europe, and I am sorry to say that in Italy and some of the other countries the honorable senator has referred to, they exist in a far more severe form than in Australia. I venture to assert, however, that throughout the civilized world there will not be found, speaking broadly, a happier, more contented, or better paid class of people than is to be found in Australia, although, as I have said, there are very many sad episodes in the labour conditions of Australia, and I am sure the honorable senator and his confreres are honestly trying their best to improve existing conditions.
Senator McGregor:
– And we want the honorable senator to help us.
Senator GRAY:
– We shall do all we can to help to minimize those evil conditions. It is an unfair slur on the honorable senators on this side to infer, even by implication, that we in any way approve the conditions that have been revealed to us to-day.
Senator Turley:
– Anti- Social ism.
Senator GRAY:
– I do not know that either Socialism or anti-Socialism has very much to do with it. It is simply a question of time when these things will be remedied. If my honorable friends can find a remedy which will do away with all the conditions which have been portrayed to us to-day, I am certain that they will gladden the hearts of citizens generally.
Senator Turley:
– The anti- Socialist upholds the system which produces those results.
Senator GRAY:
– I have no doubt that my honorable friends are in earnest in trying to bring about a better state of affairs, but we on this side are equally as earnest as they are in desiring to improve the conditions of the people. I wish to make a short reference to the Imperial Conference. I take it that we, as Australians, are very proud that the people of the mother-land received our representatives as they did. From a commercial point of view, it is a good thing that the Prime Ministers of British selfgoverning Dependencies should meet together at intervals, and place their separate views and policies before the Imperial Government. I think, however, that the Conference should deal with matters of business rather than with matters of policy. I am pleased that the Prime Minister, with his charming personality and his great gift of language, met with a fine reception, but when I have made that statement I have come to the parting of the ways. I believe that with his lofty ideals, he imagined that the views which he so strongly held were in harmony with those of the people of Australia. But I hold that to a very great extent he misrepresented Australia. I have not yet learned that at the last general election here, the question of (preference was a matter of such importance as he stated in the Conference.
Senator Best:
– It was made a distinct issue at the previous election, and a large majority of preferentialists were returned, too.
Senator GRAY:
– I can only speak for New South Wales.
Senator Best:
– I am referring to Australia.
Senator GRAY:
– In a general sense, the question of preference was accepted by the whole of the people of New South Wales. Indeed, I may say that the freetrade section of its people hold far more practical views on the subject than does even the Prime Minister. We are what [ may call practical preferentialists. Where the Prime Minister made a great mistake was in asking the people of Great Britain for something definite. He asked them to submit to a tax on their food. When they naturally asked, What are you going to give us in return””? his answer was generalities and bubbles. He did not give a single practical illustration of what he proposed to give them. His experience ought to have enabled him to see that there cannot be a one-sided preference ; that if the mother country, which opens her ports to our goods, is to be asked to tax her people’s food, it was only right and proper that he should have stated how the people of Australia would be prepared to reciprocate. Why did he not indicate the nature of the reciprocity? Simply because he dare not take that step. He knew only too well that any preference which he might venture to offer would be repudiated by the very party to whom he owes his position. To show that I am talking by the book, I shall read an extract. I presume I may safely conclude that Mr. Joshua, the president of the Manufacturers’ Association of Victoria, is a gentleman whose views on this question would be expressed under a sense of responsibility. Speaking at its annual meeting in Melbourne, he said -
If, owing to the cold reception given by the British Government to this question at the Conference now being held in London, preferential trade had been given its death-blow, they would regret the loss of their ideal, but they should not deceive themselves or anybody else on the subject. If, as their opponents said, preferential trade and protection were so incompatible that they could not exist together, then they were not preferential traders. If the proposal were now dead he did not think many of the inhabitants of Australia would pass sleepless nights in consequence of it. He would be very much surprised if they did. It was said of them that while they believed in preferential trade, they would raise a howl if any proposal were made to reduce duties. It was quite true they would howl, and to some purpose, because the present duties were a mockery of protection in many respects. Their position was that the Australian industries came before English or any other industries.
I take it that no other interpretation can be placed on Mr. Joshua’s views than that no preference will be shown to Great Britain with regard to any reduction of existing duties, and therefore that the Prime Minister had gone a little too far in even his generalities, which implied nothing more than what would be done if preference were sanctioned by the Government at Home. I take it that the knowledge conveyed by Mr. Joshua, who represents the party which keeps Mr. Deakin in office, was that that gentleman was not in a position, and never intended,, to offer to the people of Great Britain, any preference that was worth calling a preference. I assume that where a preference is given, a sacrifice must be made in return. Although the Prime Minister was asking the people of Great Britain to make a very great sacrifice, yet he offered in return mere generalities or bubbles. I should have had a very poor opinion of the workers of Great Britain if they had consented for one moment to allow themselves to be taxed for the benefit of a people who were not prepared to make a sacrifice in return. The people of England know what a sad state of affairs existed there prior to the advent of the free-trade party to power. It is to the middle classes and the workers, I believe, that Great Britain owes her present great position. Those classes have always been the bulwark of her liberties, and I for one thank God that Great Britain has yet her great middle classes alongside the working classes, which, at any rate in these matters, dovetail and form the great backbone of the country. If. ever there was a verdict given by the people of a country, it was given by the people of Great Britain at the last general election in connexion with the free-trade policy. No victory, not even Gladstone’s victory,’ was so great as that victory by the people.
Senator de Largie:
– The middle classes are greater oppressors of the workers than are the higher classes.
Senator GRAY:
– My honorable friend can scarcely tell of a labour union that did not co-operate with the middle classes in the swinging of the pendulum on that occasion.
Senator Guthrie:
– It was because of the South African blunders.
Senator GRAY:
– I do not know that that had anything to do with the result.
Senator Guthrie:
– They had all to do with the result.
Senator Givens:
– Senator Gray was one of the blunderers then.
Senator GRAY:
– I do not understand the workers of this community if the honorable senator represents them here. They appear to have no affinity to, or sympathy with, the workers at Home in matters in which I should expect to find them united. The Prime Minister went to the old country, and practically allied himself with the old Tory Party, and yet when he returned, my honorable friends patted him on the back and said “ Well done.” What sympathy did he show to the workers or the middle classes of England? I do not suggest that he has no sympathy, because I believe that he possesses a very kindly temperament, but in that case he showed no sympathy. Both yesterday and to-day much has been said regarding the Tariff. It has been pointed out that in Tasmania, Victoria, and other States, there is a great deal of sweating, and I think it was insinuated by one speaker that to a certain extent New South Wales was worse than the other States, because at one time she had a partially free-trade policy. I desire to show how Federation and its protectionist duties affect the different States. Prior to Federation, I said that the citizens of the smallest States would be far more seriously affected by its establishment than they imagined, and that with protection increased their difficulties would also be increased. The report of the Royal Commission in Tasmania discloses a sad state of affairs. I venture to say that with higher protective duties, Tasmania “will be landed in an. even worse state of affairs. Federation had this effect, that by removing the barriers it gave free play to large manufacturers who had the most modern machinery for carrying on industries and producing goods at the lowest possible cost. They were thus enabled to exploit the States. T say deliberately that in the present condition of affairs a small manufacturer in Tasmania has no earthly show of success against the better equipped factories of Melbourne and Sydney.
Senator Guthrie:
– And less against the manufacturers of Manchester.
Senator GRAY:
– The manufacturers of Manchester have nothing to do with the point I am making. We may impose prohibitive duties. We may not allow a single imported article to come into Australia, but we shall have then exactly the same condition of affairs as prevails now. The great manufacturers of Melbourne and Sydney, with their modern machinery and thoroughly equipped factories, will be able to keep out the smaller manufacturers of the smaller States. The large manufacturer has certain charges to incur which make it a necessity that he should maintain a certain output under- all circumstances. A small manufacturer is not similarly situated.
Senator Givens:
– Why should not that happen in Tasmania as well as in Melbourne?
Senator GRAY:
– Because the Tasmanian manufacturer has not the output, and if he is to succeed he must pay lower wages.
Senator Givens:
– Why?
Senator GRAY:
– The history of manufactures show us that trade tends to centralize itself. That remark applies to England, France, Germany, and all manufacturing countries. In England the cotton mills are mostly in one district. Liverpool is the port through which nearly all the cotton from America comes into England. Over and over again an endeavour has been made to establish cotton mills at Liverpool. But not a single mill has succeeded. Manchester is the centre of that industry. Why is that the case ? The buyers have a good deal to do with it. Buyers from all parts of England go to Manchester to purchase what they require. They sample the goods of one manufacturer after another. It is convenient for them to be able to purchase in one district. Again, there are problems in connexion with manuffacturing that make it impossible under present conditions for small manufacturers in the smaller States to compete. I should be very pleased indeed to find that I am wrong in my deductions. I should be glad to find that the manufacturers in the smaller States are able to succeed. No one would be more glad than I. But I do not think it will be so, and I believe that increased protection will make present conditions ten times worse.
Senator Guthrie:
– Does the honorable senator wish to see a return to border duties ?
Senator GRAY:
– No, I would fight against them to the utmost. But I recognise that Tasmania, has suffered severely in her finances through Federation.
Senator Stewart:
– She was never so prosperous in all her history as she is now.
Senator GRAY:
– I take the Premier of Tasmania, who has explained the position of his State at conferences in Melbourne and Brisbane, as the best exponent of its finances. He states that since federation, Tasmania has suffered severely, and I ven- ture to add to that that higher duties will simply place her in an even worse position. I am one of those who would favour the payment of a special grant to Tasmania in consideration of the sacrifices she has made, if that could fairly and equitably be done.
Senator Stewart:
– What sacrifices?
Senator Macfarlane:
– £185,000 a year.
Senator Best:
– Which is still in the pockets of the people.
Senator Macfarlane:
– But goods are no cheaper.
Senator GRAY:
– Senator Stewart tells us that Tasmania was never so prosperous, but Senator de Largie has told us that that State is in a terrible condition. Either she is prosperous or she is not. Personally I believe the State Treasurer. There may be an air of prosperity about Tasmania, but her finances have certainly been crippled. I venture to say that if duties are largely increased, the consequence will be that we shall soon have the people of the smaller States coming to the conclusion that they have been mistaken in their fiscal views. They will become, I will not say free-traders, but certainly ardent revenue Tariffists.
Senator Mulcahy:
– The honorable senator will never see that state of things, I fancy.
Senator GRAY:
– I believe thatit will happen, owing to the causes I have mentioned. It has always been a source of curiosity to me to observe that the workers of Australia have made enormous sacrifices for what I believe to be a delusion. It is a well-known fact that in Sydney since Federation the cost of living of a working man and his family has increased to the extent of at least 4s. In spite of labour legislation, much of which has been good and beneficial - I say so sincerely - the working classes of Australia to-day are, financially, no better off than they were prior to Federation. Why? Simply because the cost of living caused by higher duties has seriously affected the purchasing power of the sovereign.
Senator Givens:
– What does the honorable senator advocate as a cure for that?
Senator GRAY:
– Well, I believe that if we had an official going round, and knocking at the door of every house in Australia every week - saying to a man with a wife and six children, “I want 8s. a week out of your weekly wages to pay for the cost of Government “ - we should very soon have a different state of affairs. Direct taxation would be a source of infinite good to the country, but so long as human nature remains as it is, we shall find Treasurers putting in the plea that indirect taxation is safest and best, because it enables them to get money easily out of the pockets of the people. Now, I wish to make a remark in regard to the mail contract. I am pleased that the Government have tackled the matter with commendable promptitude, but at the same time I cannot help feeling that they have placed themselves in an awkward position. They have absolutely: proved their incapacity as business men. The contract let to the mail syndicate was the most absurd one, considering its importance, that was ever entertained by business men.
Senator Guthrie:
– Yet the honorable senator backed it.
Senator GRAY:
– I never did. I said from the first that a contract of that kind ought to be placed in the hands of people who were able to show that they had the means to carry it out, and that a bond of £25,000, with £2,500 in cash, was not sufficient for that purpose.
Senator Best:
– Did the honorable senator vote against it, or move an amendment ?
Senator GRAY:
– I do not think thatI did either.
Senator Best:
– I am sure that the honorable senator did not.
Senator GRAY:
– I said at the time that the contract was one of the best if it could be carried out. I say that now. But I knew that it was impossible to carry it out. It was made by a syndicate who only intended to carry it out if they could get the public to subscribe the money after they had built the ships.
Senator Best:
– Did the honorable senator mention that opinion at the time?
Senator GRAY:
– No ; I did not.
Senator Best:
– Why not?
Senator GRAY:
– Very often a man who is acting with a party does not take up an independent attitude on questions of this kind. The Government have shown that they had not that perspicuity which was required in dealing with such a matter. Now, however, the Government require from tenderers, who are known to have the ships and the ability to carry out any contract which they make, a bond four times larger than that which they formerly demanded from unknown people.
Senator Findley:
– The honorable senator voted for the contract, or sat on a rail in regard to it, and now he professes to be wise because things did not turn out favorably.
Senator GRAY:
– I did nothing of the kind. I approved of the contract as I should approve of any contract which I considered to be in the interest of the Commonwealth, but to be sure that it would be carried out, I should have stipulated for a much heavier penalty than is even now sought to be imposed by the Government upon persons who are known to be able to carry out such a contract.
Senator Best:
– The honorable senator should have said so before.
Senator Givens:
– The honorable senator was not paid about ^2,000 a year for looking after the matter.
Senator GRAY:
– I am prepared to support, in every way I can, the views submitted by Senator Cameron on the question of defence. It is a most serious question, and should be dealt with practically. I agree with the Hon. W. M. Hughes, member for West Sydney in the House of Representatives, in the views he has expressed as to the desirability of compulsory military training for the youth of Australia. I think that all youths of a certain age in Australia should be compelled, for at least a couple of years, to undergo active military training, which would fit them in time of need to take an active part in the defence of the Commonwealth. I am very sorry that Mr. Deakin took it upon himself, when in England, to state that he was authorized by the people of Australia to ask the British Government to agree to terminate the Naval Agreement, under which the Commonwealth pays a subsidy of ^200,000 a year to the Imperial Navy. I do not know where the honorable gentleman got his authority to say that. So far as I know, this Parliament was given no opportunity to debate the matter, and unless it was due to the inspiration of the high ideals by which he is sometimes moved, I am unable to understand how the honorable gentleman could have made such a statement as expressing the views of the people of Australia.
Senator Best:
– What did he say?
Senator GRAY:
– I am depending upon the information as to what he said cabled to us from England, to the effect that the people of Australia desired that the Agreement should be terminated, and that the British Government were prepared to con sent to its termination. I presume that further action in the matter will be taker* by the Prime Minister. So far the peopleof the Commonwealth scarcely know what his views on the subject are. He has not given us any information concerning it, and perhaps the honorable senator who represents the Government in this Chamberwill do so, because the people will be delighted to learn what Mr. Deakin really did say and do, and what he meant and* is going to do.
Senator Best:
– The honorable senatorcan read what I have already said on thesubject.
Senator GRAY:
– Senator Best has given, no information on the matter to which I have referred. I wish to deal now with, the proposed transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth. I amafraid that, in expressing my views on thissubject, I shall not be found in harmony with many honorable senators on the oppo site side. In many respects I have no. doubt that the people of Australia would be glad to have the Northern Territory taken over by the Commonwealth, but the transfer should be made on equitable conditions. South Australia took over theresponsibility of managing the Northern Territory not less than forty years ago. I take it that at the time those in charge of her affairs believed that the resources and’ possibilities of the Territory were such asto insure that the work of its development would be profitable to the State. Thepublic men of South Australia, as weknow by our experience of those who haverepresented that State in the Senate and1 in the House of Representatives, are not less capable than those of any other State. I assume that during the forty years that South Australia has had charge of the Northern Territory her statesmen (havemade every practical endeavour to developand populate that region. In all the circumstances, I see no equity in the agreement made by the Prime Minister with theGovernment of South Australia. If such a company as the British West IndiaCompany had taken over the Northern Territory, and had undertaken to developit, and if, after forty years of effort they had to acknowledge absolute failure, and that they could see no probability of making their occupation of the Territory successful in the future, what should we think if, in bargaining for its transfer to the Commonwealth, the Company asked the people of Australia to reimburse them for all the expenses and charges they had Incurred in their unsuccessful efforts to develop it? It is most unjust that the Commonwealth should be asked to pay the £3.500,000 expended by South Australia and take over an interest debt of £130,000 or £140,000 a year, in addition to being called upon to develop this country which, after forty, years, South Australia has been unable to develop. Why should we be asked to take over this country without a shred of knowledge as to how it is to be developed and populated?
Senator Mulcahy:
– Surely it is our function to determine that.
Senator GRAY:
– I am giving my views on the agreement entered into by the Prime Minister with the Government of. South Australia. I believe it to be inequitable and unjust. I admire the pluck of the people of South Australia in taking over that Territory with the responsibilities attached to its occupation, but it should not be forgotten that if, under their management, its occupation had proved a great success, they would have gained all the profit and kudos. It is only common-sense to suppose that they would not be permitted to hand it over to the Commonwealth if they had the slightest idea that they would be able to develop it themselves in their own interests or in those of the Commonwealth. Experience has shown that they have been unable to do so, and the terms of the agreement made by the Prime Minister placed the people of the Commonwealth in a most unfair position. It is probable that the Prime Minister, in consenting to such an agreement, did not absolutely commit himself to its terms, but expected that they would be fully debated by the Commonwealth Parliament. Still, I think he made a most serious mistake in entering into an agreement embracing such conditions, seeing that he could have no knowledge as to how the Territory should be developed, and that the experience of South Australia had been one of sad failure. I am unable to agree with the contention of those who argue that the transfer of the Territory from South Australia to the Commonwealth should be carried out as a measure of defence. The country may have possibilities of which I arn unaware, but at present I look upon it as a great wilderness, a buffer Territory, constituting an effective obstacle to the invasion of Australia by any of the peoples who’ have been referred to this afternoon. Does any sane -man believe that, without ships to carry their products away, and in view of the laws with respect to the immigration of aliens to Australia at present in force, there could be any considerable invasion of the Territory? If Japan or other Eastern nations desired to invade Australia they would find hundreds of places along our 10,000 miles of coast-line where they might land, with better chances of realizing their desire. At some future time it may be of advantage to the Commonwealth to have a railway connecting Port Darwin or some other port in the Northern Territory with the eastern coast, but the construction of such a railway before the development of the country would simply be a means of assisting those who might desire to invade it. From the point of view of the defence of the Commonwealth the construction of such a railway before the development of the Territory would be absolutely mischievous.
Senator Findley:
– It is not proposed to construct a railway before the country is developed.
Senator GRAY:
– It is part of the agreement for the transfer of the Territory that we should take over the existing railway, and inferentially that we should connect it. with the eastern States. Some honorable senators appear to associate it with the proposed transcontinental railway to Western Australia. If representatives of that State will take my advice they will let the Western Australian railway depend upon its own merits. That is their only chance to. get it constructed. If they associate its construction with some of the conditions involved in the transfer of the Northern Territory, it will be a very long time before they get it. Personally I believe that the Western Australian railway should be constructed. If the Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta Railway Survey Bill is brought forward again this session I shall probably vote for it ; but I doubt very much whether I shall be justified in doing so if it is associated in any manner with the transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth under the conditions contained in the agreement which has been placed before us. On the question of the Federal Capital, New South Wales has been most severely handled by Senator Findley. We in New South Wales simply ask that the agreement under which the people of New South Wales consented to join the Federation shall be carried out. We view the peculiar statements made by the Victorian press as denoting that, in their opinion, the Capital question should be left for the future. They even go so far as to say that it will be plenty of time fifty years hence to consider the question of placing the Capital in New South Wales. In face of these statements by newspapers of the highest character and circulation, voicing, as we believe they do, the opinion of the majority of the people of Victoria-
Senator Macfarlane:
– Oh, no !
Senator GRAY:
– I am afraid they do, if we are to judge by the representatives elected .to this Parliament by the people of Victoria.
Senator McGregor:
– Surely the honorable senator does not mean that to refer to Senators Fraser and McColl ?
Senator GRAY:
– I believe it applies to a very large majority of the representatives of Victoria in the two Chambers.
Senator Pearce:
– They have never voiced those sentiments, at any rate.
Senator GRAY:
– Those opinions are voiced by the newspapers that dominate the present Ministry, and whose views we must take as being, to a certain extent, in accord with the views of the people. If that’ is not true, then let the people of Victoria put their views into action, and show us that they are in earnest. There are very few honorable senators who really thought that the selection of Dalgety was in any sense a reality. We know very well that it was simply put forward in order to hinder the selection of a site which the New South Wales people would like.
Senator Findley:
– That is incorrect.
Senator GRAY:
– It is my opinion, at any rate. Whilst I recognise that Dalgety is one of the most beautiful places in New South Wales, the climate in the winter is such that unless the Parliament met there at specified times in the year the average representative of the people in different parts of Australia could not live there.
Senator Pearce:
– If we can live in Melbourne in the winter, we can live in Dalgety.
Senator GRAY:
– I have not been in Dalgety, although I have been in the neighbourhood. I know people who have lived there for many years, and I would rather take their views on the matter of the climate than even official statistics.
Senator McGregor:
– Are those people still alive?
Senator GRAY:
– I take it that the climate of Dalgety is bracing and healthy for those who are inured to it through living there for many years,, but it is not a climate that would be conducive to the? health of representatives from Queensland and other parts of Australia - especially men of middle age. The whole question? resolves itself into the fact that New South> Wales entered into the ‘Federal ‘compact, for something. Its, people would not ‘accept Federation without something in return, and they asked for the Federal Capital.
Senator Pearce:
– The majority of thepeople of New South Wales accepted theConstitution without any such provision in it.
Senator GRAY:
– The Constitution did’ not receive on that occasion the statutory majority that it was necessary to poll.
Senator Pearce:
– It did not get the majority fixed by the State Legislature, but still a majority of the people voted for it.
Senator GRAY:
– The people simply, said, “ We shall not. go. into Federation, unless we get some equivalent in the shapeof the Capital.” The opposing forces said, they would not allow the Capital, to be at Sydney. It was, therefore, proposed that, the Capital should not be within 200 milesof Sydney, and eventually the limit was. fixed at 100 miles. I ask any reasonable person why New South Wales- made it a. condition that the Capital should, be fixed in that position. It was simply because they thought that if they had theCapital, it should be within easy distance of the main ports - Sydney and Newcastle. Only in that way could1 New South Wales . gain the advantages to be derived from the Capital being within its borders. That is the real crux of the question. Until the difficulty is settled, the people of .New South Wales will not reconcile themselves to the administrative actions of any Ministry, especially of one which, having representatives of New South Wales in it, should act according rathe spirit of the agreement, and not on lines that will be most prejudicial to the people of New South Wales as a whole.
Senator TRENWITH:
Victoria
– I have not very much to say, and if I had I am not in a very fit condition to say it, but there are one or two points in the Governor-General’s Speech that are worthy of consideration. To start with there is the allusion to the important institution that may, be now said to have been firmly established - I mean the Imperial Conference - at which, whatever our views of the present Prime Minister may be, we are all bound to admit that he distinguished himself in a most extraordinary manner, and presented Australia and Australian views in a way that must redound to the advantage of Australia and also help more firmly to cement that friendly feeling of kinship throughout the Empire which we all so much desire.
Senator St Ledger:
– But he did not consult Parliament.
Senator TRENWITH:
– I think the honorable senator is in error. He did not consult Parliament by taking a resolution of Parliament, but there can be no doubt that Parliament was adequately consulted in the fact that it had perfect knowledge of his intention to take part in that function, and, in the main, perfect knowledge of the direction in which he desired to go.
Senator Pearce:
– And Parliament had an opportunity to displace him if it thought fit.
Senator TRENWITH:
– Undoubtedly, but that opportunity always exists. The question of all questions in the Prime Minister’s mind, and in the forefront of the discussion - Imperial inter-commerce - was clearly indicated by him, and certainly, although no result of a directly positive character accrued, we must all admit that his masterly presentation of the case, and his own extraordinary personality, did an immensity during his stay in England to spread and strengthen that feeling in the old country.
Senator Gray:
– Absolutely the reverse.
Senator TRENWITH:
– The honorable senator has apparently not followed, as far as opportunity has been presented, the course of events in England during the Conference.
Senator Gray:
– I have had extracts from twenty newspapers absolutely sup- porting my view.
Senator TRENWITH:
– It is a fact that wherever our representative presented himself he was received with most unbounded enthusiasm by the British public.
Senator Gray:
– I agree with the honorable senator there. That is quite another matter.
Senator TRENWITH:
– That is the point I want to emphasize. It is the point that proves my assertion that he did an immensity to extend the feeling in than connexion in the old country, and to spread enthusiasm for it.
Senator Gray:
– The same thing is true of the representatives of the other countries - Sir Joseph Ward and the others.
Senator TRENWITH:
– Not in the same degree. Of course, we are glad to know that any visitor to the old country from any part of this Empire, of which we are all so proud, and having any claim at all to distinction or representative character, is always received with the greatest courtesy and kindness, but the enthusiasm that our Prime Minister developed was not manifested in the case of any of the other delegates. That is no reflection upon them. It is a very high tribute to the ability and personal charm of our representative.
Senator St Ledger:
– My point is that he did not tell us how he was going to carry out preferential trade, nor did he tell the people in the old country.
Senator TRENWITH:
– Thehonorable senator is continually referring to the fact that no person has stated definitely in what direction, or to what extent, we propose to give preference. That is an absolute necessity of such a position. What we have to affirm first is the principle.
Senator Gray:
– But he asked the English people to state the preference they would give.
Senator Best:
– No; he simply asked them to negotiate.
Senator TRENWITH:
– What we have to ascertain first is whether, supposing there are directions in which we can give it, preference is a desirable thing. Having fully discussed the principle, and arrived at a decision upon the advisability or otherwise of it, then will be the time for fixing the details.
Senator Gray:
– But he knew that his friends, the Protectionist Party, would not give one bean.
Senator TRENWITH:
– The honorable senator is ill-informed.
Senator Gray:
– Take what the leader of the protectionist manufacturers says.
Senator TRENWITH:
– The honorable senator is either very ill-informed in that connexion or he has not given sufficient thought to the matter. Of course, the protectionists of Australia will always determine that, as far as possible, their workmen shall be protected from either foreign or Imperial competition.
Senator St Ledger:
– And that is prohibition.
Senator TRENWITH:
– I do not want to be misunderstood, but there are a hundred and one directions in connexion with which Imperial or foreign competition cannot interfere with our industries. Where such circumstances occur, the preferential trader or protectionist will say, “ Our own before any other part of the world, and in connexion with such items, preference to the members of our own Empire.” That can easily be done, but to enter into details upon that issue would be extremely unwise. It would be wasting time, and could have no definite result, as we require to assure ourselves and to be assured that our kinsmen abroad are of opinion that, supposing it to be practicable, it is desirable that preference should be given. That is the first issue, and that absolutely and necessarily ignores details. It is quite possible that, after careful discussion of the matter, it might be decided that, if practicable, preference was desirable; and then, upon a descent to details, it might easily be discovered that, although desirable, it was not practicable. Honorable senators, therefore, will see that that presentation of the case emphasizes my assertion that details are not for the present time. The issue is the principle.
Senator Gray:
– Details are absolutely necessary. They are what the people of England wanted.
Senator TRENWITH:
– I am afraid that I cannot go on much longer. I desire to say, with very great pride indeed, that our representative covered himself with glory in England.
Senator Gray:
– Oh !
Senator TRENWITH:
– That is not too strong an expression to use. The Prime Minister covered himself with glory, and presented Australia in the old country in a light that cannot fail to go a long way to strengthen and more firmly cement that feeling of friendship, kinship, and fraternity that we all desire to see; developed. I find,, sir, that I am not able “to go on, and therefore I ask honorable senators to excuse me.
Senator SAYERS:
Queensland
– For the best part of a week I have been listening to the debate on the AddressinReply, both here and in another place. There is an old saying that “in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom “ ; but in this case I cannot find where the wisdom is. It means confusion, because every speaker I have heard has a scheme whereby the welfare of Australia can be assured.
This afternoon I heard here that I live in a land which previously I did not know existed. I have been in Australia for more than forty years, and wherever I have lived I have never known that things have been quite so bad as has been described. I do not doubt that such instances as the speaker mentioned do exist, but I take it that they are rare, and that there is not such a great number of them as we have been led to believe. Honorable senators on the other side have described the Opposition asConservatives and anti-Socialists. We call, them Socialists, and therefore, we disagree with them. I do not wish to offend any honorable senators on that side, because they have as good a right to hold and express their opinion as I have. It has been stated that honorable senators on this side represent the employers; but that is not a fact. In one district I have lived for nearly thirty-five years. I have bothworked for employers and employed men. That is a fair term of years in which to form an opinion. I am not afraid to goup to the district with any honorable senator, so that he may interview both my old’ employers and the persons who have been in my employ. I have always given satisfaction. I have paid the highest wages I possibly could, and tried in every way topromote the comfort of the men. When I go on a platform in the district no man, not even my strongest political opponent, can say one word against me. Honorable senators on the other side have stated only one side of the question. They have put the case in its very worst aspect. I admit candidly that people are not so well off as I should like them to be. I admit that inour social system there are many things which need to be altered ; but the only question is how they should be altered. I do not believe that any honorable senator, if he went to the Charters Towers district and traced my history for thirty-five years, would be able to cast a slur upon me, either as to when I was working for othermen or when I was employing men. I know many more employers of that class there. We have been told by gentlemen associated’ with other parts of the State, and with honorable senators on the other side, that weare going to grind down the working men, to reduce their wages, and to do everything possible to injure them. That statement was made over a quarter of a century ago, but it has not yet beenrealized. We have had periods of depression in my district when we have not been able to find work for all the people. I am sorry to say that at the present time we have a period of depression ; but we do not hear any outcry about an attempt 4.0 reduce the men’s wages.
Senator Pearce:
– That does not tally with the statement of Senator St. Ledger that there is a scarcity of labour there.
Senator SAYERS:
– I shall deal with that point later on. During the last few months we have had a serious depression in our output of gold and quartz. We have had a like experience at various periods during the last thirty years. Owing to the present depression, a great number of men have gone on to the cane-fields in the North. We have had quoted to us letters which purport to have been written by a man looking for work in Australia. I do not hesitate to say that the writer of the letter did not live very far from a newspaper office. I do not say that that sort of thing has not also been done by men on our side. Unless a writer gives his name I take his’ communication to a newspaper with a grain of salt. Day after day in the press we see letters signed with nom de plumes, but persons who . live in the ^country know the . conditions a great deal better than °da those writers. We have been told that Australia is in a very bad way, and that we need very strong protection indeed - in fact prohibitive protection. What then are honorable senators opposite going to do to raise the £8,000,000 that we receive from Customs and Excise duties? It has been proposed, of course from their side of the Chamber, that we should impose a progressive land values tax. At the last Federal election every candidate on our side denounced that proposal, and we were returned on the distinct understanding that we should vote against its enactment. We pledged ourselves to that step, and we are here, I believe, to redeem the pledge.
Senator Henderson:
– The honorable senator could do it without a pledge.
Senator SAYERS:
– Decidedly I would as regards the Federal Parliament, but before the honorable senator had anything to do with Parliaments I voted for a land tax in the State ‘Parliament, as I would do to-morrow if there. I told the electors that, but I decline to hand over the lands of Queensland to the tender mercies of the Federal Parliament.
Senator McGregor:
– That was done when the Constitution Bill was accepted. - Senator SAYERS. - I admit that, at that time, we did a great deal blindfolded, but our eyes have since been opened to a great extent, and I can assure the members of each House that there is a great amount of dissatisfaction expressed by the people of Queensland with the results of Federation. I was opposed to the * acceptance of the Commonwealth Bill, but still it was carried, and I loyally bowed to the will of the majority. I believe that, if certain portions of the State were polled to-morrow, instead of a majority, as there was in 1900, there would be a minority in favour of Federation. The same remark applies to the farmers in southern Queensland. Dissatisfaction with Federation is expressed in all the centres, even in the manufacturing centres. We have heard a great deal about sweating. I do not say that it does not exist. I am not in a position to deny the statement of Senator Findley, and I do not think that he would have made it unless he believed that it was correct. When I was in Brisbane I had occasion to look round and see- what was taking place in the way of manufactures. I visited a factory, and I found that, as regards sanitary conditions and accommodation, no man could wish for better treatment. When I asked the employers if they wanted higher protection, they said “ No.” I know that they send goods as far south as Melbourne, and that they are employing as many hands as they possibly can, to conform with the Factories Act. If the factory were larger they could employ more hands. When I heard some of the questions put to me. I did not know what to answer. I said, “We are told that if you had a higher Tariff you would be able to do more than you are doing.” They replied, “ We are doing all we possibly can now, and we are quite satisfied with the Tariff.” All the manufacturers in this great country do not want a. higher Tariff. In Tasmania there is a woollen mill which, I believe, is working up to its full capacity night and day, and is supplying blankets to Brisbane and Sydney. I do not know whether it is supplying any to Melbourne or not. The proprietors are quite satisfied with the existing conditions, and do not want an extra duty. They told me that they had as much work as they could do, and that if they had the means to extend the premises they could find still more work to do. That, I maintain, has been the experience in all the States. I have met men who emigrated from Australia to the United States in order to better their condition. I know that from Charters Towers many hundreds have gone, and that a large number have returned. The other day I read a letter in which the writer said that, as soon as he had enough money to pay his passage, he would come back to Australia, because, with all its faults, it was, in his opinion, the best country under the sun. 1 do not like people to run down the country that has afforded them means to earn a good living. Personally, I have every reason to be grateful to Australia. I came here when I was a young man, and I have battled my way through. I know hundreds of others who have done the same. We are told that if we bring out immigrants to Australia there will be nothing for them to do. Well, Mr. President, we in Queensland have been endeavouring to satisfy the land hunger of the people. In that State only 4 per cent, of the land has been alienated. The rest of it is in the hands of the Government; and I am pleased to say we are now making strong efforts to induce people to settle. But really people expect too much in a new country. When I first came out to New South Wales, one would often seen a settler with his wife and his sons in a place where they had to drive forty miles to market with their produce. Since then we have opened up the country by means of railways, and those people have become prosperous. Take the southern portions of Queensland. I remember that thirty-five years ago people whom I knew there lived under conditions of such discomfort that one pitied them. But today, owing to the developments which have taken place in the country, the people in those same districts are so happy and prosperous that I venture to say you could not find settlers better off in any part qf the world. They are not the people who go about preaching discontent, urging their neighbours not to be satisfied with anything, and maintaining that everything ought to be set right by legislation. We have had a great deal too much legislation. If the whole of the talking shops of Australia were shut up for five years I believe that the country would prosper just as well as it does under the present system. Very likely it would be better off. I want to know what good all this talk does? We have been here nearly a fortnight, and what have we to show for all the talk we have had ? If we have two or three inches of rain in Queensland* it does more good to the country than all the legislation that the one hundred andi eleven men sitting in Parliament House can> pass. Owing to the seasons that we havehad lately, I am pleased to say that Australia is more prosperous than sheever was before. Of course, in alt large cities you will find a good’, deal of poverty and want of employment. It is especially so in Melbourne and Sydney. But if the StatesGovernments will only try to put people.on the land, as Queensland is doing, I’ think they will succeed in solving even* that problem. I saw a letter in a newspaper the other day from a man who had! been looking at land’ in the Roma district of Queensland. It is covered with prickly pear I admit, but it is good land. Thisman complained that the land availablewas thirty miles from a railway. But people cannot expect to have a railway at” everybody’s back-door in a country so vast: as Queensland, where there is a population of only half-a-million. But the wholecountry will be opened up eventually, and’ we have millions of acres of excellent land’ upon which people can settle. The only thing against the State that 1 represent isthat it suffers from periodical droughts.. If Queensland had the climate that thesouthern parts of Australia enjoy our country would be one of the richest on the globe. I know people who came herein the sixties, when conditions were far harder) than they are to-day, and who1 now have excellent, comfortable homesand property of their own. But they arenot the class of people who go round trying to disseminate strife, and doing all theevil they can.
Senator de Largie:
– Who are they whodo that?
Senator SAYERS:
– There are hundreds of them here - Yarra-bankers. Inthe sixties the Peak Downs copper mine brought out a great number of miners’; under contract, paying them a wage that was fair and reasonable. At the present time many of those men are good citizens of the State of Queensland, owning (property, and with families grown up around1 them. I have never heard a word said1 against their being brought out under con- tract. I have talked to many of them; and have had some of them working forme. I am quite satisfied that by extending fair and reasonable treatment to people- we shall be able to get suitable immigrants. We certainly do need more population to occupy the vast territory which we have. Unless we encourage white people to come into Australia we shall be unable to keep out the coloured races. We have been told that it is necessary for us to take over the Northern Territory for the sake of the protection of Australia. Well, I know a little about the Northern Territory myself, and I know a great deal more about it from men who have been there, and who came back to Queensland by tramping across the country with their swags on their backs. The conclusion that I have come to is, that if we leave that country as it is, any army attempting to invade Australia by marching through it would die of thirst on the way.
Senator de Largie:
– The honorable senator is now going back upon what he said a few moments a.go about depreciating the country.
Senator SAYERS:
QUEENSLAND · ANTI-SOC
– W - Well, I am quite prepared to substantiate what I have said about the Northern Territory. We have heard something about an agreement that has been arrived at as to the building of a railway. In Queensland we have built our own railways, and have asked no other State to help us. I think every other State should do the same. No State should ask the Federal Parliament to build lines to develop its territory.
Senator de Largie:
– I wish the honorable senator’s State would pay its own bounties also.
Senator SAYERS:
– When this Parliament determined that the kanakas must go, it was only fair and reasonable to grant bounties to the sugar-growers. Unless something was done for the industry, it must have vanished after its labour had been taken away. Surely it was worth while for Australia to keep the sugar industry going. I do not say that bounties will be required for all time, but they were necessary until the industry obtained a firm foothold, and the growers became accustomed to the new system. Numbers of working men farmers cultivate sugar in Queensland. There are over 750 men in the Mackay district who ten or twelve years ago were working for wages, and who have since settled upon the land which they cultivate. It would be a very great hardship indeed if the people of Australia said to them, “ We wilt take away the bounty now that you have gone upon the land, and at the same time will not allow you to em ploy kanakas.” I am prepared to support a bounty, on any industry that can be conducted in Australia at a profit - the bounty to cease by degrees.
Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP
– I thought the honorable senator was a free-trader?
Senator SAYERS:
– I think for myself, not for the honorable senator. Neither he nor any one else ever heard me say that I was a free-trader. I believe in a Tariff that will bring revenue to the country, and in bounties that will assist in developing industries, but I do not believe in putting on prohibitive duties for all time. I agree with very much that was said by Senator Gray, who urged that the smaller States will suffer under an increased Tariff. I have not the slightest doubt that there will be a change in the sentiments of the people of the smaller States when they realize what the effect is. There is no country in the world where protective duties are higher than in America, but what have the working men of that country gained by high protection? It is an undoubted fact that the purchasing power of money in the United States is not equal to its purchasing power in Australia. A man earning £4 10s. a week in America is not as well off as a man earning £3 a week in Queensland. The reason is that the price of commodities has gone up as the Tariff has risen; and unless our conditions in Australia are going to be absolutely different from those which have prevailed in other parts of the world, our experience will be a repetition of what has happened elsewhere when a prohibitive Tariff has been imposed. We shall have a number of multi-millionaires- perhaps honorable senators opposite expect to be amongst them; I hope that they will be - and we shall have at the same time the deepest poverty. I do not suggest for a moment that there is any distress in Australia so bad as that in New York. But it certainly shows that the prosperity of a country is not increased by excessive duties.
Senator de Largie:
– I thought the Opposition caucus had decided to give the Government all the protection they want.
Senator SAYERS:
– I know nothing about an Opposition caucus.
Senator de Largie:
– Mr. Reid reported its proceedings.
Senator SAYERS:
– That is his business, not mine. I have nev:r interfered with Mr. Reid, and will take all sorts of care that he .does not interfere with me. It has been stated by Senator Findley that, owing to the Federal Parliament being located in Melbourne, the people in the other States have been under no disadvantage. I maintain that we have been. If we go to make inquiries at the public offices about a post-office, we receive a letter which we forward to the persons interested. Then we communicate with the Department again, but it does nothing. Of course, I have seen this sort of thing in connexion with the States Governments, and we are getting a repetition of it down here. When the Treasurer, then Acting Prime Minister, was in Queensland, I interviewed him with reference to a matter of some importance to the people settled there. Some of them are trying to open up a cotton industry, and I asked the Treasurer if it was not possible, under the law, to allow those farmers to combine together to bring in a cotton gin, so that they might be able to test the value of their cotton. He gave me the usual gentlemanly reply, which I took for granted, and I left the papers with him. I subsequently got an answer from the Department, and I shall read some of the correspondence to show the difficulties under which we labour. This wasthe first answer -
Melbourne, 29th May, 1907.
Sir, - Adverting to your interview with the Acting Prime Minister at Townsville regarding the bonus allowed on cotton, I have the honour, by direction of the Minister, to inform you that it is regretted the questions submitted by you cannot be answered at present.
I have to add that details with regard to the Bounties Bill are at present under consideration.
Senator McGregor:
– The honorable senator is then a bit of a Socialist?
Senator SAYERS:
– I believe Senator McGregor is a whole Socialist. Then there was the following letter sent me : -
Melbourne, 1st June, 1907.
Sir, - Adverting to your interview with the Acting Prime Minister regarding the cotton gin which the Charters Towers Planters’ Association are importing from the British Cotton Growers’ Association, and also the gin for Ayr, Lower Burdekin, I have the honour, by direction, to inform you that it was never intended to apply the procedure prescribed in special exemption Div. VI. (v.) for the purpose of freeing from duty a particular consignment of any article. Further, no evidence is tendered in support of the statement that cotton ginning machinery cannot be manufactured in the Commonwealth, and, in the absence of parliamentary authority, there is no power to comply with the request made by you that the particular cotton gins mentioned should be admitted free of duty.
I maintain that had the proposal been one to start a new industry in Victoria or within 20 or 30 miles of Melbourne, the Government would have been waited upon by a large deputation. Fortunately for Ministers, they are not within easy reach of the people of whom I am speaking, as it would take them three weeks to get here from the north. If it had been a Victorian or a Melbourne matter, we should have had all the protectionist members of Victoria going in abunch to wait on Ministers and saying - “ Unless you do this, we shall put you out.” We in the North cannot do that. I propose now to read a letter I had in reply from the chairman. He is a man well known in Charters Towers. He was a mayor of the town at one time, and has been in business there for the last 35 years. I admit, of course, that he is acting in his own interest. I am not one of those who would say that one should do everything for the good of the people and nothing for himself. I admit that if the town progresses it will be to this gentleman’s interest, and he will suffer if it does not. He is in this business for his own profit ; he is finding money and rations for these people who are to grow the cotton and if the venture is a failure, he will not be paid. He writes -
I have to acknowledge receipt of your favour of the 10th instant, also letters dated 29th ult. and 1st instant received by you from the Acting Comptroller-General, and thank you for same, also for the trouble you have taken re the matter in question.
Not feeling satisfied that cotton gins should be subject to duty, and knowing that a very considerable number of amendments had been made since the Tariff Guide was printed, and not having the supplementary guide, I called on Messrs. S. Allen and Sons Limited when in Townsville last week to see if they could give me any information respecting the matter.
I may say that he visited Townsville as a member of the Harbor Board. He says further -
They promised to look into it, and let me know. Just before leaving for home I received a letter from them as follows : -
Townsville, 13th June, 1907.
- A. Benjamin, Esq.,
Harbor Board Offices, Townsville.
Dear Sir, - We return you herewith the Acting Comptroller-General’s letter of the 29th May, Upon investigation, we find that on the Tariff supplementary guide, page 82, of the Customs, that cotton gin under the heading of machinery is free of duty - consequently there will be no occasion for us to write to the ComptrollerGeneral of Customs on the matter.
I really do not know what to make of it when we get such a reply as I have read from the gentlemen who have the destinies of the country in their hands. A smart private firm that looks after the Customs authorities and knows all the little wrinkles is aware that cotton gins are admitted free of duty, and the gentlemen in the Customs Department are unaware of the fact. The writer further says -
When I asked Mr. Allen, who looked into the matter, he said that it was no use interviewing the Sub-Collector of Customs in Townsville for any information, as he would give them none.
These are the people we pay, and this is the treatment we get from them. The question raised by this correspondence is, in my opinion, of greater importance to this Parliament, and to the people of Australia than are any of the matters which have been referred to in the debate this afternoon. We are trying to settle people on the land and are not met by the Federal Government with the assistance we have a right to expect. The writer of the letter further says -
I have experienced the same thing myself. When in Melbourne you might oblige by interviewing the Comptroller-General.
I do not see why I should dance attendance at the various public offices. We made a request which I think should be complied with. We were told that what we desired could not be done. We were not told that there was no duty on cotton gins, and when we went to the Customs officials in Townsville, we could get no information. In what sort of a country do we live, and what kind of laws do we live under when the paid officials of the State are unable to give its citizens necessary information. Instead of assisting people to settle on the land, it is a case of tax, tax, tax. If honorable senators opposite had their way, a tax would Le imposed on machinery which would make it more difficult for people to settle on the lands in the country districts ; but not more difficult for them to settle around Melbourne. That would be all right. But we do not wish to establish huge cities like Melbourne and Sydney. We do not desire that people coming to Australia should remain in the capitals and seek for work from the authorities of the Trades Hall, or such people. We desire that the Government should help people to settle on country lands.
Senator Stewart:
– What about the land monopoly, and dear land.
Senator SAYERS:
– Senator Stewart is as well aware as I am that land monopoly in Queensland is not anything like as bad as he tries to make out. The honorable senator has been putting his own side of the question to my knowledge for many years, and the people of the country are getting tired of it. They are tired of hearing only one side. I am prepared to put both sides.
Senator Findley:
– There is only one side, and that is the right side.
Senator SAYERS:
- Senator Findley puts the side which suits himself, as a lawyer does. I followed the honorable senator very closely, and I give him credit for putting a very good case before the Senate from his own point of view. If I represented the constituency which the honorable senator represents, I should try to put the best case possible forward in the interests of my constituents. But L suppose, that holding the opinions I do, I should have no chance to represent the honorable senator’s constituency. I do not suggest that he made a single statement in which he does not thoroughly believe. I give him credit for honest intentions, though I could not agree with all that he said. I do not wish to suggest that any member of the Senate would, from improper motives, make any statement in which he did not believe, but it is possible that honorable senators may be prejudiced in their opinions. We know that different people view the same subject through different coloured spectacles. With regard to the naval subsidy or tribute I believe it should be continued. We pay the Imperial Government the paltry sum of is. pera head for keeping a fleet out here. Some honorable senators object that we have no say as to what shall be done with the vessels of that fleet in time of war, but if any member of the Senate held two shares in a syndicate or working party, whilst another person held one, he would not dream of allowing the man who held the single share to say what was to be done by the syndicate. The money we pay in the way of a naval subsidy is returned to the Commonwealth, because I suppose the expenditure of the fleet in Australia amounts to £500,000 or £750,000 per annum. If wc desire to be able to say where the fleet should go, we should pay a fair proportion of the cost of maintaining it. When we do that I shall be with those who demand that we should have some say in the matter. While we give comparatively so small a sum, we are not entitled to more than the expression of our opinion as advisors.
Senator McGregor:
– How much does the honorable senator recommend that we should pay?
Senator SAYERS:
– I should recommend the payment of a good deal more than twice the present subsidy.
Senator Needham:
– Why should we not build our own house?
Senator SAYERS:
– I shall be prepared to assist in that when the proper time arrives. We are now taking steps of which I thoroughly approve in sending men to the old country to be trained. I am prepared to go even further than that, but I am not prepared to do away with the defence we have in the Australian Squadron until we are in a position to provide a proper naval defence of our own.
Senator Needham:
– When will that time arrive ?
Senator SAYERS:
– That time will gradually arrive. I may tell Senator Needham that there is a saying in Scotland, “ You must creep before you walk, and walk before you gang.” The honorable senator desires to walk straight away.
Senator Needham:
– We have been creeping so long now that it is time we started to walk.
Senator SAYERS:
– We shall be creeping for a great deal longer yet. I should like 1.0 know where the money that will be required is to come from. So far as I know, only one scheme has been advocated, and I am pledged by my election speeches to oppose that scheme. If there is to be a land tax, every State should levy its own land tax. ‘ That would be a’ good thing, and if I were a member of a State Parliament tomorrow I should vote for it. But if the States once give the Federal Parliament the right to tax their lands, in a very short time ‘we shall own them’, and the States will have lost all control of them. I advise the people of the States at all hazards to keep the control of their lands out of the hands of the Federal Parliament.
Senator McGregor:
– It is too late now.
Senator SAYERS:
– I do not think so. The honorable senator will find that it is not too late. Parliament can do nothing that cannot be annulled, and if the people are pushed too far they will annul our action. They have the remedy in their own hands. We are here in this Parliament ; but we do not know that we shall be here in the next. The people always retain the power of making and unmaking Parliament, and if we do not properly represent their desires, they will put us out. I wish to say a few words in connexion with the conduct of the last Federal elections. I have heard it said this afternoon that the Parliament of South Australia has just elected a member of the Senate. That is their business, not mine.
Senator McGregor:
– He is a very good man.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am not saying anything against lune gentleman. I do not know him, and I do not wish to hurt his or any man’s feelings. What I was about to say was that the way in which the last Federal elections were conducted in Queensland was one of the most disgraceful exhibitions that any man who has had anything to do with elections could imagine. I am not going to speak of what happened in other States, because I was not there. As to what happened in the principal portion of Brisbane, I can prove every word I say by affidavits. I myself saw people turned away wholesale. They were not allowed to record their votes even though they were on the rolls. I know that sixty-seven men, and women, too, went to another place, over half-a-mile away from the polling booth, after being told at the polling booth that they were not on the roll, and sixty-three of them, got their numbers as being on the roll, and went back and demanded and got their ballot-papers. I do not know whom they voted for. I know of my own knowledge that there were dozens and dozens, and possibly hundreds, of people turned away. I asked some of them to do as those sixty-seven men did, but they, said, “No; if we are not on” the roll it is no use bothering.” I believe that both sides suffered equally. I do not want to see that sort of thing happen again. I am very pleased to see that notice has been given of an amendment of the Act in the other House. I hope it will reach us later on. I have had over thirty years’ experience of the conduct of elections. I was returning officer for- several State elections, and for the first election for the Federal Parliament. I was also one of the returning officers when the referer dum was taken, and honestly and truly I believe that the last Federal election was conducted on very poor lines indeed. We were starved. When I wa.s returning officer I was always in hot water with the Government over my returns of expenses, because I always paid well and fed well those who were working for me for the day, and I used to have about a dozen. I simply did the same with the Government’s money as I would have done with my own, and at elections I always paid those working for me as much as I was able to. Those working at the last Federal election were not adequately paid. The expenditure was reduced by over one-third, and men had to work sixteen hours a day. I am sure Senator Givens and Senator Findley do not believe in overtime without payment. Neither do I, and I think we should see that those men are not asked to do two days’ work for one day’s pay.
Senator Findley:
– We shall be with the honorable senator in effecting reform in that direction.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am very glad to hear it, for I intend to bring the matter up later on. I am only referring to it now in passing, because I do not want to take up too much time. I am sure honorable senators on the opposite side of the Chamber do not desire to do anything which they <lo not think right. Some of them seem to think that we on this side are unanimous in our antagonism to them. We are not. If those honorable senators can prove to me that any measure they bring in is for the good of the people as a whole, I shall be prepared to support it. I do not mean a socialistic measure, for the benefit of one class. I am against class legislation tooth and nail, and if they bring in that sort of measure I shall vote against it.
Senator de Largie:
– But the honorable senator is solid on the sugar bounty.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am solid on any bounty to any industry that needs it. So far I have not said a word in the interests of the people in the town where I live. They are all miners. It is a town of 24,000 or 25,000 people, and they all exist on the mining industry. They are all right so long as they are let alone and are not harassed with too high a’ Tariff. The men S61 £3 a week, but what position will they be in if the cost of living is doubled to them? They will not get any more money from the mines, because if the wages were increased the mines would have to shut down. If the cost of living is increased, they will get the same wages nominally, but they will not be able to purchase the same quantity of articles. The people there are in a very peculiar position. Any man can go there and take up a piece of land, and not a soul in the world would say a word to him.
Senator Findley:
– Where is this?
Senator SAYERS:
– Charters Towers, North Queensland. I have known men to start there as dairymen with twenty head of cows, and before the drought I have known them to run 2,000 head of cattle on the fields there and not pay a shilling for it. They take up a 40-acre homestead, for which they pay is. an acre. It is apparently imagined that on that 40 acres a man can keep 2,000 head of cattle, but there are I do not know how many miles of commonage which they use, and nobody interferes. Those who know of it simply wink the other eye. The great majority of the people in the town - the married ones - have their little homes. They take up a quarter of an acre of land, either under miner’s right or by paying 5s. per year, and that entitles them to occupy it and regard it as their own. They have built their homes on these blocks, and all their savings are invested there. The reason why they changed their political opinions was that they did not want the mines to shut down, because they knew that if that happened they would have to go away, leaving their homes and savings behind them. That is one of the reasons why I hope that when an amendment of the Tariff is brought in the matter will be finally settled, so that the people will know where they are. A few years ago, at Mount Morgan, those who had settled there in the same way had to go away, leaving their homes and the savings of eight or ten years behind them, and not getting a shilling in return for them. Wherever you find people with their own homes on their own blocks of land you will find those people voting and acting right. That is one of the reasons why I want to see people settled on the land. Where people are not settled on the land you will always find that they are a dissatisfied class. In Queensland, we are trying to get people settled with homes of their own, and I believe we shall succeed. I know that some honorable senators have been up our way, because I met them, and also some of the members of the other House, when I was Chairman of the Water Board, and took them down to Burdekin to show them our water scheme. I believe that the leader of the Labour Party in this Chamber was there, and I do not think he can say that I did not do my best to treat them handsomely. The people up there wish to get fair play, and I hope they will get it, although they are so far -from Melbourne. The same thing applied iri Queensland before Federation. A man in
Brisbane could get a grievance remedied, whereas a man in Cooktown could not. So under Federation, Melbourne has the advantage of being the Seat of Government, and the people of Melbourne can easily bring pressure to bear upon Ministers, who would smile at a leading article in the papers of Northern Queensland. Ministers do not even see it unless somebody sends them a marked copy, but they see the Age and the Argus every morning, and they are worried by deputations from all classes of people to do something in the interests of Victoria. Of course, the people of Victoria are quite right, and I do not find fault with them for one moment for protecting their interests, but I want some fair play for us in the North. Senator Lynch asserted in this Chamber on Friday last that the Federal Government were the first to do anything to bring back Australians who were stranded in a distant land. I give the Federal Government every credit for what they did, but honorable senators will all remember what happened a good many years ago, when a number of visionaries who believed in Communism were induced to sell their property and put their whole savings into a scheme for a communistic colony in Paraguay. I did .my best to dissuade some of them from going, and they were very sorry afterwards that they had not taken my advice. They went to Paraguay in the Royal Tar, and were stranded there. Their visionary schemes of Socialism were all knocked on the head. They found they had bosses over them worse than any bosses they ever had in Queensland, and that the state of society that existed there was worse than the one they had lived under in Australia. One man I know well had to leave his wife and family, there, and work his passage to London as a coal heaver in a tramp steamer. From London, he worked his passage to Australia, and found friends who helped him to bring his wife and family back. A lot of others, however, were stranded in South America, but the Government of Queensland did their duty towards them, and, although they had left Queensland cursing it, they were very glad indeed to be brought back. I was pleased personally to see the Queensland Government take that action. It was not a Socialist Government or a Labour Government. It was the old continuous Government in Queensland - the most Conservative we ever had. Honorable senators will, therefore, see that there are some bowels of compassion in other gentlemen than those who occupy the Treasury Bench.
Senator Lynch:
– My remarks merely applied to the men who were stranded in South Africa.
Senator SAYERS:
– I understood the honorable senator to claim that this was the first time anything qf that sort had been done.
Senator Turley:
– No.
Senator SAYERS:
– At any rate, I am agreeing with the honorable senator, so I do not see what he has to cavil at.
Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 7.45 p.m.
Senator SAYERS:
– When the Senate adjourned for dinner I was referring to the action of what was called the “ Continuous “ Government of Queensland in bringing back the people who emigrated to Paraguay. In proof of the accuracy of my statement, I. shall quote from volume 75 of the Queensland Hansard for 1896, some information which appears under the heading of “ Paraguay Settlers “ on page 669.
Mr. Finney asked the Home Secretary
- Is the Government aware of the number of men, women, and children who emigrated from Queensland to join the settlement in Paraguay, known as “New Australia?”
- Is the. Government aware of the present coniditions of such emigrants? >
- Have the Government taken any steps to enable any such emigrants to return to Queens-, land?
- If not, is it the intention of the Government to take any, and, if any, what steps to enable such emigrants to return?
- If the Government have taken steps, has it been made known to such emigrants?
The Premier replied -
- The Government have no information as to the number of persons who emigrated from Queensland to join the “ New Australia “ settlement.
- From information received from some of the settlers, and from independent sources, it would appear that the emigrants are in extremely necessitous circumstances.
- Yes; seven men, nine women, and twenty-six children have been enabled to return to the colony, at a cost to the Government of nearly ^1,000 ; in addition, assistance has been afforded in a number of other cases to persons who had returned to Australia at their % own expense, but who were unable to defray their travelling expenses from the port of arrival to the place where they formerly resided in Queensland.
- The Government do not propose to take any further steps in the matter unless proper evidence is produced in each case that charity is required and justifiable.
- Yes.
At a later period the Government took further steps, but I believe that every one in Queensland was pleased with their action.
Senator Guthrie:
– The same thing was done in regard to South Africa.
Senator SAYERS:
– I have already given the Government credit for bringing men back from South Africa. I want to show that it was not the first occasion on which Government in Australia took that step. Perhaps in South Australia it may not have been done, but on the eastern seaboard it has been done, and I hope that if ever the necessity should recur it will be done again.
Senator Guthrie:
– You drove the people away from Queensland, and You were very glad to get them back.
Senator SAYERS:
– The emigrants were very glad to be brought back from Paraguay, and one of the leaders, I am informed on very good authority, who was the means of getting up the emigration, has returned, and is now in the employ of the State Government.
Senator Guthrie:
– The only man who got it up was Lane, and he is not in their employ.
Senator SAYERS:
– I said “ one of the leaders,” and I do not wish the honorable senator to tell me what I- am to say here.
Senator Guthrie:
– Then stick to the facts.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am sticking to the facts.
The PRESIDENT:
– I ask the honorable senator to take no notice of interjections.
Senator SAYERS:
– According to the Governor-General’s Speech the mail contract to Europe has been cancelled. I do not think that it was cancelled a day too soon; I consider that it was done six months too late. Speaking as a North Queenslander, I can say that in none of the tenders which have been called for the carriage of mails have the Government done us fair justice. We only ask for fair justice at their hands. I trust that the Government will lay upon the table all the papers in connexion^ with the cancellation of the contract with the syndicate. I do not believe that any Minister has done anything which is wrong, but outside the Parliament there is an impression that something has been hidden from the public. If anything improper has been done the sooner that is revealed the better; in other words, the sooner honorable senators are in a position to answer questions which are put to them outside the better it will be for the interests of the country as a whole. I remember that when the Chambers of Commerce held their Conference in Tasmania, and I was representing North Queensland, a great many persons there were saying that there was something behind the scenes. I do not believe that there is anything which the Government need to hide, and therefore I trust that they will give us the fullest information on the subject. I desire tb refer to the mail contract for the carriage of mails from Brisbane to Vancouver. New Zealand has been taking every step it possibly could - by inviting the Commonwealth Government to pay a less sum - to do away with Brisbane as a. port of call and to make Sydney the only port of call in Australia. That, I submit, would not be fair to Queensland. We have been trying to open up a trade with Vancouver, and I believe that we have done some good to the people of Queensland. As regards a mail contract for the carriage of mails to Europe, I do not think that the Government are really serious in their tenders, because if they were, they would have specified that the mail boats should have to call at the various ports which the people of Australia require them to visit. Hobart is far better served by ships from Home than is Brisbane. All the vessels going to New Zealand call at Hobart, so that the producers in Tasmania have a boat by which to send their produce from Hobart at least once a month, and sometimes oftener. Of course, in the fruit season, they have boats calling at Hobart every week. It will be remembered that some time ago it was contended both here and in another place, day after day, that it would be impossible for the boats of the Orient Steam Navigation Company to carry the mails within contract time if. Brisbane were made a port of call. Queensland has not only to pay its proportion of the cost of that mail service, but also to pay £25,000 or £26,000 to induce the mail boats of that company to go to Brisbane. As soon as a tender had been accepted, and an inducement was held out, the company discovered that they could send their boats on to Brisbane. I do not see how the Government can expect the representatives of Queensland, to assist them in carrying their measures if they do not intend to give fair play to its producers.. I hold that in calling for tenders for a mail service, they ought to specify the ports at which the mail boats shall have to call, and, if necessary, make a few hours’ difference in the speed. There is really nothing to prevent the Government from taking that course, but from the manner in which the tenders are called, I am very much afraid that Brisbane is going to be shelved again, as a port of call. The Government are giving the tenderers an option to tender under two schedules, namely, one for the carriage of the mails, I suppose as far as Adelaide, and the other for the mail boats’ to call at Brisbane and various other ports. It is well known to the people of Australia that the boats which bring the mails to Adelaide must go to Melbourne and Sydney. The trade of Sydney and Melbourne demands that the mail boats should visit those ports, in fact, the boats could not do otherwise, even if they wished, for they could not get enough cargo in Adelaide and Fremantle. Although Melbourne and Sydney may not be mentioned as ports of call in the conditions of tenders, the people of Victoria and New South Wales . understand very well that it is intended that the mail boats shall go to those ports.
Senator Guthrie:
– The Vancouver boats do not go to Melbourne.
Senator SAYERS:
– That is a different service.
Senator Guthrie:
– Why should they not go to Melbourne?
Senator SAYERS:
– I have not the slightest objection. In fact, I should be only too pleased if a proposal to that effect were submitted here.
Senator Guthrie:
– And to Adelaide?
Senator SAYERS:
– Yes. We all want to promote the trading interests of the country as a whole. We are not here to represent one place, but to represent all Australia, and especially to look after the interests of those who have returned us. I believe that if the position were reversed, the honorable senator would take exactly the same stand as I am taking.
Senator Guthrie:
– The mail boats cannot go to Brisbane, but only to Pinkenba-.
Senator SAYERS:
– The mail boats cannot go to Adelaide or Melbourne, but I do not wish to ridicule the port of Adelaide or the port of Melbourne. I believe that Pinkenba is a good deal nearer to the city of Brisbane than Port Adelaide is to the city of Adelaide. I think that the representatives of Queensland can fairly ask honorable senators to support an endeavour to get the Government to arrange for the mail boats to call at the port of Brisbane for the purpose of taking away our produce in cool chambers.
We are trying our best to do what honorable senators opposite profess to wish tqsee done, namely, to settle people on the land and keep them there. A considerable amount of dairying is going on in Queensland now, and unless the people obtain a ready access to their market, they will be handicapped. Between the port of Brisbane and Gladstone, there are millions of acres of land suitable for dairying purposes. It is nearly all Crown land. Some of it is held in small areas. In the Burnett district alone, there are millions of acres of Crown land available.
Senator Stewart:
– Then, why is theQueensland Government buying back land?
Senator SAYERS:
– I will tell the honorable senator. Many years ago people had to settle far away from railways. Someof our most prosperous farmers in theLogan and Albert districts were settled long before the railway was built.
Senator Stewart:
– What is the size of the settlements on the Logan? Only about 20 acres.
Senator SAYERS:
– They run up to 500 acres. I had a conversation a little whileago with the chairman of the Divisional Board there, a German, who knows the country well, and I obtained my facts from him. There is a demand for land close to* railways. The Queensland Government found that they could get people to settle on land of that description, although they are not so ready to settle at long distancesfrom railway lines. The Government therefore did a wise thing in buying back such* land, so long as they did not buy too much’ at once, or pay too much for it. AlthoughI am opposed to the present Queensland Government in some respects, I am satisfied that they are trying their best to settle people, and if they continue in the way in which they are going, in a few yearswe shall have many thousands morepeople settled than we have now. In . the country at the back of where I live, there is an immense territory of Crown land. You could put in a plough* for hundreds of miles without turning it, and the depth of soil is such that I do not think any portion of the country in the south of Australia is equal to it.
Senator Stewart:
– It is not fit for agriculture.
Senator SAYERS:
– Unfortunately, we have severe droughts in Queensland, but I have seen cabbages and cauliflowers grown? in the country to which I refer, than which none better could be grown in southern
Australia. What we require is water, and I believe that in time water will be conserved by some scheme of irrigation. If that problem can be solved, there is room for millions of people. But Rome was not built in a day, and we cannot populate these vast territories without the expenditure of money. At present, many of our western holdings are too large. One year’s drought will not hurt the grasses grown there. If we have one good season we can get along without a drop of rain for twelve months. If the people there learn to do as is done in Canada and America, when they have a good season, cut the grass and make hay or ensilage of it, they can carry on over a period of drought. But the areas will have to be smaller before that is done. Some time ago, I travelled in the train with a Major of the United States Army, who was buying beef in Australia. He was going through Queensland, and as we went along in a railway carriage I asked him what he thought of the country. He said, speaking with the slight twang which is characteristic of Americans, “ If we had country like this in America we should reckon that we had the pick of Creation.” I asked him how the grass that he saw from the train compared with the grasses in the great western prairies of America, of which we have read so much. He replied that one acre of such country as he saw in Queensland was worth more than five in America. He said, “ We have nothing like it there.” That is the sort of country upon which we want to settle people. I do not want to bring out artisans and tradesmen to fill up our cities. We do not want any more people in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide. I admit that in the past the steps that have been taken to bring out immigrants have, to some extent resulted in failure. We had an immigration scheme under which thousands of people were brought out.
Senator Guthrie:
– To populate New South Wales.
Senator SAYERS:
– Thousands of them now bless the day when they left the old country and came to Australia, notwithstanding the hardships they had to put up with. It is perfectly true that some of them did not remain in Queensland. Hundreds of people got their friends in England to come out on paying £2 into the office in London, and when they got as far as Brisbane, their friends paid their passages to Sydney. We want to prevent that sort of thing in the future. It can easily be done. Many im migrants who were brought out under the old system were not inclined to go into the bush. The same sort of people may be found in Melbourne to-day. They would rather put up with two meals in a city than go into the bush and enjoy three. They say, “ We are not going to camp out away from civilization where there are no theatres and nothing else that we can enjoy.” I am opposed -to any system of immigration that will bring out men who will merely remain in the towns looking for work.
Senator Lynch:
– Why did the people to whom the honorable senator refers, run away from Queensland ?
Senator SAYERS:
– Forty years ago there were very few people in that State. The town of Rockhampton consisted of a few humpies, and Brisbane was a very small place. The immigrants to whom I allude were induced by their friends in New South Wales to go down to that State.
Senator Guthrie:
– The reason was that blackbirding was going on at the same time as immigrants were being brought in. I know, because I was there.
Senator SAYERS:
– I dare say the honorable senator knows more about blackbirding than I do. The immigration scheme of that time, like a good many other mattersof policy, was a little premature. Some people think we have ‘been premature in entering into Federation; others think we have not gone far enough ; whilst some would revert to the old State system. I think that now we have gone in for Federation we have to make the best of it, and I believe that eventually it will turn out to be for the good of the country. Some honorable senators wish the Commonwealth to go in for a large Army and others for an independent Navy. Senator Cameron, who moved the adoption of the AddressinReply, thinks we could carry out his ideas as to military defence for £800,000 per annum. I believe in moving slowly in these matters. It would take years to build up a Navy sufficient to defend Australia. The Government should start in a small way. The States of Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia are not in a position to be taxed heavily to build up a Navy that would be of any use to us. ‘ We have not the means..
Senator Guthrie:
– Queensland had vessels of her own before Federation.
Senator SAYERS:
– It is true that we spent money on our naval defence, but what did it amount to? Hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent which might just as well have been thrown into the Brisbane River. The same remark applies to New South Wales and Victoria. Ideas on naval defence change so rapidly now-a.-days, that almost before we could raise enough money to build a ship, it would become obsolete. This might apply to other countries, but it should be remembered that they can afford the cost.
Senator Guthrie:
– The same thing applies to the land defences.
Senator SAYERS:
– No, they do not require the expenditure of anything like the money required for naval defence.
Senator Guthrie:
– What about our forts and guns?
The PRESIDENT:
– I must ask honorable senators not to continue this crossfire of interjections. I hope the honorable senator addressing the Senate will not reply to interjections.
Senator SAYERS:
– It is impossible, sir, for me to keep the thread of my arguments unless I do reply to the interjections.
The PRESIDENT:
– Order ! The honorable senator will please be seated. I do not wish to complain of the honorable senator for doing so, but I ask him not to continue to do so if he can avoid it, and I ask honorable senators generally to assist in maintaining the orderly character of the proceedings of the Senate by refraining from too frequent interjections.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am told that in connexion with our land forces we require forts and guns. I admit that, but I may say that since last session I visited one of the forts, and found that the men there were unable to hit an object. The reason they gave was that the Government starved the service, and owing to cost of ammunition, they were unable to practice with the guns more than three or four times in the year. It is impossible to have any efficient artillery force without considerable expenditure. When honorable senators say that we should have a Navy as well as an Army, I say that if we can manage to make one branch of our defence efficient, we should be satisfied with that for the present. I am prepared to assist the Government in making our land forces efficient. There is no possible hope that Australia will, for many years to come, be in a position to build a Navy which will be able to defend her coasts. I know of no country in the world that has such an enormous extent of coast line to defend as the Commonwealth has.
Senator Needham:
– All the more reason why we should make a start with the means to defend it.
Senator SAYERS:
– It is of no use for us to acquire a toy for the purpose. So far, all our efforts in that direction have been only so much money wasted. When at Hobart I was on board one of the gun-boats, which at present belongs to the Commonwealth, and I found that when the ordinary boats engaged in the coasting trade between Sydney and Hobart could continue their voyage, the gun-boat to which I refer had to run up a creek for shelter, or the waves would have swept over her. What sort of a gun-boat is that to pay money for? Is that the beginning of a Navy?
Senator Needham:
– Was that the Protector ?
Senator SAYERS:
– I believe that was the name of the boat. I talked to some of the men on board that boat, and they said that she could not stay at sea in bad weather.
Senator Guthrie:
– What rot !
Senator SAYERS:
– I do not think the honorable senator is justified in making that remark. I am giving the opinion of men who knew what they were talking about.
Senator Guthrie:
– She came from England, and went from here to China and back.
Senator SAYERS:
– She might do that and have fine weather all the way. When I visited the old country we had worse weather crossing Bass Strait than we had all the rest of the way.
Senator Guthrie:
– The Protector is more seaworthy than are half the merchant ships afloat to-day.
Senator SAYERS:
– Senator Guthrie might like to make a speech on the subject. He is welcome to his opinion, but I have given the opinion of men who were engaged on the- vessel. If we are to have a Navy that will be worthy of the name, it must be established gradually.
Senator Needham:
– By that time Thursday Island will be blown off the map.
Senator SAYERS:
– At that” time, if we continue our connexion with the British Empire, we shall be perfectly safe. If in the meantime, as some persons might think it desirable, we separated from the Empire and became a Republic, it is pro- bable that we should be overrun by an enemy even though we had at our service such a Navy as honorable senators desire to establish. We cannot afford to build a Navy, and I hope the people of Australia and the good sense of the members of the Senate will prevent any large expenditure in that direction. We have started a system of land defence, and from all quarters I have received letters, with which I need not trouble the Senate, complaining that the service is starved. We might do something to forward a movement I have very much at heart by greatly increasing the number of our rifle clubs. I was president of the North Queensland Rifle Association for some time, and helped to start rifle clubs by offering cups as prizes for rifle matches. I found that sometimes men who had scarcely ever handled a rifle were with a little practice able to win a rifle match. Such a man came from Hughenden to Charters Towers. Another man, who had been only a few months in Charters Towers, won a cup that I gave, and I was very pleased to see him do it. But why should people outside have to put their hands in their pockets to assist this movement when it is the duty of the whole of the people of the Commonwealth, and not of a few individuals? I am sorry to say that at the present time, in order to keep the movement alive, many people have to give money and time to keep rifle clubs going. In connexion with our Cadet Forces, we are unable, for want of funds, to enrol all the cadets who are offering, and we can only enrol so many a year. One of the very best things we could do would be to see that our youths are trained and disciplined in the use of arms, but we are allowing our opportunities to slip by. Honorable senators desire that we should have an Army and Navy, and they shut their eyes to these things. Let us do one thing at a time, and do it well. There are thousands of lads of sixteen or seventeen years of age willing at the present time to join our cadet corps, and they cannot be enrolled for lack of funds. In a few years’ time these boys will be too old to join the cadets, and the opportunity to train them will have gone by. I do not say that the Government are not doing the best they can with the means at their command, but it is a great pity that we should have to starve the cadet corps and rifle clubs, because no matter how brave our people may be, it would be nothing short of murder to call out for service men who have never handled a rifle. They would be shot down as we might shoot wild horses. If we train our youths to defend themselves, in our time of need the man behind the gun will be of some use, because he will know that he has as good a chance as those to whom he is opposed. If we had to meet an invader, of what use would it be to call out men who had never handled a gun, and could not hit a hay-stack. Let us spend more money in encouraging rifle clubs, and in training the youth of Australia to handle arms that they may be able, when required, to defend their country. If we do not, we shall be inviting invasion. I am sorry to think that we are not taking the steps in this direction that we should take.
Senator Guthrie:
– The first steps should be taken in the establishment of a Navy.
Senator SAYERS:
– Naval defence is like a bee in the honorable senator’s bonnet, but no Navy that we could hope to establish in present circumstances could prevent the landing of an invader in Australia.
Senator Needham:
– We need have no fear of an enemy from the interior of Australia.
Senator SAYERS:
– Suppose we have our Navy, what will there be to prevent the landing of an enemy on any part of our coast-line at a distance from the capital cities? And if the enemy lands, we must have a land force to defend the country. Have we not been told that our railways have been constructed largely for the purpose of enabling us to move troops in resisting an invader? We cannot possibly hope to establish a Navy sufficient to .protect our coast-line from Perth to Thursday Island. Honorable senators should not forget that the people residing in the small towns of the Commonwealth have as good a right to be protected by the Federal Government as those living in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. If people are prepared to devote their time to drill and training, they should be given every encouragement, but we find that the maximum amount of ammunition allowed free to rifle clubs is not sufficient for ordinary practice, and members of such clubs have to buy their own ammunition. I can assure honorable senators that the presidents of rifle clubs are very often placed in an awkward position. All sorts of demands are made upon them. They are asked what they have done with this and with that, and how many rounds of ammunition have been fired here and there. They are involved in a lot of worry and trouble, and all correspondence must go through the circumlocution offices in Melbourne.
Senator Guthrie:
– The Federal Capital.
Senator SAYERS:
– We in the north are a long way from the Federal Capital. If a man were to go by the fastest route from here to the north, it would be seventeen days before he could get back. Our communications occupy several months in transit. What we ask for we seldom get, and when we do get it it is too late to be of any use. I hope that honorable senators will be as liberal as possible in dealing with our rifle clubs and cadet corps.
Senator Guthrie:
– With our land and sea forces.
Senator SAYERS:
– I am prepared to deal liberally with both, but I think that for many years to come our land defence will be our first line of defence.
Senator Needham:
– No.
Senator SAYERS:
– If honorable senators can show me that we are in a position to spend the money to establish a Navy, I shall be with them. It is a. question of ways and means.
Senator Guthrie:
– It is a question of the most effective means of defence.
Senator SAYERS:
– On that there may be a difference of opinion. If we had a Navy to-morrow it would seldom be seen away from a couple of the cities of Australia. I should like honorable senators, if they can, to say what it would cost to provide us with such a Navy as we have in the Australian Squadron. Honorable senators do not consider that good enough, but Australia has not the slightest hope for many years of raising the money which would be required to supply us with such a Navy.
Senator Guthrie:
– How many of the ships of the Australian Squadron does the honorable member see in the north under the present arrangement? There was one there on a reef the other day.
Senator SAYERS:
– We get them very occasionally. I believe there was one on the reef the other day. When the Estimates come before us I want honorable senators to assist the land forces, especially the rifle corps and the cadets, because in time to come, if we are to have war within any measurable distance of the present day, or if, as some honorable senators think, we are to be invaded by the yellow races in a few years’ time, we shall have to depend on the present generation of cadets to defend us. It should, therefore, be the bounden duty of every honorable senator to give the cadet movement his hearty support.
Senator Guthrie:
– To shoulder a musket.
Senator SAYERS:
– When that time comes I do not think the honorable senator and myself will do much in the way of soldiering. We shall be more likely to need an arm-chair. I beg to thankyou, sit, and the Senate generally, for the reception that has been accorded to me. I had not intended to take up so much time, and I do not think I would have done so if it had not been for the interjections. I have tried to put my views before honorable senators in a way that would not be offensive to any of them. I thank honorable senators for the patient hearing they have given me, and I hope I shall extend the same consideration to them when they are speaking.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– The honorable senator who preceded me paid a very doubtful compliment to those who had already spoken in this debate in both Houses by saying that they had created confusion in the minds of most people. After listening to the honorablesenator for about an hour, I was reminded that a son of the Empire once wrote the words, “Confusion worse confounded.” We have at last discovered why there is confusion. We have heard protectionists who are free-traders, and free-traders who are protectionists. We have heard those who are willing to give protection, but who do not own up to being free-traders, although they want a revenue which can only be derived from goods coming in here to the detriment of goods manufactured here. We have also heard honorable senators claiming to be Australians, but when they come to deal with Australia they seem to have great difficulty in getting beyond their own towns, let alone the bounds of their own States. Again, while they boasted of the prosperity of Australia, never attempting to back up their statements by statistics or any real facts, they claimed that the people were so poor that they could not pay even sixpence per month per head to defend their own country by the construction of an Australian Navy. The climax, however, is reached when an honorable senator announces the fact that he is not one of those who pur- pose doing everything for the people, but wants to do something for himself. That seems to be the attitude that a number of honorable senators on the other side have taken up. Their anti-Socialism, or anti.bogyism, seems to consist of the fact that they are always Socialists in coming to the Government whenever they want anything for their own States or their own towns, or anything that is likely to be beneficial to themselves, but the moment we on this side, who mostly represent the disinherited of this community, ask for anything in the way of State aid, we are met with the cry of Socialism ! When a definition of Socialism is asked for, one honorable senator wishes to credit us with mere Communism that his own intellect ought to have told him had no connexion with Socialism as defined by any authority on the subject. I have no complaint to make about the visit of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Trade and Customs to the old country, although I do not agree with all they did there. It can be said that the Prime Minister fairly represented the opinion of the majority of Australian citizens as expressed to-day. I do not necessarily agree with that, but I believe he represented Australia fairly and well at the Imperial Conference. It is quite possible that he reached out a little beyond his mission, or became a partisan at times, and attempted to commit Australia too far or to act as a schoolmaster in teaching other people their own business. I am very glad I am not bound altogether to the preferential trade mission, although I represent Victoria, which is supposed to be the home of it. Nor am I in any way allied to the Government or a supporter of theirs. I shall be always willing, as far as possible, to support any practical measure that can be brought down to assist people speaking a common tongue. I nocked that Senator Trenwith, when speaking to-day, said of preferential trade, “ If ic is practicable.” That seems to be the exact position of the question. ‘ If it was practicable, if we could grant any concession to the old country, and if in turn it was willing to grant us a concession, I should be willing to assist in that direction ; but, as an Australian who wants to see Australia a self-contained country as far as possible, to see the natural resources of Australia developed, I want honorable senators or the Government to tell me what the old country produces that we cannot produce in Australia. It may be true that England manufactures many articles which we have not started to develop the manufacture of in Australia, but if it isa fair thing to allow them to havethis market for those goods, when and where are we going to begin todevelop those industries in Australia for ourselves? I am an Australianprotectionist,, nor a revenue tariffist,. I believe in protection because I want to see two-thirds, at least, of the- £50,000,000 worth of commodities which it is estimated that we shall import this year manufactured in Australia. I am not particular as to which State or what” part of Australia they are manufactured in, but I want to see them made in a WhiteAustralia, where the employes are treated1 as white men, and receive sufficient remuneration for their toil to be able to lead’< decent white lives. For that reason, I am totally opposed to anything that I have heard so far in the shape of preferential trade, because I want to see Australia developed. I shall support any proposal to that end. With regard to the Navigation Conference, it will be a good thing if the shipping lawsof the Empire can be made uniform. I have not had an opportunity of visiting theNorthern Territory, but I have heard twoopinions about it. One is that the country has a great future before it. The other isthat it is absolutely useless. In the interests of Australia, that country ought to betaken over by the Commonwealth at the earliest possible opportunity, irrespective of the cost. If it is a good country, it will be a bargain to the Commonwealth whatever the cost is ; while, if it is a bad. country, surely we are bad Australians if we ask a mere section of the community tocarry that burden on its back any longer. I agree with those who say it must eventually be one of the first points of defencein Australia. On that question I never shall at any time, unless the enemy is absolutely knocking at our door, support any system that will compel any man to becomea soldier in Australia. The honorable senator who moved the adoption of the AddressinReply seemed very anxious that our young people should be given guns and taught to use them. I am a lover of peace, and I hope the day will never come in Australia when the gun will be put into the hands of any .young person who has not reached the age of reason. If there is onepitiful sight in Australia to-day it is the numbers of mere schoolboys, who have not reached the age of reason, who have nc* ideas of their own, and who do not really know the country they live in, carrying guns about the streets, and being taught, for the glory of the flag and the Empire, that they are to be ready to shoot anybody at the command of somebody else. We have heard a lot about what must be done in the interests of the Empire and the flag. That sentiment is very good, but we should not attach any weight to it in dealing with any proposal which is not of a practical character. Because the Labour Party and certain members of it have raised their voices at various times against bringing people to Australia, they are misrepresented as being opposed to immigration. As an Australian, I shall hail with joy the day when I see 50,000,000 people in Australia.
Senator Col Neild:
– The honorable senator will have to wait a long time.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– It may be a long time, but I shall hail it with joy when it does come. We have no room for any immigrants in Australia to-day, with our lands in their present condition. The one thing necessary for the development of Australia is the elimination of the landlord class as it now exists here. Take Victoria, for instance. It may be true that there are vast areas available in other parts of Australia. If that is so, I am glad to hear it. The Queenslanders boast that only 4 per cent, of their land is alienated; but I can scarcely believe that those early pioneers who selected land in the various States took all the bad land, and left the good for the people of to-day. I do not know of any State where a man can get land at a reasonable price with reasonable access to railways and shipping. If such land is available, it is strange that men should be willing to live in poverty in the cities. The estimated unearned increment in the value of land in Victoria is about ^100,000,000. Who has created that added value?
Senator Mulcahy:
– Victoria has not a land tax. It has a miserable apology for one.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– We have what is called a land tax. It is really a sheep tax.- We are in real distress to-day in Victoria for the want of land. I deeply regret that the Government have not seen fit to take the question of the breaking up of the vast areas of Australia out of the hands of the States. I hold in my hand a leaflet issued by the Victorian Land Settlement Division of the Immigration League of Australia. It is headed “The Peril of Melbourne.” I notice that the
Prime Minister of the Commonwealth is president of this branch of the League, which issued this remarkable statement -
Before 1887 Victoria had genuine land settlement and immigration to Victoria. Now Victoria has land unsettlement and emigration . from Victoria. How much more of this can the great manufacturing city of Melbourne bear?
This shows that the head of the Government of the Commonwealth recognises that immigrants cannot be brought here unless the land is brought into fuller use for- the people. Then when we ask that the Federal power shall be exercised, and a land tax imposed for the purpose of bringing those lands into fuller use, we are met with the cry, “Leave it to the States.” I am one of those who would be glad to leave the land question to the States - I wish that were possible - but that would mean leaving the question unsettled. What hope is there of getting a land tax levied in Victoria, where we have a class-constituted Upper House? If we are to get a land tax imposed we shall have to get a better class of representatives than we have had in the States in past years. Many of the men who have not used their opportunities to fight for land taxation in the States, now that they are in the Federal Parliament want to shirk their responsibility by asking its members to continue to leave that question to the States. In regard to the mail contract, a remarkable position has been brought about. Senator Millen said that there was never any sincerity behind the contract as the syndicate were practically a lot of bounders, who desired to use the Commonwealth for purposes of their own on the Stock Exchange. Senator Trenwith, however, said there was a boycott against the syndicate by one of the strongest capitalistic rings, namely, the shipping ring. So that, on the one hand, we have capitalistic bounders trying to use the Commonwealth for ulterior purposes, and next, on the other hand, we have to face the shipping ring. The fact is that we are not between the devil and the deep sea, but between two devils, and the Government supporters come along with a proposal to benefit ‘ the shipping ring, which the Government supporters say boycotted the proposal made for a new contract. It seems to me that we are entirely in the hands of that section of the community who do not care for Commonwealth, God, or man, but care only for their own pockets. When things have arrived at that stage it is time for us to apply a little Socialism or a little Commonwealth enterprise in the direction of owning our mail steamers. I believe that the service could be performed better by the Commonwealth than by private enterprise, and I believe that it would be profitable to the community. I hope to see a practicable proposal made in that direction before the proposed new contract will expire. It has been stated here that there is enormous prosperity in Australia. There is no enormous prosperity in Australia for a large section of the people, but there should be, for the simple reason that for an average family of five persons about £230 worth of wealth is produced. In Victoria, for instance, the factory returns show that the average income is about £60, while the statistics show that in that State there was almost as much net profit in the manufacturing line last year ‘ as was actually paid in wages for the previous year. What does that mean ? It means that the men who do not do the work, but employ others, are getting as much for being the owners of the capital or the factory as are the men who do the work.
Senator Gray:
– I understood from the’ press that the works were starving - that thev were in such a condition that it was scarcely probable that they would last more than a few days.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– I do not say that the works are starving, but I assert that the workers are starving, not only in protectionist Victoria, but’ in New South Wales.
Senator Col Neild:
– Bosh !
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– In close proximity to the new ironworks established in New South Wales I heard, when I was there a few months ago, that men had been working for 30s. a week, and were on strike for more pay. If that is a living wage, New South Wales is all right. But if Australia is going to ask men to maintain families and live in reasonable comfort on that pay, it is about time that we did sing out, “ No more immigrants shall be admitted.”
Senator Gray:
– Surely the honorable senator does not say that 30s. a week is the normal wage in the ironworks?
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– What is the normal wage to1 a man who cannot get any work ?
Senator Gray:
– The honorable senator might pick out one man who was getting 30s. a week, but there might be 200 men getting £2 a week.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– In all those industries in which sweating is not carried on to-day that fact is attributable to socialistic legislation introduced by the Labour Party. In Victoria, for instance, we have fifty-five Wages Boards. Bui how many sweaters had we to chase before we secured those Wages Boards? We deplore the position of the starch workers and farm hands. Poor little Tasmania does not seem to be getting along too well. At the best, what have the men in Queensland to offer to persons coming from the old country? Take the food and rations which they are going to supply in addition to wages. The total does not amount to more than 34s. a week. Is that sufficient to maintain family life in Australia? Yet that is indorsed by a Liberal Government, and is backed up by the representatives whom Queensland has sent here. While a wage of 34s. a week is being offered to a man in Australia to maintain a wife and family I am opposed to any person, for any occupation, being introduced. lt has also been stated on the other side of the Chamber that this was mostly confined to young persons who lived in the city, and had no desire to go into the country to work. Senator Sayers rather sneered at young people who are not prepared to leave city pleasures, such as are offered by the theatre, in order to go into the country to work. In Victoria there are a number of young men who are hanging about workless, and do not go into the country. What are the inducements to them to go there?
Senator Mulcahy:
– There are a good few men down Bourke-street who do not want much work.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– There are a good few men down Bourke-street who will not go to work, but if I were asked either to remain out of work living with my family in Melbourne or to go into the country under existing conditions, I would rather be a loafer in Bourke-street, because those conditions are not fit for human beings to work under.
Senator St Ledger:
– It is a good thing that our fathers were not of that opinion.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– Our fathers had the opportunity to make a living. It is all very well for the honorable senator to refer to our fathers as fine old pioneers. Let me point out the difference between the pioneers in Victoria - and it might be equally applicable to the rest of Australia - and their sons .to-day. Take any farmer who secured land at the nominal value of £1 an acre. He is’ fairly prosperous, but where can his sons get land under similar conditions to-day? When I was in Gippsland recently, I attended a sale, and agricultural land was sold there for £5810s. an acre. Fancy an old pioneer out of his hard earnings trying to settle four sons, and saying to them, “Go and do likewise “ !
Senator Gray:
– In Queensland a man can get land for £1 an acre, in some cases for 10s. an acre.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– Here is a remarkable quotation which may be found amusing -
page 396
CARRUTHERS’ DELUDED IMMIGRANTS
How They are Hoodwinked.
Copy of circular by means of which the Carruthers crowd are luring deluded immigrants to N.S.W. : - 500 Farm Hands
Wanted immediately by the Government of New
South Wales
Wages are from 5s. to 20s. per week, with lodgings and rations.
Passage for £10 by the magnificent steamers of the Orient Royal Mail Line, leaving London for Australia every fortnight.
For particulars apply as on the other side.
On the other side, I find the following announcement : -
Australia. 500 Farm Hands wanted immediately by the Government of New South Wales.
All approved passengers booking by the Orient Royal Mail Line will be met on arrival at Sydney by a Government Officer, and employment found for them.
The magnificent steamers of this line, which leave London and Plymouth every fortnight, are fitted with electric light and all the latest improvements for the comfort of passengers.
Managers : F. Green and Co. ; Anderson, Anderson, and Co., Fenchurch-avenue, London, E.C.
For full particulars apply to the latter firm at 5 Fenchurch-avenue (E.C.), or to local agents - R. K. Sheehy, The Square, Newcastle West.
The “ fuller particulars,” I suppose, are that when men land in Australia there is no occupation for them, beyond taking up a “ bluey,” and going out as the good old pioneers went to take up land, but only to find that it was all taken up long ago.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– It is stated that the wage runs from 5s. to 20s. a week, not in Victoria, but in New South Wales.
Senator Gray:
– I do not believe it.
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– We have this remarkable position, that when there was no Labour Party in Parliament, when we were all so liberal that we were alienating everything it was possible to alienate, when people were acquiring land under very good terms from the Government, we never heard any opposition to Parliament sitting; but to-day we heard a cry that it would be a good thing if it were shut up for five years. That is not very complimentary to honorable senators on the Opposition side, for never to my knowledge has a majority consisting of members of our party ever placed a measure on the statute-book of any State. Evidently the laws which the other parties have made have not been useful to Australia, and now when a lot of their work has to be undone, and the new legislation is likely to be effective in the interests of the whole of Australia and its great population, we are actually asked to close Australia’s Parliament for five years. I hope that during my term of service I shall not be recognised as one who is a mere barracker for his State. I want to be an Australian in the fullest sense of the term. I am willing and ready to help in the development of every State, irrespective of whether it will be financially good for Victoria or not. When men have been advocating a policy or a proposal which in their opinion was good for Australia, I have regretted to hear on many occasions the interjection, “ Not if it means any more taxation for my State.” Is that an Australian attitude? Is that the way in which to build up an Australian sentiment ?
Senator Gray:
– Who interjected in that way?
Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917
– A representative of Tasmania interjected in that way in regard to the Northern Territory. I want to make the best use of myself in the interests of the whole of Australia, and not of any mere section. I do not want to represent the Age, but rather to represent the people of Victoria. I do not want to be dominated by the Argus, but by a consideration for the best interests of the whole of the people of Australia. For that reason, when any general measure or any practicable proposal is brought down which is likely to benefit the whole of the community, I hope I shall be found supporting it, and not clamouring for the interests of my State as against the interests of the whole of the Continent.
Senator MULCAHY:
Tasmania
– I think that I may very well congratulate the Senate upon the speeches which have been delivered during the debate ; and without undue flattery, I” may be permitted, perhaps, to pay a compliment to the new senators who have so well acquitted themselves in expressing their opinions sincerely, although I am quite sure they widely differ on both sides. It is not my intention to deal very largely with the lengthy programme which is submitted in the Governor-General’s Speech. There is always a tendency, it seems to me, for the Government to pro;mise for any session an amount of work which experience ought to have told them that it would be simply impossible to do.
Senator Guthrie:
– The honorable senator would not say that of the ReidMcLean Government.
Senator MULCAHY:
– No. The GovernorGeneral’s Speech of that Governmnent was the shortest on record, and the most disastrous. It seems to me that, according to the trend of politics in Australia for some years past, there has been a -desire that we should have the Tariff question settled. There is a large amount of uncertainty in commercial circles that ought ito be finally dispelled. If people knew that we are going to have a Tariff that would remain in operation for a good many years they would probably be satislied with it. Although the present Tariff is a mass of incongruities and inconsistencies, and is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, it would even be better to have one like it than leave the country in a state of uncertainty. The Government being determined to propose an alteration of the Tariff, the sooner it is settled the better. Therefore, I think it would have -been wise if they had come down to Parliament, and said: - “We are going fo make this a Tariff session.” As they would have to furnish work for the Senate while the other’ House was dealing with the Tariff, they could have placed before us -some such measure as the Navigation Bill until the. Tariff was ready to come up to us. There is one unfortunate issue that must present itself to the mind of a Tasmanian senator, and to which I must refer. It is a question in which a Tasmanian may reasonably claim a large amount of sympathy from the Senate. Perforce, we must look on every proposal that is made to Parliament first of all from a financial stand-point, not because we are inclined to view questions from a selfish aspect, but because the financial point of view necessarily touches our constituents vitally. As a result of our joining the Federation, Tasmania has suffered in a financial sense very severely. As a matter of fact, some of our more far-sighted public men in Tasmania predicted an utter disorganization of our finances as the result of our coming into line with the other States, no matter what Tariff was adopted. They urged that it would be wiser for Tasmania to remain out of the Federation until she was better able to bear the change. Tasmania, however, did the right and the loyal thing, in agreeing by a substantial majority to become a member of this great partnership which is destined, we all hope, to ripen into a great southern nation. But, unfortunately, owing to many causes, Tasmania has suffered greatly and is still suffering, from the effects of the Tariff. Notwithstanding the exercise of the greatest economy, and in spite of the starvation of our public works policy - even to the neglect of ordinary repairs and renewals, which, indeed, there is an obligation upon us to keep up, as our public works represent security for loans - our finances have been reduced to the severest straits. I regret to say that my State has the most underpaid Public Service in Australia. But, in spite of retrenchment and rigid economy, Tasmania is barely able to make both ends meet. It is quite true that in the present financial year the Treasurer anticipates a surplus of something like £60,000 or £70,000. But it has to be admitted frankly - and frankness is always best in connexion with such subjects - that that surplus is not due to money which reaches the Tasmanian Treasury from ordinary sources, but is due to the existence of Tattersalls institution within our borders.
Senator Findley:
– God help Tasmania !
Senator MULCAHY:
– I am sorry to hear the honorable senator make use of an observation of that kind. I do not come here to adopt an ad misericordiam tone in regard to my State. I hope that the Tasmanian Parliament would prefer to be independent and to tax its people rather than come to the Federal Parliament to ask for assistance. That, however, is merely my own view. There are others, who have a perfect right to their opinions, who think that we shall have to ask for the assistance of the
Commonwealth Parliament at some future time in the manner anticipated by the Constitution. But although we shall have a surplus of £60,000 or ,£70,000 this year, there are nevertheless accumulated deficiencies to be reckoned with.
Senator McGregor:
– If the honorable senator is so dismal when his State has a surplus of £60,000, I wonder what he would say if there were a deficiency !
Senator MULCAHY:
– I am not aware that I am dismal. I hope to see the day when Tasmania will become relatively to Australia what Great Britain is relatively to the continent of Europe. A request has been made by the Government of Tasmania directly to the Commonwealth Government. I must frankly say that the request ought to have been made through the Tasmanian representatives in this Parliament ; not that I think they have been ignored intentionally, but because the Tasmanian Government probably thought that the best course was for them to approach the financial authorities of the Commonwealth directly. They did so in order to point out the injustice done to our State under present financial relationships. I do not say that injustice has intentionally been done, but let me point out what has happened. It is well known that within the last few years Bass Strait has .practically become a ferry. Steamers cross from Tasmania to the mainland one day and return the next. There has been a large increase in the passenger traffic. Numbers of people come over to Melbourne to buy in larger or smaller parcels, sometimes for wholesale purposes and sometimes for private use. Indeed, it has been said that the northern part of Tasmania has in a sense become simply a suburb of this great metropolis. The goods purchased in this manner cannot be traced by the Customs officers. It is impossible to follow a passenger who takes a parcel over from Melbourne to Tasmania, and ask him to go to the trouble of passing a Customs entry for what he has purchased. In most cases, perhaps, the amount would only be “a few shillings. But in the aggregate Tasmania loses a considerable amount of revenue. I am not prepared to give an estimate of my own, but it has been calculated that the loss to the Tasmanian revenue in this way amounts to something like £20,000 or £25,000 per annum. . That is to say, that amount of revenue is collected and goes to the credit of Victoria, whereas, inasmuch as the goods are consumed in Tasmania, it ought to go to the credit of my State. lt is perfectly true that a large proportion of the goods purchased in this manner might be traced if the Customs officers insisted upon examining the baggage of all passengers crossing over to Tasmania. But that would be a very vexatious thing to do.
Senator Findley:
– Surely, what the honorable senator refers to is a matter that ought to be probed by the Customs.
Senator MULCAHY:
– Speaking as a business man, I know how difficult it would be to trace these* goods so as to credit Tasmania with her full share of revenue on account of them. It would be almost impossible to compel individual passengers to pass an entry for everything they took over, because it would really mean compelling them to go back to the original invoices on which the goods were imported. Practically, speaking, it is impossible to do it.
Senator Findley:
– If it affects Tasmania to the extent of £20,000 a year something ought to be done.
Senator MULCAHY:
– I am glad the honorable senator agrees that the present position of matters is unfair to Tasmania. I frankly admit that there is a difficulty, because although Tasmania loses, the Commonwealth as a Commonwealth does not gain. It is Victoria that mainly benefits, and if the Commonwealth Government were asked to restore to Tasmania what has virtually been gained by Victoria, it might be represented to be an injustice to the rest of the States. But the fact remains that Tasmania is losing revenue which is an important item to her. How we are going to overcome the difficulty I do not quite see.
Senator Gray:
– The same remarks apply to other States.
Senator MULCAHY:
– But it does not affect the other States to such a large extent, because, as I have pointed out, Bass Strait has practically become a ferry. Only a sea journey of ten or twelve hours separates Victoria from the north of Tasmania, and the number of passengers who travel is rapidly increasing. Now, Melbourne has pursued a protective policy for many years. At times she has been very selfish. But through her protective policy, when the Customs barriers between the States were abolished, Victoria was in a position to step in and supply Tasmania with large quantities of goods, which were formerly imported from abroad. For instance, under the Tasmanian Tariff we had a duty of 20 per cent, ad valorem on drapery goods. In spite of that, we used to buy considerable quantities of stuff from Victoria, because our people liked the cut of it - perhaps because it was more stylish, or mote “ Colonial,” 1 might say, than that which was imported from abroad. We also used to buy large quantities of boots from Melbourne, But the point is that when the Customs barriers were removed, Victoria was able to supply us with goods in a still larger measure, and Tasmania lost the 20 per cent, duty on the goods which she used to import “from this State, as well as the duty on similar goods imported from abroad. All credit to Victoria for being ready to take advantage of the enlarged market.
Senator Findley:
– Tasmania now gets the goods cheaper.
Senator MULCAHY:
– We do not get some of them cheaper. I have never held that the change has not been beneficial to a certain extent to our people. Before leaving this phase of the subject, I should like to direct attention to the deplorable fact that in Tasmania we are losing our natural increase of papulation. Some of my honorable friends will probably attribute that to the low wages paid. Low wages in Tasmania may be a consequence, as well as a cause, of our young people going away.
Senator Findley:
– We do not say that that is the sole cause. We say that land monopoly is the chief cause.
Senator MULCAHY:
– Land monopoly is not greater in Tasmania than in the other States, but I have no wish to deal with that subject just now. I wish to refer to the actual fact that we have not in Tasmania maintained the ordinary natural increase of population which we should maintain. For a little over six years, ending in 1906, the excess of births over deaths in Tasmania was, in round numbers, something like 20,000. We had something like 170,000 people in 1900, and we should have had 190,000 in 1906. As a matter of fact, we had in 1906 only 178,000. So that, instead of having our ordinary natural increase of population to the extent of 20,000, we got only 8,000, and so 12,000 Tasmanian people must, during that time, have gone elsewhere. These have not been infants or old people.
Senator Stewart:
– I suppose that also has been due to Federation?
Senator MULCAHY:
– It may be to some extent, but it is due largely to the proximity of more prosperous States that present a wider scope to young men. These States from my earliest days have attracted young men from Tasmania.
Senator de Largie:
– Tasmania is one of the wealthiest States in the Commonwealth.
Senator MULCAHY:
– It is in some respects. As good a class of immigrants came to Tasmania as to any State in the Commonwealth, and did much better there than they were doing at Home. But when cities like Melbourne and Sydney were being built, mechanics were wanted, and higher wages ruled in the other States, and they found that, well as they might be doing in Tasmania, compared with what they could do in the old country, if they came over to these States they would do better still. Notwithstanding the fact that they came out to Tasmania under an obligation to remain in that State for a certain time, they left and went to the other States.
Senator de Largie:
– Is there not a lesson to be learnt from the constant loss of population during all those years?
Senator MULCAHY:
– I am referring now to the period since 1900, when we have not even maintained our natural increase of population. We labour under many disadvantages in Tasmania. The mining industry is destined to be our chief industry, and yet no mining propositions in Australia present so many difficulties or require such courage, and the expenditure of so much capital, for their development as do those of Tasmania. I should like to say in this connexion that some of our honorable friends seem to regard the capitalist who speculates to provide employment as the worst form of capitalist.
Senator McGregor:
– Who ever put that into the honorable senator’s head?
Senator MULCAHY:
– I speak only of what I have heard in this Chamber, and it is the employer who is constantly inveighed against here.
Senator Lynch:
– The unscrupulous employer.
Senator MULCAHY:
– Yes, I know what honorable senators mean, and I do not charge them with anything wrong, but I say that the man who risks his money in mining is entitled to more consideration than he often receives, and that the man who might be more legitimately condemned is the capitalist who hoards money, making a prisoner of every sovereign he gets. I am sorry to say that we have some of them in Tasmania that we should be glad to get rid of.
Senator Findley:
– But I thought the honorable senator was always practising thrift.
Senator MULCAHY:
– If I were always practising thrift, I should not be here. I should like to say that the speculator who invests his money in mining ventures is, above all other employers, entitled to absolute fair play. I might say a few words about the mail contract, although the subject has been nearly done to death. It was a thing of big promise and small performance. When the contract was entered into at first, it seemed to me that a very astute Postmaster-General had made a remarkably good bargain. I might mention, by the way, that the same astute PostmasterGeneral was very much more in evidence at the time when the contract was regarded as a good bargain than he has been lately. It seemed to be a good bargain, and for a long time I was under the impression that the contract had been undertaken by a powerful firm of shipbuilders, who would be able to carry it out. I was also under the impression that, as Senator Trenwith said this afternoon, those who undertook the contract were called upon to fight a very powerful combine. To speak quite honestly, I do not think that the syndicate received fair play. I believe their enterprise was condemned as far as it could be by the action cf the authorities of some of the large shipping companies at Home. However, it. has all ended in nothing, and we are now inviting fresh tenders. In connexion with the subject I wish to refer to a matter which I think has not been touched upon by previous speakers. I noticed that the Treasurer of the Commonwealth approached a Conference of States Premiers and asked them to do something, which it seems to ,me, should have been done by the Commonwealth if done at all. He virtually asked the States Premiers to guarantee debentures for the syndicate. In view of the fact that the States possess equality of representation here, I hold that, if it were necessary that the debentures should be guaranteed, the guarantee should have been given bv the Commonwealth. It should have been treated as a Federal matter, and dealt with bv this Parliament.
Senator Stewart:
– This Parliament could not give a guarantee on behalf of the States.
Senator MULCAHY:
– No, but it could give a guarantee on behalf of the Commonwealth. On the subject of the Premiers’
Conference, I should like to say that the States Premiers have shown a disposition at these Conferences - and it was particularly noticeable at the last held - to forget that the States have become federated, and that a Federal Parliament has been elected in’ which each State is given proportionate representation in one House, and absolute equality of representation in the other _ When they found themselves placed in difficulties through the disarrangement of their finances, there was no great harm in their approaching the Federal Treasurer in friendly conference, to discuss with himthe best way out of their difficulties, inasmuch as they were the persons whom the shoe pinched.
Senator Stewart:
– Some of them were not placed in difficulties.
Senator MULCAHY:
-No, but some of them certainly were. They did that, but apparently some desired to do a great deaL more, and to go altogether outside their functions. Although, perhaps, there was no intention to be offensive, one of the most extraordinary things they have done has been to offer what seems to be an’ insult to. the Senate. This is the States Houseelected by no section, but bv the whole of the people of the different States. Every honorable senator occupying a seat in this chamber has the right to say that he ishere to represent the voice of the people of his State in a way which cannot be claimedby any State representative.
Senator de Largie:
– No State Premier can make such a claim.
Senator MULCAHY:
– That is so. What did the Premiers of the States at their last Conference agree to do? They agreed’ to appoint a kind of legal detective - a man who, adopting a remark made by theChief Justice of the High Court, would require the prescience of an inspired prophet to watch the legislation of this Parliament, to act as a spy, so to speak, upon the Parliament of the people of Australia, and report when it transgresses the Constitution. This man, who is to have the prescience of ari inspired prophet, is to be offered */”.soo** a year for his services.
Senator Pearce:
– That made a farce of” it.
Senator MULCAHY:
– That proposal’ made a farce of the whole Conference, and if the States Premiers, when they meet,cannot do better work than that they would”, be wise to remain in their own States.
Senator Pearce:
– The Justices of the High Court must be grossly overpaid at £3,000 a year, if the States can get a man to interpret the Constitution for £300 a year.
Senator MULCAHY:
– Quite so. I do not, in these remarks, desire to belittle the State Premiers or their Conference in any way. I give them every credit for trying to bring about a better state of affairs, and that, so far as Tasmania is concerned, is verv sadly needed. But we must never forget that we have entered into this partnership, and must stand loyally by it. We have established a Federal Parliament, and it is the fault of the people of the different States if they do not send to it men who are capable of protecting their interests. It would be wrong for any member of this Parliament, or for any one else, to belittle the States Governments, for I believe that, properly considered, the responsibilities with which they are charged are really of more importance to the progress and prosperity of the individual States than any legislation we can enact in this Parliament. I may be allowed to say a word about the proposed transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth. This great question has been very fairly dealt with by previous speakers. I regard the transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth as a national obligation imposed on us under the Constitution. T regard it as a duty that we should take over the Northern Territory, but I do not think that it should embrace merely the northern portion of the State of South Australia, which is commonly referred to by that title. It should not be forgotten that there is an enormous area of unoccupied country in the north-western portion of Western Australia, probably as large as the Northern Territory of South Australia. I hope I shall not offend our friends from Western Australia if I say that it seems to me that the handful of people in that State will require to seek the intervention of the Commonwealth to enable them to deal proper] v with the enormous area of country at their disposal. This is therefore a much larger question than the mere dealing with the Northern Territory of South Australia. While I am prepared to look at the matter honestly in a national spirit, and to recognise that there is an obligation on the Commonwealth to take over the Territory, still, if we are going to take it over at South Australia’s price, and even then have to submit to con- ditions laid down by South Australia for her own benefit alone and not for the benefit of the Commonwealth, those terms will not be acceptable to me. Besides the £3,000,000 or £3,500,000 of indebtedness on the Territory, we shall also have to pay for the line of telegraph running from South Australia to Port Darwin, because that is not included in the transfer.
Senator Pearce:
– We have to take that over in any case.
Senator MULCAHY:
–It will not come over as part of the Territory for which we are to pay. . If we have to take over the responsibility of constructing a railway along a particular route to suit a particular State, without regarding what will best benefit the Commonwealth as a whole, or the Northern Territory - if we are to be tied down to that and have to take over and work a railway which is at present nonpaying - then we must have better terms. Those are the terms we shall be asked to discuss this session. If they are not modified very largely, I cannot at present see my way to support them. We have had dissertations from both sides of the Senate on the Tariff. One thing on which I can honestly congratulate some of my freetrade friends, especially those on the other side of the Chamber, is the fact that it has dawned on them, after nearly seven years, that the spirit of the Australian people is in favour of protection, and that it is really a national instruction to this Parliament that the fiscal policy of Australia, shall be a protective one. It should be sufficient encouragement and excuse to those honorable senators, if they feel that they are abandoning their principles, to know that after all they will only be doing what the people have sent them, or at any rate the majority of honorable senators, here to do.
Senator de Largie:
– That is not the object in view. They are throwing up the sponge in order to bring about a coalition.
Senator MULCAHY:
– I have heard very interesting arguments and comparisons from several honorable senators about the great prosperity of Great Britain, but to compare an old country, densely populated, and with a limited area, with a young country of the size of a continent and containing at present only a miserable population of 4,000,000 people, is to compare things utterly unlike. If we talked pure economics, possibly those honorable senators opposite me who argue on ‘the free-trade side might have the best of it. But we take something more than economics into account. Wisely or unwisely, according to the opinions of different people, we are trying in various States to establish a standard of living or of payment for services rendered above that of other countries, to enable the workers to live decently and in comfort. If we are to have such a desirable standard established we must protect it. We must look forward to the development in a truly national sense of this continent. We have to recognise its great isolation, and the fact that we possess many resources. TheAlmighty has been very bountiful to us in Australia. We have every variety of climate, soil and minerals, and our young people do not lack ingenuity. Young Australians have already made names for themselves throughout the world. We shall in time become a nation, not merely of woolgrowers or of miners, but I hope of manufacturers, supplying our own needs. We may, therefore, well depart from pure economics for a little while, with such a goal before us. That is really what the people of Australia are doing. Although I am a protectionist, I shall not support anything in the nature of prohibitive duties. I believe in sufficiently high duties to enable us to keep up our standard.
Senator de Largie:
– The honorable senator is slipping.
Senator MULCAHY:
– I hope the honorable senator will not think me offensive if I say he is a political bigot. A man must believe absolutely the whole of what the honorable senator believes in to be orthodox in his eyes. There are a good many things upon which he and I do not see eye to eye. I do not believe in absolutely prohibitive duties. I think that a Tariff can be evolved, and I hope the Government will produce it, which need not be too discriminating. If we pay particular attention to those larger industries which we already possess, and for the growth of which this country is particularly well adapted, and put on sufficiently high duties on the ordinary goods coming in, we shall by that means avoid immediately depleting our revenues - no doubt in time we shall deplete them to a certain extent - and be able to supply the States with the necessary revenue to carry on, while at the same time we shall be giving incidental protection to a large number of manufactures that are hardly worth giving specific protection to at present. I know from actual experience what incidental protection will do. I have seen industries grow from very small beginnings in Tasmania in consequence of a duty which was not put on for protective purposes at all, but which had a protective operation. When we started an ad valorem Tariff and began with 10 per cent, we had no woollen factories in Tasmania. We had some previously, but they had done? little or nothing. When the duty was increased from 10 to 12 J per cent, the woollen industry began to get a little stronger. At 15 per cent, it was stronger still, and when the duty reached 20 per cent., we began not only to supply ourselves with woollen goods, but to export them to some of the other States.
Senator Turley:
– Was the standard of living that the honorable senator laid down just now kept up?
Senator MULCAHY:
– We have had no industrial legislation in Tasmania at all.
Senator Turley:
– If the standard of living of the people engaged in that industry was lowered, it was probably well able to carry on even under the low Tariff.
Senator MULCAHY:
– I have not read the report of the Royal Commission in Tasmania that has been referred to today, but I do not think the woollen industry is spoken of in it as an underpaid one.
Senator Findley:
– One standard that has been kept up is that of turning out the best woollens in the world. That is admitted by experts.
Senator de Largie:
– That is all right, but what are the wages?
Senator MULCAHY:
– I hope we shall not waste any time this session in discussing the question of the Capital Site. I should like to see a Capital Site that would be acceptable to New South Wales selected by the Commonwealth. I do not know why there should be any difficulty about it. Any trouble that has arisen up to the present lias emanated from New South Wales only. Several sites were originally submitted to the Commonwealth for selection.
Senator Lynch:
– Why the need for satisfying New South Wales more than any other State?
Senator MULCAHY:
– Surely it is a matter of national courtesy to the State of New South Wales that we should do so if we can. Why should we not? It makes no difference to us. I have always regarded as a squalid blot on the Constitution the wretched provision by which Sydney will not allow Melbourne, or Melbourne allow Sydney, to have the Capital in its immediate neighbourhood - I mean the provision in. the Constitution that the Capital Site must be 100 miles away from Sydney. But we have made the compact, and it is certainly right that we should -be expected to carry it out, but no Federal Parliament or Federal Government can be blamed for not complying with the condition in the Constitution, seeing that we have tried to do so. The greatest difficulty, particularly in another place, has arisen from the rivalry of different sections of New South Wales politicians.
Senator Turley:
– Parliament has made a selection of one of the sites offered.
Senator MULCAHY:
– The question seems likely to be re-opened, or why is it referred to iri the Governor-General’s Speech? I do not know what is meant by the reference to preferential voting in me Governor-General’s Speech. There are two kinds of preferential voting, or, rather, each kind has the same machinery, but they .aim at different purposes. In the one case, the preferential system of voting is -designed to enable the candidate who is supposed to represent the majority of the constituency to get the seat, no matter how many candidates there may be. This system was in operation in Queensland, but it does not seem to have been understood by the people there. It was not used very much there, at any rate. We .have had instances, particularly in the Commonwealth elections, of men being returned time after time on a pure minority vote. Even the measure of preferential voting to which I have just referred would be an infinite advance on our present method, but if we could go further and adopt such a system of preferential voting as would insure the representation of the various States in accordance with the political convictions of the majority, regardless of geographical divisions, we should do something effectual towards bringing about a much fairer and more honest representation of the people as a’ whole in the Australian Parliament. We must wait to see what is in the Bill before we can discuss it. Another dish of which we have had a taste every session since I have been here, and which there is to be another effort to thrust before us again, is the question of the propriety of committing ourselves to the construction of a railway that may cost anything from four up to eight or nine million pounds, to please our friends in Western Australia. They know they have had to meet with most strenuous opposition in the past, and I am afraid they will have to meet it again this time. I should like to say a word or two of personal explanation before I sit down. The fact that I have occupied a seat on your right, sir, is sometimes taken to indicate that I am a supporter of the Government.
Senator McGregor:
– Of the Socialists.
Senator MULCAHY:
– I do not think that my actions will associate me with my labour friends to that extent, although many of their ideals are in keeping with mine.
Senator de Largie:
– The honorable senator is a Socialist, sometimes.
Senator MULCAHY:
– We are all Socialists when it suits us. I hope that these names will no longer be bandied across the floor. Since I entered the Senate I have never allied myself with any party. I happen to be a protectionist, and honorable senators who sit on the opposite side and form the Opposition are nearly all freetraders. Much as I believe in many of the principles they ‘are advocating, I could not associate with them. On the other hand my friends in the Ministry are carrying on a system of what I call irresponsible government. I do not believe in the situation - I never did - and, although’ I have the greatest respect for many, members of the Government, particularly for the Prime Minister, who we all regret is ill, still, I cannot consider that their position for the last two sessions has been a sound or even a tolerable one. Therefore, while I have continued to sit in this seat, I hope that no honorable senators will rise and taunt me with sailing under false colours, with sitting apparently with the Government and not voting with them. I do not believe that the Senate should be made a party House in any way. That is my chief objection to the Labour Party. I do not consider that a Labour Party - as I think I said once before - is necessary in the Australian Parliament’. It seems to me to suggest a doubt as to whether the democracy of Australia can be trusted to return to Parliament men sufficiently democratic in their tendencies to carry put all or most of the reforms which not only our labour friends, but a good many others also, desire to see carried out With that explanation, sir, I thank honorable senators for their courtesy in listening to my lengthy, remarks.
Debate (on motion by Senator Pearce) adjourned.
Senate adjourned at 9.50 p.m.
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 11 July 1907, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1907/19070711_senate_3_36/>.