Queensland

Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]

Legislative Assembly

WEDNESDAY, 29 JULY 1903

Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy

108 Address 111 Repl:;. [ASSEMBLY.] Address ·in Repl_IJ·

\VED~E~D.H, 2!J J1:LY, 1903.

The SPEAKER (Hon. Arthur Mm-gan, TVa rwick) took the chair at half-past 8 o'clock.

ADDRESS IN REPLY.

\L\XT oF CoKF!lJENCE JVIoTrox-RE~DlPTION OF DEBATE.

Dr. GARDE (Jlar-.y/,o?·on[,'h): l;p to the present the only business before this House is the want of confidence motion, and I find that no arguments adduced by hrm. members on the other side have any weight at e.ll in them. There is no doubt that nothing is so good that it might not be better, and that nothim: is so bad that it might not b worc•e. Although I may not agree on every minute pqinr. \ViLh the program1ne of the present Ministry, still, from my own obsena­tion of Governments in geneml, and of the Vederal Parliament in particular, we have not~ing to hope for from the Labour party. I wu;h to leave no person under the imprt•ssion for one moment that. I agree with the Lftbour side in the elightest., becansA I reckon that the federal legislation has shown us clearly what the Labour party would do if they had the po':'er. They W~l1lld. simply do everything in therr pow;r to nnn thrs colony and the ]>eoplA in 1t. As far aq concerns the pre~ent, I have not e-r-en any suggestions brought forward to get us ont of had times and out of the lll8ciS we are in regarding the present large rleficit, becanse it is a large deficit-£190.000 odd. 'l'his deficit is due to a large extent to the drought and the bad times we hnve pas8ed throngh. As far as the country expect inn help from the other ·"ide is concerned, the Labou~ party have alv. 1ys been crying out about cutting down salarie~, especially the big:-.alaries and about leaving the working rrl~tn's \vagP. alon~. I agree with them there; but when it comes to the cuttine; down of their own salariec, they voted ag·ainst that-every one of them to a man. Now, we are all working rllen in thi:-; State ; eYeryonf' who comes to this St"te has to work, and I don't see why we should cnt down a working man's wage of Gs. Gd., and the poor clerk's salaries, when we \Von't cut, down the :::~alaries of member..:; here In this House. [Mr. \V. I:LUIIL'I'OK: \Ve never cnt them down.] You all voted a[(ainst it though, and, owing to a. few hon. -rr:elllbers on this side voting with bon. members oppo­site, the reduction was not carried. That i~ a fact. If hnn. JnemherB opposite are sin­sincere--[Mr. KEK:~A : Yon draw your salary all the S>ttne.] Yes, and I will continue to draw it a-. long as others draw it; at the same time, I would do away with the payment of members altogether. [Mr. KE:--!NA: Set a good example.] I am <[nite willing to set a good example if other.'< will do likewise, and I think that it would be a great deal better for the State if members on both sides would take into con~ideration the sm·ions times we are pasRing through and give their mite, or whatever lies in their

power, to help us out of our difficulties. 'With reference t.o the reduction of members, I think it would be a 1·ery Clipital thing. I dare say there is a lot to be said both for and against it, and no donbt some of the constituencie, will feel aggrieved, So far as the double electorates are concerned, I think one man could represent them. I make n" exceptions at all because one happens to be Brisbane and another Toowoomba or Ipswich. One man i,; quite enough to repre­sent any electorate. In the case of T"owoomtJa and rny o\vn electorate yon ha \'e one man on one side and another on the other. 'fhe cons<equence is that those electorates are vractically dis­franchised. So that I do not think any difference ehonld be made in the representation of constituen­cies in the way of double and single electorates. As to the other electorate" that have to be sub­divided, I should like to hear more about it before expressin>; a definite opinion. The popu­lation ba-is will not work out satisfactorily in some of the larger dibtricts, and they are entitled, I think, to a great deal of consideration in con­nection with the redistribution of seats. \Ve know that all the large towns contain a pro­portion of the good-for-nothing population of Queensland-the people who float about from one place to another-, and who do not do any good for themselves. They "''Y they cannot get work, and possibly that is true to a certain extent.; but in all the large towns there are many people who dn not want work. \Vitbin the last week or two, in Maryborough, I know for a po,itive fact of an able·boclied man applying for rations. He was told that if he would do two hours' work he would get rations for a week, and the anBwer was that he would see them fnrther first. [Mr. KENNA: \Vhat has this to do with the policy of the Go­vernment?] It nas got a lot to do with the policy of the Government. It is a que"tion of spending the country's money upon people \':ho du nnt deserve it. [Government rnewbers: Hear, hear!] There are n1~1_ny de:::;erving cases requiring relief, and no one with any of the milk of human kindness would deny a man food ; but it is quit.e time that the loafPrs were made to work. [Mr. KE:'>XA: \Vbat al.hmt the special train to the Maryborough show?] Thatisnotnnder dis­cus don at the present time. I dar~ say if the party of which tbe hon. member is such a shini;>g light were in vowJr, they would have speCial trains running all over the 1 lace ; but it will be a very considerable time before they hltve the opportunity of doin!'( so. As to the extension of the tenn of Parlian1ents, there is a great deal to be said both for and abainst it. It will certainly reduce the expense entailed by frequent general election~, and it would also allow a 1nan coming strange into the House to become familiar with parliamentary procedure. It takes a year or two or rrwre b, ... fore one gets used to Parliament. I was pulled up several times last year. I am nearly always out of order, becai1se I am not well up in parliamentary rules. It is not that l ba.-e any inten­tion of breaking the rules, but 1t arioes through want of parlian1entary usage, which c:tn only be acquired by ex]Jerience. The fin;t year's service ot a member is practically 1, year in which he can do very little through want of knowled"e of parliamentary n8ages. \Vith regard t~ universal sutfragL that is a que,tion that personally I do not believe in, altbongh, repre>enting tbe people I do,. I promised that I would vote for bringing the State suffrage into line with the federal sufirage, and I intend to do so. At the same time I am against it myself. I do not think it is for the welfare of future colonists that their mothers should be brought forward and shoved into politics. I think the majority of the modest women of

Arldress iu Reply. [211 JuLY.j Adrli·ess in Reply.

Queensland don't want it. [Mr. KE:->NA: They need not go.J That is just like the ban. member wanting rne to give up my ''~crew" and sticking­to the whole of his. He says the women need not gu iur.o politic:::, nut hor;. trJen1bers op}Josite make them do it. There is a very contentious quc.;tiou to come up t hi~ sPssinn~the matter of teaching religion h1 the State schiJtJ}l". The refer­endtml will no doubt decide that to a grettt extent, hut still re!i;(iun is a. thing that one should he very careful auout so far as respecting the fer>lini-!S and opinions of others is concerned. I think really it would be better to let well alone. There is a large section of the C·nn­munity thaL does not believe in b<tving their children taught religion l•y Jack, Bill, and Harry, and there are so many different forms of religion that Y"U get mixPd up. It yon introduce religion into the ">tate schools, yon might confine it to the Ten OommandmentR and t.he Lord's Prayer, but if you go beyond that you get into sectariani,m. No man should try to force hi' religion down another man's 1 hroat, and :<lthongh I hold very broad and liberal 'iews on the sub­ject, I should reoent anyone trying to proselytise n1e. No\\1 we conw to the incon1e tax. None of us like it. \Vhat is commonly called tbe ''poll tax" i·· a ver·v nasty tbi!Jg ·ro ha Ye put upon onf', but I maintain thar if yo11 put a tax <-tt. all upon the people you should put it on pro1·ata. Of C•nJrse, if the opposite part,- hod the1r way they would make about one-tourteenth of the people of Queensland pay all the taxation. Well, one-fourteenth of the per·ple would very soon get tired of it, and members opposite would then find that their policy was not only prevent­ing capital coming intr) the country, but was driving it out as well. [Mr. BAHBER; The same old cry.] It may be the same old cry, but it is none the less true. \V hat is t.his legislation but class legislation ? Let us try to legislate for the bencfi t of everyone, and not of any one class. [Mr. BARBER: That is ·.vhat we say.] That is what h<m. members opposite object to. They want the other fellow to pay everything, and get off scot-free themselves. You bring two men out here, s,y, each with £100. One is an honest, hardworking man, who w:.tnts to make a home for himself, and provide in comfort for himself, his wife, and his family. The other man says, "My troubles; I will not work!" He spends his £100, and as soon :<s it is gone, th8 other man has to keep him. The fact iH, that every honest man who works hard is helping tn keep a lMfer. Every inducement is held out to m(•n to be idle by putting a tax on thrift. Tl1e trend of legislation at the present day is to tax a uran if he is honest and thrifty, and the mnre honest and thrifty he is the more he is taxed. No inducement is held out to en­courage him in his thrift. \V hat is this income tax? In rny opinion the incon1P tax is nothing- n1ore or less than a tax to make up the deficiency on the railways; and as long as the Government has the railways-no m><tter whether it is this (iovernmt-·nt or any other Goverr1ment-thev will never be run except at a loss. Our railways have been run at a loss for years lrr the mere fad of being able to say they belong to the people. That is a perfect fallac.v, becuuse thE>y belong to the rnort~<1g"f'PR in England, to whom we have to pay fl(llll £300,000 to o£600,000 a y8ar in the shape of interest. It is a phantom of the imagination to think that the railways belong to the people. In saying what I h,, ve to say on the railways I know I am treading 0r1

dangerous ground, and am, perhap•, going outside my province ; but "a feather will show which way the wind blows," and if I can show in the slightest degree a way of bringing Queensland to a better condition, I believe it is my duty to do so. (Hear, hear!)

From the remarks that fell from the Trea>urer at Ip,;wich 1 take it that it would not be a diH:icnlt matter to sell the railways at sometlnng­approaching the amount of the national deht. If such could he done, would it not be a magnificent thing for us"! \Ve would then have £1,401>,000 a year, which we an• pa~1 ing to our mortgagees in England, and \\ e could sr~·end that rnone.y in the development, of the 1::'\tate. Anyono looking· at it. from a busine:--:i Doint of view can only c~n1-clude that we are acting unwisely in keepi;:,g our railways and running them at the present enorn11JUS los':'>, .t\nd bu;;;iness rnen will tPJl you that if the rail ,,·ays were irr the bands of com­panies we would have a better train service and a cheapcT service, and things would go on more satisfactorily. Of couree there has been a great outcry with re~pect to the increase in the rates anrl fares. The hon. memlwr for Albert told us last night h,w, on the top of all the poverty existing in the country, the fan'~ were l'di~ed. I don't. think that was a wise procedure at all; but if the railwctys had been in the hands of private cnmpanie-;; they \V11ulrl have been run to suit the tirnn, and inducements would haYe been held out to people to travel. I don't think we get much at the present time from the increa~Pd ra.teE<. A .. nother im port.ant thiug is to try and settle l'enple on the bnd. In Oanoda they "re gr ving people the land for noJthing, al..:o in \Vt·:-;tern .Au.;;tralia, : and I think if people will guarantee t" reside anrl work on the lan<l I would be in fayour of giving them a certain amount, 100 or 160 acres, for not.hing. I would even go further. If they required assistance, owing to 1nisfnrtune, like the drought or want of funds, I would help them with ratiOns, because I do not think we shall ever do any good in this country nntil we get people settled on the land. [Mr. GHANT: Those sentiment-; do not get rnuch encouragmnent over there. [An honourable menrber: They are against the Government.] I don't care whether they are against the Government or not. I am saying what is right and just. I am not tied up like hon. mernbers opposite are tied up by the Trades Hall. At the same time, when it comes to an issue betwPen the Governm<mt party and the Labour party, make no mis­take ahollt it, there is no wobbling about me. (Laughter.) l think the .Premier can have perfect confidence that I will not vote with the other side. [:\Ir. \Voons: What abnnt the Nhryborough workshops·~] Though it is a very costly lesson, I maintain that the Ipswirh \Vorkshop iR a, p1ece of Sta.te sociali~un which shows the [>ernicimm effect that would follow if the Labonr party ever got into power. I an1 not very sure who is responsible, but whoever is responsible for the object le,son, l think it is a great loss to the State from a financial point of view. I do not bdieve it will ever pay expemes. lt will cnst £400,000 by the time it is finished, and there is the interest on that £'100,000 to pay. And there are machines w,wth thousands of pounds that will never be used except once or twice in the yur. It is not a question of Maryborough. Of course, one has a right to stand up for hi~ own eon­stit.uency, bnt in this matter l am not standing up for iYlaryborouo;h any more than for any other place. I maintain that pri,ate enterprise in these matters should not be interfered with; anrl this is an object lesson in State socialism which ,hn"s what a perfect curse it. would be if hon. members oppmite had their way. It woulrl mean that everybody would have to lh e in Brisb,we

or Ipswich, because they woulrl [4 p.m.] st!trve elsewhere. I am thoroughly

against it. It is interfering with the rights and liberties of the subject and with private enterprise, and is a sample of what we may expect a great deal of should the

}11) Address u1 Repl.!J. [ASSEMBLY.] Add1'ess 1n Repl;!J.

Lltbour P"rty ever come into vower. Another thing has come to my knowledge. They are putting in wood out of which, if it was hit hard with a hammer, water would splash. I maintain that we have as good timbers here as there is in any part of the world, and to send abroad for it b a gre~t mistake. There is a tramwr<y company in Brisbane run by a.n .Arnericnn, an dxperienced buslness rnan. \Vhere doe-; he get •ll his timber~ He gets it in Queensland. If this work had heen in the hands of a private tirrn they would have to keep up their reputation, and they would have got the wood in Queensland. The lesson taught at the Ipswich workshops ought to he D.n eye­openerfor Queensland. It only shows the frightful state of affairs we should get into if the Labour J•>trty had their way. Everything would have to be done by the Sta:e. lt would cost 25 per cent. more than e1 private individual would do it for, anrl the prohahility is that it would not be done as well. This is not the fnult of the working man. There i;; a great difference between the 1nan who works a.nd the Labonr rnan, I a~-,ure you. However, under the pre:-:ent 11inister for Lands I hope to see a great change for the better, and I believe he "ill act in his new department to the sati ,faction of the House and of the community in general. \V e want to see our lands put to a legitimate use, not held for speculative purposes; and when men are prepared to work upon it, and to make homes for themselves and their families, it should be put within their reach. [Mr. KERR: Those are grand sentiments if you carry them into effect.] But the Labour p"rty will not ailow men to 0ome into the country to settle on the land. [Mr. \Voons : \Vhat about kanakas ?] I believe the working people of Queensland will live tc see the day when they will curse those who killed what they called the kanaka trade. Y Ai1rs ago, when we were in a flourishing con­dition, we had plenty of sugar plantations around us. There were lots of kanakas, and lots of white men working on them too. One planta­tion at Maryborough employed eighty kanakas and thirty white men. \V hat is there there now? Only one man in the whole place .. [JYir. \Yoons: I know a member of this Chamber who has two working for him.] That has nothing to do with the question. I am speaking of the effect of doing away with the sugar industry of queens­laud. It it only a question of time when we shall be told from the south, "\Ye have spoon­fed you long enough; if white men cannot do the work you may sink." In no other part of the worid do white men think of working in the cane­fields. It is not proper work for a white man thrashing cane on the plantations of the ~ orth. At Geraldton, for instance, up to a month a~o, they had 140 inches of rain, and the steam and heat renders it utterly unfit for a white man to work in. They will not do it, and they can­not do it. And it would be madness to ask white women to work there. Nobody on this side of the House would ever think of asking white women to work in the nne­fiel<1s. (..lueenslanders are just as fit and capable workers as anybody else, but they will not take to work which in all other parts of the world is considered derogatory, and which is cer"a,inly, as I said, utterly unsuitable for them. Th1s deLate has alrea•ly lasted a considemble time, and I have taken np more of it than I intended. I need say nothing further, except that I shall certainly votE: against the motion of want of con· fidence in the Government. I have e\ erv confi­dence in them. There is as much difference between the Government and the Labour party as there is hetween chalk and cheese. 'l'he Labour party are very good at promising, but when it comes to performing it is "a horse

of another colour." \Vith regard to the cutting down of members, only one of them, the hon. membe1· for Rockharnpton, :\l.r. Gr.mt, has stuck to his colours. He said he promised to support a reduction, and he intends to do so. I admire him for it. All the others who made the fame pro1nise are rww backing out. My O\Vll ~ollea,gue, who n1ade the s<1me pron1jse, said last night that he· would think twice about it. [Mr. ='\onMAN: I want Parliament reduced.] Begin in this House. Make Maryborough, if you like, a single constituency, when one of us will have to go. The town and the ~tate will get on just as well without either of us. One or both of us are, to a great extent, wast­ing our time here. [Mr. KENNA: \Vh,· not resign?] There are two sides to it. (Laughter.) \VI!en I W<l' before my constituents, I told them that I would vote for a cutting down of Minis­ters. \V ell, that has already been done. [Mr. W. HAoi!W'ON : And one lllan has been running the show for a whole year nearly.] One man has not heen running the whole show. [:\fr. \V. HAo!ILTON: Yes ; the Secretary for Agricul­ture.] The Secretary for Agricul~nre mav have been running agricultural show~ to (,,'nne extent, because he takes a great interest in agriculture and all that appertains to it, llut to srty that he has been running the whole show is a mistake. [Mr. BARBER: \Vhat about the Yenda lease?] I do not agree with that, but it was done before the present Secretary for Lands came into office. [Mr. W. HAmLTON : It was ratified by the present Minister.] I think the hon. member for Gregory would be one of the last men in this House to go back upon what was done by a colleague, especially if he had since died. The whole thing happened before the prPsent Minister came into office, I do not agree with it. [Mr. BARBER: You mBde a lot of noise about it in Maryborough.] I did. before I came down and found out how things stood; but now I do not agree with it. I do not think you will see another similar case to that. [Mr. MuLCAHY: They will never do 1t again.] Not until the hon. member gets h1s whack of it. Talking of settling people on the lanrl, there h1ts been "ome difficulty near Ilegilbo run. Some people were settled there who had been going about the country talking of their wish to settle on the land; but what has been the result of their settling on the land? They got 1,280 acres there, and then they went and let it to a bloated squatter, as I call him, for ten years. He was to fence it in for them, and was to have a grazing right to the land, with power to purchase at the end of ten years, I believe. I do not object to giving land to people provided they will make use of it. I am as strongly in fct vour of settling them on the land as any member of this House, and giving it to them, but not without residential conditions. It is no use, however, giving them land if they are only going to hand it over to larger land­holders; hut we ought to encourage those who will make homes for themselves, and who will make the country prosperous and populous. I do not wish to trouble the House any further, exc, pt to thank hon. members for the kinrlly hearing they have given me. I am only a very poor spmtker, owing to want of practice. I dare say that if I had more practice I should be oftener on my hind legs talking ahout things I know nothing e,bout; but I have more re,pect for hon. members than to take up their time in that way. I need only say, in conclusion, that I shall support the Government strongly, and vote against the amendment of the leader of the Opposition, who, I believe, f~om the very weak manner in which he brought it forward, has only done it as a matter of form. As fur figures, I am to a certain extent like the leader of the

AddNss in Repl;IJ. [29 JLTLY.J Adr1rns V1 Reply. 111

Opposition. I do not care to go into figures, which can be twisted and doubled up 'o that anyone can make anything they like out of them. The volumes of figure'" we h'we bad from three or four 1nember~ have been enough to confound anybody, and I leave them to someone else who has a head for figures. I shall stick to tLe (~overnment in this and every other part,y nmtter. [Go\ ernrnent men1bt-I',,,: Hear, he·1r !]

~\h. :\IARTIK (BaTTilri!): I think that mem­be1·:; of the l\Iinistry Hlay well exdairn, "S_tve us frmn our friends." Every hon. mernber who Hits behind them who hasspol~en hastakdn the Govern­ment to task for something or other, nntil there i"• nothing left for it to stand on. I f<tvour the motion of the leader of this party for the simple reason tbat a number of member•; sitting behind the G1)vernn1ent have been tra veiling through the country condemning the Government, and thic nwtion has been bl'onght forward to :rnake them toP t.he mark. ::Vly first compln in t against the head of t.he Government is calling l'arliament together :;o latp in the day. If we hatl finished the \m:;iness last session that was on the business­paper, there might have been ,,0me reason for call­ing Parliament together so bte; but seeing that some fourteen measures which apfJectred on the p<rper at. tile close of last session bad to go by the board jm;;;t before we went into ren~"bf\, l say tha'> the Government am to be condemned for calling uo togetbet· at this late hour. It those measures were of any importance to the people oc Queensland, surely they would have been on the business-paper now. The practice of Parlia­ment meeting- at half past:{ o'clock in the after­noon is most unreasonable. All other business is conducted in business hours; but a man is ex]Jer:ted to nerform th~ most in1nortant hn~inA~~ of the State ·after he has given hi~ best energies to hi, own affairs and is tired out. During !:1st ses,ion we had on many occasions great difficulty in keeping a quorum here at 2 o'clock in the morning. At that hour I have counted as many as thirteen members asleep on their seats, when important legislation was going through. Is it any wonder, then, that the business transacted in this House is often done in a s!Jipsho,J fashion? Among the fourteen measures which went by the board last session we find some very important ont~s. An1ong the Gover nrnent n1easures were the \Vorkmen', Compemation Bill, Mining Com­panies Bill, Victoria Bridge Act Amendment Bill, Uold Dealers Bill. Then there was Mr. Kates's motion with regard to railway rates, which was negatived on division by 31 to 1!!, "imply because we had not time to con­sider it; and there was also Mr. Kidston's motion touchi.1g the control of the reports in IIcmsaTd, which was withdrawn, anrl so on, right through the whole fourteen measures. \Vhen I was returned to Parliament it was my duty to devote the whole of my time to my parliamentary duties, but when we conduct our business in unbusinesslike hours how can it be expected that we should turn out other legis­lation than that which is not for the benefit of the State? Another reason why I am not in favour of allowing the present Government to remain in office any longer is that they h«ve not recognised the fact that when we entered into the federal union, competition with the other States became very much greater through the removal of the border duties. It was the duty of the Ministry to b" on the alert, and see that at the beginning of federation we were placed on an equal footing with the other States with whom "e had to compete. Did they do that? No, they did not even attempt to do it. It is all very well for hon. members to get up in this House and condemn federal rPpresentatives, but, if they spent the same time in examining the requirements of the

poople of this State ,,s they devote to the criticism of federal representatives, it would be a great deal better for Queensland. I maintain that the present Mmistry has failed to rise to the occasion, and to grasp the 1-3ituation. The first great, and most ituportant, question that we have to decide is ~ow to settle the people on the land. Heeing that we have to cnn1pete with people of the other btates, we should offer every inducement to people to sPttle on our lands, so that they r..1ay develop our re,onrceH. In (' .marb they are spending large sums of money at the present time to induce people to go there, and qre practically giving them !tmd free. In South 1:\frica they are offering e> ery inducement to attract peoph' to tbe country, and to Settle on the land. In \Vestern Australia they are ofl'ering every indncement to the people to settle on the lttnd. '!'he policy of \Vestern Australia is, "The land is here for the genuine worker and settler; we want him, therefore we encourage him.'' In New Zealand also they are offering every inducement to people to settle on the land. I ha\·e here an extract, which says-

In ~ew Z:· .. 1land the doctrine of real Obristirtnit\· has been translatf'd into pnlJlic practieE rl'he Stateiilsure~ the worker. lends !uoney to him at a cheap rate of iwercst, nets as hi~ banker. help:o' him to acquire land at a eheap price sell~ his pro<hwc for him without chargmf!: heavy commi%ion rates, <'arri( s it. to the marl\et or warchom;cs at the lowest possible cost, giYcs him. his wift:. and sons aud dan~hters of age an equal voice in the government of the conntry, provides an up-to-date educatwn for his younger children wlth­out cost, guidrs him with advice. yays him a pension in old age if be happens to meet with misfortune ' and only asks in retnrn, if he is prosperous. to aid in bearing the burden of others as others ha Ye aided him.

\Vha.t hn.ve nnr GnvPrnmHnt don A in that direc­tion? Their whole aim is re,·enue; they over­look the 6rst principle of land·legislation in order that they may obtain revenue. The Premier travelled round liuAem;land, and condemned the people for leaning on the Government. But the fact is that the Government are leaning on the people, and have leaned on the peoplA so heavily that they b:we crushed thonsandK and thousands of would-be settlers. In Queensland we have the enormous area of -127,000,000 acres of land, of which only 13,GG9,9\ll'J acres have been alien­ated, and of the area alienated we find that in the year 1901 there were only 507,317 acres under cultivation. Last year there were only 478,121 acres under cu!Livation. [Mr. ToLmE: How much did you expect to be under cultivation last year.] I expected that question to be put. Owing to the drought there was very little cultivation last year. But I shall give figures for the last ten yearF·, and I do not think any hon. member will contend that the drought lasted ten years. [Mr. P. J. LEAHY: It lasted seven years.] The drought did not last for seven years, but the bad administration lasted for seven years. ln the year 1893 there were 2-13,249 acres under crop; in 1894, 27-1,UR2 acres; in 1S9i5, 285,319 acres; in 1896, 322,1378 acres; in 1897, 371,857 acres; in 1R98, 363,254 acres; in 1899, 420,746 acres; in 1900, 457,:{97 acres; in 1901, 483,160 acres. Last year, owing to the drought, the area under crop fell to 27i5,383 acres. We have not got an acre under cultivation for every inhabitant of Queensbnd. The conclu­sion to be clrawn from the fact is either that our land is so rich that it does not take an acre to keep a man, or that there is something radically wrong with our land laws, or else that Queensland is a good place to get out of. During the year 1902, 471 holders forfeited their selec­tiom. That is settling people on the land wit.h a vengeance. [The 8ECRETAH¥ FOR AGRIOUL· TORE : \V ere they grazing farmers ?] :No. The population of (tueensland is 51-1,875. During

112 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.J Address in Rtpl_IJ·

last year, while the population of the other States was increasing, our population fell off. [The SECRETARY FOH "-\GRICCf/l'URE: Not white population.] I jn8t 'et that trap for the !ton. member, and he has fallen i!lto it. I have the figures showing the number of males and females. I think it will be adm;tted that the coloured female population of Queensland, L; very small. During 1002, 1,45fl fem"les left Queensland. ltVby, there was not that munber of coloured females in Queenslanrl and if there was at this time, I dor,'t l,elieve they have left. During

that year the number that left [4·30 p.m.] Queenshnd in exce•s of those who

arrived here was3,1i7H soul~. To Rhow the progress of Queensland we will go back forty year,s. (Government laughter.) Forty year" ago the birth rate wns 20 per cent. higher than it is now. [The SECRETARY !<'OR Armit'ULTUR;; : Who'le fault i-3 that--the Goverrnnent'~ ?l The marriage ra.te forty years ago in Queensland was 14'4, ond now it is only 6·3 per cent. \Ve want to get drH'n to facts. \Ve have had it 'brown at ns by hon. members on the other :-;]fip, that we are calamity - hov·llers­[The SECitETARY FOR AGRICULTORE ·, \Vhy, you ar•• howling- now ]-and that we havP been and are attempting to damage the borrowing power of Queentlland nn the Lon(hn n1oney market. \Vell, WH are not going to obtnin nwney under false pretences. Talk about the rlevelop· ment of our great resources and attracting people here. How are we attempting to attract the people here? I my that the le,nd belongs to the people. The grazing land belongs to the grazier, the mining area:-~ to the n1iners, and the agricultural land to the a::;riculturi,;ts, and the body of men who make the Jaws do not give any encouragement to these classes to settle on the lands. They h<lVe blocker! all this, and I c,ay that our land laws are all wrong in that resiJect. I was pleased to hear the other evening that the Premier was in bvnur of mining on private property, but he has not bronght forward a Bill dealing wit.h the Rubject. I arn strongly in favtllH of mining on pri•·Hte property, and I would be in favour of farming on private property in addition to mining on priv.•te pr"perty. Jf a man takes up a large block nf agriculturAl land end doe< not make use of it, then the agriculturist has a right to that land. This is according to the law of N>tture; and no matter what laws are on the statnle-bn"k, if they are in violation of the lows of Nature. there is bonnd to be fric­tion, and that is what ails ctueensland now. Our Janri policy has been ver.v successful for l<tnd jobbers and land speculators ; but in the way of 'ettling- people on the land it is a com­plete failure. vVe see that we have 13,000,000 acres of land alienated ; we h>tve not made use of 500.000 acres of that, and that shows that the land must have gone into the hands of speculators. 'VVe always hear hon. members on the other side baying: "Sell the land, regarriless of all consequences; as long as we get revenue." That is all they want. I have a return here which shows that in the ::\faranoa district they have sold 24;",248 acres of land at one time, and of this 222,856 have been purcha"ed by f<.nr financial companies- one cmnpany securing the enorn1t)UR extBnt of 217,726 acres. In the \Varreg0 district, out of 22,544 acres sold, 12,704 acres were soH to three companies. In the JYiit.chell district, out of 445,838 acre;; eold, 16,1,486 were sold to three companies-a T•astoral corn pony securing 61,435 acre', and an investment company 45,060 acres. So th»t we may say that we are parting with land, but for what purposes? Certainly not to encourage people to come here, but to hand it over to outside capitalists for speculative

purposes. I maintain th"t the men who bought land years ag-o, and rlid nr}t Inake u~e of it. have no right to that lanJ-tbey have a claim, but no right to it, rather. It pans out this way : You advertise the land for sale ; peo!Jle corne here rlesirnus of securing land to make an independent living on, but the moneyed llHtn con1e:o; along and outbids the man who would rnake a good citizen. He locks np the land, while the. adjoining selector, year after year, working from sbrligbt to starlight, has been improving his land. Then the Government spend large &ums of money in making roads and bridges, and the absentee land speculator, who has done nothing in the way uf improvinK his land, returns after five or ten years, a.nd the Governrnent repurchase hi~ land or he has a monster auction sale, >tnd Lmd for which he only gave, say, 10;. an acre he gets £10 an acre for. T" whom dues that land belong? Certainly not to the holder. I s::ty th::tt the unearned increment helong' to the people. \Ve have here ::t law which says that if <1

number of peor1le cong·regate in a street and block the tratlic, thac the police can order them t" "move on," and I Ray that the same principl" shoul<.l apply to the land laws. If anv mnn relarrls the prog1e,;s of tbe Stnte, the GovernrnPnt Rhould step in <tnd order him to "move on." It i/") ,~ery '\trange that hon. n1ember:-. opp\}:·dte h tve nothing to say about the poor unfortunate 8electur~-at any n""te, \-ery few. In other places there are plemy ot HelectorF, beJanse they have be~n encouraged to take up land, and so we had in years gone by; but now, owing to land jobbers and land speculators, there is very little encouragement. I believe if you go through the unemployed of (,lueensland you will find that 99 per cent. of them at son1e tirne have been desirous of taking up land and becoming citizens uf Queensbnrl, but through bad land laws and the m'di1dministra­tion of our land laws, tbey h:ne b2en driven amonggt the unemployed. The bun. member for 1-Iaryborough, Dr. Garde, just nuw said that a large nnmber nf the unemployed did not want work. ltVell, I say that that has been brought about by bad laws, and I will go furthe1· and sa~· that the unemployed of to-day by compul· sion years hence will be unemployed by choice. vVhen you go to take up a selection at the present time, what do you do? Y on pick out a suitable piece of land, and when the d~y comes to take it up you will find. a large number of men there, including a .number of loafers, who are all after the same piece of land. A ballot il taken. and the loafers are prepared to blackmail, nnd say, "I will staJJd out for a CtJDsid~:-ration. ~: [Mr. 'I'oLMIE: I do not think your statement is according to fact.] It is, and you have only to go to the ~ anango district and you will find that this system is carried out there to a consider>ible extent. I speak from experi­ence. I am not one coming into thi' House with :my second-h:wd ideas. :\Iy ideas arise from actual contact with the pe,ple who are settling on the land. It is not only the land laws of Queensbnd, but of the other States ah:o, that I can spAak of~ having bet>n a selector myself. [Mr. P. J. LEAHT: Why did you not stay there ?] I came here armed with the grievances of the selectors-to point them out, and try and ge.t them redressed. Now, we will go amongst the men who have been successful in the ballot, and what do we find ? Bdore they get their first crop they have to fight nuxious anim"ls at every turn, and they do not harvest 2fi per cent. of their first crops. The selector goes out to reclaim the wilder­ness, and put np with all the hardship' of the pioneer, and what does he get in return ? Thousands and thousands have been driven off the land through faulty legislation,

_.J rldress 'n Repl;ij. [:29 JuLY.] AddJ'ess in Repl:'f· 113

and will not make a second attempt. Then the Govemment employ a ranger to see that selectors remain on their hnrl. I do not see why they should be compelled to reside on the land, provided they can show that they have improved it to a certain ex tent. They have many obi:;tnch"''' to cnntend against., 't.nd have to take contracts to help them to pull through, but if the ranger comes along and finds that they are away from their selections, he rirags them 20, and :;o, and 40 miles before the L·;nd Court rtnd hah to bring witnesseil with him to prove his !Jonnfides. "'•>W, I understood that the British law was tho,t if a man h:vl a ch,.,rge brought against him it had to be proved, but in this case the poor selector has to prove his innocenc~. Is that Beitish law? It is the law upon our statute­book unfortunately, but it certainly is not justice. Then, again, with regard to the rents that these people have to pay. Other States and countries .such as \Vfc>tern Au:.:;tralia., Cu.nada, and New z,,aland are giving people the land for nothing. Those at the head of affairs recognise what laws are neces8a.ry in order to settlA people on the land. But not so in qneensland. It is revenue again that is wanted. They must pay the rent or run the risk of losing their selections. During last sessi 'n we had an >tmending Land Biil before us, giving t.he Sf]U<Ltter and lar.;-e grazier an extension of time, but there was no rnentinn 1nade in it of givinLr the selector an ext9nsion nf time. It is quite tr·ne that this side succeeded in getting an amend· ment inserted allowing the rents due by selectors to stand over, but what do we find the Govern· mant did? They allowed the rents then dne to stand over, but all rents that have become due since, the selectors have had to pay. :'lnrely they might have extended the time for paying rents until the selectors h>td had an opportunity of getting something off the land ! They have had no chance of getting a single sixpence out of the lane! since the drought. Yet we find the Secretary for Land'i not only comr-elling those people to pay their current rent, but he impose' a penalty of 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. for non­payment. [Mr. P. J. LEAH¥: 'rhat was one year's rent.] Never 1nind, T am giving y0u facts. LMr, P . . T. LJHH¥: That is the only fact y.m have given us yet.·] [ consider the action of the dep crtment is an injusticE', con­sidering the tone of the House whea that Bill was going through. \Vhy, you are driving the people off the land! Now, the best way to euconr· age settlement is to encourage those a]r<, tdy on the hnd, remove all obiltacles from their p<>th, and ;;ssist the farmers in every pos,,ible way, but the a,-.~i~tance the nnfortnnate fanners have got has been of rather a peculiar kind, I called upon the Railway Department anci was authorised to let people in my district know that each selector might procure 300 sleepers for the department, so that they nuy tide over their difficulties. The price was to be £7 10s. and £6 respectively for SCJU>tre and round-backed sleepers. A number of those men filled in forms, sent them down, and went out into the bush to work, but there was so much red-tapei"rn that when they had got the sleep"r·' they were told that the department would only take lOO from each man, and the price given was £6 all round, instead of the £7 10s. and £6 that had been agreed upon. More than that, some of the men had to come in time after time befr>re they could get paid. That is how the Government encourage people to settle upon the land. I contend that the men who are responsible for our land lr'g·islation are totally ignorant of the c,mditions prevailing in the bnilh. You have only to move ab nut among the unfortunate 'electors who are m'tking an honest effort to reclaim the wilds of Queensland and become good citizens, and you will find my state·

1U03-I

nwnts correct. No \Yonder we have lost over 3,000 people during the past twelve months. \Vith reg~rd to the Land Bank, that is a measme supposerl to give assistance to the selector. The Act in New Zealand has been a great sncce:,K. They h>tve spent about £3,000,000 in gidng ad ;·ances, with long terms of rerayment. \V e hac! a measure in 1801 which was supposed to give selectoro in <~ueensla,nd the right to borrow cheap money, like the land holders in Xew Ze:t· land, but the Act has been killed by maladminis­tration. The other day, two selr'ctnrs living togethPr under exactly similar conditions-m1e m!1rritd and the other single--·ha;-ing- had no crop owitig to thP rlrcnght, fonnd it I1fC 'Ssary to apply to the Land Bank for an ad\ a nee; hut the difficulty was to raise the necessary £3 for the three inspections. The sing-le man applied first, and got an advance. Then the married man app~ierl, but was refu,ed, :<ot only that, bnt he could not get his £3 back again. Seeing thaL there wa.:.; only one inspection in his case, he might have got £2 returned to him, but he conld get n·1thlng. That selector is now working on one of our boat", At the recent agricultural confereuc.' in M"rybnrougb, I am v,lad that this matter received much support. All the im]rOr­tant n1easur8s '"'e are getting are ~pringing from the conntry. The farmers h"''e not only to beC'lll1e land l~gislators, but havB ahm to get their representative~ to f1lfCE' the C+nvernnlPnt to introduce leRislation in connec:ion with settle­ment on the land. :Fancy a farmer in the back block' reading what the Governnwnt are doing for the people settled on the land ! Is the measure for the suppression of coupons going to assist the farmer? None of the measures pro­mised by the Government will assist the farmer. The C01trier has always been ready to sugar-coat the legisiation of the prese.nt Ministry, hut there is a limit to all forbearance, and the Courier of the l!lth February, in a leadinr5

,article, has these words-" It is felt that the Premier is played ont and useless .. He is at the head of a party that ha," not an idea worthy the name of economy." That is in face of the fact that the Government went before the country on the cry of economy. They have a Bill to reduce the number of members of the L~9:is­lative Ass mbly. They believe there are roo many members in the House. So they tell t'1e country; but this is what is the mrttter-therrcc are too rr:nny members on this side of the House. If the number of members on the other sid.H waR increasing we would have heard nothing about this Bill. \Vl,y not reduce tbe number of members in the other Honse :l!so? [:\fr. P. ,T. LEAHY: They don't cost anything.) I believe there >tre too many members in this House, and I am going- to support a Bill to reduce the number- [Honourable members : Hear, hear !]-of city members. (Laughter.} \Vhen you return a member of Parliament you return him not only to repre,,,;nt the people in a certain electorate, but also to represent the people of the whole of the State, which a city member does not. [Government members: Oh, oh !] I never make R n assmtion that I cannot prove. and I am going tn show how it i~. The country member comes to Brisbane, >tnd lives in Brisbane while attending to his duties iu Parliament, and becomes acr1uainted with the requirements of the city as well as knowing those of his own electorate. It is nt>t so with the city n1en1ber. who, in nine ca.'-1es out of ten, is in busi­ness in the city, >tnd only goes into the cmmtry to attend an agricultural show or a picnic or a banr1net, and only sees the country behind the champagne bottle. Therefore I am on safe ground in saying it is a matter of impos,ibility for the city member to represent the country, while the country member represents the people

114 Address in Eepl.IJ· [ASSEMBLY.] Adclress in Reply.

not onl>· '>f the country, but those of the cit,· as well. The majority nf city members snppnrt anythinf;' to the intere-st of Bri,bane, bnt in the case of anything to t.he intere"t of the country, in nine caEH;.;; out of ten they vote against it; therefore, I "1Y, cut down the number of city member' by all means. I believe in one adult one vote. As to giving ladie·, a vote, there arP men or, the other side who said they would die on the floor of the House bef"re they W••nld give females the franchise. I hop'e tha,t whPn female:-; g-et the franchise those honout able members will beo killed at the next election (Laughter.) At the last general election tb•· Government went before the country on thE' policy of econom_\', and their economy con~ sist,, .mJOnf( other things, in cutting down the subsidy to hospi t cls. In good times, if 1\ man meets v. ith an accident or has an i11n: ss, he can pay for rneclic- •J attendance_, and nnrKinf!, but in bad times he has to g-c> to the hospital ; t'>ere­fore the Gov0rnrnent, as bnRint·,,3 rnen, instead of reducing the subsidy to hocpitals in thc,;e bad time,, shcmld have increased the subsidy. Thf'n thPy cut down sub":;idies to local govern~ ing bodies. So me year::. ago, wh8n there were

;lj nlnnber of unernvJoyed in ona of [i:i p. m.] the southern States, the Govm·n·

tnent made a ~pecial grant to the lncu.l governing hodies, with the stipnlRtion that they shonld "xpend the money in construet.ing roads and bridg-es for the benefit of the farmers and settlers. Here we adopted the opposite c:mrse. Surely if our }/frnistry had been really a :V1inistty of business men, they would h<tve increased the subsidy to the local governing bodies during the late drought, so as to give ;::;mne en1plnyrnent to the unfortunate selectors, who were the greatest sufferers from that cala.mi ty. I want briefly to refer to a statement made from the other sidte to the effect that the reduction of certain duties by the :Federal p,,rliament justi­fied the imposition of an income tax. It is qnite true that, the Federal Par:iament cut down the, duty on kerosene, but that saving has not gone into the pockets of the consumers. The :\Iinister for Railways, by increasing railway freights on kerosene, took care to monopolise more than half of what the Federal Parliament gave back to the people. Hon. members will see that what I say is correct if they will refer to the incren··'ed rate for carrying kerosene by railway for 500 miles. The Minister has sr Jured a great part of the saving the people ought to have had. Two years ago we had members on the other side going throughout the colony preaching the g-lories of federation, and saying they were going to put the people of Queensland on the same footing with regard to taxation as those in the southern States. How did they do it? By putting on a poll tax. Is it any wonder that outsiders will not come to Queens­land? No less than 55,000 people had to pay the poll tax. I know score' and score" of selectors who have not handled 10s. for the last twelve months. They have been living on the little they could earn on their selections, by scalp­ing, and such like; but, mther than be branded as paupers those honr 't bushmen have actually gone to their <:hildren and asked them for money out of their little savings to pay the poll tax wit!l. vVhat must those young people think when their p•wents have to a"k them for the con­tents of their money-boxes to enable them to ,.atisfy the demands of the Government for a poll tax? And yet they call themselves a Government of good business men. I do not go behind the back of the Government to tell them that I condemn them, as some of their supporters have done. I tell them to their faces that the country is tired of them. But they are not game to go to the country and test the feeling of the

constito. ncies. K o, they come here and say they wctnt to extend the duration of Parliament for four years. I suppose they will make it retrospective to apply to this Parliament. That is whllt they did with regard to thL poll tax, and we may judge of the future by the past. I now co1ue "tu the increase ln railwav rates and fares, and I may say that I int~nd t\) rnoYe for ~ return -:;hnwing- nll the alteration.s that have h-,en 1n~df' during the la~t twelvP months, ln order to show what business men we ha.ve at the head of a!fnirs. l h>tve here a letter of C'>m· plaint frorn a, timher·getter. Owir,g to circum­stances over which those unfortunate timber­getters had no control, 8UCh as losses during the dron.,ht, red.water in their cattle, and so on, they have latterly been barely able to li w on the profit,; of their labour. Then the iltlinister for R<tilwayc. steps in, as he did v. ith regard to kerosene, and by increasing the rate-s on tin:Jber, takes practically the whole of their profits. Certainly the ::\Iinister, when interviewed on the subject, said he had not increa,e.l the rates on timber, ~)ut was carrying it by n1easnrernent; but if you figure ont the new t'wiff, you will find that he i1a., ill creased the rate very materi«lly-to sucb an extent indeed that hundreds of timber· getters have had to g-ive up their occupation. Ot.her~, again, to rny knowledge, are drawing their timber 18 miles to water rather than send it by railway. .l\ly correspondent imform;; me that the mill measurement on ninety-four logs sent by him by railway last February wa~ 38,206 superficial feet, and that he had to pay railage on ·!3,250 feet by railway measurement, or on f\, 000 feet more than the mill measureruen t. [Mr. JENKINSON: The mill measurement may bave been wrung.] We know where tbe wronf, io, and we can put our finger on the spot. It is the same with produce. \V e find the rates are not on very hi;rh to Brisbane. li'rom my own di.,trict I C<~n send a case of ~ggs to Brisb:we for ls. 6J., but if I send the same ca~e to Gympie they charge me 2s. 6d. The Government talk al;out settling people on the land, yet this is the way they encourage the unfortunate people in the back blocks. It is the same with our coal indu"try up there. The (}overnnlent increased the rate on coal fr'Jm Ho ward, and how did this pan out? Not only did the mineowners suffer, but the workers had to take lower pay in order to allow the industry to go on. I maintain, further, that the preoent party in power does not treat all the coal mine­owners on the same basis. They call for tenders and do not accept the lowest tender. A tender was calied for coal some time ago, but notwith· stanrling the fact that Howarcl coal-which i,; admitted by experts to be superior to J pswich coal-was put in at ls. a ton less, they accepted u.n Ipswich tc•nder. The manager of th~At mine at Howard had everything to lose and nothing to gain; and when he was leaving for the old country he hroughta charge against the then Commissioner for Railways and demanded an inquiry, but no inquiry was gmnted. \V e heard that the Com­mis8ioner threatened to bring an action against him for defama;ion of character, and that sort of thing, but he was not game. Therefore I say that there has been gross favouritism shown. It is to the interests of the people of Queensland to see that all the produc."rs in the State get fair play. The Government should have no stepchildren. In this morn­ing's Oom·ie1· hon. m em hers will find the following paragraph written by the Warwick correspondent:-

As showing the badness of the times, or the unpopu­larity of the presE::nt high passenger rates, it may be noted that the whole of the tickets issued at the ,,~a.rwick Railway Station during the month of June totalled 770. When it is remembered that the

Address -in Repl,y. [29 JULY.] Address 1n Repl.IJ. 115

population of the district is near 14,000, and that "\f arwick is Lhe outlet for Inglewood and Goondiwindi. the dearth of railway traffic is significant.

The Secretary for Railways has told us that he is going to make the railways pay. Now, I represent a district which has one of the paying branch lines-a braneh line- that has paid .'5 per cent. from the jump-which has paid more than ,-, per cent. if it had been credited with the returns it should have been, becctnse it is a feeder to the main line. The hon. member for Bowen ettternpted to show the other night that the :\!Iinish'r bad shut Jnwn the Bnwen line became it was n<>t paying. But why <lid the h<lll. gentle­man increase the rates and fares on the Isis branch line, which was paying? The whole thing has been conducted on most unbusiness­Iike principles. 'l'hen we come to the Ipswich railway workshops. \Ve had the Trea,nrer last night telling us that so much money had heen sp,•nt on different works, but he forgot to mention the Ip"!wich workshops, which ,.-ill cost, I am told, something like £400, OCIO. If those workshops were conRtructed in sorne central situation, they would have been available in C>t'e •Jf a breJkdown on any portion of onr railway .-.;;.r::;tPn1, and there- would have been some rea~on in building works of such magnitude. [The !-\ECRETAHY !'OH AGHICGLTURE: \Vbere? :J\Iary­borough ?] I am not going to say where, but it may not be Maryborough, but some place further X orth. The action of the Govern­ment in hking away the men from Mary­borough looks hke penalising Maryborough because it returns LR.bour members. [The i:lECHETARY l<'OH AGHICULTUHE: They dtd not do it.] The other night, coming down from Ml1ry­borongh, we could not get a sleeper because of the old story-hot boxes. Men were taken away from the M""ryborough workshops and sent to Ip"wich. The workRhops should be built in some central locality, imtead 0f bringing nil the rolling-stock down to one corner of Queens­land for overhaul, It looks very much as if the Treasurer is trying to keep sweet with his district by getting as much State money spent there as possible. \Vith re~<trd to the railways peving, after all. it is not a question of their pa.ying 5 per cent. Every man and won1an who settle-1 in Queensland is worth over £3 per annum to the State, a11d the principle by which we ",hou]d be guided in regard to railway construc­tion is the opening up of our back counerv. If a railway is the means of settling fifty or 100 families on the land in a new district, as the average family tonsi:;ts of father and mother and four children, every one of those families is worth over £20 per annum to the State. 'l'hat lS the true way in which to m:;,ke our railways pay, instead of looking for a paltry return of ;, per cent. on the outla.y. Then, again, if the Secretary for R~ilways wnuld adopt the 'ystem which has been adopted by the other States of assisting agricultural settlement by reducing the r,1ilway rate,, he would make th~em pay. If the hon. gentleman would introduce what is known as the "zone" systern with a view to making the railways pay, I would be with him. \Ye have exactly the opposite system in force in Queensland. The zone system is thi~: It ma'ters not whether you are 10 miles or 50 miles from market, your peoduce is carried at the same rate. _Everv man who con1es to settle in Queensland 'is not a capitalist, and he c"'nnot afford to pay a larf(e amount of money for a farm near to market. Many of them have to go out into the back-blocks, where they !Ire handkctppe"d in the matter of rates of carriage. If we had the zone "ystem, they would be in exactly the same position as the moneyed man who purchased a farm near a market. Owing to the present handicap, we

are depriYed of the servic~es of many men who would make valuable pioneers. I notice that the Government intend to bring in a Bill to pr(>­vent cattle-Htealing-a most important measure, and one that will have my support. At the pre­se"nt time, if the poor unfortunate selector's beast strays on to the squatter's run, the squatter will impounrl it; but, if the squatter's cattle stray on to the selector's holding, he cannot impound them. [The SEOHETAUY FOil RAIL,\'AYH: \Vho told you that?] That is in actual existence in my district at the present time. [Mr. P. J. LEAHY: It is not the law, anyhow.] lt is earried out there every day. A squatter need not have his iand fenced, and if a selector's cattle stray on to that land they are impounded. The Secretary for Railways told us that he is goillg to increase the rates on the milways, and make the railwRys P"Y· [The S!lCRl',TARY FOR RAILW.~YS: I never said :mything ot the kind; I said I'd try.] 'I'he hon. gentleman further said that if he could not make the railways pay he would he the first man to reduce the rate~. According to the business procedure adopted by the hon. gentleman, if he is going to lllake the r.til w<1ys pay he should have a weighbrid~e at each station, and weigh each passenger, and charge him :lCcording to his weight. That is the logic of the thing put into a nutshell. I have a very serious charg'e to bring against the Premier. Half of the cases of cattle which come before the police courts are purely cases of disputed ownership. The squatter in many cases has got hold of a beast which the selector knows belongs to him, but rather than become bad friends with the squatter, who has him at his mercy, he allows the squatter to keep the beast and put his brand on it. In the towns in my electorate you cannot throw a stone without hitting " justice of the peace, bnt in the country districts ju,tices of tbe peace are few and far between. Governing bodies have written to me time after time, pointing out that such and such a justice nf the peace has died or left the district, and asking me to g8t some­one appointed to fill his place. In the back blocb a working man has sometimes to lose a day travelling into town to get a justice of the peace to witness his signature, and to lose a day going back again. I have written to and inter­viewed the Premier asking him to appoint justices in such places, andsu¥gestingthe names of suitable persons, but he has entirely ignored my requebts. It looks a' if the hon. gentleman was afraid that I might recommend someone who had Labour tendencies. If we are to have ju,tice administered in an even-handed manner, we should not have only capitalists on the bench, but all parties should be represented. After all, very many ,,f the cases which come before police courts are merely cases of arbitration; so that it is desirable that all parties should he represented on the bench. In writing to the Premier I have not suggested the names of any pPrsons living in towns, because we have too m~ny justices of the peace in towns already. It is a very strange thing, but I sup­pose that 7i'i per cent. of our justices are antago­nistic to labour. I do not say that they would punish people wllo are not of thA ,;ame political opinion as them,elve""' but still there is a danger that a man on the bench may be prejudiced in some degrees against a litigant when cmder <"xcitement ttt election times; and appointments to the magistracy shoulrl not be confined to one claH in the community. I cannot support the present Government, because I think they are totally in­capable of conducting the business of the country. They have been years in office, o,nd we have tbe re•mlt in Iegi~lation and the deficit. It is a good thing for the country that the drought has broken up, nnd that prosperity is likely to return. But if the people of the country trust the Government to look after their finances, and the

116 Address m Rep1y. [ASSEMBLY.] Add?·e.,·s· in RepTp.

Govf'rntnent gn on a~ they have been going, living- beyond their means, we shall be landed lU

further difficult\. The "um and substance of the deficit at the pre"ent time is that the Go­vernment have been living beyond their means. Therefore, I cannot "upport the present Govern­ment. Even if we had a weaker Govetnment it would be a good thing for the country. (Govern­ment laughter.) I wish now to refer to the evil influence. of centralisati·•n. In Queensland you have got a small town called Brisbane, which occupies about 240 acre'. .\.ccording to a great number of members of this House Brisbane is Queensland. The rail way rates on some of our produce to Gympie are double what they are to Brisbane. Brisb,ne seems to be the octupus that drains the life ont of the country at the preeent time. Everything is done for Brisbane. Last session we could not get mcney for State Bchools in t.he bush, notwithstanding the fact that the people had c•mtributed the necessary amount, but within the same week the people of the munici­pality of South Brisbane applied for a loan of £5,000, not for any urgent work, hut to bni!d shop~ for speculative pnrpo~es, and til<Lt loan was gr,ntrd. [Tile SECRE'rARY POR RAILW.\YS: \Ve don't build RChools nut of loan, bnt out of revenue.] Therefore·, I shall give my vote against the Government, nnd if I had fifty vote,; nothing would give me greater plea­sure than to give them all against the Ministry. There is one other matter to which I wish to refer. I know that there has been a lot of thimble-rigging in figures by experts in this House, and I am not going to enter into any controversy about figures. The other night the hon. membe,r for Croydon, referring to the public finrtnces, said we had received from the Federal Government £H5,000 more than was expected. The Premier subsequently denied that statfment, and the Treasurer also denied it. But you have only to look at this morning's Conrier and yesterday's 1'elcgraph and Vbservc1' and you will see that in a leader the leader of the Opposition is borne out in h1s figures. The hon. member for Oarpentaria handled figures the other night to suit his own purposes, but

when his figures were Hnalv~ed-­l5·30 p.m.] l'rhe SECRETARY FOR AGRICULTURE:

Y on analyse them.] I am not going to analyse them ; they have been nn~lysed !:>y hon. members on both sides of the House, and there was no man I felt more 'lorry for than that unfortunate man who stead up to defend the action of the Government. His fisures have been proved ineorrect by three newopapers which stand behind the Government; they have been proved incorrect hy the hon. member for Rockhampton, Mr. Kidston -[Government members : Oh ! oh ! and langhter]-and by the leader of the Opposition. [:\Ir. FoRSYTH: Not one single figure.] And yet that man has the audacity to say that not one single figure of his has been proved to be wr•mg. [Mr. FORbY'fH: I say so now.] I think this is where the hrm. member for Carpentaria is dwelling under a delu,ion. (Government lnughter.) One hon. member, whose name I will not mention, told me: "\Ve had a great lark on the other side. \Vhile the hon. mem­ber for Carpentari'' was addressir1g the House, we got bis papers and altered his figures by addit1g a nought, and he gave the altered figures to the House anrl they appeared in HansaTrl." [The SECHETAm: POR AGRICGLTuRE: ThM was told about the hon. member for Rockhampton.] Oh! It's all very well to shift it on to this side. [The SECRETARY FOR AGRICULTUHE: Yon don't believe yarns of that sort, do you?] That was given to me as a positive fact. The hon. member for Carpentaria handled those altered figures and gave them to the House, and still he believes they are correct. [Mr. Mc:YIASTER: They were

"pulling your leg."] I will not occupy the time of the House any longer. I could dwell a great deal longer on many matters and bring many serious charges against the Government, hnt I will nnt do so at this stage. l think I have said quite sufficient to justify 1ne in \'Oting against the Govm·n1nent.

::\Ir. BELL (Dalup): 1 think it a grea'. pity that a motion of want of confidence in the Government should be the medium of most pro­longed, and I think I might fairly ~ay t< rlious, investigation on the part of members into 8\'Bry possible nook and cranny of public policy. I do not think the l"ader of the o1her side C<ur be pari icularly ohlig€d to his followers for the length at which they haYe drawn uut thi,; debate-not merely the number of ,;peeches, hut the length of the speeches; and the longer this debate goes on, either in the way of the number or the length of the speeches, the weaker is the a.ttack of the other side against the adnrini"tra­timr of the Government. [:vir. LESI"'A: \Ve have h"rdly touched it yet.] The hnn. member who ha~ ju<;t ~at down, it seem~ to me, it he will allow llle to say so, ha" erred in the nature of a speech he ha' made. I am not going to follow his example and tonch on allJm>tters of public ;JOlicy, but when I first eame into the Chamber I heard him dwelling on the land queRtion, and I think he can clain1 to :-~peak on the land question, bl:'C~tuse h~~ is one l)f tho~e rnemben~ who has the diRtinction of having been a good settler. And may I be permitted to sny that, although the bon. member may not be a very good political critic, it would be a very good thing for Qneensland if we had more men of his type here. But although be is a g-ood settler, he is scarcely a good Lands Depart­ment critic, because I always lay it down as a.n axiom that no n1an is wortl--t listening­to on the land question-and this is to my mind the most important question we ban' to deal with- no matter how fluent or eloquent he may be-unless he is able to get up and make alternative suggestions on the matter. There are some hon. members who attempt to do thio, and there are others who never attempt to do that, and I say that, inside or onteide the Chamber, no man should attempt to criticise, in any way worth lhtening to, the ad:ninistration of the Lands Department unle"' be is able to bring forwanl alternativE.. RuggestionR to in1prove it. The bon. member who has just sat down did not do that. To stand up and say we want more liberal land laws, better administration -more sympathetic admini-tration-is to nse utterly idle terms of no practical value whate,·er. \Ve want .:mggr.stions as to how to frame bet,ter Sf'C­

tions in our Acts of Parliament. \Vhen we hear of the necessity of giving hf,tter facilitie~ for going on the land and encouraging people to goon the hwd, 1 can only say that, in my judgment, land squandering is not land settlement- [Honourable members: Hear, hear !]-and the idea nf g-iving good land at a cheap price is not the way to en­courage land settlement. The hnds of this Shte belong to the people, and I say that the peo­ple of this State should no more part with their property below its proper value than should any individual part with his oc IY r pro­perty below its proper value. [Mr. llcNSFORD : Should th"y part with it at "11 ?] I think they should not. There is one f.,rm of alienation under which the lands should not be parted with, and that is selections. Speaking generally, I am thoroughly opposed to that form of .,eJec­tion which some hon. members advoc~t., and which many of those who know """t about the subject call agricnltural homes tea•' s. I believe there have been as rank breaches of the land la.;·s committed through thP medium of that form of selection as probably under any other form of selection, and I believe that morfr

[29 JULY.] Add1·ess w Repl.IJ. 117

gen nine settlers can he put on the land through the medium or avenue of paying a higher price for land than 10s. than through agricultural h<>me,tc"'ds. 'There ar8 more br<;achcs of the spirit of the Act-if not of the letter of it-corn· mitted through the medium of agricultural homesteads, for ·which people pay in smne cases ·only 2s. Hd. an acre, than under any other form of selection. Unque,;tionably it seems to me that the letting out of our lands below their market value does not suggest in any way thttt we shall have bowJ tide settlement. \Ve have alienated S<nne o( our lands at 1nuch below their market value. Hon. n1en1~ hPrs who have preceded me have alluded to what they consider considerable delays in dealing with ·Clrrespondence in the Land's Department-a guwml laxtty was rather suggested as to the way in which thi" department eonducted its business. \V ell, it seems to me that they do not thoroughly tmder,tand what is really the pivot of the whole administration of the land laws-I mean the executive administration of the country -and that is what is known as the Crown rangers. ·The"e ofl;cials have crmstderable work to do, and I think they are extremely underpaid. \Vhen any CotTespondence goeg before the :Vrinister, the Fnder :::lecretary is consulted, a11d he consults with the lands commissioner in the district con­cerne:l. ::'fow, the eyes and ears of the commis­sioner are the Crown lands rangers of the several districts. These are the men who come into absolute contact with the settlers on the land, and the acti•>n of the department in !10 cases out of 1.00 has ib• ori..;in in the recommendations that are made by the Crown lands rangers, .and to my mind-I don't know whether the :Minister agrees with me-if there have been any delays with regard to correspondence, it is due to the fact that the distJicts are too large, or, if not, to the fact that there are not a oufficient nu•nber of r"'ngers. [The SECRETARY FOR PcBLIC LAND"- : This is the tirst time I hav~ hefLrd about the delays.] I mny tell the hon. gentlemfLn that I hfLve beard a good many complaints with re;;r.rd to ctelay,; in the depart­ment over correspondence. [The SECRETARY ~'OR PnlLTC LA:-;Ds: \Vby do they not complain to me'!] I am quite convinced that it is a mis­take to imagine that these delays arise through anv indifference or carelessness in the head office. If you followed these matters up you would find that the delays in the land commis­sioner's office are not because he is careless or lazy or inefticient, but because he has not enough men undrer him to make the necessary reports. '\Vhat we really want to improve our land ctdrninis­tration is more C~own lfLnds mnger,;, possibly more land eomnnsswners, and that the rangers should be rather better paid. I am not going to make a long speech, but the junior member for Rockhamption during his speech asked this question: "If what the Government have done doe' not justify their supporters in voting against them, what can happen that would incite their present supporters to put them ont of office?" \Vel!, I think there are two things that would have to occur before the Government supporters decided that it was wise, in the interests of the country, to have a change of l'v1inistry. The first is that there would have to be some remn,rkable instance of ineptitude in admini­stration, fLnd in order to get that incapacity Government supporters first, as it seems to me must not take perfection a• the stardard of cmn: parison, but ordinary human ability, and I assert as a justification for the vote I am going to give in supp_ort _of the Government if I happen to be here, whiCh 1s not very hkely, that judged tJy the standfLrd, not of perfection, but of ordi­nary human capacity, there has been no case of ineptitude made out against their administration.

Secondly, as one of the considerations that shonld influence supporters of the Government in voting against the amendment, and one that must alwayo operate amongst the supporters of any Government before they give a vote on which the very existence c>f the Administration depends, we must ask ourselves what is the alternfLtive Government that is to replac~· the one prop· sed to be put out? I say that, taking that as a standard or test, there is still less inducement for members on this side to vote fm the an1endment than there even was under the first consideration that I laid down. It seems to me that if we proJJose to put this present Ministry out of office we haYe no parti­cular reason for being very sanguine as to any improvement that is likely to be brought about by the presence of hem. members opposite on the firat bench in front of me. Representing as I do both a pastoral and agricultural district, I cannot help remembering that hon. members opposite are wedded to a particular part of their platform that I-and I hope any man who represents a district snch as the Darling Downs-will never assent to. I know very well that if those hon. members reached the Treasury benches, one of the first proposals that woulct be laid before the House would be "' land tax. They are wedded, we know, to an inc<lme tax. That is admittedly one of the chief planks in their platfonn, and over and above that we shall have imposed a land tax. [1'<1r. LEf\INA : Hear, heat·! J A land tax in ad clition to the tax which we already pay under our local government legis­lation. [Opposition members: Oh, no!] I say unqueo<tionably it is so, and I have someconfirnm­tion of that in the cheer which comes from some hon. members on the other side. Of course it will be in addition to the land tax that is paid for local government purposes. \Vel!, it is quite conceivable from some point of view that that might be a wise proposal in legislation, but

1 all I can say is that, as far as my lights go I cannot, as a Darling Downs member, assent to any propoRal that is going to throw additional burdens upon the people already on the land. I find it difficult to under­stand how a man like the bon. member for Burrum, who is an excellent settler, as far as I know, can associate himself with a party, one of whose unquestionable objects is to impose additional burdens on those settled on the land. [?vlr. f>L'I.RTIX: Becttuse he understands the bnd tax.] The hon. member says he under­stands tbe lm1d tax. [Mr. LESINA: He knows it will not hurt the selector, being"' selector himself. Y on, not beinl' a selector, believe it will.] If the interjection the hon. gentleman has just made is any indicfLtion of the value of his statements in relation to fact, all I can say is that I am afraid his statements are not worth very much. As it so happens, I am a selector. I do not say I make as good a settler as the hon. member for Burrum, but I know something about the Land Acts, and I know quite snough to say that the men on the Darling Downs will be very great fools if they ever put their heads into the land tfLx noose. Now, we have heard a great deal about figures from both sides of the House. \Ve have been told that the statements of our financier are incorrect, and the financier on the other side has laid before us another set of figures. I do not think that arithmetic is going to save the country. No doubt to those who have an fLritbmetical turn of mind, juggling with figures is a matter of interest, and I ,yiJl not deny that it hHs a certain value, but it is not the accoulltant but the agriculturist who is going to save the country. In regard to the agriculturist, I say that on the whole this Govei·nment does not deserve censure so far as they have had an op]Jortnnity of dealing with him.

ll8 Addrrss in Repl;IJ· [ASSEMBLY.] Add1·ess in Reply.

There has been very little reference made to the action of the Government with regard to the distribution of seed wheat, but, speaking as a Darling Downs member, I think they deserve the greatest credit for the painK they took in regard to that matter, and no man connected with the Darling Downs can in justice ignore the action they have taken. But although I am opfJosed to the amendment that has been moved, although I am supporting the Govern­ment, I should like them to remember that they should take the vote that is going to be given on thiR amendment as a sanction for the present, and, if you like, for the past, but 1t should not be accepted as absolution for the future. I think thev will mal<e a r1>istake-and I say this to clear" my owr. position-if they imagine that because ·they are getting support from their followers on this matter that their followers are neceHsarily wedded to them on every proposal they are going to bring forward, even during this session. To proceed on an assumption like that will be an entirely err~>neous conclusion. I know the ('hid interest I have got in the legislation of this session is legis­lation with reg•:trd to the men on the la'nd. I admit at once that, judging by what the Government have done in the past, there is fair reason to believe that they are going to dis­charge their duties towaros the settler in the future; but if they do not, if there is any falling off from the standard which exists in my mind >ts to the duty ut a Government in regard to the men upon the land, I, at all events, will put aside my personal feelings of loyalty towards them for what I consider the paramount duty I owe to the agriculturists in my district. 1 have been associated with some sn~gestions for improving the transport facilities of farmers. I believe that tranoport is one of the most important features connected with the success of tbe agriculturist. In view of the condi­tion of the finances, there is very little hor,e of getting any railways constructed, even branch lines, in the inlmediate future; but I am not gumg to assent to the action of any Government, even this Government, which assumes that the agriculturist will have to wait till there is a general improvement in the finances before they can expect to receive :tny improve­ment or alteration in the arrangements for trans­port. I am not, as an agricultural representa­tive, going to subscribe to the theory that the Government should do nothing to improve the means of transport in agricultural districts until there is money available to build more rail­ways. It is the duty of the Government to find out whether they cann'lt do something to bridge over the gap of time which mmt exist until we are >tble to build railways; and it is with that object in view that I have urged upon the Government, and per· sonally npon the hon. gentleman at the head of the Government, that steps should be taken to introduce motor cars into this country. I do not want to exaggerate the value of motor cars, because I believe the whole thing is an experiment. [Hon. A. S. CowLEY: They are running all over Cape Colony.] I am not quite sure whether the roads are exactly the same in character here as in Cape Coiony. [:VIr. CoOPER: They are very different.] I do not wish to speak too l'recisely on the matter, but I say that a case for inquiry, and indeed for experiment, in regard to motor cars has unques­tionably been made out. I believe that a motor car lanoed here would cost onlv between £750 and £1,000, and even if the Government are not going to wed themselves to the principle of running motor cars as feeders to the railways-even if they think it is the function of the local authorities­undoubtedly they should take the s1.ep of intro·

ducing a motor car in order to demonstrate what can be done with it. If it is a failure, ou mnch the worse; at all events they should make the attempt. The hon. member for Herbert says they are in use in Cape Colony. [Hon. A. S. COWLEY: They are worked by priYate enter­prise, and we can do it here.] They are coming into use in Ireland ; they rtre used in America, and that seerr15 to be strong enough ground for an experiment to be made here. As we

1 have State rallways in Queensland, it sef'nls to me there is no reason why our agricul­turists should wait until private enterprise introduces motor cars, and in rny opinion it is the duty of the Government to make a vigorous attempt to ascertain whether this form of locomotion cannot be adopted satis­factmilv in our farming districts. In conclusion, I can only repeat that though I am voting with the Government now because I believe thev deserve to be supported, it is not necessarily a'u indication of the line of action I om bound to follow in the future. I am votmg for them now becaus< I believe they deserve it, and I shaH Yote for them in the fntnre only if I consider they continue to deserve it. [Honourable mem· bets: Hear, hear ~]

Mr. DUNSFORD (Ciwrters Tm1•ers): The hon. member for Dalby, whom we always Jik, to hear, warned us that tt1e longer the attack con­tinues the weaker it becomes. It seems to me that the longer the debate goes on the weaker the defence becomes, because we have member after member on the Government side, supposed to defend the Government, but warning the Government., threatening them, or in other \Vays condemning the Government. The speecheo; of one member after another sitting behind the Government have not been speeches in defence of their policy or administration, but have really been speeches, most c.f them, condemnatory to the Government. The hon. member for Dalbv himself started by epeaking on the land law;, and he showed that he was not satisfied with respect to their administration. Then he com­plained of the administration on the railways because there are not motor cars for carrying agricultural produce, and he condemned the Government in other ways. He wound up his speech by warning-almost threatening-the Government that if they did not do better in the future they would not get his vote. He said that though he would support them on this occasion he would not give them abwlution for the future. That shows he is not satisfied with the actions of the Government in the past. The hon. member made it clear that he would vote for the amendment but for the fact that the Labour party have a land tax in their plat­form. \Vhat sort of an excuse is that? \Yhat sort of a defence of the Government is that coming from such an able member and strong supporter as the hon. member for Dalby? I must say I was rather astonished at an intP!ligent

member like the hon. member fur [7 p.m.] Dalby, who really understands the

land tax and the effect of the land tax, and who has made a study of social ques­tions, that he, above all other members of this House, should give bis dislike to the impositi~>n of a land ta': as a reason for voting against the amendment of the leader of the Labour party. [The SECRETARY l<'OR AGRICL'LTURE : Have you abandoned iL ?] \Ve are not like the Govern­ment, who are repeatedly abandoning planks in their platform and taking planks from the plat­form of the Labour party, and, after ~plintering them and knocking them out of all shape, offering them to the conn try as something new. The hon. gentleman should be one of the last to talk about abandoning planb. He himgelf has long pretended to be a disciple

Addre~s in Rep(y. [29 JULY.] AddTess in Repl_y. 119

of individualism, of private enterprise, and yet he is now at the head of a department which is all along the line sacrificing private enterprise, and ohowing that individualism is a failure. He has sacrificed, as a ::Vlinister of the Crown, the vosition he took up in that resped HS

a private mPlnber. Only the other day, we saw in a devartmentalrevort the hm,. gentlenmn urging dairy farmero and cattle-owners to conduct their operations on sccialiotic lines, in order that they might supply a bet1 er class of cream and that the dairying industry might be a success. Let me tell the hon. gentleman that we on this side are not prepared to abandon any of our planb. \V e are not going to desert our cause, or haul down our flag, as has been .:lone repeatedly by the Secretary for Agriculture. I was clayiug that the hon. member for Dalby astonisherl me by what he '.'lid about the land tttx. because he knows that a land tax is not a t'ax that will cripple his cnnstituents. A land tax such as we propose would be the salvation of the cnltiva,tor of the soil in hi" electorate. It is only the men who hold large areas fur speculative purvosec who need fear a just land tax. A land tax would have this effect in the hon. member for Dalby's constituency: it would break up the large estates there, and do away with the necessity of repurcha,ing estates in that electorate. In other words, it would give his constituents good land at a reas0nable rate. And when we remember that this plank in the Labour party's platform is a qualified land tax, that it does not propose to tax the small man, that it has an exemption up to £300, the hon. member will see that his con· :-;tituenh:l, at any rate, would not .suffer by et

htnd tax. I am somewhat surprised also at the position taken up by the h•Jn. member, becduse he took to tasktheRaiiway Department. and the Lands Department more especially. He a,ked the :Minister for Railways why he did not intn.­duce motor cars. The hon. memuer, since he knows that the borrowing powers of the Govern­ment have come to an end and that they have no money for public workR, to be consistent, should have shown in what way the Mini,ter for Railways is to obtain the money. I am about to show in whao way it is po;,,ible for the Government to obtain money for public works pur­poses. The hon. member for Dalby wants some light lines of railway or motor cm;. He prefers motor cctrs, and I suppose most hon. members who read his speech at the recent agricultural conference at Maryborough will agree with much tbat he said on the subject. At any rate I do, and I think much m><y be done by that system. The old system of laying down heavy lines of rail way is being forced out of existence by electricity and other motive forces, and we shall won he able to do our carrying work without them, especially in country di,tricts. At least, that is my opinion. There is no doubt that we will have to lay down light lines of railway, or provide some other means of locomotion, in order to enable prodncers to get to market, and the great obstacle in the way is how are we to find the means? I ask the Premier, or any other Minister, how iu the future they propose to provide means for the public works? \Ve have already borrowed beyond what we should have borrowed, and I sincerelY hope we will not borrow one penny in future fr~Jm the British investor. But l do hope, nevertheless, that our public works will not be stopped. There is no necessity for that, and we can wisely and well obtain revenudorthe purpo-.e from a just system of land taxation. If we build rail ways, or lmild other public works, we imme<liateiy increa'e the value of the land, and we may very justly ask the man whose land is increa,ed in value to give UR back a portion of the une :rued increment, in order that we may extend this

system to other producers as well. That is all we ask, and yet the hon. member for Dalby, who understands this system, gives as his main reason for voting against this amendment that the Labour party have a land tax in their plat­form. It strikes me very forcibly that the junior member for :\1aryborougb, Dr. Garde, struck the keynote of the position of members supporting the Uoverlllll1·nt. rrhe horJ, ITietnber ~~.aid, "I am ;cgain,;c the female francl1ise, but I am going to vote for it." Th~ hon. member said, "I am against the policy of the G-overn1nent in many 1 ,,q,rticulars, but I am going to vote for them. I am against their adtninistration, but I fllll going to vote for them." That is the whole position in a nutshell of members sitting behind the Government. They are '"gainst the Govarnment, its policy, and its udn1init~tration, but nevArtheless they are going to vote fnr it. They nuy be satisfied with that position, but I ask them to consider whether their eleetors will be satisfied with it. It is a false position for . ny hon. member to place himself in, vet every sp• aker on th. other side, with th<e exception of the two ::Vlinisters, hac; placed himself in that position. They are "agin the Gover11n1ent," and hn .. ve conder.nned the Governtnent, but thFy are going tu vote for the G0vernment. The hon. member for 2\'[ary­borough said that the 'B,ihvays belonged to the n1ortgagees, and that is a very gn-·tt tru:,h. In a great degree the public works of Q<1. ensland are in pawn tl) the aLRentc-'e mort~;agee. Let LlS fw<::­thatpositiDn. [1\'Ir. KrDsTOX: You may also say that the public estate "f Queenodand belongs to the mortg'>gee. J I w .ts going to .s '.i that our public estate, in arldit.ion to our public works, is in p:1wn to the absentee money·Lnder. I am very pleased to think that the junior tnmnher foe ~Iaryborongh-a member sitt;ng on thro other f-,ide-should recognise the pof;ition. But the hon. member rather surprised me when be said that, in order to remedy this, he would sell the fl.il­ways, or hand then1 over to the rnortgagee. I do not agree with him. B,,dly as our railways hav·e been and are being managed, if 1.ve were at the mercy of the absentee mortgagee, the pro­ducers of the country would not unly be badly dealt with but they would be absolutely crippled and " crneled" out of existence almost. Bad as our position is, it wonld be woroe if we had to trust to the tender mercies of the cchsentee, and I refuse absolutely to tmst the railways, or to be a party to handing the railways over to them-or rather to allowing them to foreclose on them-to ''crowbar" us out and take posses-.<ion. I honestly belitcve that an effort has been and is being made by N1iuisters and their followers to compel us to part with our railways-to have them, if not sold, taken forcibly away from us. I say that ad­visedly. Even the Treasurer admitted that some negotiations had been entered into for the sale of our rail ways. [The .PREMIER : He never said anything of the sort.] Repe1.tedly we have had assertions from Ministers that they would will­ingly sell our railways-that they think it would be better if our railways were in private hands. [Hon. A. S. CoWLEY : Hear, hear !] If Ministers are so much in favour of private enterprise running our railways, and if their supporters openly advocate that policy, can we wonder that the ::Vlinistry-having such a majority in this House as they have had, with a number of newspapers supporting them also in favour of private enterprise railways-will make a systematic attempt to part with the rail· ways to private enterprise? I honestly believe that the present Secretary for Railways is making an effort to bring about that state of .1ffairs, and that the Government are in sympathy with him; and, such being the casP, it is for the House and for the country to ask-those, at any rctte, of us who are opposed to private enterprise

120 AtldJ•ess inRepl,''· [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Repl;1f·

r.1i:vcays-it is for us to ask where we are. If there rs ttny me m her sitting on the other sid<• whv is opposed to priv::.tte Pnterpri;.;;e railways, who i:::; apposed to sacrificing onr railways to syndicat­ism, then it is clearly hiR duty to vote for this arnendrnent, bPcause, if he does not, he \Vill be strengthening the hands of the Government. He will clearly be indic"tinR that he is in favour of the sale of our railway" tu 'Yndicatism by the Go­vernn1ent. The Treasurer-perhaps nnco~1sciously -"let the cat out of the b,,g" when he told us tbat there had been some negotiatwns, and that he has already received snrne offers for the sale of our rnilwaye. Xow, if there have been any negotia­tbns, why is it that hon. tnembers were not in­formed before this of what those negotiations aee? [:\Ir. KIDHTOX: The time is not yet ripe.] They are not going to take even Parliarnent into their confidence. I suppose they have not yet 'so damaged the railway" that it is absolutely 1.10cessar~,. for the mortgagees to foreclose. \Vben that time arrives they will tell us that they have an offer, and we will then know what the bargain is. \V e are almost in the dark, but we feel we know-we are informed by the Press and by Ministers-that negotia­tions are to-day going cm for the s~le of our railways. [The PHEMIEit: No.] [Govern­ment. members: No.] Hun. membere. are re­peatedly taking up that position by their voice, but when it eoii!eS tn their vote, what CO they 00? Hon. members know that there is a possibility, a probability, of our rail ways being sold in the near future, or at any rate of the n1ortgagee being allowed to foreclose. I should not be a bit sm·prised if the Government did not give aw;;,y with the railways some of our puhlic lands, and guarantee a. certain auwunt of traffi0 on the line,,, and a certain r.tte of interest on the money. After the actions of this continuous (i-ove-::·nment in ln:.tny directions, we cannot be astonished at :tnythmg that is done bv them, and of COUn<E' they WOUld make any sacrifice to encourage privatf' enterpri~e. The hon. tnember f0r Maryborough is evidently one of those \'/ha are displeased with the Governmeut, and ttre yet goiug to vote for them. The bon. n1er11bf-'r said th .• t to-day there i,; no inducement offerer! to people to travel on thf" railw.<ys, a!Jd in support of his statement referred to '" paragraph in a news­l ~r,er "howing that very few tickets had been taken out at a sttttion in the Warwick district up to a certain time. That is a condemnation of the Secretary for Railwuys, or the Commissioner; probably of both. I do not think the Minister is the man to allow the Commissioner to do any­thing without having a "finger in the pie." The Minister frames the policy of the Railway Department. [The SECltETARY J;"OH RAILWAYS: Sit down, and I will tell you.] There is no doubt that the hort. gentleman would like me to sit rlown. l:It' does not care ahout my voicing rny opinions and geoting them into Hansu1·d. He wants a policy of silence--a P"licy of lai.sse: fai?'f. He does not care about any light being let in on his administration. But if the Government want to t--,1crifice our raih\'UV'i to syndic.ttism, I am not going to sit silent. The hon. member for lV!aryborough also found fault with the administration of the land laws, and with the administration in many other directions, and yet h~t is going to vutn for the Government. ! think we have absolute proof of the streni(th of the case advocated hv this party, We can point to the speeches of 'mem­ber" on the other side, e1·en to speeches of :Ministers of the Crown, and to arguments of the leading papers as evidence of tb0 strength of CJur case. A leading- newspaper thiti nwrning-, com1nenting on Lhe speech of the Treasurer, said that it only exposed more clearly the fatal blunder of spendthriftness which the Govern-

ment had in the past practised. \\-hen we ha1·e friends of the Government in the Preo,s out:::.ide condernning the Governrnent for wa~te­fnl ex]Jenditure of the public funds, it is el-i­dent that the position of the party on this sirle of the House is extremely strong. If we had not one witness frcnn thi8 side in this matter, we could point to the evidence of mem­bers on the other side wbo have spoken cwd con­demned the Government I or their policy and fc,r their administration, and S<>Y that on the merits of tiw. case the Government "mnd convJCted; and having- condemned the Government, I say the majority of hon. members, nay, the wbole of the members of this Hom;e, are in duty bound to vote for the amendment moved by the leader of this party. When the Treasurer was speaking, he, inadvertently perhaps, "let the cat out oE the bag," when he told us that negot.iations \V ere> going on, or that some overtures had been made for the sale of our railways. I can quite understand the policy of the Minister for Rail ways, since negotia­tions ha.ve been going on for the sale of the rail­ways. I can quite understand the action of the Minister for Railways in raising the freights and so making our railways unpopular and unpay­able, with the end in view of sacrificing the railways to the mortgagee, or allowing the British liquidator to come in and take possession. I object to the sale of our railways, I object to the sacrificing of our railways, and I object to private ~nterprise in connection with our rail­ways. I just wish to give the opinion of Colonel Sir \Villiam Pollitt, one of the directon• of fh-e great };nglish railway companies, who recently visited Australia. This extract appeared in the Age of 21st May-

He did not think it wonld be ~dYantageons if the rail­ways of Australia belougefl to private conrpnni~-.~- In thP firf't plaee. he said~ St.a.te owned linr-:; would be con­strueted to develop the eountry, and would ruu to parts where it 'vould not pay companies to build them. though a eommendable polwy on the part of a GoYern­ment, as large traeks would be thus opened up, and when settlement took 11lace the lines \vonld become payable. In the matter of railway derelopmcnt in Aus­tralia, he thou~ht marvellous strict( "i had been made. alld he felt {''JD.lidcnt that a great future \Vas before the Commonwealth.

I think that shows that the policy of thooe who are opposed to the propo,al of the Government to sell or sacrifice the rail ways is the correct one, and that the policy of the Government is not a wise one, if it is considered from the standpoint of the country as " whole, or of the producers of the country. The hon. mem­ber for Oxley, who moved the Address in Heply, told us that it is to be regretted that the population of (-lueensland is not growing in the same ratio as the public debt. 'i'o-day we have a public debt of about £+2,000,000, and we have a population approximately of about 500,000 If instead of having 500,000 people here we had 10,000,000, the hon. member, I presume, would ue quite satisfied to see our public debt increase tenfold. vV ell, I do not agree with

that. Even if our population should [7'30 p.m.] increase-and, as a matter of fact, it

should increase-I sincerely hope that there· will be no incrc .. <se in our public debt. The hnn. member also said that we had large areas of la1>d partially developed and larger areas totally undeveloped. \V ell, when we con­sider the policy nf the Government, we cannot expect any other result. The land laws of the State and their atlministration are the cause of lands being locked up. The Government refuse to give us anything like just land laws so as to de1·elop unoccupied lands or such as would be the means of unlocking our rich mineral lands. ~Inch of our mineral lands are included in free­hold land, and we have no mining on private pro­perty Bill introduced, although the Government

[29 JnY.] 121

ha' e n•pe>tedly, in Governor's Speeches and in nthPr vvays, prornh:ed us ITlt :.Lsure~ such as theRe. Xe wonder the lands of the country are unde­veloped, and no wonder our population is not incrra.s:.iug. \V H cannot e"Xpect anything likH any reas(Jnable increAse in population nntil the Go­vernment alters its administration ancllegislation --uuW they follow the example bet by sav, Kew Zealand or Canada. If they do that \~e \~ill not be able to complain "bout the want of population or about our unde,·eloped lands. Let me say in this connection that thP. t7overnment have re­peatedly put up danger f!Hgs in this country which ha,·e in no small degree tended to prevent people coming here, and they have e"pecially prevented them from settling on the soil. TIK Government have hoi,ted these red flags in many places, especially in the Knrthern parts of the country. They have said th.•t they do not want white men there because the white man cannot work and 'live and nrosper there; that the white man cannot work in the canetields because of the climate. The,e are the danger flag·,~ which are frightening people from the colony. [The SECRETARY FOR RAIL­WAYS: If I was in danger, I would like to see them.] I do not know whether the hon. gentle­man j, in favour of danger flags or not but if he is he is keeping people out of the S;ate-[The SECRETARY ]'OR RAILWAYS: Tbat is another thing]-and is working against the best interests of the country. \Ye want population, we want capital, and we can best draw population here an? attract capital here by unlocking our agncultumJ, pastoral, and mining lands. And then we re•nember that awful calamity­h•nvling indulged in by hon. members on the other side when the last Land Bill was going thr•mgh, which in a great degree frightened people away. \Ve on this side recognise the g-reat wealth-potentialities of this State; that t,his St>te is the finest State in the Common­we,1lth. rHonourahle members: Hear, be.tr !] That is so. And we are continually placing before the people, whenever opportunity offers, the opemngs we have here for capital :tnd for ~CJttling people on the land, bnt hon. members opposite--espEcially those who spoke last year on the Land Bill-they rang- their little tintillating bell and informed the public that our pastoral lands and our agricultural lands were a failure ; that people could not make a "do" on them in small areas. This has been repeatedly as,erted by hon. member" on the other side-by those who our;ht to know. The president of the pastnralists' league-the hrm. member for North Brisbane, Mr. Cameron--was one of those who rlrew attention to this. These speeches were Tnng all through the conntry; they were copied from newspaper to newsp<tper ; and people in the old country who were willing to bring capital here were warned of this. I don't know wbat their object is in doing this, except to place our position in such a deplorable lio-ht­with our neck under the feet of the abs~ntee speculator-that we will have to part with :Jm­railway'', our public lands, and eYerything we hctve to these people. If that is their aim, I believ: they have been going tbe right way to bnng that about. Now I come to the 8peech of the hon. member for Musgrave. He .also condemned the Government in a great degree, and yet he is going to vote with them. I don't know what will happen when he goes to his constituents and tells them to 1

read his speeche" in Hansa1·d, where they will •ee that he had condemned the Government, and then voted with them. But he is only a reflex of hon. members on the other side. The hon. member said that no doubt the Govern­me~t-and h~ q?alified th_is by saying that com­panles and md1V1duals hke the Government-

had 'pent recklessly. f'ould anything more; con­demnatory of a Government be said ? Then he aloo said : "Let us forget all about that." But the people won't forget all about that when hnn. rnem hers vote on this motion. :1\ow, if the hon. member really felt that the G-overnmPnt 'vfn·e a wise (i-ovtrnn1ent, if he thought they had done everything they could, that they had done the best according to their light~, if he thought their policy w:os a wise one, then he should not have sard that they had borrowed and spent recklessly. The hon. mem­ber says the Government are a reflex of the people ; but I really belie Ye the people are a reflex of the Government, and that the bad example set by the Government has c'msed a large number of people to borrow and spend reckleRsly. It is not all the people who have done thi•-only that sect.ion that represents the bank bursters and boomers, the prhate enterprise man, and those dependent upon overdrafts. The so-called " masters of in­dustry " are the ones who have borrowed ""d spent reckleRsly, and bee:tuse they have done so the hon. member says the Government are justified in doing likewise. vVhat a weak position to take up! t:lurely the Government above everyone should set a good example? But no, this continuous Govern1nent have con~ tinned for years past to set 2. b>td example to the people, and a section of the people have followed that b<td example. It is not all the people who have followed the example of the GoYernment. A large section of them are not in debt at all, and when the ladies have votes at least three­fourths of the people will not he in debt. It is a we8.kness among women to mrtke both ends meet, and I believe they will set tl good exam [Jle in this respect. The female electors wili compel the Government to make two ends meet. Now, our debt to-day is approximately £42,000,000, including the last loan. [The PREMIBR: Not quite £40,000,000.] It was £41,000,000 betore the last loan, including all our indebtedness. I am not speaking only of our indebtedness to the British money-lender. The breadwinners of the colony number something- like 21G,OOO. The male breadwinners number 175,000, and the female bre>tdwinnere, 41,000. That includes all those in the colony who are earning anything, from the age of fifteen upwards. It is clear that the breadwinners are liable for the pnblic debt, and that they have to ~arn interest ll)JOn it. If we take £42,000,000 and divide it among 216,000 people, we tind that each breadwinner carries a burden of £194 Us. That is a nice little load that the Government ha'e hung on the backs of the bread winners of the clllony. Does the hon. member for Musgrave, who sa,ys that the Government are a reflex of the people, assert that the breadwinners have mortg-aged them­selves willingly to that extent? Not at all. The private indebtedness of the bnadwinners is very little indeed compared to the State in­debtedness, which has been hung on their backs chiefly by the continuous Government- The interest on our pnblic debt amounts approxi­mately to £1,500,000, or about £7 per head of the bread winners of the State. a load which is borne by them to-day through 'the reckless extra­vagance in the matter of borrowing and .spending by the Government. This is a spendthrift Go­vernment according to the hon. member for M us­grave, and yet he is going to vote for them ! vVell, I refuse to vote for them, and I believe any reason­able man, any man possessed of business capacity, any man who desires to see the country run on just lines, will refuse to vote for such a Government. The hon. member for Musgrave contends that the Government are justified in the course they have adopted because some individuals and some companies have spent

122 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.]

recklessly. I presume the hon. member would "';'Y that if the people outside got the meaHles, the Government ought to get the me"sles-that they ought tn follow the people whether their course is wise or otherwise. 'Whether the Government have been following the peovle in this cmu·se or have been leading them-and I belieYe they h11ve been leading them-they are not ju><tified in their wilful and wasteful expenditure of public money. :;\ow, I rather agree wiLh the hon. member for Oxley when he says that the people ftre fashioned according to the ex:cm [Jle of their king. I would s"y that the people are fashioned according to the examnle of their Governrnent, and the GovernlnPnt shOuld remt-m~ her tbat it is their duty to set a good example, and that the w•>ple will fashion their lives according to the model w hi eh is set them. Jf they remember that, they will not continue to pursue the course of ependthriftnees which they have hitherto done. Other b(m. mem· I;en: have also had mnch to say against the hovernment, but 1 have been quite lon!!; enough, and shall not dwell upon their spee,~hes. Some hon. members opposite condemned. some warned, and 8orne excus8d the Governtnerlt, bnt not one championed them. Hon. members who excuse the (:irovernn1ent are their worst accuser~. It is much better tu O]Jenly accuse than to excuse; and I am sure that the Premier would say, in cases such as those of the hon. member for Oxley and the hon. member for Bnlimba, "Save rr1e fron1 n1y friends." The criticisrn of those hon. member:, did not uphold the conduct of the Government at all, but ;trongly con· demned them in the eyes of reawnable men. I do not care about taking up more time, but I would like to say a word with regard to th'> proposal to reduce the numher of members of the Assembly. I suppose my colleague ,J,nd my· self leaet of nil ha"'' anv need to fear the reduc· tion, so that I do not sr;Pak on the suhject fwm a personal point of view, \Ve have a population of about 25,000; and when the women obtain the. franchise we shall have between 10.000 and 12,000 voters, so it will be impossible t;, disft·an­chise that constituency to a greater degre<e than it is no" disfranchised by giving it two members for 12,000 voters. If the Government want to cheapen _legislation, they might do so by doing away \~Ith the Governor, and either wiping out or considerably reducmg the number of members of the other Chamber,' as \Yell as reoucing the numbe_r o~ members of the Assembly. If a reduction IS to be made, it mmnot in justice be madA only m one branch of the Legislature. I see by the papers to-day that it is propoged to introduce a Bill in \Vestern Australia to reduce the number in the Upper House from thirty to twenty-bur, and the number in the Assembly from fifty to forty-eight, and I think these are the lines that should be followed here. I don't think the number in the Council should exceed one-half thenumberintheAssembly; and if we are to have a reduction I think the Constitution should be so ":mended that the Upper House shall be mutilated as well as this House. It is not so long ago since the Premier spoke strongly in fayour of the status of thi" State being main­tamed, and objected to pruning in this direction or in tha_t direction. He objeeted to mutil"ting our Parliament, becauep it wonld be sacrificing us to the Federal Parliament. However, I suppose pre%sure was brought to bear on the G<?vernrnent, and they think it will be a popular thi';l!!; to Have £4,000 by mutilating this House, while they continue to recklessly expend money in othe1· dirt>ctions. \V e know that the other place should never exceed in num· ber one-half of the me m hers of the Legi<la­tive Assembly. In the Federal Parliament the number of senators is much less than one-half

of the number of representatives. If there is to be an all-round reduction in both HouseH, hon. members on both sides may see their way to vote for it, but Ministers aim not so much at cheapening- the cost of legislation as muti· lating this House, with the view of wiping out the people's party known as the " Laboue party," and to such a thing as that any fair­minded member, whatever Side of the House he sit~ on, muRt ohject. Ho\vever, when the Bill c•,mes along I sha.ll be prepitred to deal with it on its merit>'. In tbe meanti:ne I hope h()n. rnernbers wiil treat tbe atnt'TI{hnent 011 it~ merits. \Ve ,;lmll have obtained something- at least., when the matter cnmes to a vote,~ by letting the public s e the inconsistency of mem· hers who vote with the GoV·'rnment although in their speeches they have condemned the action of the Government.

The SECRETARY FOR R,AIL\YAYS (Hon .. J. Leahy, Bvlloo) (who, on rising, was greeted with cheers) said : The debate, as far as it has crone, has touched to a very large ex~ent upon q':.estions of adminii'tration relating to the department over which I haYe tho honour to preside. I am pleased to see that the hon. mem· bers who have rnadf' the strongest attack~ on that adnlinioor/l.tion are in the Chamber at the present titne. \Vh~n an hon. 1nember h~~_ ... onle­thing to say, I like to !i>:ten to. him, and If 1 have an opvortunity of replymg I hke that hor:. mem­ber to be present, so that if I am putnng the case unfairly he will be able to put me right by interjection or otherwise. [Mr. HARIJACRE: To whom are yon rPferring?] I allude chiefly to the hon. member for Rockhampton, the hnn. mem­ber for Bow en, and the hon. member for l<'linders, Tbe hon. member for Rockhampton last y•cr gaYe us the same set of figures in the same speech as he gave n& this year, >md the House treated it witb contempt, so that thtre is nothing particu­larly new about the matter as far as he is con­cerned, but he thought he would do something g1eat in letting the public know what the hon. member for Rnckbampton was cap~cble of pro­ducing. That hon. member ':'nd the hon. mem­ber for Carpentaria dealt with some finanCial tables. I happened to have had something to do with those tables mvself. However, I w10h to

proceed in the order of the debate [8 p.m.] as far as vossible, so as to preserve

the continuity of the discnPsion. The hon. member for Rockhampton, :Mr. Kid­stm1, made several very serious charges against myself. It is no u>e chaq~ing a man with being unscrupulous and unprincipled unlefs the pc>rson making the charges is in a position to prove them, and, at all events, those who hear or rend the report of the debates 111 this House will hftve an opportunity of knowing­whether am actions of mine were unprincipled >md unscrupulous or n·Jt. And I may say here that if there is any men1ber of the Chamber who should apply the term "unscrupulous" to me or to any other m em her of the House, the last person to do so should be the hon. member for Rockhampton. I believe in the dead past bury­ing its dead to a very large extent. The hon. member said I wilfully and deliberately misled the people of Toowoom ba, and through them the people of <,.>ueensL<nd, in a _certain speech I delivered there last :iYiarch. He also charged me with a distinct breach of palitical discipline, so to spe'>k, inasmuch as I made that speech in the presence of the Governor. I would much prefer that I had not had to make that speech in the presence of the Governor. The hon. n1ernber also Kaid I ma,Oe two speeches at Toowoornba· that I went back a second titHe and did not ap~logise for what I ''aid on the first occasion in the presence of the GoYernor. I only

Address in Reply. [29 JULY.] AclclJ·ess in Reply. 12;3

spoke once atToowoornba, although Is<1id I might say something later on, and that I was full of figures on the subject. These matters are small in themselves, but they show the recklessness and ma!ignity with which statements are some­tim~s ~nade for the purpose of damaging and mahgnmg the character of a politic:;] opponent. It seems to be a great thing with some per­sons in public life, if they see a man standing an a higher pinnacle than themselves, to think that they can raise themeel ves to his alti­tude by abusing him. But there is an old saying, that the eagle, soaring in the atmos­phere, can rel!ard with equanimity the actions of a sparrow in a back yard. I may say that the federal member for the Darling Downs, :Yir. Groom, was present on this occasion, and that he complimented me on the careful way in which I spoke in introducing political matters in the presence of the Governor, and said he would try to do the same thing himself. That is recorded in the pages of the Too1coorava Chronicle of the following day. That was the opinion-certainly at variance with that of the hon. member for Rockhamptnn-of a gentleman learned in the law, and who has been for the last two years in the presence of some of the ablest debaters and the oldest parliamentary hands in Australia. That was his opinion, nnd the public can see whether his view is of more Yalue than that of the hon. member for Rockhampton. He also stated, in connection with some figures I gave there, that I spoke from a c >refu!Jy prepared speech. I am not in the habit of reading my speeches, like the hon. member, and I certainly did not do so on that occasion. The only thing I had in my hand was a copy of the Treasurer's tables, with a few figures worked out on the margin. I did not have a single note. I may say, further, that I was not aware what subject I would speak on that night at Toowoomha, or whether I should speak at all. In the time that elapsed between this luncheon at Toowoomba and the Chamber of Commerce dinner i~ transpired that Mr. C. C. Kingston was com1~g as a guest to the banquet, and I thought 1t was possible that as he w<mld naturally take precedence, he mie-ht refer to ~ varie~y of subjects that I might touch on ''.' a mild manner, or he might take up such tune that I would not have an opportunity of speaking at all. The hon. member charges me with having falsified statements in the Tr~asurer's accounts with regard to the popu­latwn of the colony, on which I based the indebtedness of the State. Even if I did do so, it is a very gjjght matter in itself· bnt I did not d? so, nor is anything that wo~ld lead to tha_t mference stated in any of the journals whwh reported my speech on that occasion. The report in the Toowomnbao Chronicle is a very full and fair one, extending over five or six columns, except, perhaps, it was a little mixed in that pa:ticular paragraph. \Vhat I said was that w1thm the last ten years the population had i!'creased by 25 per cent. That wa,, when speakmgat Toowoombaon thellth March. \Vhen we speak in this House, we speak of financial years ending on the 30th .June. The hon. mem­ber himself in his speech the other night-and whi<;b, by the way, he also delivered last year, and put mto the Rockhwmpton Bulletin afterwards­refers to the financial year. But these kind of charges just suit that class of men who to repeat the quotation of the hon. m~mber' for Carpentaria-

With fire in each eye and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

I want to show that I am just as accumte in what I said as I was in my figures. The hon. member told us that Sir Hugh ::'\'elson came into

office at the end of 1802. I thought it was a few weeks later; but I will waive that point, and say he came into office at the end of 1892. I said : "For the ten years preceding Sir H ugh Nelson's entry into office." A man enters office

1 not when he becomes Premier, but when he joins a Ministry. I come now to the tables which I quoted from on that occasion. The hon. mem­ber told us that Sir Hugh Nelson came into office at the end of 18!12. Now, in the pre­ceding June, at the end of the financial year 1891-2-that was three or four months before the hon. member himself says Sir Hugh Nelson came into office, and six months before I thought he came into office-Table K accompanying the Treasnrer's statement of last year gives the population of the State in .Tune, l!J02, as nlo,:,v;,

, and ten years before that, in the year 18(Jl-2, as I 410,330-:t difference of a little over 100,000.

Now, 102,500 is exactly 25 per cent., and the exact differenee is 24!J per cent., so that the statement I made is accnr.:tte enough for all practical purpose'i. You do not speak of 241z per cent. or 25/z per cent., but you put it as 2;, per cent. The population was 314,000 at the time of which I was speaking, but, when rlealing with the financial years, the increase during the ten years was 25 per cent., and I said that the expenditure of the country had not increased proportionate!). The leader of the Opposition told us the other night, perfect!•· frankly-what we all knew, but it was ~o his credit to admit it publicly-that he was per­fectly ignorant of figures. But he took round with him his chief clerk, so to speak, the hon. member for Flinders, who has had considerable experience in these matters, and they want to correct me-to point out to the people of Too­woomba, and, through them, to the country, that I was attempting to mislead them. I am sorry that I do not see the hon. member for Flinders in his place, because I wished to ask him a questbn, through you, Sir, but he takes care not to bP here <m occasions of this kind. Like the cuttle-fish, he like., to cover his tracks. HO\,-­ever, he told them in Toowoornba that I was in the habit of migleading them, and he said he would give them samples of solid truth-" chunks" of truth, I think he said-about the present Go­vernment and the way they managed the affairs of the State. It was on that occasion that he told them the Governor ,,£ (_,lueensland was getting £7,000 a year, and that the Governor of Victoria was getting £3,000 a year, although Victoria has three times the populatioll of Queensland. The hon. member for Carpen­taria pointed out, first and foremost, that the salary uf the Governor of Vict<,ria is not £3, 000 per annum, and that Victmia has not two and a-half times the population of Queensland, But, even if they had two and a-half times our population, it would he a far greater departure from the actual facts of the case than 2-H per cent. is from 2Zi per cBnt. The hon." member interjected that he never said anything of the kind at Toowoomba. [Mr. Sul\IMERVILLE: Nobody would believe that he ever did.] He is so reported in the Toowoornv" Chronicle, which is a most reputable paper, one of the be'lt pl'Ovincial papers in Qneensland-a very admirable paper in its way. He told this House at a later stage that he never said any­thing of the kind. Here are his words-

The hon. member attribnted to myself statements whicll, from the ab:mncc of qualifying statements, ·were absolutely incorrect. I never made the assertion in Toowoomba that the salary of the Governor was £7.000 per annum 1 but that the salary and allowances amounted to £7,000. Xeitller did I make the .state­ment he mentioned with regard to the comparative population ofYictoria. I added ltUalifying words which entirely altered the statement.

124 AJd1•ess in Rep1,y. [ASS.EMBLY.J Add!'ess uz Rep1p.

I looked up the Tomroomb<t Cl11·oniclc to-day, and there were nu qualifying words whatever. Sm:1ebody said just now that nobody would beheve that the hon. member ever said snch a thing, but it is an extraordinary thing that, when he was spe~tking in his own electorate, as reported in the Cluncurry p~tper, which I have with me, h0 told them exactly the same thing at Cloncurry. (Government laughter.) I think I will read it to the House. 'I am not exactly prepared to say whether this was before the Toowoomba speech or after, but I do not think it was either before or after. because the hon. member has only one speech: He has been delivering it all over the countrv; he has de!iYered the same speech since he mtme here; he will deliver it again while he is here; and he will probablv deliver it when he leaves the House, with slight variations. Here is what the hon. member said at Cloncurry-

:Jir. Philp bad bragged that he had cut down the ex­pense~ of the conntl'y. Yet we have a Go-vcrnordra\\ing £7.500 per annum against that of Yictoria, with donble ou1· population, of £3,000.

(Government laughter.) That is what is re· ported in the Cloncurry Acl1•ocate of 28th February. It was before he went to Toowoomba. He was not misreportEd at Toowoomba, hecau8e he used the same words in his own district. This is the bon. member who tells people at Toowoomba that I am not to be relied on, and yet, out of five columns of matter which appeared in the 'l'omvoomba Chrom'rle, he could only quihble about~ per cent.! He said that I said 18il4, but I said nothing of the kind, and there is no paper that he or any other member can produce in this Chamber in which it is stated that I ever mentioned 1894. I said, "For the past ten years." It is reported in the CourierabsoluVely correctly, and the leading article in the Courier next da.v shows that I spoke of the past ten years. The Toowoomba r"hroniclc tried to twist it. [:\lr. FoGAHTY: lt never does that.] It did on that occasion-that is the only thing· in which it did. In their l~ading article they tried to twist it. I had dealt with the figures they bad previously q noted, and they wanted to retaliate in the best way they could, and so they seized hold of this. Bnt, on the other band, the Darling Do1~ns Gazette came out the next dav or the day afterwards and said the Toowoom6a Chronicle was absolutely wrong, and pointed to the Tr8,LSurer's figures, and such like, to show that I was right. I shall leave that for the present, and will now dertl w1th the difference between the hon. member for Rnckhampton and the hon. men,ber for Carpentaria. The lion. member for Rock­hampton, at all events, cannot say that be spoke hurriedly the other night ; and no person can say he was misreported in a letter which he writes to a newspaper, because, I presu1ne, it is written by himself. If a man writes a letter, he generally look' over it, if writing to a news­paper, and, if it is a letter dealing with finance, the probability is that it takes him a few days to look into the matter, if he knows anything at all about the subject. Some people, however, plunge with remarkable rapidity into things that they are absolutely ignorant about. I think that was the position of the hon. member for Rockhampton. The hon. member for Carpen­taria quoted some figures the other night, and said that the bon. member for Rockhampton made a mistake of several hundreds of thousands of pounds. The latter said "Ko," and inter· jections went across the Chamber in which they differed from each other. The financial or mathematical adviser of the leader of the Opposition-the hon. member for Flinder,,,­came to the rescue last night, and wished to put the hon. member for Carpentaria right. He pninted out that the bon. member took the

wrong set of ti!'ures, The hon. member for Rockhampton gave two sets of figures in his letter, and in one of tho;e he said that the revenue for a certain year was so much and the expenditure so much, ,;ud the other set of figures was some hundreds of thousands of pounds different. When the hon. member for Carpen­taria took one set of figures-as he had a perfect right to do-he was told that he had taken the wrong table, and that the uther was the right table, and that he should have taken this other table. If I show that the other table is wrong, I suppose he will say that for my purposes on this occa~ion it is the wrong table, and that I should take the other one. The defence of the hon. member for Rock­harnpton is that one table was right, and that the other was a wrong table. I have in my hand the hon. member's own letter to the Rockhampton Bulletin. There he says in the first table-this is the right table some­times, but just now it is the wrong table-that the revenue for the year 1901-2 was £4,425,287. In the next table be says thattherevenueforl !JOl-2 was £4,242,295, a difference of nearly £200,000. The hon. member says it is a printer's error. Somebody said a while ago that there was a nought put on. There is not a nought in the whole thing, and if a nought wer" rtdded it would make,. difference of nearly£2,000,000. The expenditure given in these same tables is equally wrong; at all event,; the two tables differ, so that one of them must be wrong. In one table the hon. member says that. the expendi­turr for the same year was £4,628,224 and in the second table he says it was £4,674,234. It is an extraordinary thing that if it was a printer\:; error in one case it should go regu­larly through the whole of these tables. But this is not a question between the boo. member for Rockbampton and the hon. member for Car­pentaria aA to whether the first or second set of figures is right, because both sets are wrong. The hun. member is not right at all. He gave us a fr,esh set of figures here the other night. I regret, for the reputation of that distinguished city which he represents, that the hem. mem­ber should have put his statement before the House in the manner be has done. It i, reported in history that when the cele­brated Sheridan was going to become Treasurer of the British Empire, eomeone said it was a remarkable thing that a man who could not do a sum in long division should be Treasurer of England. The hon. member, apparently, cannot do simple addition. If he is not able to add up these figures, I would advise him to ask one, of his t·oys, when he goes home in the evening, to add up the tables he gave in the Rockharnpton Bulletin and in Hamar-cl. If he does, he will find that he has not added them up properly; and yet the bon. member, who c<>nnot do a sum in addition, is looked upon by his colleagues as an authority on finance ! It is an astonishing thing to me tha,t, as far as we have gone, it has been accepted that the figures of the hon. member, with regard to the gross amount of revenue which we received for the four ,. ears he referred to, ending on the 30th June, 1892, and with regard to the expenditure for the same period, were correct. As a matter of fact, the hon. member states the revenue for those four years was £928,288 more than the Trea­surer of (~neeensland received. The hon. member did not consider what it costs to man,·,;;e the State of Queensland, including its share of the Commonwealth. If he did, the position would be understood; but he says posi· ti vely that the Treasurer of Queensland received the money, and the 'l'reasurer of Queensland spent it. He adds the expenditure that has taken place in :\Ielboume, where they have been

Add1·ess in lr'epl;lj. [::29 JuLY.] Address tn Repl,IJ. 125

making "ducks and drakes" in a remarka.ble manner of thP finances of (lueensland, and says the Treasurer of Queen,laud spent the money. The bon. member will tell us pre.>ently there is llO Commonwealth at all. He chari!eS here in this statement, for the first year, £231,0i)4 which never catne to thjs State, which uever was inside the Tr ... asury, wnich neither came in tH!r went out. Yet the hon. member sa"·' the Treasurer received it, and the Treasure!: spent it. If a man is responsible for a thing he Hhould take the full responsibility of it, hut I think a man like the hon. member for Rockhampton ought to know thrtt the Traasurer of Queensland i' not responsible for tbe actions of the Fedeml Trea­surer or the Federal Government. It m::ty be said that really this is the amnnnt of mvney th••t it cost to manage Queensland. That is the real position of affairs. But if there is any doubt on that question it is set at rest by the Treasnrter's tables, which the hon. member quoted for himself, and which r.he hon. member for IClinders <tlso quoted-from table :YI, I think, which givPR the exact amount of reveow~ rec,j ved and the expenditure, and the st!rplus or deficit for each year since the colony comrnenced. He has taken out right! v the rewnue and ex pendi­ture for Sir Hugh Nelson's four ye<trs, ;tnrl he has taken out rightly the rev .. nue ~tnd expendi­ture for the first two years of thee period of the Philp Government to which he referred. But w by doeo be not go to the same table and take out toe other figures rightly? The hon. member says the Treasurer received this money. He goes to the table which gives, 11ot the expenditure of Queensland, but the expenditure of Queensland placed side by side with the expenditure of the Commonwealth. He takes out the expanditnre of the Commonwealth and adds it to the amount of money which the Treasurer received. 'rhe thing is easily settled. [Mr. HARTlACRE: Have you nothing better than that?] The hon. member asks me if I have nothing hett.er than that. This is a matter of £938,000, and it makes all the differe'lce in the world with regard to what the hon. member says about the amount of revenne ·We received. It was never rec<ived at all in any shape or form. If there is any doubt upon that point, if there is any conflict of opinion about the exact figures, we have the Auditor-General's report to fall back upon. We shall see what the Auditor­General sayo we received in those years. [Mr. HARDACRE: You do not under.3tand the figures. (Governmentlaughter.) It is a "white elepiMnt."] We will see what the Auditor-General says; probably he understands the matter. On page 2 of the Auditor-General's report for last year­that is, the last year the hem. nJernher for Rock­hampton deals with-the Auditor-General s•ys the total expenditure for the year wa< £3,91i7,001. 'rhe hon. member oays that it is £4,674.000-· £700,000 mure than the Auditor-General says it

is. The Auditor-General "].so savs [8·30 p.rn.] that the net revenne was £3,550.000

--ex::tctly £700,000 less than the hon. member for Rockh>tmpton said it was. If there is any doubt or cavilling about the technical amount of the sum of monev that came to the Treasurer, and he won't accept the Treasurer's tah!es, then \Ve hav~" the Auditor-General, wbn is paid by this House and who'e word I have never hreard doubted, saying that che amount is £930,000 less in tbe'e four years than what the hon. member said. f:;o, what been me~ of the hon. rneinber's flnancing? I would like t.o know who is misrepre~<'nting things. [Mr. KIDSTON: You will find out.] I know th~t if we were to sav that the Treasurer is responsible for what -~Ir. Kingston-that extinct volcano-and the }federal Treasurer did when he was in power, I believe the hon.

member's figures would be conect. If be says that there is no such thing as a Commomvealth, or that the Fnancial Statement which Sir George Turner delivered yesterday is a myth -that i.<, the Statement in which be says th«t he i; g<Jing to 8pend £300,000 or £400,000 more next year-- if the hon. e:entlem"n gets up next year '"nd says th::tt the :Federal Treasurer said notbiug uf the kind-that it was Mr. Crihb, the Treasurer of (tueensbnd, who spent it-he would be as logical and right as he is now. I would like to ask what kind of argnment is that. 2V[any of us who voted for federation know to our extreme regret that there is a Cornrnonwbalth, but we have to take the responsibility of our actions ; we have to pay the expenses they pile upon us, although it is dune by the Federal Government and uot by t.he State House. The bon. member told ns a great many other things. He took four tables, but he did not bring in the year between the f<>t1r years he took and the f•mr years pre­ceding when Sir Hugh Nelson was re"ponsible for the finance". Sir Hngh Nelson initiated a new policy; as things Wt"re reviving, he borrowed largely, began building railways, and spending a large amount of money. I do not ,ay it wa' badly expended, be­canse the colony reaped the benefit of it, but it tneaus tnat a great dt:'al of 1nonev is put intu circnbtion. \VJ.y did not the twn. member take the four years before Sir Hugb Nelson came into office? HA looks with con­tempt on the men who sit on the 'l'rea;mry benches and their supporters-at those people who control the finances of the State; he thinks they are mere pig-mies compared with the men of the past. \V ell, probably they are. Two men of the past the present members of t.he ll'linistry cannot be compared with; Sir Thomas :Yicllwraith and Sir Samuel Griifith. Bnt let us take the four ;ve::trs immediately preceding the entry of Sir Hugh K elson into office, and see what those years give us. 'l'lle bon. rr.emher told us tha.t Queensland has been in trouble before-that it had lHlen in diffi­culties very often, but, never was she in anything approRching her position at the present time. The hon. gentleman was ·1uite pathetic, he almost weeped. K ow let us take the four :ve:1.rs immediate!) preceding the entry of Sir Hugh Nelson mto office, which the hon. member is so proud about, althongb he denounc,_d Sir Hugh Nebon when in office-be could not revilP t.im enough. These four years begRn with 1889-HO, and ended with i892-3. We find that for the four years of the Philp Admini;tration the hon. member fur Rockh::trnpton was speaking about there was "'n annual deficit of £1!)0,605, part of which was run by the lVIo;ehead GoYern­ment, which Sir 'l'homas Mci!wraith forw.ed, .,.nd part of which was run by the Ooalttim•­when thoHe two intelltctual giants, Sir Thomas ::1-Icllwraith and Sir Samuel Grifiitb, came to get her-two and a-half years previous to Sir Hugh Nelson coming into office. If we take one side of Sir Hng-h ;\:'elson's period, we should take the other. vVe find in tbttt period there was an annual deficit, taking the four years together, of £270,412, or £80,000 a ye::tr more than the deficit during the bst four year3. ~l'ow let n,< ekip one vear, in which there was a small surplus of £11G,OOO, and take the period of fnur years before that, when Sir Samuel Gciffith came into office-Ul84-fi to 1887-8-and bow rJo we find the condition of the t;o}nnv then a-; u~nu-

1 pared with the pre<ent? [An honnurabl" H'em­bPr: The £10,000,000 loan was borrowed then.) Yes, and it was being spent then, and I say that such a volume of money being sp<~nt is respon­sible for the putting of a Jot of money into circulation and for improving the position

126 Address in Repl!f· [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Repl.IJ.

of the Treasury, because it all means more business-more liquor being consumed, and the Treasury being replenished in a variety of forms. As I said, skipping one year and taking the four years immedbtely preceding the entry of Sir Hugh Nelson into office, we find that for those four years there was a deficit of £2·12,321-i per year; but figures themselves do not convey everything. \Ye have the T1easurer's financial tables, and I challenge the hon. mem­ber for Rockhampton or anvone else-and if he disputes me, now is his t"ime. According to Table JH, for the f•mr years commencing 1884-5 the average popu~ation of the colony was ;i:)7,G53, and there was an annual deficit of 14·8 pence per head. The next period I wish to refer to is the four years following and immediately preceding the Ne•son Governmenl-frc,m 1880 to 1892-3-when the :tnnual deficit wgs £270,412, :1nd the average population of the State was 3\J\J,~\)7, or 1:is. 6d. per head of the populn.tion; and the deficit of the Philp Government during the last four yt-arf', when the u.veragE: population was .104,!172, was only 7s. Gd. per head of the population. And yet the hon. member say' that we were never in such a position as we are now ! rrhe hon. member on all occasions of this kind is alwap; ready to decry the country which gives him an existence. The only thing I can com­pare him and his friends to is the caterpillar that consumes the leaf that supports it. The hon. gentleman talks about the reckless manner in which the finances of the country ·were running riot, and about, our borrowing powers. I 'ay at once we have borrowed very largely, and we have been borrowing for a series of years much more large!)- than I like, and I said so publicly at Toowoomba. I said we would never have proper advancement in this State until we knocked off the policy of borrow­ing to a very large extent. It is impossible to get this settlement of people on the land which people tRlk so much about if we borrow money and create an artificial condition of things which keeps the people off the land. \Ne cannot keep farmers' sons on the land just now ; they want to get into the railways and police and into every other department of the Government. \Vith regard to this borrowing that is so reckless that we are indul~ing in, according to the hon. member, more than the other States, I would like to quote from Coghlan, the recognioed statist of the Commonwealth. On page 1019 he gives first the debts of all the cobnies, and he says it would be unfair to take these debts into account without taking th<lrn in connection with the population of the different States. That i< the proper w<;y of doing it. He gives in thb particular table the amount of money which each of the States owed on the population basis per capita for a n'umber of years, and this is how it turns out: For the lasG ten years the extent to which we have increased our indebtedness from the year 1891 to the year HlOl-1!!02, New South \Vales pe.r head of the popula­tion has increHsed its indebtedness by £3 15~. 4d. per head, Victoria by £6 13s. ·2d., >tnd Queensland £2 lGs. 1d. The hon. member tells us we are running to financial ruin. \Vel!, everythivg- in life is relative. South Au,tralia comes next whh an increase TJer head of the pnpulation of £12 12s. lld., \V estern Australia £41 Ss. lOd,, and little 'l'"smania £5 12s. 7d. Tasmania increased its indebtedness per head of population twice as much as Ciueemland did, and yet we are told that we are running to financial ruin ; but still we are moderate compared with the other .Australian States. New Zealand waq £5 1!Js. Sd.-that is, about two and a-half times the amount of the increase per head of the population during the last ten years that Queensland had ; and the

average for Australasia is £7 17s. 9d., or three times the average per head of the population of Queensland. I think we have been exceedingly moderate. I feel lik6 Lord Clive did when he came back from India-he said he was astonished at hiR own moderation. I may say, in connection with this, that His J<~xcellency the Governor of Victoria, in that very remarkable speech which was reported in the London Times a few weeks ago, and to which I have alluded, points out that the debt per head of the population is no real test of the wealth and prosperity of a country. It is too long to read the speech now, but if I had got up a little ear:ier I would have been very pleased to get it into Hansard. He says thot in Australia, where they say we carry a l>eavier debt than any people in the world, nur debts are inclured for productive purposes. Alt.hongh some of them may not be producing at the present time, the time will come when they will be productive. The debt of other countries, fur instance, that of :B'rance in 1871 in consequence nf the German war, increa"''l by about £GOO,OOO,OOO. There is no return for that; that is a war debt. Our debt is a debt of pence, it is a debt incurred for com­mercial purposes, it is not a w"r debt. \Ve ha'e got comething to show f.,r it. It is a very remarkable sp,ech, and I commend it to the hon. member for Rockhampton. It will improve him, and it certainly cannot make him worse, from a financial point of view, than he is at the present time. The hon. member told us that the people looked to the Government for guidance. At other times he tells us that the Government have to look to the people for guidance. It is proposed to go to the people every four years. Some hon. members opposite think we should go every year to the people for guidance, but on this occa•,ion, at all events, the people look to tbP- Government for guidance. That is to say, the masters are looking to the servants for guidance. He said that the Gov·ernment stood with their hands turned down and did nothing for the people. What could the Government do? Were they to declare war against the elements? The forces of Nature were arrayed against the Government, and we were powerle.-.-s. But they did all they could under the circumstanceE. They tried to find as much work as possible for some of the unem­ployed, and as far as they could they lubricated the commercial machine so as to make progress easier. The hon. member says our expenditure was reckless and extravagant. vVell, I thiiak I have given a pretty fair answer to that. On the one hand, he says why did we not spend more money, and on the other hand he protests against the reckless course we pur­sued in the expenditure of money. His action is like some of the speeches I have heard him deliver in this House. He sometimes gives us an inkling that he is going to do a certain thing, and then he walks out of the Chamber so that he will he able to say, "Look how I spoke;'" or if it suits his purpose he can say, "I did not vote on the question at all." '.rh at is a trick of the trade to humbug the people. We have h•ard a lot about the peuple. I respect the people as much as anyone. \Ve represent the people, and we have no p<lwer except what we derh·e from them, but my definition of the peopl<e is very different to that of hon. members opposite. The definition given by hon. members oppocite is like that given by Lord Morris, who, being confronted on one occasion by a defendant who kept referring to "the people, the people," retorted, "The devil a village in Ireland which has not got a blackguard who does not call himself the people." (Government laughter.) The people does not consist of the man who get• on the stump and calls himself "the people."

Address in Hepl_IJ· [:29 JULY.] Adtlress in Replp. 127

Tl1e people consi..-t of thr· -e whom '"'" are oup­posed tu fairly represent, and if they are not fairly represented at the pre,ent time we will very soon mak<· them so, notwithstanding what hon. rnembers opposite think. Another extra­ordinary thi"g he said was that there wa" a clam"nt need for economy. He tells us we ~:"hnnld have cut down the Govf>rnor's flalary, and in the F'::trne :-;entence he ~:aid he knew tha~ \\as one of the things that c"uld not be done. If the hon. member dio<putes that I will read it fromHansard. [Mr. KmsTON: \V hat I said was t!mt it could not be done with the pre.-ent Governor, but it could be arranged for the future.] The present Governor is here for six years. \Vhat is the tvm of talking- about a thing we cannot do for seven years? \Ve Rhnuld base two elections bef>re .then. He is talking about a reform w hi eh should be con1mencerl at on er and he a..rltnits that it cannot be put into execution for F:even years. I \Vill only say now with re~pect to the hon. member for Hockhampton that "'' far as I recollecc, notwitbstandin>( the manner in which the hon. rnernber declain1s ugainst ex­tnt\·agance, and against loans, and gcing into debt, I do not rernember when a loan was going throngh that he ever voted against jt. I an1 eertttin there a.re son1P that he did not oppm~e. That; was the time for the hon. member, if he \\','lB oppused to the policv of borrowing-, to !:igllt against it, not allow Jt to go by consent, and then when the country has benefit;·.:[ by the expenditure, and the class he professe., to represent has benefited-he should not then turn round and say, "I am prepared to share the profits, but if there is any disgrace to carry you must carry it." I don't believe there is any disgrace. I believe that, taken on the whole, our loan expenditure has been beneficial to Queensland up to the present time. I think it has been fairly administered; and if there has been any extravagance, as there ;, in the case of most Governments, the Go­vernment are not responsible to so large an extent as the hon. members who compose the Assembly are rpsponsible. I am not shirking my responsibility one l>it. The Go­\'ernment would not recon1n1end it if they did not think it was a wise thing to do. Great as our public debt is, I say it is better that we should have that public debt, and the gTeat number of miles of railway we possess, than that we should be without those railwavs and without the hL1lk nf our pul 'lie debt. \Vithont those rail ways, how would the country b8 developed? How could Brisuane have become a great city? The important towns along the coast would have been nothing more than fishing villages bnt for the ·wise expenditure of loan nwnes. Louking back twenty or foroy years, if we could rec11st the map of Qm·emland, and take U!J our rail­ways without expense, and remove them to places where they would do most good in connection with settlement, I do not say we would put them exactlo' where they are now, but it is easy tu be wise after the event. [Mr. SmDIEIWILLE: Are you not repen,ting the folly now?] If I am, it is a folly the hon. gentleman pres,ed very strongly on me. [j\fr. SU}!MER· VJLLE: No.] The hon. member won't. deny that he :,md several others formed a d,,putation in favour of extending the Esk line to :IS' anango as soon a• poss!hle. [Mr. su~BIERVILLE: Ynu admitted that it is the one line that will pay.] I said it would pay better than some other,;, That line is going on as far as Parliament authorised. Mone~- will be available in a day or two; and that line and the other line3 will go on to the fullest extent Parliament authorised. [An honourable member: MorP's the pity.] I cannot help that. I "m hereto carry out the decrees of the House. It is not for me to say whether alineshall

be built after Parliament has anthorised it and passed the money. I have my own opinion about several lines, but I am only the agent of Parlia­ment. I have my instructions, and I am going to carry them out. [Mr. SVllniERVILLE : I will support the Gm,ernment in "ll it promised on that point, fJrO\ ided it t wries out the promise~ so far «S Bouthcm Queensland is concerned.] It is not a question of Southern Queensland. So long as I am here to administer the railways of the State, it is a question of the whole State being treated wi:hout fear or fa Your. The Government have been denounced in regar,l to reckless Pxtr vagance by others as well as by the ban. member fur R"ckhrtmpton, It has been a kind of parrot cry. The leader of the Opposition aoked what the poor man would do when thrown out of work by public works being stopped, and. at the s<nne tirne he says we 1nust not borrow more money. Tbe hon. member for l•'linders and others :said we were not progressl ve, rtnd at the same time told us we must not carry out the one policy necessary to main' the country progre di,·e in times like these. The lea cl er of the La hour party, or the Tr,•des Hall party, rnade an at~-ack upon rr1e in regard to fl.omething I said some time agn about civil ~erv~ntR. He said that at :en elecli<>rl in Toowong in lS(lR I went speaking aga,inFt the Government and rh·nounced tne civil ~er\~ant:-;. I did not know tbE::re was an election at Touwong in 18~1:). I certainly did not go and speak against the Government. The only election I spoke at in Toowoug in my life was when the present hon. member for Toowong got into this House, and I was on the platform supporting him as a Government candidate. This is an instance of the remarkable manner in which truth oozes from these hon. members, It seems to get out of their finger-tips, like Bob Acre's valour, without their knowing. \Vbether they are unable to retain it inside, I am unable to say. The hon. member for Bowen made personal charges against myself which, if true, would make me unworthy to hold a seat, not only in the 3.Iinistry, bnt in this Oh am her. If I had only to deal With members of this House, I would treat these remarks with contempt. but there are '" great many people in the country who, when they read HanRard and see the statements m1tde by a member of Parliament, withont knowing the man, attach a great deal of importance to them, and I must deal with tbern on that account. The hon. member Raid-if I quote him wrongly he will be able to correct me-that the Bowen

line was closed--which we 1tll know [9 p.m.] -and that it was closed because I

happened to be a director of the Queensland l\Ieat \Vorks, and because Bergl and Co., or Honlder Brothers, who owned the meat­works at Bowen, were the chief competitors 1tgainst the Queensland Meat \Vorks in :Northern Queensland, the object of closing the line being to compel Bergl and Oo. to close their works. He said more than that. He said that after the line was closed I did my level best tn get the mnnicipality of Bowen to take over the line, and that he advised the municipality of Bowen not to take it over. They wonld have taken it over if it had not been for the hon. member for Bowen. If the municipality had taken it over, I presume they would not have closed the line against Bergl 1tnd Oo., on whom their township was living. I did my beot to get the municip ,Jity to take it over, and I have official correspondence in my box at the present moment, signed by the Commissioner and his secretary, that a month before the line was closed we communicated with the local aut.hority at Bowen, telling them the line would be clr,sed a month afterwards, and saying we thought it would be better for them to take over and work the line. We thought they could

128 .ddrl!'ess Id Repl;ij. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

work it cheaper than the Government. They conld put fm less trains, ~tnd save in a variety of ways. They would have taken the line over, the hon. member admits, but he persuaded them not to. He told them his great influence would compel the Government to k6ep it upen. I will ask the House who is responsible for not having that Bowen line rnnning all the time-the hon. member for Bowen or myself? I closed it thro:1gh the exigencies of the State, through its financial difficulties. The lnn. member per­suaded the rnunicip:tlity, he admits himself, not to take the line nvt>r, not to give Bergl and Co. facilities for running their cattle to the meitt­works. I say the hon. member wa' responsible. I go further, and say that when I was in V ic­tori8. inspecting the irrig-ation wurks there, and when the Hon. G. \V. Gray WitS managing the Railway Department for me, the hon. rn8111ber c'amP to interview hin1, and ther~ i ~ an otficial statement signed by ;vir. Gray and i\I r. Pratten, the secretary to the CorrunisRioner, a.s tu what occurred. He ad vi sed them that the hest thing to do wus to 1nake arrangernents for running the last fi miles of it as fa1' as the mea.tworks, and to close up the rest. if Bergl and Co. did not happon to u~e it. Again I ask who is rei5ponsible '! Probably the hon. m"mber w:mt.ed a. grievance, like other members of th.e H"use. If he din, he has got it. Let me tell the hon. member that the Qneen,land J\Iea.t Company and Bergl and Co. are tbe best po,sihle friends; they "ork together in the most friendly manner, >>nd assist each other in a variety of ways. [Mr. C.UIJ<JRON: And always have dune.] I go turtber cmd say that, even if all the rail ways in Queensland be onged tnthe (~neensland J\Ieat Works, Houlder Brothers would still have a bigger lever over the (,lueensland ]\feat \Vorks than the Queens­land Meat vVorks would have over Houlder Brothers. There is no Bergl in the firm now ; it is only a name, a. sort of figure-hP id. They have a monopoly of the m"at'carrying trade of Australia with their lan;;e fleet of steamers. They could ,erim>Rlv obstruct the Queensland :Heat 'vV arks if they liked, as far a' South Africa is concerned, or at least we shc.uld have to go to an enormous P.xpensA to get son1e other mode of conveyance. I; it likely, then, that I should be so' foolish, under those circurnstances, as the hon. member for Bowen would insinuate? I leave it to hon. rnen1hers to dra\"'/ their own con­clusions from those facts. \Vith regard to the hon. member's tirade about the ridiculousness of closing lines, I need only remark that seven or eight year., ago in Victoria, which is a very small State compared wit.b Queensland, and much more densely popula• ed, they closed three branch linpo, That was under the r~qwte of Mr. l\Iathieson, who went there from Queensland. And within the last three or four weeks, under Mr. Tait, the new Commissioner, a gentleman with a world-wide experience, they are in the process of closing three or four more. And those, mind you, are feeders, which the Bowen line is not. It cornmences at a gnm-tree and ends nowhere. I have expressed my willingneos scores of times, as far as I conld do it., if it was desir•thle, to connect Bnwen with the Northern line bv connecting with the Ayr 'l ram way. I ,;ould recommend the Government to help t.hem to help themselves. The people who bnilt the Ayr Tramway are not only paying the Government 4 per cent., but they are also Pitying their way. \Vhy should not the people of Bow en do the same thing? \Vhatever Townsville was in the past, it is now one of the finest ports in Australia. The biggest vessels can go alongside the wharf and load there. Having .:one to that expense, why should we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to eHable another port tn compete for the same trade? \Vhile thousands

of settlers in other portions of the State ha ne no line of railway ttt all, the people of Charters Towers and the \Vest should be very well s:ttis­fied to have one line to one p >rt, with"m hrcving two lines to two litierent purts, built at the ex­pense of pe 1plP many of whom havP no JineF at alL I may udd further that Captain Hutton e.ame to see me :_;dnc ', Thi~'-~ is the gent.lt:'lnan whu repre­sented Bergl Brothers in all these transactiolls, and be told m,,. in the presence of the Hon. A . • T. Thynne and Mr. Pratten, the secretary to the Hailwa.Y Commissioner, that be was perfectly satisfied with his treatment u.s it stando just now, that he could not be better treated, and that matters were misN'Pl'Psented to him. I have no doubt that it was the hem. member for Bowen who was the conduic pipe by which 'hose 1nisrepresentations were conveyed to him.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The SECRETARY FOR RAILWAY": At all events, this was told me in the preHence of the Hon. A. J. Thynne, his solicitor in the mat­ter, and Mr. Thynn e will be :.!1le to verify my statement. This is quite a cHfferent thing from wanting to cloHe np the meat works at Bo" en as owmd by Honlder Bros. The hon. member also went into the question of charges, anrl it would be an excBedingly serious question with regard to railway aclrninistration if I were gnilty of any­thing nf thi, kind. I may P"int out, fir,t and forernn:.;;t, that nn railway rates ace paR~ed a.t all without being initiated by the Commissioner, :end when the Commissioner was appointed last year, this House rightly and justly expressed its very highest opinion of the Commissioner. [Govern­ment members: Hear, hear!] vVhat has happened to the Commissioner since then that he is going to be a tool of mine or of anybody else'? The rates must commenP.e with the Commissioner. I have nothing to do with them but refuse to ratify them. I have no power whatever to alter the rates one single fract.jon Ul-J or down; but the Commissioner must come to me and I must give them my approvai before they are passed on to the Executive Council. The hon. member stated that I told the Bowen people to in­crease the rates and cut down the wages. I challenge th8 hon. member to produce any authority for that statement. I haYe nut cut duwn a single iterr1 of \vagt:""s su far in connection with any of the railway line·.... ThP hon. mewber was referring, no doubt, to the constructiun of ne\,v lines. The wJJge~ there are up to the standard for standard workmen, hut in these times , ... .-e have many hundreds of men at work who never did any navvying, who are not physic.tlly strong enough to do a fair day's work of that kind, and I have instructed the enginreers that in these trying timee, rather than see those rnen thrown out of work they are to pay each man according to his physical skill and ability. And T can tell the House that the dearest work that is being performed for tile Itailway Department at the present time is verformed by t.he men who are getting the lowe"t wages. They are not strong enough to do a fnll day's work, and it would be absolutely absurd, when a m:m cttn only do half a dav's work, and takes his time to do it, that he should get the 'ame rate of wages as the standard n"vvy, wbo can do a proper day's work. The general practice is that men should not be emp!Pye:i in work at all unlesd they are thoroughly cumpetent for that lJ'"~rticular class of work; and if we were pctst:;ing through normal timeo that is the polic} I would like to adopt. But eYery hon. member knows that we itre passing throm;h abnormal times. Hundreds of men have been driven from the vV est, and all ove• the country, and am I to »ay that because a man does not happen to be up to 'the standard of a navvy, there must be no existence

Address in Repl,y. [29 JULY.] Address in Repl,y. 129

at all for him? I thought I was doing a humane action. [Government members: Hear, hear!] I thought I was doing the best I could under the circumstances, and that it was a matter for commendation rather than for censure. I did not fix thE rates of wag.,s. 'rhey are fixed by the different engineers throughout the State, and I am assured hy them that they would be exceedingly glad to get rid of th"t class of men altogether. 'l'his does not apply to the railways alone. I understand that the town council of Maryborough a few months ago put men on to work piecework, and the men could only earn 3s. a day at that work. I believe also that the town council of Rockhampton put on a lot of unemployed, and I believe their scale of wages w<ts infinitely below the standard the Government pays for the same class of work on these lines. And these are the people who denounce me! I was a! ways in favour of pay­ing a man abs0lutely wh<>t he was worth, and I always will be. The hou. member for Bowen said that every 6ffort that the people of Bowen made to get fair conditions with regard to that line was thwarted by me. I repeat that there i• 1w evidence whatever on that point, any more than there is on others that I am going to ref~r to. ThA hon. member said that I increased the rates on live stock bv 10 per cent., and the frozen rateR, first, by 33 per ce11t. ann then by about 50 per cent. That would be an incre<Lse of 83 per cent. (Laughter.) \Veil, I do not see why I should not indulge in a little transposition ag well as the hon. member for Bowen, who said, when criticising the speech of the hon. member for Carpentaria, that his speech, when compared with that of the hon. member for Rockhampton, was as a mountain compared with a molehill. I do not think he intended to put it th<>t way, but that w<>s exactly the position of affairs. Fifty per cent. and 33 per cent. m<>ke 83 per cent., and that is the increase that the hon. member for Bowen said I made in the rates on frozen me<Lt. [Mr. LESINA: It is very ingenuous, but not convincing.] [Mr. KENNA: l said nothing of the kind.] The hon. member said-

He increased the live-stock rates by 10 per cent., and the frozen meat rates, first, by about 33 per cent. and then by about 50 per cent. The effect of that can be easily seen. ['l'he SJI..CHETARY :FOR RAILWAY:s: That is not true.] I have the figures fl'om the }Iinister's own department, and these fi~ures have been verified. Sup~ posing there were 1,000 cattle at Charh.:v1lle to be trucked to ltedbank or Pinkeuba, and supposing there were 1,000 at Hnghenden to be tal{en to the Burdekin Works or the Ross River, it will be easily seen that the Queensland Meat Export Company will only pay a 10 per cent. increase, but on the cattle coming to Redbank and tl1e Burdekin }lea~. \rorks, there would be an increa:::e of 10 per cent. on live ?Jtock and an increase of 50 per cent. on frozen meat.

That is at a lesser rate even than the Bowen rate. Now, the hon. member bad any amount of time to correct the report of his speech if it wa' not correct. He got his proofs, and this is how the report reads after going through the hon. member's hands. I told the hon. member at the time that he was giving the House inform<>tion which wa< absolutely wrong, and he s<Lid that he could verify it. Now, I have here the tables signed hy the traffic auditor and Mr. Pratten. I will inform the Honse wh>tt <>re the charges at the present time. I may tell the House that of all the meat companies in the State the Queens­land Meat Export Cnmpany are by far the largest dealers in cattle. Last year this com­pany killed 30,000 head of cattle at Townsville, and 50,000 in Queensland, which was nnt far from being as much as was killed by all the other meat companies in Queensland. The first thing I did with regard tn the rates was to take off the rednction of 20 per cent.

1903-K

which the meat companies got on train loads. They paid the oedinary rates. The tab!P. from which I am now about to quote is signed by S. Davis, traffic <>uclitor. It will appear in Hansard and the Press, and I shall lay it on the table of the House so that hon. members can consult it if they choose. There are three rates given-the rate when I came into office, the rate for the second period when the first rise which the hon. member refers to took place, and the third rise which inclnded frozen meat and other things. The rate for live cattle frorn Churle­ville tn Brisbane, a distance of 4R3 miles, was 14s. 2d. per head when I c:wJe into office. The 20 per cent. reducti<>n was taken off, which made tbe rate 16s. 8d., an increase of 1S per cent. The third rate was a general all round rate on all kinds of produce, including cattle, and this made the rate 18s. 4d. per head, or <>n increas" of 29 per cent. over what it was when I <>ssumed office. The cancellation of the percentage reduction raised the mte from Long­reach tD Rockharnpton, a distance of 427 miles, from 13s. 5d. tn 15s. 3d. per head, or 14 per cent.; the second increas" was to 16s. 9d., or 25 per cent. ; ""' that cattle from Longreach to .l:tnck­hampton, where the Queensland Meat Export Company has no works, are carried for 4 per corn. le's than cattle from Cha.rleville to the Queensland Meat \Vorks. 'l'he first increase in the rate from Hughenden to To•.mBvi!Je, a dis­tance of 236 miles, was from 9s. ild. to !ls. fld. per head, or fi per cent. ; the next increase was 10 per cent. ; so that it now comes to 16 per cent. more than it wa.s when I took office. I may point out that " reduction is made in <>ccord<>nce with the zone scale which prevails generally-that is, the longer the distance the greater the reduction. The distance to Towns­ville is only 23fl miles, as against 427 miles to Hockhampton, consequently the increase is only 16 per cent., as <>gainst 25 per cent. on tbe rate from Longreach to Rockhampton. The first rise in the rate from \Vanga.ratta to Bowen was 5 per cent. ; afterwards there was a rise of 50 per cent., which makes 57 per cent., as against the hon. member's 83 per cent. ; but then, let me say, there is a reduction of 20 per cent. on train loads for all cattle brought over the Xorthern line and t~.ken <>fterwards oYer the short line to Bowen. So that I think the Bowen people have been remarkably well treated. Of course I quite understand that a man who writes doggerel is entitled to a poetic license. (Government laughter.} The hon. mem­ber referred in his speech to the Reclbank Meat Works, owned by J·ohn Cook e. These works are 20 miles from Brisbane, towards Ipswich. He stated that the (,lueensland Meat \Vorks had an incomparable advantage over .John Cooke with regard to the rate they pain on live stock, and s<>id that a man bringing 1,000 head of cattle from Cbarleville to the QueenRland Meat \Vorks would gain £1,000 over a man bringing the same cla%" of cattle to the Red hank Meat \Vorks, and that und~r the new or increased rate he would gain £1,250. That would be something like £1 4s. per head that the Queensland :Meat Export Company would make over the Redbank Meat Works, and the whole cost. from Charleville to Brisbane 1s only ahout 14s. per head. That is an extraordinarY calculation. The hon. mem­ber told us the other day, when writing an article in the Btd/etin on Brunton StepheilR, that he was a member of a family of six--two br"thers and three sisters. Two and three made six on that occasion, and that is a fair sample of labour mathematics generally. NowT come to the frozen meat rates. The rate from Mooraree to South Brisbane, a distance of 10 miles, was 4s. per ton, or 4 ·s pence per ton per mile. The rate was after­wards raised from 4s. to 5s. 3d. The last rate

1;)0 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

wus 5s., so that there was a rise on three occa· sion~ from 4s. to 5.3., or an increase of 25 per cent. At the same time there was an increase of 29 per cent. on live stock coming into Bris­bane. The rate from Redbank to Pinkenba, a distance of 213 miles, was os. ()d. originaliy. This rate was increased to 7s. 2d., and the last rate was 10s., or a rise of i'il pet· cent. ; but I should explain that this includes 28. pee ton wharfage charges, as they have the ri,ht under the cont~act to use the railway wharf at Pinkenba to load their stuff there, so that really the increase comes dow.n to :JO nr 33 per cent. Then we have Oonoomba to Tr,wnsville, a distance of 6 miles, where the rate was increased from 2s. Gel. per ton to 3r;. per ton, and then to 3s. 9d. per ton, or 53 per cent. The rate from Mooraree to Brisbane was, as I have mentioned, increased to 6d. per ton per mile; from Redb>tnkto PiukenbC~4"(jl pence per ton per mile. The Queensland Meat ·works at Townsville pay 7·50 pence per ton jJer mile, while the rate from Sellheim to Townsville is only 3"2 pence per mile. Bergl ,,nd Oo. convey their own meat at present,

having the use of the line »nd [9"30 p.m.) stock for a nominal sum. I think I

have shown sufficiPntly in re[>»rd to the frozen meat rate.s and live stock rates that the bald, barren statements of the hon. member for Bowen are without foundation. Here are the figures which have been made up in the Rail­way Department and signed by the Under Secretary and Traffic Auditor a few days ago. Any member is at liberty to see them, and he has the opportunity of taking them to the Railway Department and seeing whether they are correct or not. If I altered or interfered with these figures in any way, or if this is not a correct document which ha' been given to me, I won't sit 11nother day in this House. The hon. member for Bowen accused me of misrepre­senting things, but I think the hon. member himself was the party gt1ilty of tbat little tmns­action. In speaking of reform he quoted tbis passage from "Todd"-

In :-;mall communities and in provinces where the business of legislation ig 1nainly of a municipal descrip­tion, experience has shown that two Chambers are -cumbrous and needlessly expensive.

He quoted that as ag<tinst our present bicameral , ystem, bnt he stopped there. He did not read this, which immediately followed-

But in colonies entrusted with the lJowers of local self-government, and where the IJolicy of administration as well as the making of general laws for the we1fare and good government of all classes of the community al'f' under the control of a local Legislature, a second Chamber is a necessary institution.

[Government membere : Hear, hear!) I ask the hon. gentleman why did he suppress that from the House? Then "Todd " goes on-and this is what the hon. gentleman did not like--

It is a counterpois:.e to democratic ascendancy in the popular and most powerful Assembly, it affords some protection against hasty and ill-considered legislation and action, and serves to elicit the sober second thought of the people in contradistinction to the impul­sive first thought of the Lower House.

[Government members: Hear, hear !) That is distinctly the contrary of what the hon. mem­ber said, and yet he gets up in this House and wants to drag down the reputation of that celebrated jurist "Todd" as well as his own reputation. There is "Todd" for thehon.member! Then he told us it was not necessary to have both Houses at all, and quoted as an example for Australian democracy the constitution of Farliaments in several places. I have no doubt the hon. member would not like even the Lower House, but would like the Trades Hall to rule the country; at any rate, he is entirely opposed

to an Upper House on any principle. "What did he quote as a.n example for Australian democracy? Did he go to the United States or any place like that for an example ? No. Here are his own words--

Ceylon, Hougkoug, Straits Settlement, Mauritius, Britbh Honduras--

\Vbat about the piebald now? (Government laughter.)

Costa Rica.

There is only one Hou"e there, and these are the places and people we should imitate. If these are pmper pe,.,p!e to imitate, why does he object to them coming here to show us how to govern this country with one House? I am not saying that that would be desirable, but that is the hon. member's contention. But what can you expect from the hon. member who, after all he has writ. ten in tbe Worke1· and said in this House; advocates that syndicates should construct rail­way lines in Queensland ? He wanted to know why Bergl and Oo. should not be allowed to complete the railway in ::\orthern Queensland. The hon. member is in a most extraordin:try position. I don't know anything to compare him with, except it he what Lowell says that-

A change of demand is change of condition, And everything is nothing except by position.

·when he was paid by the Trz,des Hall he was against capital, but when he went to Bowen he was capable of coming into this House to repre­sent capital. The hon. member just suits him­self to his position. I recoiled reading that Dr. J uhnson, when describing some man who had done something entirely contrary to the princi­ples he had been advocating for a long time­something in favour of a system that he had been for years denouncing-Dr. Johnson described him as a "pimp and parasite to the persons he was working for." Now I would not use those terms in this House. (Government laughter.) There is much I would haYe liked to have said, but it is getting late, but I do not think I should close without making some reference-! will leave the hon. member for Bowen alone for the present-I may return to him later on-but I would like to say a word or two with regard to the spbere of my administration as a member of the Government. Objection has been taken by several hon. members to my action in con­nection with the indigence allowance. Now, I think the House will agree with me when I say that it is necessary, whenever the State can afford to give the indigence allowance, tbat it should be given to the most deserving in the State--that is, to the persons who want it most. There are many people all over the Australian States to whom a little help would do no harm ; but that is not the ques­tion. Everyone almost seems to be in diffi­culties, bnt the whole lot cannot come to the Government and expect help. It is absolutely impossible to give relief to everyone. \Vhat­ever relief the State can afford to give should be given to the persons most necessitous. That is what I am trying to do ; but some mem· bers on the other side have been good enough to say, and make party capital out of it, that I am striking off some persons just now that went on when my colleague was administering the chari­ties; that there is a difference of opinion between us in the matter. I can assure hon. members that they are entirely mistaken on that point. The Hon. Minister for Lands mentioned to me cases that were underserving, that had gone on in the first instance through misrepresentation to him, and circumstances having come before him show­ing that evidence was suppressed from him in the first instance, they were struck off. I may say that the Hon. Minister for Lands administered

Address in Reply. [29 JuLY.] Addnss in Reply. 131

·the indigent allowance almost entirely through a board consisting of Dr. Hare, :Nir. Brenan, and Mr. Ranking, the police magistrate. There are three of them at it now,- Mr. Brady, Yl:r. Rrenan, and Dr. Hare arP dealing with the matter still. There is nothing that does not ultimately come before me; but I may tell the House that there is not 2 per cent. of the cases that come from that board to me that are altered. When we come to discuss this matter on the Estimates, if there is any particular case that members have a grievancP about, I will give justification for their being struck off. I take this stand : that if a man or woman has got two or three sons grown up, and in the full prime of life and health, it is their responsible duty, which cannot be evaded, to assist their pg,rents, and so long as lhat ie going on, I am not going to spend the State funds to help to support the parents of people who are canable of supporting them themBelves. (Hear, hear!) Of course there will be questions of degree : questions will cc1me up sometimes when you can say "Yes" or "No," and you would be fairly right in either case. But there are most glaring cases. There is one case at Enoggera -four or five miles out of Rrisbane-the late Home Secretary struck it off the list, but a petition came in with hundreds of names attached to it saying that this was a most deserving case md should be put on, and it was put on a Second time. I found on investigating- it more· closely -because I have a knack of looking into a thing and not taking anybody's word for it-that this particular man had been convicted at the police court 106 times. I found he had land all over the country, some of which he sold some time ago. He has got a farm at Enoggera, I am informed by the police, without a shilling on it, which is worth £3,000. Do you think that that man should be struck off? The late Home Secretary st.ruck it off once, and he was told by a deputa· tion that he was all wrong, that the man was most deserving; and I confess I would be "taken down " every day in the week by a petition with the names I saw on this petition. [Mr. BROWNE: '\Vhat sort of people would sign a petition like tbat ?] I cannot help that; and if the hon. mem· ber comes to the office I will show him the peti· tion. I had a case the othter day recommended by a clergyman. A woman had five grown-up sons and three daughters. One of her sons was a station-master in the rail ways, and another son was getting £3fJ0 a year, and he is there still. I say that should settle the matter, and I will make these people support their parents. A case came before me ye"trrday in which an hon. member of this House, believing it to be correct, recom· IJlended a man for 5s. a week, and immediately after he went to work and for nine .nonths was getting £3 a week in the Queen Cross Reef. He left that and has got a rePf of his own, and has got a big crushing- in hand now. He has had 5s. a week all the time. Hon. members opposite abuse my administration of the fund. The leader of the Opposition said he would not eay anything until he knew the particulars, but the point I make is this : 'rhat the State only votes a certain amount of money, and, if I give that money to customers like these, some people who really want the money will have to go without. [An honourable member: 'I'he State would he defrauded.] Yes, and deserving people would also be defrauded. Another gentleman in the North, belonging to a noble Scotch family, preserved his Scotch instinct by drawing his 5s. a week, and came into the office with his pocket full of gold and asked how much an ounce it was worth. I think it is about time these cases were stopped. The great hulk of the cases­four-fifths, I should say-stand, but there are

20 per cent. or 25 per cent. that will have to go. If somebody else followed me six months hence and went into some of the cases on the list now, he would probably find that I had been deceived like other people. [Mr. JACKSON : Are you putting on any new cases?] Yes, and I have put on cases that have been struck off. I have put on noes again that I have struck off myself. If a case is dnu btful, I am not satisfied with one report. If I come to the conclusion that there is any new evidence, I put the case on again. I rnay be right or wrong, hut I am trying to administer the v'Jte as faith­fully as I can in the interests of the )Jeople who get the charity. Another case W3S that of a woman who kept a boarding-house in the Valley, and who was drawing rations regularly every week. She kept the boarding-house, and the Government provided the rations. Another woman had a 300 ·acre farm on the Black all R~nge, and on being asked if she had mort>,aged any of it she replied, "Not an acre." The"e cases are all subject to annual revision, and doubtless we will "!ways find some in which the Government have been imposecl upon. I should like, if I h<td tirne, to give the House a few par­ticnlars in t'egard to the railway freights. I can, bowever, as~·nue hon. rnen1bers that \vhen we lowered thr" freights in 1891 it had most disastrous results. Hon. members talk about the railwayB in the other coloniPs, but the only colonies this ye,;r that have increases from the railways are those that raised the rates last year. The States of South Australia and 'vV estern Australia had increases, whereas New South \Vales and Victoria, which did not raise the rat~•. had large deficits of between £300,000 and £400,000. []Ylr. HARDACRE : Is that on the railways, or on the Btate revenue generally?] That is on the railways themselves. Victoria has a surplus on its general rf'' enue. I could also show a great n1any other things from ex­trac~s I ha,·e got herE', and which bear very strongly on the charge of extmvagance which has been made against the Government, but I will have another opportunity of dealing with tbe"e matters. I have been attacked in a very violent and unjustifiable manner by the hon. member for l:tockhampton, and I have been charged with deception. I have been charged with using my official position to benefit institutions and societies and persons that I am connected with. They are very strong charg<'", 01nd I submit that if these charges are made agaimit me I have the right to ask in what interest would the members who made those charges run the institntwns of the country if they had an opportunity of doin" so? \Ve know that members oppoeite have a system of their own of being elected. There is a kind of plebescite taken in the different districts and States in the first instance before a candidate can go for election. The candidate has first of all to be elected by a local ballot ; and who is it that runs these institution;;? It is the secretaries of the different labour organisa­tions throughout the country. [Mr. \Voovs: Nothing of the kind.] Is not the Labour party controlled bv the different secretaries of the unions throughout the State? [Mr. \Voovs: Certainly not.] \Vho meets at the Trades Hall periodically and frames the constitutinn and alters the planks of the Labour party but the different union secretaries ? [Mr. BnoWNE : The delegates.] Yes, and after a delegate was sent from Duck Creek there were only two men and a dog left. (Govemment laughter.) The Labour party, or the Trade' Hall party, is dominated by the unions, and the unions are controlled by the different secretaries. [:Mr. \Voovs: Nothing of the kind.] It would be a bad thing for this

132 Address tn Repl,y. [ASSEMBLY.] Add1·ess in Repl:lf·

country if any Government is turned out to give place to a party controlled in tbat manner. I should not care if the party opposite came into power and the party outside whD controlled them were respom.ible penph·, loyal to the State and the Empire, and honest people. I am not speaking· of the members here now, I am speaking of their mastere outside. There are the different secretaries of unions throughout the country, the men who are the pillars of the Trade,Hall. \Vhat havetheydone? They never had a chance of getting hold of the rnances of their unions when they did not seize them and devote them to their own purpose. [Mr. BROWNE: That is not so.] Let us take a case here-there are case•' :;11 over the country, any­where ynulike. [Mr. \V. HAMIL'rON: How manv belonging to ynur side robbed t,he Customs?] Let us take the case of --, a union delegate, charged on warrant at the Hughenden Police C. •urt on the 22nd Xovember, 1901, with stealing .£1, the property of thfl Australian \Vorkers' Union. It is true that he was diecharged hy the court, but the charge was brought against him by his own fellow-unionists. Let us take--, who was brought before the Charleville District Court on the 4th April, 1892, on a charge of embezzling .£353, the property of the trustees of the Central Warrego Carriers' Union. This was one of the men who regulated Labour matters in Charleville, and fixed up who was to come into this House. He was founrl guilty, and got twelve months' hard labour. Then there was--, secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Charleville. On the 17th January, 1899, he was charged with embezzling union funds, and was committed for trial, but the case was dismissed on technical grounds, the union not being regis­tered. The hall in which the books were kept was burned down, and he rose in triumph like a phamix from the ashes. Then there was --, secretary of the A. vV. U. at Hugbenden, charg-ed with stealing union funds to the extent of .£34 in ,July, 1901. Hf' cleared out, and a warrant was issued, but, like the Flying Dutchman, he is travelling yet. (Government laughter.) At one time he was a reporter for the Eagle, and I believe he studied under the hon. member for Clermont. There is -- also. And these are all secretaries; there is no rank and file among them. -- was secretary to the A.W.U. at Hug-henden, and was said to have been dis­missed, or called on to resign, for stealing moneys of the union or the co-operative store. He was arrested in the strike ot 1891, and sentenced to three months for intimidation. He was secretary to the Shearers' Union at Springsure in 1891, and was seen burning his books at nig-ht. He was in charge of the union store at Hughenden, and could not keep his fingers out of the honey there also. Then there is --, secretary of the Waterside vVorkers' Union, Townsville, and editor of the Feder"l newspaper, one of those newspapers that calle the Government thieves. (Laughter.) What did he do? He was arrested on the 5th December, 1901, for ste:>ling lodge moneys in New Zealand, and was remanded to New Zealand on the 23rd December. It seems to be the same all over the Australian colonies. [Mr. \Voons: What happened tu him in New Zealand?] I don't know. vVhatever happened to him when brought before tribunals supported by men like the men on this side, the fact remains that he was charg-ed with the crime by men who hold the same views as hon. members opposite. Then there is a little bit of an affair I had a dispute about the other day-some Trades Hall business. A man named --, of Rockhamp­ton, collected money for the Glassey tbstimoniol fund, and .£11 got mislaid between himself and the Trades Hall somehow or another.

I was told that he was an obscure person, but there is nothing obscnre about it. \Ye ue told that he agreed to pay monthly a cert><in amount of this money-that he made an agree­ment. Who made that agreement with him? Is not that something very much in the nature of compounding a felony? \V ill somebody who unr!ersrands something about the Trades Hall tell me how much better is a man who com­pounds a felony than the man who cc•mmit' one"! I am told th>tt this was quite a hero in Labour politic,. All that was wrong with him was that he had a slightly confused notion ahmt the rights of property-could not distinguish other people's from his own. (Government lnughter.) I uuderstand that he has been living in Rock­hampton ever since, and that he has been pr"­moted even. vVby was not this man prosecoted 1f it was he who kept the money? [An honourable member: He will get a se:<t in Parliament yet.] He has double the supposed qualification of wme membe"'. He has served two periods of apprenticeship in His Majesty's gaol-one in Blackall about two or three yee" before be collected this fund, and another in Rockhampton gaol. In both case'> he escaped. There was nothing he was not able to escape, anrl there was nothing that could escape him. (Laughter.) Any­ho\v, the funds got mislaid between him and the Trades Hall, and they can settle it between them­selves. I want to know why no steps are taken to restore this intercepted money. vVhy is he not

prosecuted if he is the culprit? Or [10 p.m.] is it that Mr. Glassey, having

ceased to bow his neck to the yoke of the Trades Hall, it is now not unlawful to defraud him? vVe will pass on to another case, that of --, secretary of the Carriers' Union at Charleville. This man was dis­missed for embezzling the funds of the union. Here is another most interesting case : The hon. member for Bowen complained that he could not get a magistrate appointPrl. This was the secretary of the Miners' Accident Society at. Charters Towers, who was made a jus­tice of the peace after repeated applications by the late leader of the Labour party, C\Ir. Dawson, who took the responsibility. He was found gambling a•-. 12 J'clock at night, so the report says, with some of the won;t criminals in Queensland, and he got two years for stealing, I think it was £400 of the fund.'< of that charitable institution, on the 20th .June, 1900. \Vill anyone aver that this man had not some sa,y as to who should represent Charters Towers? If he had not, I am wrongly informed. The report states that the total amount of the defalcations amounted to about .£2,000, and that -- squandered most of the money gambling with dice and cards. Ts it any wonder that such men want to get posseseion of the Treasury benches of Queensland? There i• no scope for their opemtions in the small funds at their dispos<tl in the country districts. Then there is the case of --, "ho was sen­tenced to three year" at the Brisbane Supreme Court, in June, 1893, for larceny, forgery, and uttering, committed on the Amalgamated Cu·­penters and Joiners' Society, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. \Ve have heerd a great deal of late about white labour and the work it can dro in the canefields when it gets the chance. Here is a little sample of it; : A man named -- said he would go and cut cane, and he did, as ganger of a party. He was the only one of them who made money out of it. When the cane was cut he went to the storekeeper, told him he could not get the money to pay the men with, asked for an advance and got it. He also went to the canegrower and got he money from him too. Then he" skedaddled."

Improvement qf Ho1•se Stock. [30 JULY.]

Another man who cleared out was --, sec­retary of the Amalgamated \Vorkers' Union at To,>woornba. He stole the moneys of the union in January, 1902; a warrant was issued, but he "has not yet been arrested. \Vhere these men ha\"8 gone to I do not know, hut wherever an election is t""king vlace or a political meeting is being held you may depend upon it they are denouncing those who are endeavouring to pre­serve Queemland against them, and preventing them and the party they control from taking posReosion of the Treasury benches of this State. The present and past llovernments may not ba.-c been absolutely perfect. No doubt they have not, and none will ever be; bnt I do not believe it would be possible to get any Govern­ment cm this side, under any circumstances, that would not be preferable to a Govern­ment composed of men whose administration woulc! be fatal to the interests of Queensland. I am not referring to any particular per­sons, but I say that no calamity could befall responsible or parliamentary government greater than to allo"' persons to take possession of these b'enches who were controlled and dictated to by a lot of men, samples of whom I have given to the House, Therefore, I am satistied that this resolution will be condemned by a very strong maj<)l·ity. [Honourable members: Hear, hear!]

;\fr. LESIN A (Clermont): I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.

(lnestion put >tnd passed ; and the resumption of the debate made an order for to-morrow.

The House adjourned at nine minutes past 10 o'clock.

Add1·ess in Reply. 133