Queensland

Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]

Legislative Assembly

TUESDAY, 3 OCTOBER 1905

Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy

944 ~lzotion fa;• Ar:fournment. [A8SE:.VIBLY.] jl!lotion for Adjournment.

LEGISLATIVE ASSE:friBLY.

TuEsD.H, 3 OcTOBER, 1905.

The SPEAKER (Hon. Sir A. S. Cowley, He1·bert) took the chair at half-past 2 c}clock.

~\PPROPRIATIO::'-J BILL :i'fo. 2. AssEc;T.

The SPEAKER announced the receipt of a message from His Excellency the Lieutenant­Governor, conveying his as.sent to this Bill.

CENSUS BILL. FIRST READIXG.

On the motion of the HO:\IE SECRETARY (Hon. P. Airey, Flindcr,), this Bill was read a first time, and the ,.ccond reading made an Ordel' of the Day for to-morrow.

~IOTION FOR ADJOUR:'il\1E::'>JT.

THE 'GxE3IPLOYED QcEsnox.

The SPEAKER announced the receipt of a letter from the junior member for Brisbane South, ~Ir. Reinhold, intimating that he intended to rrwc·e the adjoumment of the House for the purpose of calling attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance-namely, "the want of employment that at present exists in Queens­land arr1ong the '\Vorkjng classes."

Mr. HEINHOLD(Bri.l;cu·,;South): In accord­ance with the notice that I have given, I beg to move that this House do now adjourn.

Tbe required number of members having risen in their placgs in support of the 1notion, in accord~ ance with Standing Order Xo. 130-

::\Ir. REIXHOLD ,aid : I clo not think it necessary to make any apology fo1· the introduc­tion of this n1ot1on. It is a rnotion thac has been before the House on many previous ocea­sions, and it is now just as irnportant and just as urgent as it '' :1,~ on any forn1er occa~lon. The records of this House "how that as far be.ck as 186G, ::\Ir. Pugh, then member for Brisbane ::'\ orth, introduced a motion d thi.s kind, and also presented a petition in connection with the unemployed. In 1SU2, ::\Ir. Luya, one of the members for Brisl.mne South, introduced a ::-irnilar n1otion .. In 1Sil3, ~lr. Hoolan, 111Prnber for Bnrke, moved the adjournment of the House for a sirnilar rer.,~on; and in 1SD7, 1\Ir. Glassey, at that time member for Bundaberg, did the same. The last occ.1sion on which the adjourn­ment of the House was moved for tln purpcoe of considering this question was on the motion of the present Treasurer. On each of those occasions a long debate ensued, and the general opinion seemed to be that the time spent in the debate was well spent-in fact, that it could not have been better spent-that this was the most important question tbat could be discussed by this House; and the hope was expressed generally that some benefit would be derived from the d1scussion, and that the unemployed wonld in some way or other receive employment. :Many members also expressed the opinion that it was the duty of a Government to give work to the unemployed. I move the adjournment of the House on this occasion for somewhat similar reasons. I want to show, in the first instance, that there is a considerable nnmber of unem­ployed at present in Queensland ; I wish to

[Hon. Sir .A. S. Cowley.

draw attention to the importance of this unem­ployed que,tion ; and, further, I want to prove, if I can, that it is the duty of every Government to find employment for each and every person who is unable to get it. At the times I have referrel to there were several reasons for the want of employment which do not exist v,t present the rea,;ons at present being more the result 'of for1ner depression of smne sorb or another. In former times the want of employment was found principally among what are generally known as the labouring classr''· At ]•resent that is not so-it is more among tradesmen or mechanics. At the times I refer to there was nothing or very little being done by the Govern­ment to meet the demands of the unemployed, while at pre.>ent a considerable amount has been attempted, and a considerable amount has been done, by tbe Government towards getting rid of the unemployed. Bearing this in mind, I consider the position is worse now than it has ever been in the past. Only thi,; morning I met a man ,in the building ,trade who told me that during the last twenty-two ye~rs be never had a worse year than he had durmg the last tw•,lve month3, and that is the remark you hear from almost everybody connected with the building trade. There are painters, carpenters, stone­masons, and others connected with the building trade; other·, connected with the boot trade, the printing trade-even bakers-and they all tell you that there are more men out of employment in their trades now than there have been for a very long time. [:\Tr. :FORSYTH : How do you account for that? Folks must eat.] [i\lr. \Voovs: The extravagance of the previous Go­vernment.] There are also large numbers of people who are only employed for one-half or one-third of their time, and others very irregularly indeed. I have a considerable amount of cor· respondence fron1 unionR and societies of various sorts in and around Brisbane that have been addressed to the secretarv of the committee that has be·en dealing with" this matter Iatel:.'. I have not time nor inclination to read it all, but I have prepared a smnncary which I will gi 1 e to the House. I do n''t intend to name the societies or unions, or idPntify then1 in any way, but shall merely give the detail:7. Here is a society of which the ''"cretary says-

There are 15 per cent. continually 1UlC'lllployec1, all with families dependent solely on their labour. The unemployed bene tit works out this year at an a\~era~~~ of £2 5s. per member, as a,;ains·.: 10s. per member 1nfau average times.

Here is another association in which there are G per cent. continually unemployed and 40 per cent. of the remainder only employed half-tune during the last twehe months. In this union there are twent)·.five members in Brisbane alone continually out of employment. The sec1etary of the next one says it is in a deplorable state. The shop and factory returns disclose a low :'verage wage and employment very uncertain. [The TREASURER: \Vhat trade is that?] The boot trade. Here is another in which twenty­five members have left and gone out of the State, not being able to find work here. [The TREA­SURER: \Vhat trade is that?] The Progressive Society of Carpenters. Fi±ty per cent. are con­tinually unemployed, and those employed only average half-time taking the year through. They all have large families dependent upon them. Another society shows that 25 per cent. of their members are continually idle. I may mention that all these letters were written within the last two or three weeks. Here is a society in which 75 per cent. on an average are out of employment. [The TREASURER: What society is that?] The United Society of Boilermakers. They are nearly all married men with an

~1Iution for ~lJjoununent.

avcr.Jge of four dependent upon them. The secr8tary, who haR been :::;ecretary fur the last twenty years, finishEs up his letter by saying-

Trusting yonr efforts for the wor1dc<.:...,.; will be rewarded.

Here io anotb·,r -.ociety in which the average en1ployL!e~t b not ktHFt'n, but it is very low. I-Ier_~ is anuthm· \vhich declines to n1ove in tbe rnattf~r, and which is opposed to taking part in political nmtters. Here is a socie,ty con, posed of persons in employment, or in which most of the members are regularly employed, though some are not at the prc 'ent time, and many are f>eeking some kind of work not identified with the association, and about whom no definite information can be secured. lThe TREASDREl\: \Vhat are theoe letters in connection with? The result of inquiries?] Yes; the rc,ult of in­quiries. The;v are letters from these unions in answer to the circular letter, and are all addressed to the secretary of the co·nmittee that was dealing with this matter very recently. Here is another society which says it is unable to supply the information desired. Here is another in which only 3 per cent. of the mem­bers are unemployed. Here is arother in which scarcely one is able to find employment. All of them are married, and so h><ve others dependent on them. The avemge of employment during the last twel vc; months is considerably under one week. [Hon. R. PHILP : \Vhat trade is that?] The United Operative Stonemasons' Society. I2 connection with these societies, there are just one or two other extracts I would like to read. This one says-~

A comparison of tlle expenditure or unemployed benefit \vorks out to something like £:2 5s. per member this year as against 10s. for fair average times. This perhaps bardl.v giYes a f:.t ir idea of the depression iu trade, for with our '•,>~tem of travelling allowances, etc., to members losing employment here who Rre assisted to work abroad we contrive to have a minimum of out­of. work men on our books.

Here is another point in connection with this society-

It is constantly being brought before our society that young fellows, on completion of' theil· apprenticeship, find it impossible, in the majority of cases, to obtain employment as journeymen llere, and seek it abroad.

I think that those letters, at any rate, show that there is " considerable amount of unemploy­ment round about Brisbane. Further, I might point out that twice daily at the Homa-street goods-shed there is a crowd of something like twenty men begging for something to do. Sometimes the whole week goes by before any of these men get anything to do. At other times one or two may get a few hours, or perhaps a whole day, and at times a few of them may get two or three days' continu­ous work. It is estimated that at the outside only between 10 and lil per cent. of the men who apply for work there get any at all. The same things happens if we go over to the dry dock. ·whenever any men are wttnted to be put on there are alwa.:ys scores more than are re­quired. There are'men who I know to my know­ledge have been applying for work in the dry dock for the last twelve month" who have not done more than two months' work. Only a few weeks ago the etevedore of one of the shipping companies wanted se,·enteen men to go down to Pinkenba to unload one of the vessels. He did not advertise for these men, but on Monday morning the fact became known to many of the unemployed, as it usually does, and be had a crowd of 150 surrounding him and almost tearing him to pieces. I am informed bv the secretary of the \Vaterside Workers' Union that every tim6 a vessel is to be unloaded there are hundreds of men like wild animals--[The PRE~!IER :X o, no; surely not !]

1905-3N

3Iot:uu fur AJjczu·;,,nud.

That is the word the secretary of the \Vaterside "C"nion used in de,cribing it. iTbe PHE3I!Eli: That is the lauguage of ex,ggeration.J lt fre­quently happen' that the mau in charge of the work ha, 1.u get on board the yessel off the wbarYe." to proteut himself from thA men who want tn gat employment. [:\Ir. FoRSYTH: That h. ~1Jl nonsen",c.] 'fhere is no nnnsense about it. [:\Ir. :FonsnH: Give us a F-pAcific ca"e.] .\.t the Goverm.nent Printing Offic-, there are rnany Inen wanting to get a job if they can. There are others workin;· on half time, some only on one­third tirLe, aud ;·ome even leo,s than that. I have also here e. couple of letters from ministers of religion in Brisba;,c, who have also been look­ing into this matter, that I would like to read. This one is from the Hev. J. S. Pollock, and it reads as follows :-

Re the unemployetl, I have to say that my knowledge is iTiore gem~ral than F!:atl~ti('al. ..As reQ;ards the workers in my own district the pomts that have strucJ~ me most fm·cibly are-

1. 'rhe unccrtaint~· of finding work on the part of many I haxe met with. Xmv a job of a day, two days. a week. or a few \veel{::., and. then an indefinite wait, sometimes for months at a time.

::\Iany of these make no outcry-seem to accept it philosophie.'llly as a thing to be looked for, and get on the llr':.\t wav the,· can; but, although I have mys;elf to· look at bo.th si(:le-, of a sixpence before I spend it, I reallY am at a loss to know how some families live hon0stl.r, as I know they clo.

2. rnw almost impossiblo task of finding work for young men and \vomen, who ·woulcl-antl could-be "ivealth producers if only the way \Yerc open to them ; and, coupled with this, the miserable pittance, often from 2s. Gd. a w.)ek to 7s. 6cl. laf'ter years' work.l, those who are employed receive~doing men'~ and women's work-and so cutting the ground from under the lattm·.

:t Tlle experience I ha"Ve had in the effort to tind work for them, of the hard, cnt-~·hroat competition there is for the cheapest flillets.

4. lVhat might be expccte(l from this, in the bl·eak­downs from anremic anU other troubles which I of't.en meet with on the par'IJ of young people, which would never happen if a more geuerou~ diet and opportnnity for healthy outdoor exercise were pos :,flJle, but neither of which is po.-.-;iblc as matters arc at pre~ent.

5. The deplor~1blc ignorance which wraps the minds of ruany-1 am tempted to say JtJOst-of 1he ground­down workers as to the cause of the troul>le.

And last, but not least, the resorts to temporary nutkeshifts, ::tnd the general disorganisation of families, from irregularity and want of work-or want of work at ade(1nate remuneration.

I do hope that the (1nestion of \vork for the unem­ployed will be ra1sed and kept before our Parliament until it is ::;at.iRfactorilY ~oll-ed. BYen if some of out· friends have to he ~either poli.tically converted or squashed; or if even ·w•e have to call from the shades the ghost of Tory Salisbury for the edification of Queensland democrats, to repeat a passage of a sveech once delivFred by him in the flesh-

" \\ben they looked around them and saw a growing mass of voverty and "iYant of employment . . . the one ohjectwhicbevery statesnum who lovecl his country should desire to attaiu was that there might be the largest amount of profitable employment for the mass or the peop!e."

To which I would only add, ·not to do tnis is to merit the cur3e of God and the scorn of men.

Here is a letter from the Rev. J. Gibson. He say8-

I am just. to~day in receipt of your note of the 30th ultimo on the matter of the distress arising through Jack of employment-·

[The PaEmBR: Who is it addressed to?] To the secretary of the Unmnployed Committee. It is in answer to the same circular. It goes on-

Permit me to say how heartily I sympathise with tbe efforts being made to find work for those who are unemployed, and with the idea that help is best giYen, not b,r way of charity, but by way of opportunity. It is truly a.. dis<>reditable thing to our whole civilisation that, in a country like this, there should be destitution, and arising from such a cause. .d.s to helping you with

Jlr. Reinhold.]

946 Motion fo1' Aclj01amnent. [ASSEMBLY.] JJ:Iotion fol' Ac?journment.

information, I am hardly able to do so to any vurpose. I have been giving myself mainly. during tllC short tirne I lutve been here, to knowing m.\· own congrega~ ti.on anrl to the \YOrk I haYe to do within it. and my knowledge of the life of the distriet i:-;, a~ yet, too superfieial to nllo"iY me to speak with any freetl: rn. All the same, without !;Oing out, of my 'vay, I come across homes where destitution is written plainly on tllr naked walls and scanty furniture, and, more painfully, on the too prominent bones of the children. In srnne cases one has ~round8 fol' surmising that fll'ink is behind; in other cases the poverty is cl ne to sheer dH1lcnlty jn finding settlell work. I am dimly aware of an amount of distrt ~s bcrond, and I hcf1r of won~e11 working long hours 'iVit1 tlll~r ne..:dle for a shamefully low pittance; but, to tLll the trnth. I shrink a little from inquiring closely vdu re I nm not yet able to help. I am afraid I am not able to be of umch assistt:tnee in this matter yet, bnt your committee hns my l~earty o-ood wishes in its efforts to bring the true condit.wn of t'hings bef<Jre the )Htblic. \Ye may ttiffer as to ea useR and as to ultimat~ aims., but there ought to bo enough common ;.;ense, and humanity, and justice in the com­munitY to allow us to arrive at a tolerable solution of a probleln, and to remove the drtrkest part, at least, of what ought to he felt as a blot upon our social life.

There is another one from the Rev. IV. Page, but as time is getting short I will leave that one.

I haYe moved this resolution after [4 p.m.] long and careful thought, without

the slightest unfriendly feeling to­wards this or any Government, and without the slightest intention of blaming or finding fault with anyone for the fact that there are so many people ~bout the plnce with nothing to do. I have admitted already that the Government h~ve attempted a great deal, and have done a great dea1, and that there are a nun1ber of 1nen now at work who were a few months ago among the unemployed, but I think the number of unempl<,yed is still far too great. Though all these efforts have been made to find work for the unemployed, it otrikes me it is only of a tempo­rary nature, and that we want something that will solve this question once and for all. \V e want to prepare for times like this when times are aood and get something done, that when time~ like these come along we will be able to meel them without having the number of men un­employed which we have. [Mr. FoRSYTH: \V:hat is your remedy?] I am one of those who beheve it is the duty of the Government to see that the unemployed get work when they cannot get it anywhere e!Fe. I believe that some means should be devised by which the unemployed could get Nork when they want it, and cann?t get it anywhere else. I am one of those who s1gned a platform that a~ •·ocates the establishment of settlements, at whwh persons out of employment can obtain work as a right. Now, that may be a very crude statement of what the Labom· party desires, but at the same time it shows very clearly that they think that there should be no unemployed. i am not alone in that !d.ea. }\'Iany persons have already expressed the opmwn that they think the Government should be able to find work for the unemployed. There are a number of members in this Home who have at various times expressed that opinion, and every m6mber of the Labour party, I take it, i;; bound to that belief.

The SP}jAKER: The hon. 1w.·mber h:~s now exceeded the time allowed him according- to the Standing Orders.

Mr. REI:"rHOLD: With the permission of the House, :Mr. Speaker, a few minutes more will suflice for me.

The SPEAKER : Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. member be further heard.

HoNOJJRABT,E 1IEo!BERS : Hear, hear !

Mr. REINHOLD : "While thinking it is the duty of the Government to do this, I realise that we cannot get this accomplished unless the people

[Mr. Reinhold.

of the State are of the same opinion, and once we get the people of the State to acknowledge and realise this, then it will very soon come about that the Government of the day, whoever they may be, will see that it is clone. I hope this discussion will lead to something being done. I purposely avoided making any proposals at all. Some time ago I introduced a deputation to the Government by which certain proposals were made, and I think it would be out of place for me to make proposals hue. [Hon. R. PHILP : \Vhy ?] I hope hon. members will discuss this without any fpeling, and that some good will result to the benefit of those persons who cannot get \Vork.

The PRE:\IIER : I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. gentleman's remarks, but more particularly did I listen with anticipa­tion to the concluding portion of the speech, which I imagined would have contained some suggestion for an improvement of the condition of the things which he complam.s of. But I was disappointed, and I venture to say in that re'·pect hon. members on both sides of the Chamber were di"tppointed. [Honourable mem­bers: Hear, hear!] It may be said that the contention has been running right through the hon. member's remarks that this is a matter for the Government. So it is in a sense; but it is equally a matter for the House aq a whole, and the people as a whole; and recognis;ug that that is so, I have not the least objection to some time being devoted totheconsideration of this question this afternoon, though, indeed, I think the time might he more profit'-lbly occupied otherwise. But if hon. members on either side of this Chamber have any suggestion to 1~1ake, the adoption of which will lead to an improvement in the pre­sent condition of things, then I am quite sure that the Government and the House will be only too delighted to bear it; and if it contains any practicftl means of dealing with the unemployed difficulty, they will find us quite ready to adopt the suggestion. I am not with the hon. member, however, in thinking that a motion for adjourn­ment is the means by which an appropriate issue may be raised. Indeed, the matt-er is one on which, in my view, the adjournment of the House ought not to be moved. [Mr. MACARTNEY: The Treasurer has made a precedent.] \Ve have several good prEcedents, and seyeral bad ones, and I think this is a bad :me. This is a matter undoubtedly of public importance, but it is not a definite matter, and it is not a matter of mgency. [Mr. JE:SKESO:'l: It is to the unem­ployed.] It is a trouble which has been with us for 2,000 years, and will probably continue for 2,000 years. And, indeed, this is a problem not peculiar to the State of Queensland, to the States of the Commonwealth, or to the British Empire. All the world over the unemployed difficulty is ever a more or less pressing one, and I am in­clined to think that, no matter how Governments or Parliaments may set themselves to meet that difficulty, it will be a continuing difficulty. Take the c._,,se of Queensland to-day. The hon. mem­ber addres,ed himself almost entirely to the condition of things existing in Brisbane, as con. veyecl to him through reports made by the secretaries of the unions, and he has given us some information as to the proportion of mem­bers out of employment, and only, I think, in three or four ca"es did the hon. member show anything like an alarming number of the mem­bers of the unions out of work. In the Boot­makers' Union there is a large number of people out of work, and so, too, in the Carpenters' Society and the Masons' Society. [An honourable mem­ber : And boilermakers.] Yes. ~ ow, in so far as the boot trade is concerned, I am afraid it is not necessary to seek very long for the canse of

lJ!lotion for AdJournment. [3 OcToBn.] _jl:[otion fo?' Adjournment. 9±7

that depression. The change has been brought :cbout by federation, which has had the effect of closing up a goo:l many of om· factori. s, and, indeed, thftt applies generally to the other trades which the hon. member alluded to. Our local tobaccu m:>nufacturing; industry has alnwst ·Ce.1sed to exist since we federated; so have other inclustrie,;, and in that re·pect alone federation has c, used some serious troubles and disabilities, in Brisbane in particular. The bvilermakers, carpenter.~, and ma.--on:-;, and other societies whu.:;e tne111bers are finding a great difficulty in obtaining ,-'1nploy1uent at this time, are societies whose members are provided with work mainly by the expenditure of loan funds, and one can easily understand, as a result of the cessation of borrowing and spending money freely, that there ohould be a large number of the rneml1ers of the\'38 societies out. of work. One may deplore that-no one can fail to recognise it--but surely it will not be contended that, in order t•J bring J,bout a better state of things, it will be wise to revert to the old sy.stem of borrowing money and spending it freely in Brisbane and the other large citie~ <Jf the State merely for the purpose of pro\ iding wr•rk for the n1e1nbers of these societies! [The TnJcj_~URER: And only ·for a short tillle. Later on we shall ha1·e it all over :,gain:J _,_.-\._nd only '\Vork for a very short time. IV e have borrowed freely in the pa,t, and we ha1·e built all the public build­-mg·s which are nece.ssary for the efficient ad­ndnistration of the atfairo of the State. ~urely it will not be argued that it is sound policy to borrow money to erect other public build­ings that are really not required, simply to provide work for artisans who, withont that bor­rowing and spending policy, would be thrown out of work! Oue "ould wish-we all do wi·,h, I am perfectly sure-that the condition" of the pro­ctucing industries of the State were such as to pro,-ide for the employment of all the artisans and htbourers we have. But we know that that is not so, and I have no hesit,.tion in saying that, much a,; I shuuld regret to see such a thing happening, it would he far better for the State that some of our unemployed carpenters and builde1s should flO to the other :States :1.nd seek employment rather than that their presence here should be used to induce us to revert to the old system of borrowing money merely in order that 1ve might spend it in providing work for them to dn. It would be better that they should go to ::'\ ew South \Y<tles or the other :States than that we should return to the mistaken policy of borrowing money t<J provide them with work. But it is not necesnry that they .. hould do that. They might do as other people-arti'"ns and s;,:illed workmen-ha Ye bad to do before when work in their own tre<1e failed them, and that is, end ea vonr to make a living by becoming settlers, !)r taking up Jancl and becon1ing prnducers. There are now on the land, firmly established on the land, and f1ojng well, rnany 111en of the artisan class; and if we could only induce the present ullemployed in a Int,derate proportion of in~tanc?s to give up tlwir tracle~ and hecome E-~electcr:"=, I belie·· e it would be a better thing f,n' them and a bett-r thing for the i'ltat~. l~ nforiunately, 'as the hon. m em her inilicated in the course of his speech, there is ;..'t very Rtrong disposition on the part of artisians and lahourer::; who get into large cities to re1nain there, and it is a very difficult thing to get them into the country. Indeed, in many instances they would rath~-:r live in the cities with irregular employment than go into the country towns or remote di-tricts where they can get regular employmeHt, thvugh the rate of pay woulcl not, pJrbaps, be so good. [:}Ir. REIKHOLD : They W•Juld be only too glad to go if they uould ~et the chance.] The Go,·ern­ment when they ca1"0 into office fonud a great

many people out of employment, because the pro­ducing induc.tries had suffered severely as a result of the long-continued drought, because federa­tion had di -,turbed 1nany of our 1nannfactnring industrieo and destroyed "ome of them, and also because it was necessary to put a stop to the expenditure of loan money which in the past had given e1nployn1ent to a Inrge nun1ber of rnen. \Ve were spendirg over a million of loan money annually. It was necessary to reduce the rate of loan expenditure, and that in its result added to the numlJPr of men out of emploJment. The change from the old system of lavish loan expen­diture to the new system of a moderate loan ex­penditure was bound to bring troubles in its train. I believe, and the Government believe, that it was well for the country that the latter trouble should be inq;osed upon the State, and I believe that in the long run this House and the country generally, and even the men who are now suffer­ing more or less prn·ation from the change, will admit that the cham;-e was desirable. \\-ben we came into office we addressed otusel ves seriously tn the matter of providing work for the more needy cases among the men without employ­ment, and the :nethod we adopted was to employ those men in in1proving the public estate, and in that manner between 1,000 and 1,500 men have been proviJed with en1pluvrnent, ·which has enabled them to live decently in [:iir comfort, and the work they have done has added materially to the value of the public estate. It may pos­sibly be found that in some c.tses we shall not be able to recover the whole cost of the work carried out by this 1neans, but, ~peaking generally, I think the country will rec,ive-if it has not alre,\dy received_:full ,-alne for the money ex­pended in carrying out those works. At any rate, we ha ye enabled a large number of Illen to tide over a difficult time, and at the same time to preserve their inderoendence. Besides pro­viding employment in that way, we have afforded some emplo"ment in the cvnstruction of rail­ways, though not as much as has been found in the past, not as much as I hope willlJe found in the futnre. One of the evils attending the old system of rail~>ay building was that it attracted to those works very large numbers of people who were provided with emplovment for a year or eighteen months, and when che work was finished they were thrown back on the labour market. That is not a healthy ··tate of things, but it was a recurring st:>te of things in the past. I hope it will not be so in the future, at least not to so great an extent. In improving the public estate it was hoped that some of Lhe men who had steady ernplo.) rnent cm tho.~e improyement works for Hix or tweh·e months would hal'e been able to becume Hettler,; on the land they had cleared, on conditions of purchase or selection which were nmde particularly ea"y in order to mePt the cases of ~uch rnen. I rt"gret tJ say tf1at in exceedingly few instanct'" have the men taken ad vantage of t.he oppr,rtunity thns offered to them. [Hon. K B. FonnEST: What would they have hr.d to find?] They would ha1·e been e ,ked to find wry little money indeed. [Hon. :E. B. J'onREST: They could not li•:e on what the:r receive,} from the Go\·ernment.J I ~~nl not quite sure that the hon. member has taken thetrou1Jle tu inquire whether that statement, whichhati bee!l made fre,[uently, is true or not. [Hon. E. B. FoR­HEST: It is Yery frequently made.] The fic:nreH are accessible now, and I should .:-ay, <:;ene1·aliy, that the statement i~ not trut~. The wage-, though not high, were amply sufficient for a ma~ to main Cain himself and family upon; they were very little below the W<lges which prevailed out­side. [:1Ir. KEOGH: They were protected by the Govennnent in not pa:ving what they cj\\red tu storekEeper:;;. j I \\·ill undertake to sa'.· that the Governtnc11t cannot protect anybody agaiu~t

Hon. A. M organ.}

948 ~1Iotion for Adjournment. [ASSEMBLY.] J:Iotion .fr>i' Adjournment.

the ordinary operations <>f the la\\'. \Ve recog­nised that the meaf'nre~ we were taking in con­nection with this matter were only t..,mporary 1neasures, and that ~urnethin;~ lllilre would b'e neceo.;ary if thi, question were to be dealt with permanently. \V teh that object in view we hcwe lil.Jeraliscd the provisions oi the Agricultural Bank Act, and we propose to greatly lil.Jcralise the land laws of the ::State, btec .• ·1se unle" we can get these people drafted fron, the ranks of the uneTn!Jloyed 111 lowns a11d ~ett;ut on the land, where they will become prodncers, we shall have the unqnployed difficulty with Uti as a continuon~ difficulty. \Ve propG-e tu make an experitnent by dealing with some of thobe who are absolutely without means, affording them aid, uot only by means of land, for w hi eh they will pay nothing for a number of years, but by giving them direct financial a>sistance. \V e hope by that means to solve the difficulty. [Mr. KE;<;NA: You will not do much with £7,000.] It is possible that we shall not do as much a8 the bon. member for Bowen would like us to do, but we um ao least make a beginning, and the experiment should not be condemned became it is not on as large a scale as the hon. member and some other~ who think wit<1 him believe it sbould be. Perhaps £7,000 is enough to risk in the experimer1t. [Govern­ment members: Hear, hear!] If the experi­meut succeeds, we can n1ake it £17,000 or £2/,000, bnt the first thing we have to do is to assure ourselves and the House and the people who find the money that we are making this experiment un ri~ht lines. [Governn1ent rnen1-bers : Hear, hear !] If we succPeu in "tab­lishing that, I make hold to say that this House, or any other House which may succeed it, will haYe little hesitation in 'Upplying further in,talments to extend that object. 'l'hose are the lines upon which the Government have proceeded, and upon which they propose to pro­ceed. They have never set np the claim that they would be able to suc':eed in solving this problem completely, but they are making an earnest step in that direction. I sincerely hope that suecess will attend our efforts, but in order that success may attend our efforts we are entitled to look for the hearty co-operation of those in whose intere.,ts these efforts are being made·. After all, there is a g-reat deal of truth in the old nying that "God helps those who help themselves," but it unfortunately happens that in a great many cases whe1:e Governments or Parliaments desire to help men, those whom they desire to help are pulling directly in the oppo.ite direction. \Ve desire the co-.operation not only of the people whom we des1re to help, but also of those who constitute themselves, or are constituted, the spokesmen of those people. I am making no suggestion against the hon. mt·mber who intro­duced this matter, but I am bound to say that the unemployed difficulty is all too frequently taken advantage of by people whose objects are ulterior, and who desire to use the nn­employed as a means of bringing themselves into prominence. I can only say for the Go­vernment that they are mo>t willing to bear from anybody-from the unemployed them­selve,, from those who speak for them, or from members of this House, no matter where they may sit-any suggestwn that will lead to an im­provement in the condition of things with which we are confronted in thiB State. That things are bad I admit, but I think I can also claim that they are not nearly so bad as they were eighteen months ago. I hope that six months' hence they will be better than they are now, and that within twelve months we shall have heard the last, for a time at least, of the unem­ployed difficulty. [Honourable members: Hear, hear!]

[Hon . .A. M organ.

Hox. R. PHILP a :'iilYJ.llar deLate

lll

a 11Un1ber ~.ant tc a. ra.ilwa ,, Lilyrlale.

Fn- :.1n~R; an oppo1·tuuitv 'o for the --:-l Bill dcalin ~-that i::_; 110\Y Ull tht: lJn ... illE"'-

paper. bnt Goyernrrh nt. for ·<H11B

or othc._·, are nut pu~hing it for\vard. think the CovQrnrn('~nt ..;.f.~ assure-d thJ.t that Bill \VC'r~ r .lssed the con1pa.ny \Vould 0 on with the ln1e. CUr. L-Lt\."~'IL'i~N: \Ye \Yf're

told i·hat >Yhen the Bill was P"'·'" J.] That n1ay le, but t·ho Prerr;~ r ha.s ::;ill CC told tl:e llouse that the sarn'· party have found mole L<<Jtw:v-LThe Pm:l\II H: I clid not 'ay that.]­and that they are ·willins· to go on with the 1ine. r_rrhe PRE:\lE~R: ::\'u, I did net say tha-:: I srt,id they had inforn1ed n1- so.] I ce-rtainly U1Jdcr~i-('0d the hf\n. ~'-:>ntlen1an to sn.s thev had loclE.(Kl a further sun1 of mcncv 1.v~th t 118 Government. [The PEDilEic: A deposit. oh! yes.] Does that ll•Jt shm·.' their bonu fides! If the Premier made inquiries in London he •vould fincl that their offer was brmri fide. Then we have had ne; otiations gorinr- on for hvo vears for the construchon of "' line by private enterprise. from Almaden to Georgetown. The•·e is a body of men who want to make that railwav. but the Government am blocking th~m. lThc TEEASURER: \Ybo told vou that';] l know- that. ~uch is the ca,-t•. I know the Treasurer has done all he could to block them. LThe PRDIIEH: That is not so.]

[The TEEASURER: Ile has done far [1.30 p.m.J more to help them than ever you

diE!.] I do not know. I know that when the hon. p:entleman sat on this side of the House he tried to prevent the passage of several Bills, and he has not done anything since he went to the other side. [:\lr. KEHR: There are no results from the Bills vou passed.] The hon. member knows that 'the Chillagoe and :\fount Garnet lines have been built. [:\Ir. KERR: \Yhl·re are the Cloncurry, Lawn Hill, aud Callide lines?] The Bill in connection with the Lawn Hill line is on the paper no'c 'l'he Cloncurry lino is open to the Government to build themselve-,. Anv­one '~'ho has been in North Queensland knov,'s thai: the line would pay if it were built. [The TREASURER: \\"ould yuu like to build it?] The hon. memb1-'r who profe,sed to be •O earne--t about the matter when he sat on this side of the House now laughs and jeers at any sugg-e·-tions to find work for the unemployed. Perhaps I have more sympathy with the un­employed than those people who talk so much a1·out them. In my time I have given a good deal of work, and would be prepared to do the same now if I had the means; but those people who taik a great deal about the unemployed never gave work to a man in their lives, but jeer at those who giye wages-perhaps as much as they can afford to give. I should think t~at, in discussing a question like this, party bms would be put on one side. It onght to be, and I am rather pained to find that the hon. member who proposed this motion should talk of how little the late Government had clone for the unemployed, and of how much this Go­vernment have done. He cannot have studied the tables showing the amount of loan money we spent. The Premier says we spent too much money, and hence this trouble. [The·

.Jlotion for Ac(journment. [3 OcTOBER.] ;11otion for Aclj"ournment. 949

Tm:ASFRER: 1.Iy y,·ord! that is true. J \Yhen tile hon .. t~{'lltleJnan sat on this side, he was always telling us hovy little 1ve \\'ere doing and l"1c:T,1· l~ttle lYe \Ycre ~pending. Can you put any tanh Ill a man of that sort? I cannot; and I do not think the bulk of the people of the ~.r:untry wtll when they know him. [~lr. \\CODS: The trouble ic becaus·~ of the \Yav you spent it.] \,.2!!, we spent it in all parts of QuecnslaHd, and did not confine it to one part of the Stat<e. [~[r. \YooDs: The Lindon Bates ch·cckos.] I can assure the House that but 1or the LindJn Bates dredges--

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ho;\1'. R PI-HLP: Well I think it unfair chat an hon. member is ~llowed to interject ·n l I am not allowed to reply.

The . SPEAKER_: Order! I could not pre­;\'ont t11c mtGc'Jecbon, but I can prGvent the ~1011. nwmber wandering away from the sub­J crt. I m use ask that no other matters be brought in.

HoN. R. PHILP: I hope the Go,-ernment tll do all they can h have the two lines

tl1~ t I ha vo m en tioned b_uilt: They will pro­' lCte a good_ dr:al of \VOrk Jn ?\orth Queensland, and •~ork Is Just as. scarce in some parts of t)le ='< orth as It IS m the South. I believe tnat they would not only provide employment foe larl?e numbers of unemployed in building those lmes, but their construction would find \mrk for large numbers of men in the future rllh.e

1 unen1ploycd are not only numerous i~

Bnsoano, but they aro also numerous on Char­ters ':ro;~'ers, Gympic, and other mining cen­tres. 'lncre are many young men growing up whose. on!': occupation is mining, and the c,onstructwn of those lmes would find work for tne•c young men; anr! I belie.-e that if the line Y· 1s bmlt from Hwhmoncl to Cloncuny it would not cost the country one shilling. I am not conficlent now of the Government being able to sell land along the railway since they havo pa.ssed tho La~_td Monopoly_ Tax Bill ; but I feel sacisfiecl that Its constructiOn e~ ould provide a (?Teat deal of work. I ha.-e always held that It Is not the dutv of a Government to find ';ork for ali the 'unemployed. Still, if there are necessary works to do in time' of distress hke the pn···.ont, then the Government should proceed With those works, because, if the Go­vernment have no faith in the country, how mm they expect other people to show faith in 1t: I hope that, if in the future legislation is mtroduced wluch wlll be the means of finding 'York for the people the members of the Labour party will think first of the men who mmt y,ork. If anyone is prepared to spend money m developmg the country, wo ought to open our a1·ms to them and give them every cncouragomont .. The bulk of the money that has come here m the past has not paid in­terest, but it has given a great deal of ":mploy',nent, and has opened up the country tor settlement, and 11 o cannot have too much of that. in this big country with its spars'l fc_0pulatron. It wou!d be a bad thing if it should go out that It was the dutv of a Go­Y<>mmont to find Work for all the Unemployed. The experiment was tried in New South \Yalcs, and was a huge failure. It has never been tried in Queensland. If it was, I am satisfied the bulk of the people would sed< ,. Jrk from the Government, because Govern­ment work is easier and better paid than other -,;-ork, as a rule. You would have men living in the country flocking into the towns in search of Government work. Such a system must inevitably lead to failure, and to worse distress than it was meant to put an end to.

But in times like these the Government might undertake some works, even if they have to bor,·ow the monev. \Ve have suffered from drought and may ... suffer again fron1 the same caubo; b·1t the Go.-ornmt nt should try to help people to tide over the bad times by finding som<? \York for them. I rcn1ember vvhcn Lho la,te mccmber for Flinders, Mr. McDonald, '.:irl that vou could tra1 el all ovor Queons­iuncl ,nd 'not sec a man out of cmploy-

1 think we shall ha.-c those times but in the meantime wo should

to bridge m·or the present are hac! hero ; they are .-ery

in To\YnsYillc ; and, after the sugar sea~on is oYer, they will be worse, because at pu·,ent the cruohing stacon is giving employ­ment to numbC:c·s of white men, and that work "-ill be o.-or by the end of the year. TLl'll, unl0ss the GoY()rnn1ent arc prepared to step in and do something more than they are doing now, we n1ust either lose a lot of our population or therP will be great distress. I do not think that the Land Bill is anything like as liberal as the Government wish to r< 1itkc out ac; a means of attracting peoph, to go on the laEcl. The amendment proposed by the senior member for :M:ackay, Mr. Paget, was a liberal one--

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ho;\1'. R. PIIILP: \Ye are talking of the un­employed, and of the unemployed in the future; and if we could get a number of our young· men to settle on the land, there would be somo hope of their succeeding-.- But there is not much hope of success in tho case of middle-aged people and tradespeople. [The PRE1IIER: Y cry often they make the best settiers.] Sometinws they do, but a boy is likelv to make a much better settler. I t;ave sugi0i3ted three things that the Go.,-ernment might do which would g-ive ample work to tht> people of Korth Queensland, and no doubt some hon. member will sugg-est something which would be of equal benefit to the people of f'outh Queensland. I also hope the Trea­surer will be able to dredge the Brisbane River from Pinkenba to the city, so as to let those big stf·amers come right up to the town wharves. That would give plenty of employ­ment, as there are many idle dredge hands. [~lr. K"ERR: 'l'he people of Brisbane do not take much interest in it. They tried to g·ot up t>Yo meetings and failed.] That is a different matter altogether. [Hon. E. B. FOilREST: There is a Yery good reason for that, and vou know it.) The Secretary for Lands has clone .-erv well in the past, and, if he goes on opening, l1p n1ore land, he ·will giYe n1ore employment, because the people vho take up land often employ people, and the moTe settle­ment we gd in the country the less fEcar of the unon1ployed increasing. I think the Goyern­ment might ha.-e clone better than spend n1oney in clearing prickly pear. No Go,.-ern~ n1ent is justified in spending money just for the :-:~ku of giving 81r1ployn1ent, unless they are satisfied that they will 'iet some value in return. Thev b~.-e no right to spend the 1noncy of taxpavers vYho are \vorking- hard, and who cannot afford to \Yaste money; but, at the sam-e tin1c, in tin1es like these, the Go­yernn1cnt n1ir:-ht make a bigger effort than the::- have done in the past, because, after all, thev have not done much-not as much as thf_;, might haYe done. The Treasurer has tolcl us he has something like £800,000. \Veil, '"e kno,,· there are son1e nec-essary public works that are not. being· proceeded with. I hope that the House will be asked this ses­sion to sanction son1e of thos8 necessary works,.

Hon. R. Philp.]

!)50 J:fotion for AclJourmnent. [ASSEMBLY.] }dation for AdJournment.

whi::h will not only give a reasonable amount of interest in return, but 'viil also do some­things towards opening up and settling this ~Teat country.

:'llr. KE::\':::\A (Bon·m): I think this motion i> well timed. There is not the slightest doubt that there is a large amount of bitter srumbliug and clish·es~, not only in this cit:c, Lut in out-of-the->vay places a-s well. I have had '-ome glaring cases of real, downright, cruel poYert.) brou;;ht under my notice during the last. few v:eeks. I will not go into cletaib; lmt 1 lmmv tha,t there are fifty men waiting for eveTy job that, is gain?. I gi,-c tlw Go­---crnnwnt credit for ha,vmg attempted to ::;rapple 1.'\·ith this problem; and, on rea.ding through the staternent of expe,nditure in con~ nection 11 ith the land-clearing experiln('nts, I um -,truck with the fact that nea-rlv nll of those experiments are confined to th,;: South and tlw Centre. \Yha.t ha, beeu cloue fot' tlw un­employed in Ll,e :::\or;h? Absolutely Dothin,;. [.\Ir. \\'OGDS: 'fhey do not want charity in the :::\orth.J The worst of it is that in the majority uf cases the men who a,re ont of work have wives and familic' behind them, and it is the'e who are the silent sufferers through lack of food and work on the part of the mctt. It is a probl-em that besets every Go­vernmeut, not only in Australia, but in other parts of the world; and the success of the Uovernment will depend upon the success of its cfforts in solving this problem. I do not think that the mere finding of work­digging sand, whether from the bed of the river or from a reserve-is going to solve the unemployed problem at all. I think the suc­cess of the problem lies in the direction of taking industrious, idle, non-producing men and converting them into producers. (Hear, hear!) And just as the Government will lay themselves out to solve the problem in that direction will they succeed in this unemployed trouble. I know that in New Zealand a great deal of success has been met with in that direction. I am sorry that when the Government undertook the clearing of this pest-infested land they did not make some attempt to induce the men employed there to become settlers on this land. In New Zealand, when they cleared the mountainous scrubs the Government offered the men who were en­gaged in the clearing an inducement to settle on the land, and so become cultivators. They provided them with tents, furnished them with tools, and guaranteed them rations. The result was that large numbers of men, instead of being street corner hangers round were turned into industrious farmers. It was prowd that it was possible to take men with very little experience of cultivation or farm­ing methods from the streAts, and, in course of time, by judicious selection and careful grafting on to the soil, to make of them in­dependent and successful farmers. Another method that should suggest itself also to the Government in dealing with this matter is this: Over there the public works of the Go­vernment haYe been made the medium for drafting people on to the land. For instance, the navvies on the railway line are encouraged to take up sel-ections adjacent to the lengths upon which they are employed. For instance, for four clays they may work for the Govern­ment on the lengths, and the other three days they may devote to the improv-ement of their selections. In course of time these men are ready to draft from the lengths on to the land. and then others are employed in their place. That is a system under which a gradual stream of men may be passing from the ranks of the unemployed to work, such as on the

[Hon. R. Philp.

railways, and then on to the land. It gives men an opportunity to first get a foothold, before they let go their livelthoocl, and it deserves consideration. Labour colonies have also been successful in other places. I under­stand that at Llongatha, in Victoria, although it has not been a financial success, it has not been a failure. There any man who is out of employment may go and put in his time until he can obtain employment, and I believe that good results have been obtained from the system, although it has not been a financial success. ~cvcrtheless, if the Government had to provide practical assistance to these men it would have cost them much more than putting them on to the land and teaching them the methods of cultivating, and getting some return for the labour so bestowed. I think it is a very serious matter, and it js a matter that will engage the attention of thts House and of the Government of devising some means of coping with the gr-eat dis­tress that exists at present, and convert­ing these idle men, if possible, into produ?ers. That is the problem that co~fr'!nts . soCiety, and if societv does not solve tt, It wtll solve· society. ·

:!Hr. MACART~EY (Toou·o11g): I ris<' to express a certain gmount qf syn1pa.thy with the subject which has been Introduced by the hon. member fo1' South Bnsba.tle'. I YellturB to hope ~hat as a result of the motion t!Iis aft,Jntoon son1ething ma.y be donn by tl~e bo­--ernmcnt to relieY-e the very acute dtstress which exi,ts in Que.enslancl to-clay. I ca-n speak from p<:>rsonal knowledge of a large amount of distre" that cxtsts tn Bnsbane and its suburbs, and I hope that the seriousness of the matter having now been brought bdore the Chamber the subject will be tackled by the Govern~ent, and something done. I think that the subject is a very much wider one, so far as it affects Brisbane at auy rat<>, t.nan the yiaw taken by the hon. member f'!t: Bowe,n. Ac:xding to that hon. memb-er. tt some stens are tal<en to pro-vide profitable em· ploymont for the. icll('lr-~the strc<Ot . haue,er rouud. as he puts tt-It would settle tt. But I think that would be- merely touching on the frinee of the trouble. \V e are sufferinp; to-da:<­fro,{, the evil that men a.re willing to work hut cannot Q:et v ork. There aJ·e, n1a.ny per:3ons who'e families aTe stan·ing· in and around Btisbane, and I am ratheT a,st-Onishecl that the P1·emier did not take a more sympathctte ,-iew of the position. [Opposition member': Hear, hear!) The distre~s is clue- largely. to my mind, to the sudden shnnkage m the Govern­ment expenditure. In 1902 the Government- ex­pettded in loa,n money up,YaTcls of £1.000,0UIJ. In our la,st- fmancial year the Uovermnent, expended £2~5,000. wLich is a shrinkage of £750,000 in the lo-an expenditure, 1'8-sicles the shrinkage in ordinary expendi­ture from reYenue. The distress that ex­ists must be very largely ascribed to that. and to the disturbing effect of the- policy which is being forced-gradually it may be. but surely-upon the people of Queensland. (Hear. hear~) You camwt di.sturb the great t-n­dL!'trie·s of a couutry, nor the small busine"B of the country-if it conKs to that~without stopping the commencement of fre~lt enterprbe. without blocking· some of the people enga!2ed tn enterprise, and ew ry act of that kind tends to creat<' an addition to the army of unemployed. 1 t is perfectly idl<' for the hon. me m lwr fnr Brisbane South to get up and tackle the sub­ject i.n1 the, way he, has clone. The hon. member sa,icl that it was the duty of eve'l'y Government to provide work for every man that wanted it. but who could not get it, yet the hou.

Motion for Ac(iournment. [3 OcTOBER.] Motion for Adjournment. l:J51

t:e11tle1nan is supportin.g· a Government whose policy has had the result of preventing men from getting; work from one end of the State to the other. The hon. gE>ntlemaJl wants to provide the means for ending an evil which he himself has ac,shied to create. \Yhile the hon. me m b0r gets up and refers to the unemployed question in tllP way he does, he, at the same time. supports a policy which we have' had verv much in evidence of lat.e. The Trca­sure.r is the one man, I suppose,, above all otlwrs in the :\Iinistry, who is respomible fm· the prnsent fina.ncial policy of the State­[:llr. RYLA:'-iD: A very good policy.]-and he to a very la.rge extent. is responsible for the very large number of unemployed we have. [:\Jr. WOODS: That is not so.]. I say it is he­yond all doubt that the policy of the Govern­ment as it is now being carried out is the policy of the pre,ent Treasurer, and the hon. gentleman must carry the responsibility. Now, in 1902 the hon. gentleman moved a motion in this Chamber dealing with the unemployed, and at that time he stated-

I have no desire-and 1 wish the Premier to under­stand that clt:arly-to attempt in any way to make politrcal capital out of the unfortunate position in which many people find themselves. I have no desire even to blame the Government unduly, for I recognise quite well that to a very large extent the Government are in no way responsible for the present unfortunate state of affairs. I simply wish to press npon their attention, and to get other members to pres~ upon their attention, the need of doing something to proYide work for the large number of the unemployed throughout Quc~-.nslan.i. Some ten weeks ago, at the opening of Parliament, I called the attention of the Premier then to the desperate pm;;ition of thousands of people throughout Queensland through lack of employment.

That was at a time when the Government were spending more money than they are doing now. lMr. \VooDs: He did not blame the Govern­ment, but you are doing so.] I will not go behind a I fence to say anything. \Vhatever words he used, he clearly intended to cast discr8dit on the then Government. He said it was for the Opposition to point out to the House that the evil existed in connection with the unemployed, and it was for the Government to find a remedy. In his speech on that occasion the Treasurer clearly pointed out what he considered was a remedy for the unemployed at the time. He said-

And, in the face of this condition of affairs, the Go. vernment are 1wactwaUy doing nothing.

[Mr. JE!\KI!\SO:\': They were spending £1,000,000.] Then he went on--

The deputation which waited on the Premier the other day are just where they were three months ag-o. The Premier c,Juld do nothing at all; he waR helpless, and the :o;ecretary for Railways provided work for Rome thirty men. I think the Secretary for Railways deserves credit for at least attempting to do something, but I do not think he has done so much a:-:; he should have done. In my rt.istrict there is a considerable stret,.h of railway for 'vhich the money was pas~ed by this Hon~e two years ago. In the Clermont district there is another 12 miles of railway for which the money was passed two years ago, and ytt not a picl( has been put into the ground. I suppose the l\'linisterwill say that he requires to get the sanction of the House to an alteration of the 1·oute of the Gladstone to Rockhampton Railway.

He indicated himself in his own words what he considered the Government could have done, at least temporarily, to deal with the unemployed question. \V hat is the po.<ition to-day? One of the railways to which he then referred is exactly in the $ame position to-clay. \Ve have other reproductive works which may be carried on. But, no; the hon. gentleman has changed the policy of the country. He does not now believe in the policy which he brought up at that time. 'VVe also find on that occasion hon. members now on the other side, urging the Government

of the day-although that Government were spending five times as much loan money as the present Government-to spend more .m~:mey on their policy for the purpose of assBtmg the unemployed. The hon. member for Gregory, the Go\'ernment "whip," on th><t occasion said-

If the Government wish to relieve the distress they will have to put a little more life into their public works policy.

Then we h"'ve the hon. member for Fitzroy, who saicl-~nmerous large public works have been authorised,

and the moneY ''oted for them, and I would like to see the Government go on with those works, and thus relieve the couge~ted state of the labour market for the present, and then when the rain comes the 1nen would be rel1nircd by private employers.

Then the hon. member for Fortitude Valley, Mr, McDonnell, and other hon. members on the other side, ad vacated the spending of money for the purpose of finding work. The hon. member for Gympie, i\Ir. Rylancl, also said-

I hope the Government will find some work for the unemployed.

I do not think it is nece,,sary to go into this matter as fully as one might feel disposed to do, but it is a trouble that has been crying out for relief. I think that some( hing at least should be done by the Government to relieve the unemployed and particularly in and arou~d the city of Brisbane. \Ve have had some rehef works-or rather something in the nature of relief work~-in the last year or two, but what are the facts? People are taken from the city of Brisbane to \Varwick, Rockhampton, or Dalby. [l\Ir. GRA!\'T: Not to Rockhampton.] They w~re taken away from their homes. What kind of relief is that? A man gets a small amount of relief, but he has got to keep two establishments going at the same timE'. \Ve have within 10 or 12 miles from Brisbane about one-third of the whole population; naturally the greatest amount of distress exists here, and I think that somethihg of a subHtantial nature ought to be done to find work for the unemployed in and around Brisbane, and all over Queensland if necessary.

:llr. KERR: One would think, from the re· marks of the hon. member who has just sat do\, n, that there were nev,er any unemployed

in Queensland until the present [5 p.m.] Government came into power, and

that the Treasurer was particu· larly responsible for the present unemployed. But anyone who knows the hon. member for Rockhampton knows very well that eighteen tnonths ago he was making inquiries in every possible way to get information-[Mr. MACARTKEY: And stopped there.]-to get in­formation from responsible persons, not in BriFbane alone but in other portions of the State, because I !mow officials of large organi­sations, the executives of which he communi· ea tee! with, and was asked if they would consider the matter of the unemployed difficulty, and make any suggestion whereby the unemployed could be given >York, not as a matter of charity -not by shifting sand, not by painting where is was not required-but any suggestion where money could be profitably expended in repro­ductive works, and that is the only sound basis any GoYernment can go upon. [Government members: Hear, hear!] \Vhat has been the example of our sister State? Money was shovelled into a 'anclhill, in the painting of railings, and in bringing a large number of the unemployed out of the country into the city, and many of them got into 'habits, owing to the lack of employment, which they had not before. and became utterlv unfitted for work. I say that the present Treasurer and the

Mr. Kerr.]

952 [ASSE:viBLY.] JHotion for Adjoui'nmwt.

Go;;ern1ncnt haYo donl 1nore for the unen1-pioyed than any other Government before then1._ [Govornrncnt members: Hear, hear!] But I clo not think they have accomplished all they might have done. .~nyone who has read the 'vork "Newest England," ,vhich is in our library, will see •ehat has been done in Kew Zealand, which was referred to by the hon. member for Bowen, by the successful attempt vvhich \Vas made by the giving of -work to thf'> uneuploved for a certain nnmber of vears and then allci"wing them to settie upon the !duel­clearing the roads, cutting do,vn tintber and so forth. I think if the Government had' g·one a little further when they were clearing· the land of the timber, and the prickly J_:,ear off the country, which, if any is left, will n :1uire continual supervision and chippin·~· to keep it dcnvn, they ought to have endeavoured to settle these people on the land. [).Jr. JEXKIR­~ON: How?] By advancing money as they mtend to do now, and that is what a Govern­ment in (~ueBnsland has never attempted to do before the present Government. Xo Go­vornnwnt has eycr come do,vn "before and placed upon the Eftimates a sum of money to a· .. qst people to settle on the land as this Government intends to do. There is a vreat number of unemployed in Brisbane, but I am pleased to say there is not the number of un­employed in the country. Only a fortuight ago 1 recetved a letter from the Thomson River, telling me that there is not an unem­ployed man in that district, and that men are wanted there. A member of this Chamber has informed me only this afternoon that in the Burnett district contracts have been opened for sinking and rnining work, and there is not a man there to take it up. Could not some of these un-employed, some of these tradesmen-and there is a number of trades­men out of work in this city-be provided with some means of going to these districts where the work is, and getting employment there? I listened very carefully to the rnover of the adjournment of the House and the other speakers to see whether they suggested any­thing for the removal of this burden upon the St,,1te. 'l'hc hon. member for Brisbane South never made any suggestion as to how these men should be employed-he will not say there should be more public buildings built in Bris­bane at the present time. Xo one will say that there should be more bridces built at the present time; and no one ~vill say that · ,·e ;o:wuld bL:ilcl more boilers that are not required JUst to g-1ve work at the present time. \Yhen the work was given at the new Lands Offices, what was the result? A large" number of mechanics came in from the other States, and were engabed on the work c•·hich was prm·ided ~Jy th!" late Government for the unfmployed m tl11s State at that hme. [11T. FORSYTH: I do not think that is correct.] Yes; there '\Ve-ro stonen1asons en~aged and brought ov-er from Sydney to work on that building, and yet our own men, for whom the work was pro­Yided, were idle. Is that what is suggested­that we should have public works gone on ·with in Brisbane, Rockha1npton, or along the coast! I say that if the collective wisdom of this House < :mnot make some suggestion whereby profitable employment on reproduc­th-.e works in a given number of areas can bo given, then it is not upon the building of public works that are not required that the unemployed difficulty is going to be solved. I think the Government might go a little further than they have gone in their settle­ment of the people upon the land-to get more of them to leave the city and settle upon the land. I had a letter only last week from a

ffoir. Kerr.

carpenter who could get no employment at his trade, and settled in the North Coast district. He has been living there as it were on the chctritv of the storekeeper, because he has not Lwncy to pay for the stores or butcher's meat which they require to live upon. 'I'h~t man is able and willing to work, and he mforms me--and I believe the information is correct, be~ause inquirie,, have been made-that he has made a very determined attempt. r:Mr. JENKiciSON: Has he taken up land?] Yes; and made a determined effort to clear the scrub, and erected a humpy for himself and his wife and children, but still the neighbours are unable to assist him because he is not getting any return. He must be there a con­siderable time before he geh any return from the land, u,nd therefore he is unable to meet his out of pocket expenses to carry on in the meantime. 'l'hese arc oases where I think the Goyornment should step in, and advance the mono:? to a reasonable amount, and they would have the ''me securitv over the pro­ducts or the selection as the Agricultural Bank i::ms for the monev it advances; and even if the Government '~er<' to lose a little by sup­porting men like that and their families upon the land, would it not be much better than cloiing them out rations in Brisbane, and trail­ing them down to Kangaroo Point every week. I make the statement on the very best authority-I ain sorry to say that there ic, a large number of people who are undeservedly getting rations at Kangaroo Point every week, and a large number of people who are deocrving do not got them. 'I'hat is what is uking place, and it is very hard. [Mr. BARRES: ·what is your remcJy?] J\Iy remedy is that these men be helped to settle upon the land and produce from the land. Even if the Government have to give them the same amount of rations which they have to do in Brisbane, i~ it not much better that the men should be upon the land, clearing it and making it much more valuable? In a very short t1me these men, instead of being a burden upon the State·, and they and their families going to Kangaroo Point for rations, will be produc­ing, and they will at least be able to work and maintain their wives and families upon the land they have taken up. The thing cannot be accomplished all in one day, nor a week, nor a mol1th, but the men who want to go upon the iand should be taken away from this citv. I am quite certain that there must be a nuinbor of men who are utterly despondent of life, as they have not been able to get em­!Jlovment for a number of months. rMr. REINHOLD: Scores of them.] If they could se' any opportunity, they would be glad to _got awav from Brisbane and settle upon a p1ece of l~,nd, having the rations given to them until thev were able to make the land produce. l know "that many of these men are hard­working men at their trade; they have spent some of their best years m (~ucensland, and given their best daYs to their trade, but they are unnble to get work. I do not know, Sir, v:hether you have been in the position of going and asking an employer for employ­ment and being unable to get it. I have been in that position times out of number, not only in thi, State, but in the sister State also. I know what it is. I had no persons dependent upon me at that time, but I know wh>:t it is for a qualified workman, a man who IS able and willing to work, to meet with refusals, and to be told that there is nothing doing. Ko wonder men lose a great deal of their self-respect under such circumstances. I hope that H!is discussion will r<'sult in something being done for the unemployed. I believe

JJiotion .for Adjournment. [3 OCTOBER.] 31Jtion fur Ac(jonrmnent. 953

'hat if the Government move in the direction of ccn<lca vouring to settle the people on the land they ,;ill be going in tho right direction, and that the result will be better than doling out rations at Kangaroo Point.

:\lr. BARC\ES (Bulimba): The hon. member who sits immediately in L·ont of me says we are rushinc: this qLwstion. In answer to that, I ,, mlld S'tv that the onestion is one of the greatest inlportancc. 'J~he hon. member for Barcoo told us that he had in his time been an1ong: the unemployed. rrhere ar,; men on this side of the House who have unfortunately, be~n among the un{;n1ployed. 'The feeling~, of a man 1; ho is trying to g·et work and doec; not succetc,-1 ar-e such as to -:1rivB him to dPsneration. I can well rememl"3r one of the experiences of mJ lifetin1e when, as a single youn:.:, f.ello'V, I <"andored aimlessly about the streets oi Bris­balle trying what _,ecmecl to be every possible aYenue for en1ploymcnt, and failing at every turn. There is nothing: makes a man more df""pondent than the feeling that he wants work and cannot c'•'t it. \\'hat the position 1nust. bo \Yh€n a Yr1an ha.~ a ;yifo and children dependent upon hin1 oue can scarcely imagine. \\' e want to look at this matter all roLmd in a fair and straight fashion. I do not believe, with the hon, member for Barcoo, that the position of th" unen1ployecl i" lc·:.s acute than It \Yas ;:;ome months ago. [l\lr. KEHR: I said in the country cE tricts.] I 'lm glad to hear that it is not so acute in the country districts, but the position in the citv is mo3t acute. \\~hile recognising the dopr-cvssing influence of want of employment on the workman, I think it ought to be pointed out that nothing is oo galling to an employer of labour as to have to say-as I have had during the past few weeks -to a n1an who comes to hirn and says, "I do not want your charity; what I do want is wor~i: of ::;ome kind" -I say there is nothing so gallmg to an employer as to have to sav to such a man, "The best I can do for you is to give you rny syn1pathy." I am inclined to think that we are now reaping somP of the effects of the policy -,,-hich has be:m pursued by hon, members opposite during the past ei)'hteen months. (Government laughter.) \\ e ha' had members sup~:)rtmg the Govern­ment practically saying that they would do whatc,ver they could to load burdens on the commuuity, and the imposing of those burdens simply means that the avenuqs for spending money have been closed. Is it not true that many hon. meml~ers opposite have con istently for years sow·ht to demonstrate that the spencl­inc of money by private persons in the build­:ng of railways is an iniquity in the Shte-'! The rc"ult of that policy has been to drive aw.1y men who were agreeable to spend money on rmlwa;: construction. The tradesmen are the people "'ho are feeling the effects of this policy. There are realiy no openings for those >"ho have been the larger trade-,men in the community. and tho rf'' ult is that less em­ployment is afforded to workmen. 'The hon. mt>m1cer for Barcoo referred to the propoql to put men on the land and give them some finan­cial assistaiice. I believe the hon. member i, ri~·ht when he says it is not a bit of use puttin·;, men mi the laud and telling them thev must try to get along without any financial assistance. The cau~e of disa.ste1·:-; in this matter is men have had no lwln at the si art. Ono the mistakes v ··J haY:- :_aad in the past is that ",·e bave pnt L1Pll on ~anci 1Yhich vas not ~uita~3le, or ·,·here thev ha.ve had no fa.cilities for ,..,ottlng- wat-er. 1 ithvthe rosult that whc11 a clry spell c 11ne ::do1H~· thr.::.y have been practically driven off the, land. \\-.p ha.ye b0cn

..a. ':>ked thi::; afternoon to ::: bo\v the 1Yay out of

this difficu~tv. One y~t:_v \YOuld be to assist the local atithoritics rather than to squeeze the111. n.s the Tre:asurcr ha5 !Je,en c~nin§t-to cu~

to ~-r~cl nwney. 1_1 ha"C nioney l~-~1'- ' : They 5pend

t-) tile doors of the hon. \vho inter·

iw

The SPBA:\::E~~: Ord 1·, orchr!

: I did not spc:ak without the the (;OYC'Tllll1€llt ha.Ye in the Le-.~ jn tn-in 'J; to reli.-~ve the

tacy ol1.ght to go further '"0- and I hopn that the

the financier of tho G-overn· to :-<}eak by the book, a.ud

aro ,-.,nxicus to do a-,vay \Ylth

difficulty.

:lr. SOMERSET (Stanley): I do qo~ rise v.7 ith the intention of expressing any opunon as to the cause" of the present depression, though I think one' c mse is, as I have stated before, that we ha 1'e not vet recovered from the oiiects of the drough"t. I wish particularly to call attention to a work which, if undertaken at once, might so1·vo as a palliative to th~ un­emploved difficultv. This IS a work whwh I aclvom1tcd when the late Sir James Dickson was Pn-miel', and the present leader of the Opposition Treasurer. It mao: no~ be a repro­ductive work, but IS one which IS calct~lated to prevent a far gTeater future expen<;hture, and also to prennt loss to the_ commumty. I refer to the bed of the Upper Bnsban.e River. The :\Iinister for Lands laughs. This is no laughing matter. It would not be a verv expensive work, and it would employ a nmnber of men for a short time. All the creeks which feed the Brisbane River have greatly increased in width during the last twe!1ty y~ars, and the ri.-er itself has incrensed m width. This has been caused by the timber brouil'ht Llown bv floods lving on the banks and agamst the bm"Iks, ,,-hich results in a scour _of the banks by the current, T~e banl~s fall m, and the earth thus loosened IS earned clown the ri,-er and deposited as silt in the lower reaches, which have to be dredged at considerable ex­pen -~. I ha Ye been in a position t<: know about this. as I ,,,-atchecl the operations of flood water~. and haYe good r~a~on to remem· ber it, as I was a yery great loser i1~ 1893 and 1894, owinb to the ocean ships not bcmD," able to get up the river and take meat away from t~e fre0zinc; works. I feel quite satisfied that If this matter was looked into by a competent officer, and he reported on the places I could point out to him. the Gm·ernment would find it wotth their while to undertake the work I sug·gest. C\o better time could be fou_nd for it than the present, as people are burmng_ off their grass, the 'vater is low, and the rrver bed almost drv. You could not have a better time than within the next month or six weelm to do this work. I also quite agree with tl_le hon, member for Bulimba in what he said about sinking for water. \V e have a most capable man -in the State-a man who is com­petent to find water almost wherever he looks

Jfr. Somerset.]

954 Motion for Adjournment. [ASSEMBLY.] Motion jo1· Adjournment.

for it on this side of the Range; and, if that man can be got to go and find water where it i' required, it would add to the, value of the land, and a considerable number of men can afterwards find employment in sinking for \Vater.

:\Ir. HA \YTHORX (Enoggaa): There is no doubt this is a very acute question at the present tin1e·. There is a very large nun1ber of nw•n in and around Brisbane who aJ'e out

of work. I speak particularly of f5.30p.m.] Brisbane. because I have more

experience of it than of the outside districts. There are numbeTS of men who are willing· and able to work, but who are unable to obtain it on account of the present bad time>. A g"reat many of the men I haTe come across latdy have been a.histed by the Go­Yernm€1lt to get aw~y into the country, where they have been senclmg men to clear land, and the monev those men have rece•ived has be<Jn very acceptal•le both to themseh-os and to their familieq. I think the Government. might g,o a little further in tl1at direction. There• ara numbers of men who a.re anxiously looking for the hoped-for relief that has been promised, and I have the· a,surance of the i:iooretary for A;lTiculture tlmt these men will be assisted to go on the land by the Gm-ernment providing them with supplies Rnd ra.tions to keep them on the land until thev are able to make a living for themselves. c A good deal has been said on the other side about spending loan money; but there is another aspect of that questiOn that de-serves attention. For the £1.COO,O~O that hon. members opposite speak ?f so ghbly we are paying £40,000 a Y€\at in mterest. That mo-ney is ahsolutely going out of the country, and Is of benefit to nobody in (~ueensland ; so that I consider it is far bet.ter for the State to spe1;d £225,000, as it did last year. and pay no mt<?~rest, than to borrow a;,other £1,000,000 and have to pay £40.000 annually m mtt'rest_ [The TREAScRER: \Ve have £40,000 le.ss interest to make up this year on account of that.] The, Premie~r has asked for suggestions, and, at the risk of being tLought pa.rochial. I shall snggest something. fAn honourable member: Enoggera?] Yes; Enoggwa. iLaughter.) With that idea in view,_ the_ other day I asked the Secretary for PubliC Works If _he would ende~vour to get the money spent m tho Eno;,-gera district that \Vas recomn1en~ed n1any yetars ago in making a new reservOir to the north of the- present one, so as to make the supply of Bris­bane water absolutely certain. I thought it was preferable to spending something like £1.000.000 at Straclbroke without vetting tlw sarne re.,,ults. If that work v:erc carried out. it wonlrl bo ,,f material b<"Defit to Brisbane, and a.t the sa.n;e tin1e ,it would provide a large amount of worK for tne unemployecJ. [}fr. JE~KIX­~0:'\: You wonld have to pa.y interPst on that.] The Board of \\ at<'rworks \Voulcl have to bor­rm the money and find tho interest. I con­side;· the mune:v would be well spent in manv ways. In a,dcEtion to t-hat suggestion. I woul;l also suvgt>st the scheme for -settling on the land the unemploved who are- willingc to work a.ncl '=V}Jo are. use(l to ru~,rdenin,~- a.n~l fa.rn1ing< Many of them ''"OU]d be verv dad to rret on the land if they hari sonle means of se-tt'ing there. This is a very big· que.stion, and a c;ne.st-inn rlwt is attracting a great deal of attention thTou&·hout all th'c- Sta'tes of Austra­lia. \Ye are not the on]" Sute that is suffer­ing·. The p1·oblem occup;es the minds of e.Ye"·v mzn in and out of politics in Australia. r:~h:. R YLAXD: It is world-wide.] It is a very hard problPm to solve. and I should b<> very glad

[ 1Jf r. Somerset.

to see the Government set to v ork to do some­thing more than they ba.ve clo-11B so far. I am glad to leM·n that thc·e is a sum of £1,0JO on the Estimatec; toward' this end: and. If It IS

found that the monev is well spent, the lin­vernment will certainly get th<> support of this House jn increasing the arnount~

Mr. HARDACRE (Leichhardt) : I rise to give the motion my sympathetic support. I think it is amply justified by the pre~ent con­dition of things. I have been m this House whilst a number of such motions have been browrht forward and I do not think there was ever "a time \Vh~n it was more justified than now. I have known Brisbane for over twenty years and I never knew more suffering from pove1:ty and bad times, and more men out of work. [Mr. JENKINSON: Hear, hear! vVorse than in 1893. J I think it is infinitely worse than in 1893, or worse than in 1883, when we had large numbers of immigrants coming h~re and flooding the labour market. The Premier has alluded to federation as possibly having something to do with causing such a dreadful state of affairs. •No doubt the displacement of industries and their transfer to the other States has had something to do with it; but, at the same time, there are advantages d':'e to federation which compensate for the ells­advantages. If industries hav-e been taken away, we have got the cheaper products of southern industries, ,and to that extent the cost of production here has been reduced. [:\fr. JENKINSON: That is not c'?rrect.] \Vheth0r that IS so or not, thiS trouble Is com­mon to all the States of the Commonwealth. [Mr. JENKINSON: It is clue to the fatuousness of the Labour party.] [Mr. MANN: You· wanted . to join it once.l [Mr. JENKINSON: I never did.] [Mr. MANN: You sought its assistance. J The question is one tl:at is up faT solution in every State in Australia. 'l'he Government are to be commended for some of their efforts. Whatever we may think of the expenditure in connection with tJ:e public estate improvement fund, we must, m all fairness, admit that the effort was well intentioned and worthy of commendation, though I recognise that it only touches the· fringe of the question. It is most remarkal?le that in this State and throughout Australia, with all the resources we possess, and despite all our progress, we still find men who cannot make a living. M<'n who have the power of producing the wealth which we are all so anxious to obtain are unable to produce that wealth. There must be something more wrong than the mer.e expenditure '?f a. little public money. At the bottom, It IS an economic question. Not only have we unem­ploved labour, but we have unemployed capi­tal· and unemployed land. If we can bring those three factors together-labour, capital, and land-we shall solve the unemployed ques­tion without the necessity of any special ex·· penditure bv the State. The immediate cause of the trouble is that neither labour nor capital can find remunerative employment. The, rc"etson for this is that the other factor is in the hands of some people who charge such extortionate prices for it that the other fac­tors are unremunerative. \V e shall never get at the bedrock of the trouble until we· deal with that aspect of the question. Apart from the real solution of the unemployed question, there are some palliatives which may give immediate relief. I thoroughly agree with what has been said abou,t the sudden shrinkage of loan expendi­ture. I do not believe we should stop our loan expenditure. [Opposition members: Hear,

.:11otion for Adjournment. [3 OcTOBER.] ~1fotion for AdJournment, 955

hear!] That is one matter, perhaps, in which I do not see eve to eve with evervone in this House. I thir1k it is 'the duty of the Govern­ment, after the drought, and until we get oYer our difficulties, to go in for rea,onable public works wherever they can be remunera­tive!)' undertaken. I would like to see some depa.rtment specially established for that par­ticular purpose. The Government have done Yerv well in the matter of land settlement, but thev would do better still if they adopted the sntem of workmen's homestead blocks which has worked so well in South Australia. It is a svstem which deals with land settlement not mei·ely in country districts, but by which the GO\·ernment either set apart or repurchase suburban lands, and settle artisans upon small blocks, givirw each man as high as £80 to build a home and make some improvements such as planting fruit trees or getting some poultry. [:\lr. JENKINSON: On what tenures?] There are various tenures. Perpetual leasing is one of them. [Mr. JENKI!'ISON: No; it is not.] It is one of them. I admit that it is sometimes conditional purchase. [:!'.Ir. JEN­KINSON: Hear. hear!] Instead of sending our artisans into the country districts, this system would enable them to settle near home, and the State would have the security of their improvements. It has worked very well in South Australia. [The TREASURER: It has not been a complete success there.] I can give the hon. gentleman some very glowing reports on the working of the system in South Australia, showiug how the money that has been ex­pended has resulted in a large number of blocks being taken up and some hundreds of thousands of pounds spent in improvements. The matter is well worth a trial. [The TREA­srRER: \V e would be glad if we could find a convenient place in the neighbour­hood of Brisbane to give it a trial.] I admit that there are no lands available here nmY, but we might repurchase. A great deal has been done in the way of land settlement, and I admit that a great deal of praise is due to the Government. [The TREASURER: There are more matters of that kind under considera­tion.]. I am very glad to hear it. In addition t0 tlus. we have on our statute-book a method of dealing with the unemployed. In 1893 we pa,,ed the Co-operative Communities Settle­ment Act. a sub-portion of which dealt with the establishment of labour colonies, and it would be well worth while to see if something could not be done in bring-ing these into exist­ence· to deal with a certain cla-s of the un­<>mployed. Another suggestion which has occurred to mv mind is one which I think will app<:>a] to the :'\rinister for Agriculture-that is, to devote some of the £7,000 put on the Esti­mates for the purpo,e of inaugurating cotton­growing settlement. That is an assured crop. [L\Ir. KEOGH: I\o; I have had ocular demon­stration of that.] It mav have its enemies in the. shape of pests, but so far as growing is concerned it does not require so much atten­tion as other crops, and it would not only give work to the unerrfployed, but would establish a very usdul indu,try. Here is anothn ad­Yantage that would result from it: It would make new areas available for small settlement -areas where littl0 capital was required. Apart from this. I sav that the main trouble is because \.ve allovir oUr own natural resources to be. held by those who have !rOt possession of them to such an extent that thev are unre­munerative to the community gen-erally, and they ar0 unabl<> to produce all we want. That is the cause of the depression. The unem­ployed problem arises whenever industrial de­pression exists, and whenever prosperitv comes the unemployed disappear to that extent. I

have a ,-ery lar~·e amount of sympathy with the motion, and I hope that the Gov8l:nment wiil be able to give some immed.iate assrstance to the workless at the. present time.

:\lr. TCR:'\ER (I!ockhampton Tort!~): I ,-·oulcl like to say a. word or two on tl11~ un­employed qu<>sticu, a.s I know that rt rs pressing· sor'?ly on vell'Y. m~n:y people. In one industry m my own drstnct, where I have knowu as many as 1,000 to 1,200 persons to be employed, I do not think that there are at pre·seut. :WO employed. ancl1t 1s only na.tura.l that t.hose who have the alnhty to labour and l~ave be,en accustonx cl to getting ernployment in these. pla.c0s Jnust feel tne di:::tress ve:·::­Jnuch i:11de·ed. Only a day or tvvo ago I ,yas 1n the- cbtrict, and I fouud tha.t. the\re were a r.umber of men employ<>d at the rrver \vorks at Thompson's Point. )Jot only were the people from our own netg·hbourhood .em­ployed. but theire were others from all parts of (/ueensland, and some from other States a.s well. There is no doubt that the unemployed evrl. exists very largely in other St~tes just a;-) w_ell a.s in Que;ensland. :'\ ot long srnce I mad0 I!l­quiries as to the nu1nbey of un€nlployed rn Svdnev. and I was told rt a.mounte<:l to 8,000 o;- 10.i\llG. I ''as told in Vwtona that there were ~il{e\vif+' a large nurnber of unemployed men th2re. In \Ye.stern Australia, I wa.s told that on the go]dfidcls it was nothing unusual to :;ee 200 n18;n waiting about at the end of each shift S<·ein~; ii there was a. cha.nce ~f O"etting· a shift m two to work. So the evrl rs not wholly confined !to queen.sla.nd'. I mid1t refer to one trade ospecmlly m Queens­land where I think the people are suffermg·. That is the boot trade. No matte1· what shop vou look into you will see they are holdmfO forth the high qtwlities of boots manufactured in everv part of the wOT!d except Queensland. [:\Ir. JEKKINSO>i: And yet good boo~s a.re made in Brisbane.] Yes; as good matena.l and warkm~nship a.s in any ?t.lwr paJ·t. of the world. Tlw shop people espectally ar.:; ver_y much to blame lw holding forth the· Ytrtue, of goods manufa.chued elsewhere in prefe~ence to our own. (Hear, hear!) I recognise that tJ:.e G?­Y~rnmf'nt haYe be-en do·ing. a greH.t deal .1n tlus unemploved matter. They have been domg far more th,1n ha2 been done in some of the ot-he.r Shtt·s. I would like to refer to a paragraph about th.e unemployed in South. Australra. The following· paragraph appears rn the Ade­laide I!egiBter :-

TnE PRE)IIER A:Xll TJ[E r:-~E:l[l'LOYJOJ. At a rteputation on Saturcla:v morning to the Pre_mier

(Hon. T. Price), nskinq- for additions to_ t1~e Inst~tute Builc'ling on :Xorth terrace. it "'\vas stated mc1~entally by His Honour the Chief .1ustice that the extensiOns would provide work for the lmemplo:';ed.. ~Ir. P~ice, in reply, took tbe opportunity to declare his view": 111 !egard ~o relief works. He said:-" You agree that tlus work 1s wanted, and that it b nece-.~ary; a?d_if m)-,. colleag':es come to the same conclusion. then 1t IS not a questiOn of prmriding 1vork for the unemployed at all. I am sure 110 one would suggest th~t it should be done for the sake of proYiding relief works alone. So far as ~ ~n1 concerned, as Ion~ as I am in tbi,~ position, the provisiOn of work for tbe unemployed ·will not influence me. ~f it is work that is re tnired and absolnte 1y necessary, 1t shall br- done. but I shall never be guilty of enronraging expenditure simply to provide work for the unem­ploYed. I want to emphasise this point through tile Prt-:"'~ and through you, gentlemen, at presen!, and tell yon that I shAJl pnt my foot Oow!l in t!us matter, althongh some other people may think that~ may be e:-tsily led in this direction." ~ir Samuel Way, In reply, expressed his plem:nre at tr.e announcement of the Premier. and said that the \YOrk suggested was a great yublic one. It would be a benefit to the working m.en without wasting a :;ingle sixpence. and the Premier knew well that money sprnt in the bnilding trade was a benefit to all classes of the commnnity. That is an opinion expressed by Mr. Price. I am very pleased to say that is not the view the

Mr. Turner.]

956 J1iotion .fuJ' Adjournment. [ASSEMBLY.] Motion .fvr ,J(Uournment.

Queensland Government take of the question. They are taking in hand any means that appeals to thorn to alleviate the dish·,.c.,, I hope that distress will soon be alleviated altogether, and that we shall ~oon be without these large nurnbers of unemploye,l

Mr. KEOGH (Boseu;ood): I regret, with other hon. gentlemen who have spoken on this 1nattor, that we have the r:,)or an1ongst us; but it is an old saving, that there ,,-ill always bo poor people where tho rich are. And what of this £7,000 which the Government have placed on tho Estimates? It is a drop in the bucket. In fact, it is just double the amount they are giving to Dr. ~faxwell. (Hear, hear! and laughter.) The Government have spent a certain a1nonnt in giving work to the unem­ployecl, but will that money be remuneratiye? They sa:, it will. They have been clearmg land at a cost of £13 an acre. \Vhere are the men '· ho are prepared to pay £13 an acre for that land? [The SECRETARY FOR PcBLIC L >NDB: They aro buying it for £100 an acre not many miles off.] That may be a one-peg Hllotment th;1t you refer to, but it is certai1_1ly not in the farming districts. The land wh10h vou refer to might bo held for remunerative purposes, but not, I assure you, the land ~n which the Government have been engaged m clearing the pricldy pear and other noxious weeds. Most decidedly that will never pay. [The SECRETARY FOR PuBLIC LANDS: The land \'lhich cost £13 an acre will be sold as allot­ment land.] [:\fr. P. J. LEAHY: . Are you going to start a new tovm ?] Nothmg would give me greater pleasure than to see these lands remunerative, but "I ha' ma doots aboot it," as the Scotchman said. (Laughter.) I can show the Government where expendi­ture will become remunerative if they will give a helping hand. If they advance to ~he local government boards money for clearmg out the dams. and othe1· things that are v;,ry badly required, that would give work to the unemployed, and these bodies would only be too happy to pay interest on 1t. [The PRE-:\IIER: Can vou cite an instance of an

application having be'n refused?] [7 p.m.] I cannot: but thn Treasurer has

been so olosc-fisted in these mat­ters that a great many people are afraid to con1e and ask him for any money, becaus3 he is always sayin~~- there is no money in the Treasury. Perhaps that is a p;ood thing·, but at the sam€ time I believe a 60od deal of money spent in clearing· land has been wasted. As an old colonist, I do not know of any land that could be taken up and i.1ecome remunera­tive at £13 an acre: if so. I have yet to l·carn something· about agriculture, and I know "·hat it is to cultiv ~tto land as well as any member of this Chamber. The hor1. member for Leich­hardt stated that he thon~ht it '<'ould be ad­visable to go in for cotton-grovving. I know tho :\Iinister for \Y arks is Ycry anxious that this work should be gone on ,,-ith, and I g·i,-e him credit for what he hc.s done-he has done all he c<en to foster the interests of the cotton-growers. I IYent in for Cdtton-.~l"O"\Ying, and had a few acres grown at \Yillowbank, within 4 miles of Ipswich. It might have be­con10 rP-'nunPl'ati-.;;e to a man 1.Yho -v.·orked tho farm himself with the h8lp of his family to pick t'1e cotton, but it "ould not pay a ma!' to pay wages to pick it. At thn pres:'nt hme, labour is more abundant than "-c w1sh to see it, but I do not think yon will g-et men to do that kind of work. I tried to get labour to pick cotton. but they would not look at it, as it was work they did not care to make a living at-~

The SPEAKER: Order!

[il1 r. Turner.

2\.Ir. KEOGH: I do not know whether I am going too far from the motion, but from ;ny experience I do not. tlunk cotton-growmg ·cc oulcl be a remuneratiYe crop for the unem· ployccl. No ono would be more pleased to se,e the unemployed in good work than mysol<, and anvthin~ which is brought forward m their ir'lterosts will have my help and atten­tion. I am pleased to say there are very few unemnlo' eel in mv electorate; they are all cmplo.yoJ on tho boil, and doing their host to mako a comfortable living. The unemployed arc generally in th8 cities or close to populo~1s towns, and if they "ould try and get work m the outside districts and not be so exactmg as to the rate of wages, a great number of them would find employment, but they are not prepared to accept the terms offered. I re· ,,}c!nbcr th~ Attorney-General stating on a platform in Ipswich that a number of thes_e men wem lookmg for employment ape! thank­i 1g God the;· had not ITOo 1t. I behove there .{re a numbci· of people "going about who won't talco labour, and I think there would.< be plenty of work if. they :vould only be a hotle more reasonable m thmr demand for wages. It is impos;ible for a farmer to pay very hrgh wages, :ce he would not then be able to mal~e farming remunerative. I trust that not omy will th0 Government, as the Treasurer has rp­timated be willing to make advances to ass1st these rr;en to the extent of £7,000, but that thov will devote £70,000 for the purpose of bm1efiting thr·.e people.

\lr. GHANT: I trust the Government will not look upon the motion as unfriendly,. but rather as a friendly one, for they are m a position to show. that if any Government have ever done anvthmg m Queensland for the un­employed th,; present Gov;ernment have don_e so. [Mr. P. J. LEAHY: Nonsense; they ha' e created them.] They have remov.ed the ~n­omployed question from the plane of charrty to a sound business footing. The unemployed can get their rations, not as a Governmen_t charitv but in return for work. [Mr. JE;>;­Krxsoi/ At Kangaroo Point. J They are now g·iyen \'~-ork. and the wa.g-es the} earn :vill be giyon to them. That has been thl' pohcy fol­lowed up in all the different places to wluch the unemployed have been t.lken. [~Ir. JEN­

KIX~'lx: 9c1. a clay.] The SPEAKER: Order ! '\fr. GR '1.:'\T: 1\;ineponce a clay is_ nothin.g

like the average ~mo~nt they earn; us. 9d. ~s the average. talnnp- rt all round. [i\Ir. o •

LEAHY: It is not the av€;·age.] It IS much nearer the average than 9d. 1s. Somf' ~en have earned £2 12s. a v:eck, others not £1 ;,s .. hut that is ouitc· easily understood. b€cause thev are men who have been ,ent ~ut to thec~e 11_nernplovcd stations who had. previously been kllOckin~ abont thr-' to\ n f(~th~1g soft thr~n1~·h , ·ant of emplovmcnt, and 1t IS hardly hkelv thov would be llble to earn a fair Y,'\ ,1ge strm~ht~ awav. I han' here the departmental return of all the Ftations throughout Que~nsland of tl;~ unemployed. and the average, mstead of boiw>: 9d. u day is 5s. 6d. per day. The un­eldployccl question. in Queensland :s_ partly nn"'d bv the conditions of the two b~g mdus­irie"-the pastoral and the sugar mdustry. Durin!..r thrPe or four months of tbe yt<n· the pastor.al industry p;ives en;ployment to a ~great numb0r of men at sheannfr and other work. and at the same time the sll.;<lr plantatwns have been giving emnloyl?ent to a number. of raen: but ,.,h,?n the sheanng an1 the c1:ush1ng season comes to an end there 1s nothmg for the men to p:o to. If we were to d€velop ~omB industrv in Queensland that would come m as these t\vo great industries stop, there would be

.Jiotion for AcUournment. [:3 OcTOBER.J .llotiJnfor ArCournment . 957

lFl lac~- of cn1ploym-:-ut. \Ye have, perhaps. not done as rnuch fnr the unem;_·loyL~d in (~uccns· land a.:J T'i'0 1ni!!ht have done. but in con1-

parison \Vith other places \Ye have done mar· 'dlously. I took up the parliamental'Y debates of the l-Iouse of Cornrnons for this session, ~.d1en> 1:he prei_,ent Ballour GoYernn1f·nt hr Jught in an unemployed 'vorkn1en's Bill, and ~lr. Gerald Balfour 1 in introducing that Bill, said that the. amount spent in employ· n!·-mt in London, vvit~: its cnor:mous population, ~ncl v-lth the keen distress through 'i\Tant r--E employment and the hard "·inter·, by the metropolitan authorities on work under­take·1 specially for finding v. ork for thb unemployed 1.vorkrnen, ca1ne to £110,00f1. In lzueensla.nd '·" han' only 500.000 peork, a.nd wo ,pcHt last ye"'r £:27.000 ;n finding v·ork fvr the unemployed, in addition to the moneY SlJBHt on ra.tion, a,nd oi,L::r forn1s ot charity. :\la.nchc~ter, Sa!ford. Leeds, Dradforc1, a11cl Si1E,ffield spent £36,Cu0 Jo,t "·inter in findi11:\· \"';'ork for tho unmnployed. and they ha\.'::>- a much la '"er population than tlw '' hol<:> of Qu,· ... nsland. I am ·orrv that the mm·er of this 1notion t~;d not st·~·gCd :30T~re l'f'l11F·-lie,. for coring with the' u11employed diificdt:·. The hon. 1nember d-ealt particularly ~-ith the unon1~ plo:vod difficulty in Bris1 ane. Tlw mwmployed troal:les in Br~ -.Ua.no are du.P to variou~ en uses. Oue is federatio11. ,_dl:r;h lecl to a numlor of boot factori<c·; i;c•i·tg removed to Sydney, and so threw boohnakers o-.Jt of crnploym-ent. The re.:.:..son why a nu1nber of ca.rpcntcr3 are out of work is simpl;y that this Government is 1~ot spenclin; _11oney on buildings, as the previou", Go~ ernn1E>nt did, but are .:ipending it in developing the r0sources of the State. \Ye arc told that tlw land at Jondarvan co.st £13 an acre to clear. But. taking 'the ·,. hol·l' of the la11cl that has been thus dealt wit'1, I bcliew that in about ten vears the Government will find that thev 'have not lost much by the expenditure o.f money in clea.ring thcne eotatc,, I lmo · that the mone.y sre)L on the clc.:.aring of scrub lands 11eJ..r Hockhampton was profitably <'··pended. [:\lr. KEOGH: Isn't it a £act that the Government ,spent n1oney cle.1ring ]and at Rockhampton which i.' under watP·r in time of flood?] K o. ~:l,nvwav. more than half of tha.t land has been sdcl to "people living· ronnel a1cout it, and they lnve paicl the upset price; for the land. But as reference has been made to land under water, I Y.ould ask what about the Ipswich R.ailway \\' mkshops? I understand that nerrrly all the machinery in those shops will be under \Vater 01j the first flood that coin!?-; al·)ng. I a!G soay that the Government haYe not gone a bit further in tryin[( to settle ptop)e on the lands which haw· 1:-<een elF 1.rcd. I am pleased to notice tha.t they are going to introdnc,2 a Bill this '?"ion uuder which thev 'vill be ablE> to p;iYe fiuancial a~sistance to se]c~ctors to tide them on·r the fe.v fir,t trying years That is quite a n<ew departure in Australian politics. but l think the idea, might. have ],ecn carried inrt.hor. The Labour party have always advocated the <··tab]i,,hment of a State farm YYhere men out of em)Jloyment could s·et work as a right. A ;'yst<·:m of that kind has been tri<ed at hom<e ... SpPakinr:· on the Unemplo: eel \Vorkmein Bill in the House of Commons, ::\lr. Sydney Bux­ton said-

Some :, ears ago the Poplar Board of Guardians accepted the offer of a farm in E->:sex to try the ex­periment of getting people hack to the land. Able­bodied paupers were to be EZ.ent down to the farm to work there at. no wages, and to be treated as if they were in the workhouse so far as any yield from their labour was concerned. Yet, dul'ing the time that farm colony had been in operation 400 men had been drafted down from the Poplar district, and out of that number

onl~' scYen h:-H1 ~ 1 .Y'. :1 to he prr:ple IYho would not work. A large vortiou of tllE'lH lla1l been reclaitlltd. aJHl had fuuwt emplo,\ tuent. \Yilile a la! ~;e batcllll>t.d be-\n ~l'llt ael'O'~ to Cauada as th;sirablo emigrants.

T~1qt w:1-..: t!Je reP:nlt of :1n C<periulent with Yery unde.-;irable p rqJle-I J,-·.npers fro111 the workhouse -:::md yet ous o~ -!00 ,ent> to onP farm, only se\·en \vere fonnd to be \PtJI'thk .;:-;. Th8n, in cnJother place, ~lr. ~ydnt>:~ Duxton 8fdd~-

Th1 , (J \'i·a~ ~ome ,. ry mterc t;l1g information of anotlle1· a1 llolleslt \. controllcrl bv that COlilHlittl'e. tll:tt ('.a~e . of liJCll Were .'.8llt down to tlo clrHinfig8 auU. road work, to r,·"clanu he ttll 1:-nHl, to t•on~truct ~ea ·walls, t.o mah:c bricks, and to make tables and chair~ ~.nd oLher articles, and to do painting The co~t \Vas £1 Os. Gel. for ev r:· family re­lie\'8ti. As soon as a man was sent down to the colony, his \>ife rec~ived lil". ~t week, with 2s. for the first child, h. Od. for the ~~>cond, and ls. for each remaining child, Tlw allow;Lt!Ce to each wife 'nts 14". 6U. .• awl the east or rood of tl man \Vas lis., against "·hidl there ·was a inll week's \rork given by the man. 'rhe relief of thP~e meu, therefore, lJy tlndiug· them work (·~)::<t nothing. They conld eHI'n their owu cost, an'i 1JOs,,ibly lea Ye a surplns to assist in l'arryin;:; on the colonies.

I think we might adopt the principie of that experiment in Queensland. \Ve might have farms here where men out of employment could get work as a right, and where they could acquire son1e knovJedge o£ far~ing. Then we should give them land, and some financial assistanc··l to tide them over the first few years. If we did that, instead of having men out of work in the towns we should have clc ,irable settlers. [Mr. JENKINSON: Where would you get the money from?] The money would come out of the consolidated revenue, but after a few years it would be repaid by the settlers. [Mr. JENKINSON: That experi­ment was tried in Victoria, and it failed.] Perhaps it was not tried there under favour­able circum,tanc .. <:s. I desire to refer to an experiment which could be tried near R.ock­hampton. There is a fine piece of land !).ear Korth R.ockhampton called the Queen's Park. It belongs to the Rockhampton Council, but I understand that they are agreeable to give it back to the Government. That land could be cut up into cottage allotments, and in areas a bit larger for market gardens. That would give an opportunity to the waterside workers to obtain a small block of land, either as a leasehold or freehold, at a small price, and "'·hen not employed at their ordinary avoca­tions they could work their own land. I hope the Gon'rnment will see their way to carry out this experiment. It is not their fault that thev haYe not done so. The North R.ock­har{Ipton Council offered some objections, which are now being removed. That would be an interesting experiment, and I know of no other town where there is a block of suit­able land close to the town for cutting up into cottage and garden allotments. [Mr. KEOGH: What is the area of the land?] From 250 to 500 acres. But there are other means of deal­ing with this unemployed difficulty besides that of settling people on the land. We have other big resources to develop besides our agri­cultural resources, and, as a matter of fact, a large number of young men in our tow.ns ha.ve no taste for farming. \Ve have no Iron m­dustrv in Queensland, and yet there is no place' in the world which is so suitable for starting ironworks under the most favourable circumstances. We have iron ore of the highest qualit,, we have the limestone neces­sarv for fluxing, also of the highest quality, and we have coal of the highest quality. These three things are close to one another, so that thore would be no trouble of transport, and vet we allow that industry, which is the foun­dation of all other industries, to lie dormant.

~~fr. Grant.J

958 JJ:Lotion for Adiow•nment. [ASSEMBLY.] 3Iotion for A,~journment.

vVe import all our iron manufactured goods, and the farmer pays for his harvesters from 25 to 30 per cent. more than he would have to pay if they were made on the spot. If the conditions which prevail here were in any other part o£ the world except Queensland our iron re,ourees would have been developed long ago. The late Government simply gave charity to the unemployed as they came along. [I-Ion. R. PHILP: No; \Ve gave them work in building railways. \Vasn't that good world] Some of it; was. [Hon. R. PHILP: \Vasn't the line from Rockhampton to Gladstone a good line?] vVe may have our doubts about that. I would not vote for it again. But though this expenditure from loan is a good thing while it lasts, yet there comes a time when we have to suffer for that expenditure on unrepro­dnctive works such as we have in Brisbane. I remember that a deputation with regard to the unemployed in Brisbane suggested that the Government should bring 1\ater from Stradbroke Island to Brisbane, and that they should dredge the river. Of course, the rest of the Stat•_- was to pay for this. If Brisbane wants waLrworks, then the p<ople should prc­vidc them themselves. The point I make is, that too much attention has been paid to settling people on the land. There are other resources of the State which should be de­v-eloped. and I know of no other industry which could be so easily dev-eloped in Queens­land as the iron industry.

Mr. 1' .• J. LEAHY ( TVa1·1Ygo): The hon. member for Rockhamptnn apparently dirl not

rise to make out a en ~for the un~ [7.30 p.m.] employed so much as to act as the

apologist of the Go.-enunent_ That he rlid not m<tke out a good ca-e was du' not to the hon. member's vmnt of ability, but to theweflk­ness of the case. The hon. member went nut of bis way to blame the late Go.-ernment. He knows perfectly well that during the trying time; when that Government were in ofrlce there were never so many unemployed as there are at the present time. The reason for that is perfectly obvious. It was because men with capital had confidence in the Government, and, bad as the times were, they were ready to invest their capital here, and the people who are now unemployed were absorbed by the industries of the country. The best settlement nf the unemployed dif-Ficulty is to let the industries of tbe conntrv find work for people. On general ground, I ,;m oppos< cl to the Governrr~ent finding work for the unern­ployed, but there ,,re special circumstanc,•s when it may be advisable for them to do ""• and possibly this is such an ocr ,sion_ But in a season such a:-; we !lave had, \Yhen the very heavens are pouring down their bles~inbB upon n~, there should not have been any unemployed. If thAre are unen1ployerl in ~uch a tirne, th8 only conclusion we r:_n cow.e to is tllat there n1ust-, be son1e intimate connection between the present Government and the unemployed. But, not satisfied with L~ving created the unemployed, they are doing practically nothing to rdien those people who~e existtonce has lJeen bron;<ht a bout by the fact that the present Government sit on the Treaq1rv benches. The br,,t way to deal with the matter would be to encoure c;e private enterprise. There are a nun1ber of Ltil­v ays that mi,;ht be built both in the agricul­tural districts and in the interior; and if those railways were built there would be a Yery few unemployed in the State for a lonG time to come. 1'here is a railway wanted in the l'itts­-worth district, :tnrl another in the Oakey district. [The PRE:IIIER : You have a special eye on both those districts.] I ha Ye my special eye on the Go­vernment at the present time_ 1'hen there is a

[1vfr. Grant.

railway that might be built in the Dalby district; and if the Government are not prepared to bmld these lines themselve•, then they ,,honlcl en­courage men with money who are ready to build them on .-ery reasonable terms. Some two or three months ago I was talking to a 1nan who was ready, if he \Vas afforded the opportunity, to build 50, GO, or even lOO miles of railway in an agricultur"l district, and to charge the people the ordinary Government rc~tes. There are also lines in mining districts. The Go,·ernment told us in a half-heartc<l way that they will build a few miles of the Cloncurry line; but there are men who arc prepared to build the whole of that line. [Mr. iYicRPHY: \Vhy did not these men build the line before when they got the conces­sion?] The conditions were not so favourable owing to the onerous conditi01B members of the Labnur party tried to impo~e. An.,ther reason was that the drought continued; and the third, and perhaJJs the tno::;t ilnportant reason, was that two yeare ago we got a kind of hybrid socialistic Gov-ernJnent in power, nnd no man with any sense would bring money into the country and develop its resources with such a Government in office- \Ve have bad eridence during the last two or three weeks of the unv, isdon1 of rnen bringint~ capital here. Is it any wonder, when we have legi&lation that not only prevents capital con1ing here, but which drives ca-pital out of the country, that there arb unem­ployed in Queensbnd? I cl o not suppose anyone will contend that this motion is in any way of a party cbantcter. The hon. member for Brisb;me South, the hon. member for Leichbardt, the hon. member for Bowen, and others who have spoken on the other side, have no sympr,thy with membcTs on this side. I have a circular which is signed by Mr. J. S. Collings, the secretary of the unemployed committee, and he is not in sympathy with member>; on this side either_ He n1ay have rather broad views on smne subject8, but he is a very able young man_ and I do not think anyone who knows him can ctuestion his sincerity. In this circular it speaks of-

ln'i'estigations which have shown to us how \'ery v. ide­sprC'\d indeed is the appalling misery and wretched­ness consequent upon this lack of worlL

Later on it says-\rc hold that statesmen and politicians \Vho desire to

see the people happy and contented e,-,_u llO longer remain silent and inacthre in the face of so mucll pre­Ytmtible poverty as now prevails in our midst, povcr~.:­which is not only destroying those who are merged m it, both physicallY and mentally, but is in our opinion a menace to the very stability of society, and a reproach and Uisg1·ace to all who silently tolerate its existence.

JHy mind is ccuried back a few years when the heavens rang with the denunciations of the members of the L,tbonr party who were then in opposition. \Ve have four times as many unem­ployed to-day as we had then, and yet all the Labonr party giY • these men now is lip Byrn­pathy. Sympathy is a very cheep thing. If we YFant to sympathise with a person, the best way of doing it is to show our sympathy in a pri.ctical form. A considerable number of tl1e men who are unemployed at the present tirue cannot be 8 bsorbecl by the industries of the country. Under those circun1stanct:s, a hnmane and wise Governtnent \ViJUld endeavour to 1neet an emer­gency of th-ct kind. I have no hidebound ideas with regard to thinp:;. Smnetin1es I an1 called a Conservatin, but I think I am a very liberal Democrat. Considering the large amount of fertile well-w~tered Crown lands we have, the Government might settle a number of people in half a dozen different localities, giving them a cert tin amonnt of assistance. The hon. member for Rockhampton suggested something of the same kind, bnt he left us in the dark as to how they were to be paid. I would permit those men to work

}!Iotion for Adiow·nment. [3 OcToBER.] · JJ.otion for AJ.JOUrnment. 959

·those lands for the purpose for which they were best adapted. \Yhen, in the course of a few month", snme of those men were aboorhed in the labour n1arket, I -.vould pennit a rnan rf'present­ing the Government to value the land and the work they had .;~ne, and, after deducting the cost of their rations, gi• e them the babnce. If the experiment proved succ• ;.sful it might be developed to a larger extent. _\.nothe,: thing th·.t might result from that would be that, according as those n1cn got experienec in culti­-,..·ating the land, and accot<ing a:s they '-\ere able to acr1nire a few pound:::; fron1 working there and outside, they mignt select a !lortion o£ this land or of some other land, and in that way we might settle men upon the land who otherwise would be thrown upon the resonrce, of the com­munity. \Ye were told by the Premier-·and he thought he was telling us something wonder­ful-that £7,000 is to be spent in C0nn,lc­tion with thi::; 1natter. .._-\ssunliDb that it takes about £200 to setde a fclmily on the land, that ::m!y means a c nnparatively small number of people \Vill become Kettlers. I \·enture to t-3 :..y th,-, t not 5 per cent. of the unemployed "ill be dealt with in that v:ay, and, whatever we m~y think of politic .I economy or of business principlc.s, there is one thing tha'"i any civilir-ed comruunity is willing to admit, 'nd that is that humanity is the highest law. I did not ri,e for the purpose of ernbarras ·ing the Governmt<nt, 'but to express my honest couviction that, if the Government 'Xould enc·1urage p!ivate enterp1ise by permitting it to build some of these railways ·that ought tn be built, there would he le's heard of this ditficnlty. [The PHE~!IER: }'om of them have had options for four years.] The hJn. gentlem::m is talkirog of the mining railways in ::\'urth Clueensland, and in regard to which the conditious are not sutficiently liberal. I am referring to lines in agricultural :\nd pastoral districts. I an1 not advocating any line in n1y own district, but there are lines which would give a g-reat deal of employment if they were built. If the Government rise to the occasion and to a fuller appreciation of their responsi­bilities, and give that encouragement to private enterpri,;e which hon. members on this side believe in giving, the number of unemployed in Queensland would soon grow " smaller by degrees and beautifuliy less." [Mr. KERR: \Vhat about the line from Cunna­mulla to Thargomindah ?] A great de,LI may be <aiel about that, but on this occasion I purposely refrained from ad vacating anything in which it might be said I am personally interested. I am not goin~ to acJopt the narrow, petty, parochial spirit tha~ is actuating the hon. member for Barcoo. I desire to take a more comprehensive view of the question, and I submit that the levity that is being displayed by th .. t hrm. mem­ber at the present tirne is quitt- out of place. \Vhile men and women and their families are starving it i" not becoming of the leader of the Labour party to act as he is doing.

i\Ir. COW AP (Fitzrou): \Vhen this nue-tion was before the Houoe in 1(!02, I then expressed the opinion that the Government should go on with the railways that had been passed by the House, and so give work to the unemployed. I say the same thing now. The Government have got the money, and I would like to see them spend it in public works of that sort, and make as early a start as poseible, because this is just the time of the year when work is very slack, when a number of works are closing up. So far, there is one phase of the question which no hon. gentleman has touched upon, something that will cost the Government very little, and will open an immense amount of labour for people in the State. I suggest that the Govern-

ment should bring in a mining on private pro­perty Bill. (Hear, hear!) In many parts of Queembnd there are large areas held by what is called "n1ining freehold." I have in 1ny 1nind one piecn of land which b locked up that would give work to the whole of the unemployed of Queensland if opened up. [Hon. H. PHILP: \Vbete is that?] The old Doe Copper Mine. Some twenty·eight ur thirty years ago it was worked undPl' most nnfa vourn~Jle conditions, and yet it paid dividends. [Hon. R PHILP: I don't think it paid cli,·icLnrls. The Pe:c.k Downs Copper J\Iinc you mean?] J'\o, the Dee Copper :\line, and I think it paid dividends. The conditions are favourable at the presc'nt time for working that mine, especially w hiie copper remains at the price it is. These people hc,ve not worked it for twenty-eight or thirty years, and they will not allow anyone else to work it unle"s they pay a heavy price for the r,rivilege. A mining on private property Bill would bring that property into the !1U'xket., and Rnn1ethiug- onght to be bruught in to make these people pay something fairly he.wy or work the mine themselves. In the Burnett district and other parts of the State there are properties held under the same tenure, the rights haYing been "old with the mineral in them. They ha,-e been solrl for a very little n1oney; and, if these properties were ot ened up, they W(J~1d give such an in11Jetus to the rnining induotry that, if it is not the biggest producing industry in QL!eenslaud, it would soon be very near it. In many districts I have known a man sink a shnh thinking he is on Crown land, when someone comes along and tells him that it is private pro­perly, and he has to clear ont. [.Mr. J ENKINSOK: Did he ever try to make arrangements with the owner to work 1t ?] In many cases the owner v1ill not listen to any ~u1·angen1ent vvhatever, and in others the amount asked for in cc,nsideration is more than the man can afford to pay, so it would not be much use trying to make arran""e­ments. [Mr. KEOGH: \Vhat is the uoe of a n;;.n going there without a shilling in his pocket?] I have known men to go on goldfields with very few shillings in their po~kets, and they do not ask the Government for anything. The man who goes on the goldfield working for his living doAs not ask the Government for as,istan~e as much as the big syndicates. I heard the hem. member for Brisbane South addressing the House tnLJ afternoon, and I fuliy sympzcthise with what he ,ays, particularly with reference to the building trade. l was 'in the building trade myself, and I can say there iR a grwt amount of unemployed in that trade at the present time. The cause of that is that all our la1·ge centres, such as Brisbane and l{ock· hampton; are very much overbuilt. Even in good times I do not think there would be much need fur building fe>r years to come in the uig towns, although there are openings in the small towns. \Vhen this debate was on before there were a number of unemployed at I\Iount Morgan, but I am glad to say that there is a large amount of labour now employed there. J\Iining members in this H ~use wiil bear me out in what I haves ·id with regard to the effect of bringing sume of these Jnines into the market. The unemployed difficulty would be ended for a conf.iderable time, if not for all time, if this Bill were mtroduced.

Mr. PETRIE (Toomuul): I do not know that while we are taking up the time of the House; that we are not wasting time to a certain extent. [Mr. CowAP: This is no waste.] \Ve are not finding work for the unemployed while we are talking here. I have not heard from any S[Jeaker -if I except, perhaps, a few hints thrown out­any practicrtl suggestion as to how we should deal with this great difficulty. It is quite true

¥r.Petrie.}

9Ci0 J1fotiun foi' Adjournment. 'LAS~J:<J\IBLY.J Jiotion fm· Adjournment.

th:'t we have a lar;(e m1mber nf unrmpl<)yed mechanic, in our midst, not only in the cit.r of Brisbane, bnt in the ooher town,; of the State. To rny mind thi."' is :l \Vunderf:<l Sta~e, when you con1e to consider what \Ve have pr.,:;;sed through during the clt·nught, and how we lmve re· covered ourselves. On the tup of that we have-if I way n:;e an uup Lrliamentary ex­lJression-the be;.sJy fedt:r(Jtion. which I YOted again::;t, and I am Yery glad I did so. On top of that again \Ye have o\·er-leg!slation. \Vith all due respect to the members on the other side of the House, who perhaps wi.,h to alleviate the conditions of the workers, I Ray they base oYerruu themsel \'es, anrt we find now that thi•: Shte is much over-legis· lated. I give the Government credit, ''; I gave their pred~cessors credit, for trying to do all they c:>on in the. way of helping· the unem­ployed, but to my rrnnd mon,,y ha" been spent in certain estates that the l+overnment will 11ever see again. I think the GoYermnent have gone too far in trying to cut tbinp:o too fine, and mig-ht hav" done more for the mechanics who are now idle. I am ~lad to hear from the Treasurer that he is going to do all he can to improYe the harbour or the city of Brisbane. (Hear, hear!) \Ye have beard a goocl cleal from the X orthern men1 bers about •· the Bri,bane octo· pus" and all that k[nd of thing, but they must remember that Brisbane is the capital of the Soate. [:'dr. FORRYTH: And has to pay for it.J Yes, and has to p~y for it. Briobane i" the port through which everything filters and gives revenue to our raihvays. . .. AJtbough we have a dry dock at South Brisbane-and I do not wish it to be unjerc,tood th 't I do not want to see the stea1ner"> coming np to Brisbaue-there is another thing I would like to draw attention to. I am not an engmeer, although I ha\e had a little practical experience, and I say there is no pos­sible chance of extending that dr)' dock in South Brisbane. \Vhile the Treasmer is now consider· ing the matter, as I believe he iR, I would like to point out that Luggage Point or Hamilton would be the proper place for the new dry dock. I would like to see that dry dock started as soon as possible, and I hope, in connection with the river improvements, that that will be one of the first thing' that will be done. I sympathise with the mover of this motion, and with the people who are out of employment. So far as the building trarle is concerned, although I am not in it now, I was one of the largest employers of labour in its branches, both mechanical and otherwise, and I am sorry to see the condition of a good many people engaged in this busine-·s to-day. I de> not want to be egoti8tical, but I do not suppose there is a member of Parliament who has had more people calling on him for as,istance than myself, people who are really in distress, althomgh they have really done their best to ,,et employment. By the courteous help I received from the officers of the different departments, I was ene1bled tv get some of them something to do, and ~o relieved their distress, and I kno\". that every po"ible facility is given to every member of this House, if he wishes to avail himself of it, by trying to find work for tho"e who are out of work. \Ve have been talking here all day about this unemployed question, and in the meantime there are families that are starving. \Ve want to do something practical to face the question at once. I do not know whether I would be doing right to move an amendment, but I suggest to the Government to appoint a Royal Commission. Although I do not believe in Royal Commissions, because the Government in some cases do not carry out what the commissions suggest, in this case I suggest a commission, not of members of Parliament but of practical men, say four, five, or six,

[.ilf r. P etrie.

tn deal with tbis que,tion. [::\Ir. J. LEAHY: ·would you include :\Ir. Cullinc" ?] Yeo, you c::~n include ~Ir. Collings, if you wi::;h. ~Ir. Cdlll ngs aud I du not agree in p,.litic~~ [Go1·ernrnent members: Oh, ob !]-yes I believe

he is octtmted bv a desire to better [8 p.m.j the crmclitiuns of tbe peopk, and to

a~.~d::i"~ who ,rt in distress. I think we are all agrc· en that. I believe a great deal of trouble has been ( •,used through too n1u::h leO'i~lation of <t wrong s lrt, which ha'i driven crtpit'al out uf the State, and iederatiun and other matters which have brought U'· tu onr present condition. I will credit the Goverment with being actuated with the desire to do as much as they can, as they have already spent a certain v.n1ount of tnc1ney and have a. further amount on the Estimatee, but the amount io a mere handful in comparison with the present difficulty. Leo us goint<> the question thoronghly, and not move adjournments and get no further, us that will be merely a waste of time. These people .ore in distress and want work, and I suggest to tlle Government to appoint a Roy.1l Co1n1niR~ion fr01n outside the Hnuse altogeLher to go into the question at once. l:\Ir. I\OR21IA"': "Why outside the House!] \Ve do not vzant men1bers of Parliament at all-we want disin­tere·"ted persom, pmctical men, to deal with the que '.ion. If the Government will go into the m~tter thoronghly and earne.tly and ;~t once, then I think the trouble would be got over.

:\Ir. BOUCHARD : The motion of my bun. colleague has at least served tl1e purpose of affording hon. members an opportunity of . ex· pressing their views upon thio ve.>:ed quest10n, but I do not know that anything Y:hich has been said this afternoon is new. I think most of us had already heard it many times before. The question of the unemployed is one which has agitated the mind.; of pil!iticians-indeed, I may say statesmen-in all parts of the world for many years past, and I think it is as far now from s ,lution in many part< of the world as it was at the time they first commenced to ponder upon it. I am very pleased indeed that, with very few excet,tions, this matter has been dis­cussed by hon. members entirely from a non­partisanship point of view, because we must bear in mind that the unemployed difficulty is not new tr> this Government. \Ve knuw that pre­vious Governments have had to encounter the same difficulty, and unquestionably they did what in their wisdom they thought was right to alleviate the then condition of things, as there b no dnubt the present Government are doing to alleviate the present state of aff"irs. I am inclined to think that the Premier's statements, if given effect to, will help materially to solve this difficulty. It has been the endewunr of past Governments to start work<,, which would vive employment to mechanics, and when those works were completed the mechanics were again idle. There is not the slightest doubt that we are languishing from the want of works of some description, and I think that the motion will at least sene the purpose of stirring up the Go­vernment to bring forward speedily their railway policy, and enter npon the construction of the railways whic'J they intend building. \Ve must bear in mind that the last eighteen months or two :pears the present Government have not hacl the opportunity of spending £1,000,00~ per annum in the constructif,n of works, and there is no doubt that that bas added to the number of the unemployed; but, considering that that amount has been withdrawn from expenditure, I think the number of unemployed at present is not so great as it was some few years ago. Those of us who represent a city electorate know only too · well the large number of men who are eager and

~l1otion fui' ..ld.Joui'izment. [3 UcToliER.: ~lfoti~ n fv1' Adjoumment. 961

anxious to get work, but are unable to find it. 0£ course, in the cities there is always a large number of unemplllyed, and smne of them do not re:dly desire work; but, on the other hand, we cannot lose eight oi the fact tha.t there are a large number of men, with families dependent upon them, who are only too anxious to get work, but are unable to find it. I think there arc certain works which might be entered upon which would afford employment to some of the,;e men. Refer­ence has been made, and I believe it is con. templated by the Government to soon com­mence the deepening of the river with the view of enabling the Orient steamers to come right up to the city. Now, if all our dredges were put in commiHsion they would afford employment to a large number of men in doing work which is absolutely necess.uyand essential to the welfare of the State. \York is also contemplated in connec~ tion with the removal of the points in our river, which, if entered upon, will afford considerable employment, and for which Brisbane will prac­titally pay the cost. I trust that the Govern­ment will c8ntinue to do all they can, and, in fact do a little more than they have been doing in the past, to reduce the number of unemployed in this State.

Mr. J. LJ<jAHY: I do not know that much material benefit will arise from this discussion unless some scheme is proposed which will have a practical result, and I have not heard of any proposal so far this evening-I was not here the whole of the time-so I take it for granted that the hon. gentleman who moved the adjourn­ment of the House has no cut-and-dried scheme. I hold the view of other hon. members of the Honse-I will Wlt say because I am on this side of the House-that it is not the duty of the Go­vernment to find work for any unemployed man in the State. That would be a perfectly absurd proposition. No Government could do it, not­withstanding the utterance of the Treasurer when he sat on this side of the House. You would have the unemp:oyed from other States rushing into this State, where the Government laid it down as a plank in their platform that they would find work for anybody who came along. The Government, could not do it in a R;nall country like this, with only 500,000 people. But, although it is not the duty of the Government, it would be a foolish policy for the Government to make up their minds of necessity they would not find work under any circumstances. It is ver·y desir­able, in abnormal c:tses, if the Government can find money, to carrv on reproductive works which will tide over the difficultv and find work for the unemployed by the ordin,;:ry channels of employ~ ment. That is the position which the Govern­ment ought to tccke up if they can possibly do it. It is a matter of extretne re~ret, from every point of view, to see idle people in the State. It is more a matter of regret to see people who are not willing to work, and still give them relief, than to see people willing to work and cannot get it, because those people will get over their t.rouble, but you will never get c ver the trouble with the other fellow, \Vhether he is at work or whether he is idle he has to be fed and clothed ; he may not be fed as well as we like, but he has to exist, and to exist at the cost of the State in some form. It stands to reason if that man's labour is going to waste it would be much better for the State if it could be usefully employed, and assisting himself and the Govern­ment. That is the view I havP always taken, and it does not matter what sirl.e we are on, if we can do anything we ought to do it. I cannot help thinking that the Labour party and the Go­vernment them se! ves are very largely responsible for the position in which we now find ourselves.

1905-30

For years past, during the time the late Govern­lnent were in officf'1 hon. men1bers opposite had told the people that it was the duty of the Government to find work for every man, and to find him work at standard wages, and they said that when they had the opportunity they would see that this wos done. ~ow the members of the Lab:mr party are in a majority on the Of.-J}O~ site side, and what have they done? They told the people those things for political purpo,es, though possibly many of them believed that they would be able to carry out such doctrines. But they now find that it is very much easier for a person outside to formulate views on such a sub­ject, but that when they have to act and bear the responsibility of their actions it is a very different matter. During the whole of th18 discussion they have not offered a single practical suggestion for dealing ~-ith this unemployed problem. \Vhen I was m office I endeavoured to find employment for manied men, or for single men who had the responsibility of mt~intaining their mother and other members of the family. All such men who were out of work received every con>ideration at my hands, but, as the hon. member for Rockhampton Raid, there are a certain da,ss of men, such as watch­maker' and cl er !re, for whom it is diff,cult to find suitable employment. Parliament has been de~ nounced in the past for finding work for the· unemployed, because it did so by the expendi­ture of borrowed money. The mistake in the past was due, not so much to the Government as to the }louse, which insisted on c0rtain ex­penditure. I think money can still be borrowed by Queensland, and spent in a profitable manner. The hon. member for Rockhampton referred to certain works carried out by the late Govern­ment, and said they were a dragnet on the Treasury. In that he is entirely wrong. The hon. member stated that the line from Gladstone to Rockhampton was such a work, and that he would not vote for it again. That haR been a splendid work for the Railway Department and for the State. It will be one of our best paying lines. From the time that:line was con­structed--

The SPEAKER : Order! The hon. member is wandering away from the question before the Honse. The question i8, not whether the Rock­hampton line is a paying line or not, but how to find work for the unemployed.

:Mr. J. LEAHY: Yes, Sir, th~t is the ques­tion, and I submit that if works of this kind will find work for the unemployed, and will roay the St .. te, that is the way to finrl work for the unemployed. I was going to show that up to the prP,ent time that line has paid indirectly--

The SPEAKER: Order ! I have ruled that the hon. member is not in order in discussing whether that line is a V•Yable line or not, and I must a;,k the hon. member to confine himself to the question before the House.

1Ir. J. LEAHY: Very well, Mr. Speaker. There is one thing I know that you know­that I am on this side of the House. I was going to say, in reply to the hon. member for RocKhampton, who made strong reference to the subject, that it would pay Parliament to carry out works of that description. 'l'he first year that line was constructed it paid a per­centage above working- expenses. I venture to say that a railway from Richmond t0 Cion­curry would pay handsomely, and the con­struction of that line would find work for a large number of unemployed. It does not mattor what we owe; it is our assets we have to con­sider. The duty of a statesman is to so arrange things that revenue will come into the Treasury through the ordinary channels by reason of the natural and proper development of the resources

Mr. J. Leaky.]

962 JJiotion for Adjournment. [ASSEMBLY.] Motion for Adjournment.

of the State, and to do this we should encourage privttte enterpri,e. 'With reg"rcl to the state­ment of the hon. member for Rockhampton that the unemployed who received work from the pre­Rent Go' ernment earned on an average 5s. Gd. a day, I would point out that the amount is very much lower than that. There were 1,12-! men employed on those works, and the a1nount they received was £27,000, or an a,verage of £:24 per man, which C•>mes to about Os. Gd. a week. [The Tl\EAHUHER: How long were they employed?] I am SJJeaking of them for the year. I an1 not discussing this 1natter fron1 a party point of view, but am simply pointing out that the amount spent on those 1,124 men for the year was £27,000. [The 'rl\EASURER : \\'ere they employed all the year?] If they were not employed all the year, they were idle waiting for employment. Hon. members opposite have in the past uid a great deal abont the unemjJloyed, and promised them a remedy for their troubles. 'fhey have raised a Frankenstein, and having raised him he h:cs got beyond their control. The Government have £800,000 of !mm money which they can spend on public works. It is no use us husb~nding it up for ever. These are pretty bad times, although they ought not to be seeing that we have had pretty good seasons. But the fact is that the Government are driving capital into its shell, so that the ordinary channels of labonr are becoming dried up. The Govern· ment, if they wished to improve the present condition of things, should change their tactics and encourage private enterprise. Our industries would then bfcome more prosperous, and there would be no man looking for work. [Mr. KEl\R ; Didn't you say the other night that the banks wonld not take £10,000 ?] Yes, and I say so now. The banks would not take £10,000, because there i' n'J opportunity for investment. If the Government would indnce the inveotment of capi­tal by encouraging private enterprise, there would be plenty of capital available for investment and plenty of work for the unemployed. BntJ what do we hear from hon. members opposite? Their cry is for socialism. If we are going to have socialism, how can we prevent an increase in the national debt? The two things are incompatible. The fact is that hon. mem­bers opposite will have to leave these fads and come down to ordinary common sense, and recog­nise that the prosperity of a country depends upon the encouragement of private enterprise in that country in such a way that opportunities will be open to the man who works for 6s. or 7s. a day to rise nntil he becomes Premier, if he likes. There are a great many things which could be done to solve this question if the Go­vernment would change their policy. There are rail ways in the North that could be constructed, including the line from Richmond to Cloncurry, and if the Government are in a position to go on with works of that kind they should be pro­ceeded with. In the meantime the unemployed have been taught a lesson, and it will do them good. They have been t::tught by political quacks who went about the country telling them that when they got the opportunity they would provide work for all at a standard wage, and the people of the country can now see the value of snch promises.

Mr. NORMAN (ll:laryborough): The hon. member who has just sat down would lead the House to believe that the unemployed difficulty has arisen since the pre~ent Government came into office. Bnt snch is n'>t the fact. The un­employed difficulty was a big factor when the late Government were in power. Other hon. members have used this motion for the purpose of advocating something in their own particular districts, instead of dealing with the question in

fMr. J. Leaky.

a broad statesman like manner. [:\Ir .• J. LEAHY: What do you propose ?j The hon. member who introduced this subject showed his weakness by bringing it up without offering any remedy. I maintain that it is the duty, not only of the Government, bnt of every member of the House, to suggest a remedy for any griev­ance which may exist. I belie,·e it is the duty of Parliament to see that there are no unetnjJloyed people in the country if possible. It ie not only the duty of the Government, but of Parliament, because the unemployed ha ne to be maintain en either by the State or by private charity, which comes to the same thing. The

question at once arises whether it [8.30 p. m.J would not be better that these

people should be employed at re­munerative work than to be dragging at the purse­strings of thoEe who have little enough to main­tain themselves and their own families. I belieYe that the only permanent method of dealing with the question is to adopt the Queensland objec­tive as formulated at the late convention. (Laughter.) That is the nationalieation of all the means of production and exchange. But, until the public are educated up to insisting on this being forced through Parliament, men are working their hearts out, and women and little children are suffering, and it is our dnty, while this slow process of evolution is going on, to suggest sompthing practical. That is the point where I consider the hon. member for Brisbane South failed in his statement of the case. Other members have suggested all kinds of works that would be of same service in utilising the services of the unemployed. I believe that the conservation o£ water would do something that would be a national gain, and I believe that the unemployed could be used for that purpose. I do not suggest any expensive scheme of irrigation ; but we have a good many rivers which could be dammed here and there in order to retain vast quantities of water during our ever-recurring droughts. [Mr. BRIDGES : Is the Mary River one.?] Yes, the Mary Ri '"er wonld be very good for that purpose, up in the highest reaches, at any rate. But I am not advocating its application to the Mary River especially. I want to deal with the question as a national and not as a parochial one. \Ve cannot get away from the fact that our farming is being carried on in a haphazard fashion, and that a drought will come again which may cost us the whole of our stock. [Mr. JENKINSON: Your scheme would not stop a drought.] No, but it would minimise the losses. Irrigation might follow from the initiation of such a system, and crops be grown that would keep the stock alive. I hope that the Government will consider it is their duty, and that the House will aFsist in trying something of this description. [Mr. JEXKIXSON: This would all cost money.] But the unemployed have to be fed and clothed hy the State or by private enterprise without getting any return, and this work would be undoubtedly reproductive. There are a lot of unemployed who, I admit, are not looking for work, but they do not constitute by Rny means the majority, and there ttre large numbers of men who would undertake work of this kind, and who would not be a drain on private or State charity. As to those wbo are unwilling to work from innate laziness, the St:;;te and private charity would be freed frnm the obligation to maintain them. [Hon. R. PHILP: ·would you not give them some wages for their work?] Yes. [Hon. R. PHILP: \V ell, where would you get the money from ?] This would be a paying game for the State, and you could even get a betterment from the land. I hope the Government will give this subject their serious consideration.

JJ[otion for Adjournment. [3 OCTOBER.] -"-lfation .fo!' Adjournment. D63

:'.Ir. FORSYTH (('.·wpentaria) : The most remarkable thing about the debate is the poverty of suggestions as to how the Governm:mt are to uvercume this difficulty. The mcver of the motion for adjournment said that he specially refrained frorn n1aking ~tny suggesdon. Now, if one member more than another should have had some suggestion to make, surely it was the hon. member for Brisbane South. He gave us a ~reat deal of ,-"ltHtble information about the unemployed in Brisbane and elsewhere, and a great deal of it was perfectly true; but at the same time it was the duty of the association of which he was a member to suggest some rnnedy -some means for ameliorating the condition of the unemployed. I remember, in 1902, the .,ame question was brought forward by the present 'Treasurer, and he adopted exactly the same attitude as the hnn. member for Brisbane South. He s~id he carefully refrained from making any suggestion, because it was not his duty to make suggestions. He said just the same thing as the Home SEcretary did on that occa­"ion-that it was the duty of hon. members to advise the Government of the fact-with which the Gm·ernment were quite as familiar as he wac. \Ve have heard a great deal abont the £7,000 which appears on the Estimates in conne~tion with advances to agriculturi· ts. Of course, that is a very small sum when we consider the large number nf unemployed. Taken in conjunction with £23,000 under the heading of the Public Estate Improvement Fund, it makes a total of £32,000 to be spent this year, and that amonnt will do some good. [1\Ir. \Voons: Spent in the Southern portion uf the State.] LHon. R. PHILP : \V ell, it is ynur Government that is doing this.] [Mr. \Voons: They are no worse than you were.] [Hon. R. PurLP: \Ve spent money in the North, too.] If the hon. member knew anything about the subject, he would know that the late Government, during the terrible drought they had from UJOO to 1DO:~, spent upwards of £1,000,000 a year in public 'Works. I arn not discussing now whether the money was rightly spent or not, but I say that a much larger sum was spent than has been spent dnring the last two years. A great deal of valu­able information was given during the debate in 1902 with regard to the thousands of men who were employed on the railways throughout the State. It was not, then, a matter of working at \Varwick, Rockhampton, or anywhere else. \Ve had railways building all over Queensland in the very wprst time that we ever had. \Ve have to pay interest on that monPy, but ic was expender\ on works from whkh the Btate will get back every shilling they spent on them. 1\Iore than half our public debt has been incurred in build­ing· railways, and during the last two years our railways have paid much better than they clirl, and, if we have a good season, they will probably pay better this year than last: and the time is coming when they will pay not only working expensps, bnt juterest on cost of construction as well. The Government have not spent much money on railways during the past year, but they are going to spend more this year. I find that hst ynr they proposed to spend £445,000 out of loan, but only .£22:\,000 was spent. Now, if the whole of that money had been spent, it would have materially helped to assist the nu­employed. The Government propr.scd to sper;d £250,000 on railways, but they only speut £110,000. I do not know why thej did not spend the whole amount, because no doubt they pre· pared their Estimates very carefully; but if that money had been S]Jent it would have assisted very materially to settle this qnestion. This year it is proposed to spend about £20,000 ·in school buildings. That money, of cou"e, will be expended in all parts of Queensland, and

will prove a very good thing indeed. [The PREmER: It is being spent now.] I am glad to he.tr that. Carpenters and other workers throughout the State will be benefited by that work. If the work is to be done, it ought to be done at once, so as to give relief to the men who are now one of employment. [The PRE}IIER : The Government Architect'.; department is working at very high preosnre.] I am very [(lad to hear th:<t. The hon. member for Brisbane South mentioned carpenters. \V ell, I know that there is a large number of carpenters out of employment at the present time. [Hon. H. PHILP: Of ali classes of tradesmen.] Yes­stonemasons, plasterers, and all clas,es of men ca.nnot get work. Out at Toowong, where I live, first-class workmen, with families dependent upon them, who are anxious to get work, have not been able to get it for the last seven or eight months. \Vhen tenders were called for buildinge, they put in tenders at the actual east price of thc, material and allowed themselves only 5s. a clay ; bnt, in spite of this, others tendered lower still and got the work at £30 or £40 lower, I know another carpenter who has been ont of work for four or five months ; he has a large family to maintain, and has been goiog all over the country looking for wvrk, and camwt -find it. It is a pitiful thiug when we find ll1("U willing to work and anxious to work and cannot :;et it. [The PRE:IJIEH : The city has been overbuilt.] I think that is so. I do not think there will be a great deal of work in that way in Brisbane for some considerable time to corne. \Vhat are these men to do? [The PrmmllH: \Vhat do you suggest?] That is just the difficulty. [The PRDIIJlR: Qui~e so.] I quite understand the difficulty the Govern­ment has, but it is absolutely meless bringing forward a discussion of this kind from a sympathetic point of view. There has not been one practical suggestion made. Even in 1902, the Treasurer, when he brought forward his n,otion, said he had nothing to offer. He only bad one suggestion, and that was in con­nection with the building of railways, more especially the Blair Athol railway and the con· nection of the C::hdstone-Rockhampton line. A great many more said the same thing, and the hon. members who, on that occasion, were asking the then Go\·ernment to go on with public works are the very men who since have been blaming the late Government for spending so much money out of ihe loan fund. (Hear, hear l) It is agreed that it would give men work if railways were started, and I should iike the Hon. the Premier to bring down resolu­tions to-morrow to start railways. It will not only provide employment for a largP number of men, but will be the means of giving work to other industrie.<, such as the foundry men, as there will be so much iron wanted. [Mr. MAXN : \Vill you vote for the Alm-kden·Georg-e­town line ?l If the railway proposal is brought in to-morrow the hon. g·entleman will probably see how I will vote. I should very much like if the Hon. the Premier brought in the Lawn Hill raih:ay. I had information from Sydney only yesterday that the surveyor is going up to survey the line next week, and wanted eome chainmen. I referred the matter to the Government Surveyor, who was able to get the chainmen, and I have to thank the Prender for his action in this matter. I am sure that, with the information re< ei ved from London, he is now satibfied that the line is likely to go on. The compan;-· have shown their ~ana fides by paying the Govemrnent another £2,500, and they want to see the Bill pushed through so that they mav know where they are. As soon as the Bill is through they will start work. \V hen that line is bnilt it will be the means of employing a large number of ruiners, besides a

Mr. Forsyth.]

964 Motion for .ildjourmnc ,zt. [ASSE:jJBLY.] J:[otion for Ac\journment.

large number of men on the railway. The une1nployed question is a serious one, and i·" surrounded wrth difficulties. ::'<ot only have we got good tradesmen, but we have also got clerks and men of that description out of employment, and it is a most difficult thing to know what to do with them. There are more clerks and mechanics out of employment at the present time than there have h<-an for yearo;. [i'v1r. BOIYi\lA~ : Some of them are working on the wharves.] Yes; they are glad to get work of any kind. \Vht~t I would suggest is that our public works should be pushed on as vigor­ously as possible, and so relieve the distress. If we bave good seasons, no doubt they will get plenty of employment. It is all very well talk­ing about settling people on the land wbo have not got any money, but I do not eee that it will do any good. One sreaker said that in Victoria they were g,Jing to assist people to go on the hind, o,nd in some cases they were gomg to advance £200 to buy impltments, stock, and other necfbsaries. The Government ha8 set apart £7,000 towards doing ,,omething like that, but if settling the people on the land is to be the solution of the unemployed problem, then you will want not only £7,000 but £70,000. If the Government is willing to advance the money, they should see that they got it back, and I hope they will consider that matter very care­fully before they go too far with it.

Mr. :\IANN ( Caims) : I deplore the fact tbct there are a great number of deserving unemployed in this State, but I do not wish to take up the time of the House in bewailing that face. I will give one or two ideas as to how I think a large number of unemployed could be absorbed­how work can be obtained in my district. About 5 or 6 miles from Cairns there are some thousands of acres of sugar land growing practically nothing but weeds. I believe the Treasurer could buy that land at an all round price uf £2 per acre. If he put a mill on it, i"vould find employment for a large number of people, rwt only labourers, but artisans for building lue:mnotives, erecting machinery, laying down tram lines, and so on. The lHnd could be utilised as a State colony. Practical men could be put in charge of the gangs of men placed there to clear tbe land and plant it with sugar-cane, and the Treasurer could lease it to settlers to grow sugar. I am sathfied that any amount of settlers would be found willing to pay from 10s. to £1 per annum per acre for that land, as it is sitnated cloee to a seaport and is highly adapted for growing sugar. Perhaps the Trea­surer has some reason to fight shy of sugar-mills, and if he does not believe in that 1 have another suggestion to make. About 10 miles from Cairns there is a tableland on which is the finest land in Queensland. It has a good rainfall, and would settle practically all the peuple we have got in Queensland if it was properly developed. At present there is an agitation to have a light line out. there to open up the country, and I am satisfied that if that is done ccnd settlers put upon that land they will be able to grow maize, cotton, C(Jffee, and sugarcane snecessfully. While urging these things on the Government I would pomt out that the private employer is not doing all he could to absorb the unemployed of our own race. During the past SPlt-iOlt in the Cairns district most of the firewood wets cut by the kanakas, contrary to the regulations, which meant to confine the kancckas to tropical agriculture.

The SPEAKER : Order !

::\Ir. :iYIANN : They shouhl be confined to work in connection with the cultivation of cane. I do nor think it was ever intended that kanakas should be employed to cut firewood.

The SPEAKER: Order, order!

[Mr. l!'orsyth.

::\Ir. 2\J AXX: I ha.ve no wi,h to transgress the rules of this Hou~e on that queRtion, but I cun­sider that private employers can very well find more than they do at the preKent time. They are crying out that there is a dearth of labour in the ca:irns district, and that agricultural labourers are not procurable, but if t.hey made an attetu['t to find suitable bbuur thev would not ha,-e such a difficulty as they are going to have] when the kanaka has to go iu 190G. If "good Pld pri\~ate enter 1 ri:-:e" rnade a 1nove in that matter, and found out the number of nnern­ployP i in this State suitable for work in the milh and canefield,;, it wuuld very much lessen the burden for themselves, and make things easier for them when thev have t,o do without the lmnalu. The leader of the Opposition dealt wiLh the question of building ]Jrivate railways to-night, and I may say, when contest­ing the election at Cairns I promised to give my support to any private company building a rail way to Georgetown, provided that the State got a fair deal. [::\Ir. KEOGH: That is against a plank in your platform.] Yes; I know it is; but I got the permir"sion of the Labour party in Cairns to make that promise, and I intend to keep it, so long· as the State gets a fair deal.

The SI'EAKER: Order, order!

Mr. T\IANN : I do not wish to transgress, but simply to make my position clear. lf such a propo,;al is brought forward by the Government I will support it.

Mr. RYLA.::'<D (Om,<Jlie): I think the hon. member f(lr Bri"bnnn clouth deserq:~s thanks for bringing thit::~ que.3tion before u.-.. It is a question that demands immediate attention. (Hear, hen.r !J It is not, as mentioned by speakers this after­noon, an eighteen months' C]UF'3tion so Ltr rt~ Queensland is concerned, and it is not only a local question. It has been a Qneensland question for many years. It \Vas a n1ora int:.ense question in QueAnsland some time a~o than it is at the pre­sent time, and I think the Treasurer and the Government deserve thanks for trying to gmpple with the situation to a certain extent. I think it would be impoHsible for them to do aw,>y with the unemployed question under existing condi­tions-that is, to do away with it for ever; but I think the Treasurer has been moving in the right direction to a certain extent. I know he ba., had a lot of adverse criticibm about the un­employed gangs o.ving to the low wages they made on some occasions, and hon. me In ber;:; re~ !erred to-ni£;ht to selected men getting the work. Now the Treasurer has not been dealing with

selecte<l men. He had to deal with [9 p.m.] men whether they were suitable for

the work or not, and consequently­although I believe it would have been wiser to give a fair wage, and only send those \vho \Vert qualified to do this particular work-he had to find work for those who were nut qualified. I think it is a most bmentable positio::1 for a man to bG willing and able to work, and not to be in a position to get that work. Burns associated feeling.s abject, mean, and vile with haviu"' to beg lea,·e to toil from his fellow-worm, and get refused. It has a saddening effect upon any man with humane sentiments, ani the sooner conditions are brought. about by which any man who is able and willing to work will get it the better, but I am afraid we shall have to go a long wav before we can accomplish that. u ne! er our present form of industry it is impossible to bring it about without a great economic change in the manner of our production. \Ve mnst orgrtnise production. If I rememl1er correctly, in the bst Federal Budget the Federal Trea­surer pointed out that tbe production of Aus­tralia was greater per head than any part of the world-in fact, t!rree times more than the

3:£otion for Ac?journment. [;3 OCTOBER.] Motion for AdjouJ•nment. 965

United Kingdom or the continental conntrie' of Europe. It was twice the amount per head as reguds France and Denmark, and one ltnd a-half times greltter than th~ United States. That is the position of the Commonwealth to day, and still there are people who are bttdly off and un­employed, and cannot ge\ enougl1 meat nor a decent suit of clothes on their back. It is not 1.E ..:au~e we do not prod nee enough that pt>ople hnst• not go:; ennngh. I think it was one of t.be leading intellects of this House at one time-the present Chief Jn:;ti~e of the Comrnonwealth­;,'ho said that the gre't problem of our day was not how to produce wealth, but how to secure

ef[ual distribution, and that is the C[Ue .tion f(•re us not only in (-2ne8n~land and Aus­

tralia to-day, hut the qnestion of our ciYil­jsn,tion to-dny. It is a world-vvide que~Lion. From the report,; in the Pres,; at the present time, we find the English Parli"ment is legis­l~t~ing in that direction, and making it hn pPra­bve ron local authoritic~:) to find work, to a certain extent, for the, unemployed. \V e find it is ;· big que,tion in America. Five and a-half million able- bodied men in America are idle enry day m the year, and 14,500,000--that i·, half the adult male population of America-are ninetean "i-veeh.s idle evPry yr .. r. It \Vduld be riaht CIJOUcr:1

if we all had a h;)liday of nineteen w~~ks, bu tit does nut rx1n unt like that, but th~t a good many people only get nineteen \veeks' \vork in a year, while others ltre working full time. New South \Vales is ab,> suffering at the present time, and it is only a few weeks since I re td that t 11e unemployed had practically taken pcL''·'·ssion of Parlictment Hou·e down there; and Victoria alsD is suffering. Although some hrm. members are trying to make us believe to-night that it is because of federa,tion that smne of our boots are being made in :VIelbourne and that we have unem­ployed here-no doubt some of the factory ;,ork has gone clown south-,;till we have benefited by importation and the productiJn of the raw n1aterial to a, greater extent than we ha Ye lost. [:\Ir. ,J E:\'KINSO:\' : K o.] Under federation we might expect to see no unem­ployed in Victoria, but we find there are more unemployed there thltn there are in (llleensland. [::\Ir. JENKINSON: They have three times the pupnlation.] Even in proportion to the popula­tion of Victoria there are more nnemployed there than there are in (lueensland. [Mr. JENK!N­so:-~: X o.] My opinion is that Queensland is the best State of Australia at the present time. \Ye a:e n?t going to deal with the unemployed questton 1n a debate hke th1s. The difficulty is inten~ely severe at the present t1n1e and one great reason ifl on account of rnachin;ry t:1,king ~he place of hand labour. Take many of oucr 1ndnstnes~one man, and in some cases one woman, can do the work which formerly many were employed to do. :1\ ow, to meet thttt the workers have to the same extent to increase their standard of living. I admit We have ;;o. creased our standard of liYing to a sm~ll f'XtP,nt, bnt not in the same ratio as the incre8se in pro· ~luction. The increase in wag-es also is not Ill the same ratio with the increase of pro­duction. Consef[uently, what we are told some­t~n1e8 we are :;mffering· front is over-produc~ twn. I think if we had an intelligent state of society we would not he badly off because we had over-production. If I had too many of th8 good things of this world I do not think I should be badly off. I would not be hungry, at all events, because our storehouses were ton full. \Ve are told-and I believe it is to some extent correct­that we are suffering from too much prodnction -full storehouses on the one side, and empty stomachs on the other. One way of dealino­with it, taking an intelligent view, would be t~ reduce our hours of labour, so that all would

have a share of the work, and increase our con­sumption~adnpt a higher l::itanJard of lidn::;, or in other words, we wuuld have to work le~s and eat more. (Laughter.) The,e are only "ome <Jf the p,dliatins. Another point in connection with this matter, which has been referred to by the hon. n1etr1ber fnr :F'itzruy, iti the large ~unonnt of mineral laud now locked np, If the ::'\ecrrt»ry for Thiines brought in a 1niuing on private property Bill it would open np >< lot of mineral land to the miner and prospector. I know of rny own lJ8fSt)na.l knowledge that in the Burnett and \Vide Bay districts there are l'trge areas of mineral land locked up in mineral lea~e~, on \Vhicll is sp ··nt only a tew shillings in in1provem8nt·,, and lt Lecrnues the property of the lessefs; aml there is also a lot <J[ rreebolcl htncl. I abo tbink that something shcmld be done in the way of lahmr cnlonies. Thnt is " que.s, ion Yithich ha-:, been given a grea,t denJ of conRideration hy General Booth in the old country. I an1 not achoca,ting tha,t pritwipie now, but the putting into forC·J of Part 2 of our Cmnmunal 8ettlement _A._ct, where rhe Govern­Inent would pnt a uw,n in charge and put n1en on as workers and divide the product,,, I do not think it would be necf ssary to Rpend a ]ut of money on it, hut the unemnloyed ~lwuld he gi ,-en a chance in that way. ~\._ good many are nut qnalified to go on the land, hut under Govern­n1ent supervision a good. n1any would take an interest in it, get a knowledge of agriculture, and eventually follow it up. Some men who were employed on the labom' gangs which have been sent out told me that if they got any encourage­ment at all, and gnt some a>si,;tance from the Agricultural Bank, they would go on the land which has been cleared, cultivate it, and make homes for themselves. Of course, I am quite satisfied we can do nothinv practical until indus­try is organised. A lot can be done through collectivism. That will be :t step in the right direction ; it will be a palliation. I do not say it will solve the question of our civilisation, but I would like to see our industries taken over under collectivism as soon as the people are ready fol' it, and my vote will go in that direction every time. It has been asked, \Vhy had we not gone in for the expenditure of loan money. Well, in the past we have borrowed money on the national credit, and have spent that money on public works which have enhanced the value of all land in the vicinity of those works, but the nation has not reaped the benefit of that expenditure. Those public works have tremendously increased the value of private lands, and the owners of those lands have been allowed to "scoop the pool," leaving the State to honour the bill. This House should not vote for any more loan money to be expended on rail ways or other public works, until they know that the State is going to ~et the benefit of the enhanced value given to the land by those public works. The Treasurer last year brought in " Betterment Bill. If legisla­tion of that nature had been passed ten or fifteen years ago, what position -hould we be in at the present time? \Vhv, the State would be receiving a revenue from the lands which railways have increased in valne, I hope there will be no more borrowing for sorne tilne, rLnd that when loan money is exper.cled the economic rent of the lands benefited will be retained by the State.

The SPEAKEI~ : Order! The hon. member is wandering away from the question before the House.

1\Ir. RYLAKD: 1\Iy reason for referring to the subject was that it has been said that we should borrow and •pend a lot of money on public works. I think a labour colony deserves a fair trial. I should not advise spending a lot of money on the experiment, but I should give

Mr. Ryland.]

966 Motion for Adjournment. [ASSEMBLY.] Motion for A(Uournment.

it a fair trial. I should allot about 1,000,000 acres for such a purpose as a start because if it is a good thing I know that plenty 'of people will come here.

The SPEAKER: The hon. member has now occupied the full time allo\Yecl him by the Standing Orders.

:\Ir. :IIIITCHELL (Jlm·y~u,.nugh) : I have given a good deal of attention to this subject and in consultation with others I have endea: voured to find a solution of the difficulty. It is a. proper ttung that we s~ould discuss this ques­tiOn from a non-party pomt of v1ew, because the unemployed question has not arisen under the present Government or under any preceding Government, but has exi~;ted from time im­memorial. It has been a! ways with us and will continue to be with us so Iona as we co~duct State. affairs in the manner we ~re doing. To II_JY mmd there. IS only one. solution of this ques­twn, and that IS the adoptton of socialism. But we require to do something, and to do it im­mediately. In speaking on this question before, I suggested that one of the causes of the present difficulty is to a con"iderable extent the neo-Ject of our secondary industries. \Ve ha;·e all the time been endeavouring to get people settled on the land. That seems to have been our main idea ever since Queensland was a colony and the main idea of politicians all ove; Australia ever since Australia was inhabited. The condition of our secondary industries is now a very serious matter indeed. We are importin~ over £20,000,000 worth of o-oods that it is possible for the Australian State~ to manu­fact;l!'e for them_selves. At the beginning of this sesswn I ascertamed that the value of the agricul­tural implements imported into this State from the Un~ted_States wces £50,000 per annum. My contentiOn 1s that, tf we mandactured those nr:ri­cultural implements in the State, that would go a long way towards solving the unemployed diffi­culty. [Mr. \VoODS: Among the ironworkers anyhow.] Kot only among the ironworkers, but among other mechanics and labourers and it would also be a benefit to the farmers,' because the persons employed would require more food to sustain them. The manufacture of £30 000 worth o_f _agr!cultural implements per an~um means g-tvmg 1mmedtate employment to 500 men, at an average of £2 per week, and five times that number of pe"'ons would be benefited hy such industrial development. I notice that the :Federal Premier h>ts been approeched on this queEtion of developing our secondary indnstries, and I shall read a short extract in connection therewith-

A. depntRtion from the C'ouncil of the Protertinnist Association an·t the Chamber of .Jiannfacture~ waited upon the Prime ~!inister to-night, a net presented resoln­tions in fa Your of honnses being- granted to a~ricultnral Jmtunfacturiug indu~tries. J.Ir. Deakin. in the eottrsc of his ~eply, said he had bad the good fortune to be a member of the Ywtorian Government 1vllich initiated the s,ystem ofbonn~e" for butter. Hi~ policy no"· was to carr~· on that system at tbe point at which it had been left off, but for the whole Commonwealth instrad of for one State. There wonld have to be a ~nllicicnt amonnt of protection ~u1d bonnties to foster the E:'Stablishment of new iudnstries whi~h pruteetion alone would not sumce to establbh.

That is an indication that there is some hone of the Commonwealth becoming a mannfact1;ring country. The :varinns methods which have been suggested for dealing with this nnemploved problem are only temporary methods of solvin~ the difficulty, mere palliatives, whereas if on~ "'econdary indnstries were firmly established, a,s,sted by protect1•.m and l1ounties, we should have a permanent absorption of the unem­ployed as they came along-. The man who is hungry, the children :vho are starving, and the mothers who are weepmg are the people who feel to-day the necessity of the I>arliament of Q!Jeens-

[JJ r. Ryland.

land and the Parliaments of Australia taking­up this very impJrtant question and trying to solve it immediately. There are 1nany things the discussion of which <"tl1 wait, but this is one that should receive our eamest and immediate attention, and an attempt should he made to solve it withou~ any delay whatever. I hope that this discussion will not be futile, but that it will inspire those illlmecliately interestecl to devise an immediate solution of the difficulty, so that it may he set aside for a considerable time, if not for all tittrfl

Mr. MAUGHAX (Ipszcichl: The time spent in ditScut-t::dng thi~ very important qnestion of the rmemployed is time well spent. Although othet· mea:mres which clailn our attention 1nay ha\'8 to be put by for a short time, I think che country will give the members of this House credit for giving this important matter attention at the present time. The hon. member for Brisbone South, l\lr. Reinhold, is to be commended for bringing the matter forward in the way he has done. [The ::3ECR!i:TARY FOR AGR!C1:LTUHE: He did not make a sug·gestion.J I am not quite sure whether it is within the province of the hcm. member to come forward with a suggestion. [The SECHETARY POR AGRICULTUHE: If the thing is so bad, and the hon. mernher has a remedy, he should give that remedy.] There is a great diversity of opinion among hon. mem­bers as to what really is the best solution of the unemployed difficulty, but after all it is a matter of opinion whether it is the duty of a private member to corr:e alvng with sug-gestions. However, I am quite satisfied that the hon. member for Brisbane South woul<l have no difficulty in venturing very profitable and excellent suggestions. There is one thing certain, and that is that the hon. member, in common with several ladies and gentlemen in the city, has devoted a great deal of attention to de,·ising a solution of the difficulty as far as Brisbane i:,. concerned, and that is to their credit. There is much diversity of opinion as to the canoes which have produced this unemployed trouble. \V e know perfectly well that the unem­ployed difficulty arises from our peculiar eco­nomic conditions and systems, and that as long as they are as they are so long shall we have the unemployed staring us in the face. I am prepared to g-ive every credit to the Go­vernment for what they have attempted to do to

sol V8 the difficulty. They know as [9.30 p.m.] well as we that they have not been

able to cope with the trouble wc­cessfully. Still, they have made a start. They have practically started what is 1,n embryo department of labour, and the Treasurer has undertaken to dischaq:;e the functions of a :Minister for Labour. I hope that before long that position will be filled by a Minister whose function it will be to deal specially with these matters. It has been a plank in the Labour platform for yrar,, and I believe that if once we have a department of labour with a respe>nsible Minister, whose duty it will be to inquire intr• the conditions of labo:1r and to organise surplu• labour, we shall hear much less of the unemployed trouble. It is not possible for a busy man like the Treasurer, who baR trernendous finnn<:ial responsibilities, to devote thn ref[uisite time and attention to the great problems of labour that confront the nuntry. In the electorate which the Hon. the Attorney-General and I have the honour to represent, I am very sorry to say the unemployed trouble is still very serious. \Ve have been particularly fortunate in getting, during the last twelve months, a large nnmber of men drafted away to different relief works. The majority ,,f them went to the Boonah­Killarney road, to the J ondaryan clearing work,

~Wotion for .Adjournment. [3 OcTOBER.] Motion fvr .Adjournment. 967

or to other works on the Darling Downs. Particularly in connection with the Boonah­Killarney road, the men came back absolutely satisfied with the conditions of labour, and I only wish that there were other works of a similar character being undertaken now. I have no hesitation in saying that the work done by the TrE>,lsurer in connection with making land available for selection wus a step in the right direction; and, although I do not agree with the hon. gentleman in sDme m:1tters of detail, I give him "very credit for having started that excel­lent principle in Queen;land. ~ot only does it find employment ior surplns labour, but it pre­pares the land for cultivation. \Vhen the pro­ducer takes up that land, instead of having to spend the first year or two years in dearing the land, he can get to work cultivating it at once. The principle has been in operation in 1:\ ew Zea­land for years, and I believe in other StRtes, and I am very glad the Treasurer has started it here. I only hope he will carry it on. In this connection reference has been made to the low wages some of the men engaged in this work received. I know from conversations I have had with the Treasurer that the hon. gentleman is not satis­fied on that point, but I know that, owing to the peculiar system of work, it was almost impossible to avoid that. The same trouble has been experienced by the Hail way Department in connection with day-labour work, and the low wages some of those men receive is very largely due tu the engineers in charge of the work. A good mRny of those men have proved themselves chan1pion sweaters.

The SPEAKER : Order !

J\Ir. ::\IAUGHAN: The time is at hand when the :'IIinister in charge of the department will have to exercise a more rigid control over the engineers and the men in charge of the men. It had been said that this is not a party ques­tion. I quite agree with that sentiment. It is a question which members of all shades of politics can discuss, and it is one that we are all deeply interested in. It is no pleasure to members on either side to have t1 listen to the wails and the woes of men, women, and children coming to them for work or relief. Dlll'ingthe last few months my colleague and I have had a very anxious time. Xot only have residents of Ipswich come to see us in regard to v. :1rk, bnt, Ipswich being thv centre of a large agricultural (listrict, large numbers of men filter through, and their first impulse is to see the member's for the city with regard to work. It is, perhaps, not a prudent thing to blow one's own trumpet, but the ques­tion of the unemploye<l ditticuity, so far as Ipswich and \Vest ~Ioreton are cr;noernecl, has received very close attention and care at the hands of my colleague otnd myscclf. On the one hand, we hear politicians and others in hig-h positions urging the need for population, and at the same tnne we have taken the whole clay in dealing with the question of the unem­ployed. It must also be borne in mind that the unemployed evil is not restricted to men who are used to the pick and shovel c,nd other labonr­ing work. I am sorry to say that the ranks of the unemployed include men of the various trades and professions. \Ve have unemployed barrit:Jterl:l, ?~emists, journalists, C(llnpositors, carpenters, JOiners, and all clas.~e ~of tnechanic~. It is a 1·ery difficult problem; but I do not think it,; settlement is something that cannot be done. I believe this Hou e c,-,n do a great deal more than it has done in the past, .;nd I beliel'e the people will be prepared to do S')Jflething- d"finite. I think it was the hon. 111ernber for ~[aryborough who referred to the enormous amonnt of machinery that is being imported into the State, a large proportion of which could be

made here. \Ve are making our own loco­motives, wagons, and rolling-stock generally, and, if we can do thllt, we can aiso make our own ploughs and harrows. Any hon. member who likes to go to the Roma-street goods-shed any clay will see truckloads of agricultural implements going up to the IV est J\Ioreton district. Those implements come from 2\r ew Zealand. [J\Ir. KEOGH : :Mostly from Victoria.] ::\Iostly from :"few Zealand. Some come from Victoria and America. They go to the IV est ::\Ioreton district and tlw Darling Downs, and it is to be regretted that our o_wn people cannot be el1lployecl in manufacturmg those thinC(s. I have gref<t faith in the country, in the Government, and in the House, I believe this House is largely composed of men who mean business, and I believe the time is _not far distant when we shall see the end of thio ever­lasting imporbtion of implements of that character, and when they will be constructed in the State. Surely th>tt i< a practical suggestion! It is not bv any means original. Only the other day, m~ing to the introduction of machinery for coal-cutting in our own district, which is putting numbers of men out of work, together with the cursed system of unrestricted compe­tition, I gave letters of introduction to coal­miner,; who have given the State best. They were going over to X ew Zealand to get wc.rk in the State coalmines, which, I believe, are very prosperous at the present time. [:Hr. JEXKIXSOX: That is not so.] Yes, it is. [:Yir. J E:"KIXSOX : I will prove from ::\Ir. Seddon's own words that it is not.] Another matter that mi.rht receive attention is that something ,,hould be dune in connection with the Chinese furniture­nlaking shops, ha\ing regard to the large nun1ber of carpenters, joiners, french polishers, and men of that class. IV e cannot blame the Chinan1en for n1aking a living, but there must be something radically wrong when our •ystem makes it poosible for Asi<ttics to come here and make thousands of pounds' worth of furniture Rnnually whilst, on the other hand, our joiner" and french polishers are out of work. This recalls the fac0 that there is an agitation in the southern States to have a unionist !~bel.

The SPEAKEH : Ordet !

:\lr. MAUGHA~ : I am very glad to say that the thirying imlustry has ahsorbed a good n•any of the unemployed, and I am glad to think that inclustrv has been e'tablished on such a SjJlenclid and sound footing. In two years the value of the but'er prorluction of Queensland jump'd from £24,000 to £245,000. \Ve all know that the Govcmment did a great deal to Msist the indus''Y· I hope that the Go­Yernment, as j:-;ted by Pnrlian1ent, \Vill do thPir be...:;t to btir:b ahnnt a S' 1lnti<Jn of this trouble. Reference ha been made to-night to the fact that therr are people who lonk for work and d'J not want it \Ve all know that; l,nt we also know timt the ]J''rcentage of thtct class is very low indeed. It is even thP. ordinary in ,tinct uf the brut" to look after those that they have brought the world, and I can aF=sure you that, in n1y lon.s experience in de·1ling with these matterB, I can only recall very fe,v cases where the im eterrtte IDafers-the metJ who do w t want work~con:1e to me, aRking for workt and pra?illg to God that they will not get it. I ;; -,n assure you that the large majority ot men who c,Jme looking fdr work are anxious that they may get it. Many would not be asking the GovPrnment for work at the present time but for the fact that private enterprise, for some reason best known to itself, has e::itabli:;hed a sort of boycott, and has thrown the onus of pro­viding WfJrk for the nnen11Jloyed on the Gu,·ern­ment. I hope uefore long we will have bountiful

Mr. Maughan.]

DoS il!Iotion fm' AcUoumment. [ASSEMBLY.] ;}lotion for AdJournment.

rains) bec.\use \ve w.J.nt rain, and it will enaL1e the country to go aheaJ, and in that wr1y absorb a lot of surplus lnbour. I hope the time is not far distant when we shall ha\ e a Departuct:t of Labour presided over by a rupuH,ible Minis­ter, who will have cbargP of all the industrial matters of the State. (Hear, hear !)

Mr. BAR TO)[ (Carna,rron): Thi~ i,;rather an important question, but it is an everl..tsthvr que'3tion, and will be .so, I :un LOrry to say~ throughout all the States. The only thing 18ft for us to do iR to try to modify matters. (Hear, hear !) Unfortunately for the cl2.,; that the inrlustries employ, there are some whom I can only term "loafers" who Cllmpletely 'Poil our efforts in the ma' ter. Tbese individuals and tbe deserving- unemployed are oll classed togdher, and they make it very dif!'cult for us to deal wrth tbe que;tion. :B'ortunately, tbis class does not represent 10 per Cflnt. of the whole. They w1!1 not work, but ,it about hoping that it will rain soup so that they wiil get cheap food. (Lau.;hter.) The Govern<nent have a difficult task to pursue in this m~tter ; but I ''W dis­tinctly that they are doing their utmost to deal with it. There are some members who have been speaking with sarcastic fire­(laughter)-but they are very much off the mark, and fail to accomplish the object they desire. I do not suppose there is a man in this House: that advccates more strongly tbRn I do the betterment of the present condition of the unemployed. I have dune so all my life, and will continue to do so. I do not think any practical suggestion has been thrown out to-night for tl19 betterment of their condition, but we have heard a variety of idea'. As for the Royal Commission, there might be something in that. [:\Ir. KERR : It would l1e a royal spree.] The other suggestions may alleviate the difficnlty for a while, but it is a big question, and we want to strike at the rootJ of it.

Mr. BOWMAN (Fortitude Valley) : I am one who commends the hon. member for Brisbane South for bringing under the notice of this House the prevailinf( conditions nf the unemployed, 'md more particularly in the metropolis. Any person who is observant at all cannot hut be satisfied that the conditions existing in Brisbane to-day are not creditable to us as a State. I am often brougbt into contact with these people, and after the pitiful hles that are told by men who have had long spells of unemployment, I think, if hon. members had to undergo a little of the suffering that those men undergo outside, we would stir ourselves more than we are doing at present. [Mr. KEOGH: Stir up the Executive.] I am satisfi.ed that the Hon. the 'rreasnr•·r and the Government generally have dmw work that perbaps no previous Gm-ernment has done in the way of trying to find employment that was more remunerative than any I know that has been taken up by their predecessors. (Hear, hPar !) I think th<tt the immediate stoppage of borrowing has had tbe effect of throwing a good number of artisans out of employ­ment, and while I have declared against a policy of borrowing, and particularly on the lineq nn which the money was spent, I am satisfied tl-at if money was borrowed and spent judiciously it would relieve the distress as we find it to-dav. (Hear, hear!) I myself went to the Trea'!lrEn' repeatedly in connection with deputation~ frPm many tradesmen in Brisbane, and im .triably he has endeavoured to do what he coulcl in the wav of promising work. 1\fy colleague, 1\fr. McDon­nell, and myself waited on him some time ago with reference to one important trade in Bris­bane-tbat of the tobacco-twisters. The Trea­surer took the matter up, and I am ple:>sed to say

[Mr_ Maughan.

that I recci 1·ed a letter from the secretary of the Tobaccu 'rv..J:.:;ters' 1] nion to-day tl.1ar.ldng the Hon. the Trc.csurer for what he bad done. They 0tated it meant a good de ·1 of employ­nwnt fnr them, as they had star~E:d work, and lt '\vould ruean nwre W1lrk in the corr1iug vvoek. The Premier, spl-aking thi.:::; e'Tening, seen1ed to think it would be better for trad~smcn to go to the other St<ttes ~o get emplo,,·ment rather than be idl<' here. I think lt is a reg-rettaLle thing fur us to lo.,e a.11y of our trades1nen. I have ~poken to .sevRra1 of thf'nl latel:v. ..::\.. plasterer I am acquainted with t.,,Id me tht<t nine 01' ten 1Jlasterers \Vent to K ew z(~Dland, and t\VO or three took their faruilies with ihelll. [The PRE1IIER: I sc~id ic would be 1ntter il)r theru to go rut her than that \Ve should have to horrfnv rnoney to keep then1 here.] The Pre1ui--·r also said they migbt go on the land if thev did 11ot go elsewhere. l think it would be a mistake to Jet then1 go nway. \Ve are asking people to c01ne from the other States, and part1cula~ly th.,se interested in agriculture, su that we might henefit onr State fron1 a population pnint of view, and also fron1 a prodneiug :-:;tandpoint. Therefere we cannot afford to loee men in lari!e numbf'r~. I see frOlll the newspa}Jf-'lrH that it is intended to give us people frmn the old country, and it seems to me that it is the scum of England that is going to be sent here.

The SPEAKER : Order !

Mr. BOWMAK: "\Ve have sufficient un­employed here at the present time without receiving reinforcetuentB trmn that direction. I believe some effort might be mane to carry ont works in Brisbane. I know the 'l'reasurer has one scheme under consideration, and that is the building of a new duck. ThP present dock accomn1oda.tion, with one or two exceptions. h::~s, up till the present, been suitable for the work that had to be done in the repairing of boats, but it will not be sufficient for the larger vessels now calling here, and unless something is done they will have to go sout.h. 'l'he leader of the Labonr party asked us to-night did we want to build dred<;"es. I think that we have enough dre<lges already, but I aleo think that a good deal of work can be done by those dredges. I do not know whether it is the mtention of the Government to rlredge the river from Pinkenba up to the city, but if so a good deal of employment could be given in tbat way. 'l'be sooner that work is started the hetter for us and for those who are unemployed. \Ye were told th:;t one of the causes for the present state of things wa' because of the semi-socialistic Go­vernment we have. I do not tbink there is any truth at all in that a'';ert.ion. I am sat.isfied that New Zealand now stands foremo·,,t of any colony in the .... 1\ustrala~ian group as reg::trds its pro~ gressive legislation. It ha< for a long time been the most socialistic colony of the vroup, and capital continues to flow into thHi· colony. They are 1naking their people more con­tented than we are in Queensbnd, and tbey are b';rrowing money, and spending it judiciously. Tbey have carrierl on a S\-stem of j.mhlic works, and the hon. member for 1 pswich has stated that

tbey have had a controlling influence [10 p.m.] in the forming of a labour depart-

ment, which has been advocated "ery freqnently in this Hou~e by many hon. members of this and preceding Parliaments. You would have a person there who would undertake the work, perha.ps on a co·operative lnsis, and I think we have rm excellent example of the work performed in Kew Zealand under these co·operatrve prin­ciples. K o doubt the Treasurer himself while there would be brought face to face with some of the work that has been accomplished. Any

Motion fur Adjournment. [3 0CTOBEll.~ Jlction fc r Ac\journment. 969

·person reading ")Je,vest Englrn1d" must be sati.-fi·cd that the pr•>gress macle in that direction has been of gn:at ad vanta>, ·. At a derutation that wa.ited on the Hon. the Pn:1uier tiOlll8 tirne a;;o, he and tl1e Trt>a"urer sklted they were going to in traduce legislation to settle people on the land, and l believe that that is still their intention. I think that that le~islati,m mibht be hurried on ns speedily as pussible. There are tradesrnen who have ]J,.,j no practical expaience on t,he land, but who :cue anxions to learn and n1ak6 homes for themselves and their families, and give this system a tri<d, o.tnd thu-, [U-~,Ji~t the G0vernment in break­ing du'.,'n the }Jeriuclical depressions which arise frum time to tirue. I have spoken to dnz.,.ns of men in Queensland who could ciapt them"elvc" quickly to that work, and we shonld have them off the market at once. \Vhen we realise the arnount of snfft ring in Bri:,b.tne tu-day. that fact aLme should appeal tn the Governmer;t to hasten on with the work, ~o that we can relieve these unemployed. \V e are not different to other countries, and I think any person who has read the unemployed '[Uhtinn up tmFt be satisfied that it is a difficult pr.,hlem to s> lve. believe that the Government in ~lueensbnd attempted systematictlly to improve the condition of the land by the work that has heen carried ont by a number of 1nen. in:-;~ead of l)hift.ing s lllll frnn1 one ~pot t') anothPr; the work has increa:-;ed the value of that ]Hrticular land, which the Govern­ment will reap the reward of in the shape of a higher price for it. I hope my,c•lf that that sys· tem will not he carried out, bnt that a principle '' hich we introduced into the· L~nd Bill-the per­petu>tl leasing-will be carried on, and the Go. vernment will havH no difficulty in getting many men wlro are anxious to givn it a trial and make hnmes for themsd ves, which will be of ad vantage to the community. The Premier states the Gn­vernmPnt are prPpared to give them easy ternu;, and I do not think you can make the terms too easy. It is a lamentable fact that a large num­ber of men are unemployed, and a number of men are only partly employ~d. I know hundreds ·Of men on the wharve-; at the present time who only get half wages, and many of their wives have to gPt rations from the Immigration Depot. That is not a credit to a young country like this. I have taken numbers of men to the Lands Office to see what conditions they could get land on ; some of them are anxious to get away so that they can make room for their le'S fortunate mates. The Premier said that he thought that some of the men at the head of this movement were there to advance their own narticular ends. I know eo me of these men, and they have sacrificed many hours of the night in doing good work because of the trouhle existing in the homes of many people in Brisbane. I know men belonging to the Christian church to-day who have given up several evenings, as a l:1.bour of love, in order to effect a change in the existing conditions, and I do not think it was fair for the Premier to impute the motive that some of these men were doing it for selfish pnrposes. I believe everv member of that committee is actuated by a tru~ desire to try and relieve their fellow-men from their pre,ent difficulties. I have worked in conjunc­tion with them on thll.t committee-perhf!.ps not so consistently in attendance as they have, on account of my duties here-but these men have given night after night up, and I believe they are imbued with a spirit to do good to their fellow· men as their only motive. I trust this motion will result in good. The unanimity which has prevailed on the part of every member who has spoken, of a desire to do good and try and solve this unemployed question, is a pleasing feature, and if the Government do anything at all in trying to solve it, they will reap the ever­lasting reward of those who benefit by it.

The TREASc.-RER: Although I do not feel very able, I should like to say a few words on this matter before the mo.-er of the adJourn­nwut speak-: in reply. I consider it is one of tho me ,t imporcant questicms that any Parlia· ment aPv,•chere can addresc it elf to-one of those questions 1'!ilich appeal not only to our feeling·-:, '~ut to our understm1dings. I 1nyself consider it the most important que·~tion in modern civil conditions. (Hear, hear!) I do not think there u11 be any mom pathetic sight anr .. here than a fairly decent man un~ble to gPt y:ork, day after day, \Yeek after ,.-\Te~n:, p_er~ haps month after month; and no attentwn \vhich Lither GoYcrnment or Parliam€nt can a:iw to the question that will in any way help to solve it or go any part in that direction. is ,,-asted. If we can soh-e the diffrculty by drs­cussinr;· this matter from now to Christmas, the time ~,-ill be exceedingly well spent. I am mon than doubtful, hmvcver, whether wo have not v ".,tecl a p:ood deal of time discussing this important question this aft-.rnoon that could have been better employed. This is a ques­tion -,!rich not o:1lv affects Queensland, but affects all industrial Con1n1unities, and the more civilised the communities the more it is that this question affects them. As a matter of fact, the verv industrial progression that takes pl'lco se-erns" to int~nsify this evil in civili-.00 communities. \Yhcther it is by the improve­ment" in :rnachinery, or because of the artifi­ciality of our social existf'nce. or a co1nbination of the,;, it is unmistakable that the un· emplo;. qnestion, not only in (~ueensland but in eYE'f/ civiliserl corn1nunity, is increa .. lng in intens,ity, in importance, and in difficulty of treatment. This ought to make thinking men consider that this is not just a wickedness on the part of either the last Government or the present GoYennner.t; it is a thing over ''vhiC?h Gm-ernments have not absolute control. It results from causes bevond the control of any Government. As a matter of fact, it re­sults frJm causes quite other than indus· trial and other than social, and it is one of the most complicakd problems that public men in any civilised country can address themselves to. In our own country, as we all know quite well, there have been a number of causes 1vhich ha.-;;e int0nsifiecl the evil during the- last fe\v years. Owin~~ to the prot,racterl drought th{'rG ""~>'aS an e-11ormous lr-c;.s of ca.pital. and O\VliJ.~!· to thP fisctl chan;::rf's that took place. consequent on fede-ration, tht~r·e has bet~n a fli::;location in the incidence of our tracl•• tha.t ha, a.g·e-ravatr'i the evil. It is im· pos:,.il'l'' to conct'~iYe of a .,nlall commur1:ity like this losing the enormus amount of caprta,l ,,·hich (/uecnelancl lost durin,· the last thrH or four ye HS not suffering in consequence. The production of wealth decreased to such an enormous extent that it must neces,,arily have reacted to the clisad,·antac'e of those who \\'ere living ou their wdcldy v. age·s. I do not. m.cn­tion the· 9 things for the purpose of excus1np.· the Government-I do not think the pre.s<>nt GoY0rnnw·.nt :::ta.nds in need Gf any ex( : . .1:-:e in rccrard to this matter-hut simply by way of stating the case. Bec.tuse, whatever the cau~2s a.n:-. \Yhc-re so ~ar;;re a nun1bE'r of pr0pl_ · are suffrrinf( privation a,nd harclsh]p. it Is

manife,tly the duty of the Government to do evPryt hing- that is humanly po~sible to a.rnc,ho­rate tlleir conditions-quite apart alt.cgethz:'T from any humanitarian conditions, it is mani­f<,stlv the dutv of the Gm·ernment-ac wlwt I ma:. call tl)e cn,todian of the inter81SL of the State fOT the time being to save this State, if possible, from thB loss of so many men <~nin.,,. idle. It i., not the duty of t],e U-oy{:'rnment to find 1vork for 8nv man ""~,Yho is compul Jrily idle. I a·-;ert th;t it. is not

Hon. W. Kidston.]

970 Motion for Ac(iournment. [ASSE:iVIBLY.j .Zifotion for Adjournment.

onl-. tho duty of the Go-.;.-ernnH?·nt not to do tlwt. but it is quite aLsurd to put it in that furrn o£ \Votch·, i::ecan~e You are trY ill u· t()

that it is the dutv oE tf1e Goyerninc1~t to :-.mnething- \:hicl1 ~you kuo\v quite '"''ell the 9-ovf lJinent cannot d·J. But it is the 1nauife· t mtmht of the State. and consequeutlv it is the duty of the Governnwnt not to have Jarg·e) n.tun:~ '!~·:3 _of 1pe~1 goi1_1g· idle auc1 eon-rn·och~c­tJYe If Jt IS withm the1r means, to giving them l''=.>p_rodnchy_e. profitable e-rn_ployment. Xow. '.Yn:k th";t Is the duty of the G JYermm•nt. and ':'lnle 1t _Is a n1ani.fe.st lack of social orL;·ani~.a­tiop wl~1ch result~ in lar({e nun1bers ~f men Lemg IdlE' and Ullpmductin• iu a voung countr~ of .~reat und~·r.--~op_ed ret 0urCe,.~ a:s Queens,and IS, and wlule. It 1s manifeotly the duty of the Goyernn1ent ~o do ''.~haJ tl :=:an ~? l'E'.medy .such ~wils: it is not the duty the -.JOVf'.L"Ilnlent. to JUnlp at t'YC>r:_v qua.ck rcn1odv that ~ci pl~opck;ed. (Uonourable rne·Jnl'ers: f-Iea1:, 1w:a.r .] . 11 e· rnnst r~mnnicer· that ju,;t because tlns ,uhJeft appeals so llatnrally :me! so strc·'l"·]v to the h',·P an~ fee1mgs of rood nw11, for that reason tnere IS a very distinct tendency to play to _the gallery in the matter. Hon. mem­bers Will excuse me if I say that a great deal of the talk that has gone on here to-day h~s been largely addressed to their con­stitl!ents. 'There has been a great deal of ta~kmg to the gallery. rMr. MDRPHY: I don't thmk so.] Perhaps the hon. member does not t~mk so, but I do, ~ne! I prefer to say so, a,though _I know It Will not please hon. mem­bers. 'This IS one of the questions where there lS that tendency. I believe I have got more abuse. over this partwular matter than any man. m Qne<;nslancl; though I have perhaps won·Iecl oyer It as much as any man in Queens­land clunng the la.st two years. and have dc·n~ a~ much .. PC'rhaps, to try to ren1edv it dnrmg that tm1e as any single mau' in Quee~slancl-[Government members: Hear, hear ._J--yot I have probably got more abuse OY•.r It than any man in the State. [Honour­able mem)Jers: Hear, hear!] Do any of those peo);lle thmk they a~e going to help the un­em);lloyed by ventmg personal animositv agam ··~ me? That won't holp the nnempfoyed. How~" er, none of ns can fat! to recognise that this IS one. of those classes of subjects which are very di~cul_t ~o deal with in a practical "ay, but whwh It IS very easy to talk and plav to the galle~!" about. It is also very easy to gire ~xpr;csswn. to gush~ng sentiment, and to a c.' ocate m an Irresponsible way the spending of money-money that is not our own to sp"nd, that we have no right to spend unless we see some chance of its being returned to l~S. rs::overnment members: Hear, hear !l It ~houlct neY.er be forgotten that in this matter the Government are not dealing with their own funds. I notice that some men who are never liberal with their own money have a tenclonc:y to gush and be liberal with other P,eople's money. \Yhatevcr other faults this Gove_rnment may have. it ought not to forget !hat It Is not dealing with its own money, but IS only trustee for the money of the g~neral taxpayer; a ne! however the personal feelinrys of individual members of the Government ~r individual members of the House mav be movrd, they have no business to spend the taxpayers' money in projects that are likely to lose the taocpayers' monov. One of the evils from v:hich Queensland. is suffering at the present time-one of the things which has intensified this evil is that the towns in Qneensland have b'een boomed by the spendmg of large snms of loan monev. 'This is one of the things for •vhich \ve are

[Hon. TV. Kidston.

"paying the piper" to-day. It is the mis­fortune of the present Government that they came into office when Queensland was reaping the aftermath, when she was suffering from the unwisdom of previons administrators. It is easy, of course, to say, "Let us have an­other sowing." But it does not matter how long we go on having another season of bor­rowing, there is no escape from this thing at the end of it. The people of Queensland, and the Parliament of (~uoenslancl, should try to support the Governnwnt in bringing back Queensland to a ."ane financial and industrial condition. There is absolutely no Teason in the world why Queensland should not Le self­dependent, produuing the wealth which its people need withont borrowing money from London or auywheTe else outside the State. (Hear, hear!) \Yith all the money we have borrowed, half a million of people in a terri­tory like this ought to be able to live on their own. It would be the easiest thing in the world for this Government to make itself popu­lar. a.~ preYious Govf'l'lnne,nt,~ have done. by scattering about taxpayErs' n1oney and buying taxpayers ,,·ith their O\Vn money, as they have be·m bought over and over avam. I hope that whatever fault this Government may posses it will not fall into that fanlt, but that it will hold on to a sane financial policy. If we can manage to do it, in a few years Qneensland will have Yery good Teason to thank the Go­vernme·nt. a.nd to thank this Parliament. for having broug-ht it into a sane and permanently <mncl financial and industrial condition. [:c\lr. JENKINSON: You will depopulate it.] In 1\ew South \\'ales. a. few yeaT:l ago, :'llr. O'Sullivan started to spend money reckle·,sly in order to please the unemployed, and to please the Labour party. I know quite well the intention with which he staTtecl-I know that no public man ever had better or cleaner motives in doing a thing than :'IIr. O'Sullivan had­[Honourable members: Hear, hear !}-and what was the result of his action? [:\Ir. JEN­KINSON: He raised a Frankestein which oveT­whelnwd him.] He intensified the evil he attempted to cloal with fiftyfold. and was howled ont of office for it by the very men whom he was trying to benefit. (HeaT, hear!) I do not know whether I shall be howled out of office or not. but I know that I shall not be howled out of office for carrying out that kind of policy. I will try to go ont of office with some kind of self-respect, and after having triC'd -whilf:' I \Vas in office to act, accorchLg to my be~.t judgcn1e11t, foT the g,__}od 0.£ CJueens­lalld. [:\Jr. HARDACP.E: ,,~,-e should not spend any public rrwney according to your vie-,vs.] Yes; I think >ve should spend public money. 'The hon. member for Leichharclt n:ade a sbte­ment which I entire]~ agTee with Yvhen he said that wherever the (iovcmment could find re­munerative public works it \vas tli,,ir duty to 2.0 Oll w-ith then1 ["'lr . .l-lARDACRE: ..:~lld ·ith then1 o11ly.] I entirely a~reo -with the ho11. memler. ),s a matter of fact, ' e all agreed \Yith him. That is cne of tht--.~e · cner .. l ;-,ta.te­n1enLs 1\ P can all W2T-::e with. 1m-l lYE: are not a step further in th~ f;Oluticnl o£ this q:J.e-,(on. Owr £4().000,000 ha,-e been borrowed by QuccnBland, and ev-ery penny of that su1n \Va::: borrowed for reproducti.-e public works. [:\Ir. :'IIxcoHAK: There '"ere a lot of squatters' rail-,_,;ays built out ( ~ that Th_·1·c \Y[L~ ne,: er a of the this for ! lL-1..RD.~C'-:1E: '' "'S_,.. O'l''

in thi.s ft ;_· +he time being· must decide, and the Govern­ment has to take the responsibility as to whether it pans out that way. But Queens­la"d will in the end find out in this matter,

jjj otiou for Adjournment. [3 OcToBER.] Motion for Ac{journment. 971

r-, in a great n1any other n1atter::3, that ''the proof o£ the pudding is in the f'ating of it.'' It is manifest to all of us that in the eating 1t La~ been proved that scarcPh' auv of our loan expenditure has bieen reproducti\~e. [:\Ir. .}E~KIXSOX: That is an exagg£>ratec1 state­ment.] I mean in the sense of paying in­terest. In a lar,5er and more general probably a.ll our loan expEjuditure ha.s reproductive to a larger or lesser ext.ent. [:\Ir. JE""Krxsox: Infinitelv better than New Zealand.] I should not 'like to follow the Cjxample of New Zeala.ncl. This kind of thing C'UllllOt go on for eYer, as "\Ve found out a

couple of years ago. The time ha.s arrived "~hen we have to consider our position. As I haYe already sard, a good deal of the speaking this afternoon has been addressed to the " galler.z." 1 ha ye listened to the greater part uf the ctobatc wrth a. consrderable amount of interest, and I should have been glad to have h;ard. auy practical sugg<'stion by which Ll<' Govemment could have started worb of a practical nature. and I should Teallv havo been obliged if any hon. member ha.d p~1t for­ward a.ny [lracbcable proposal. and I should 'till be obliged if a.nyone in the. House or out of it ·would gi-ve, practical :;;ug.~e,3tions for the further dmp1opmont of tho "~ark we arc al­ready carrying on. or '"ith regard to auy nBYl schern0 ,y]1ich will be better tha.n t lw mdhod ' e ha,~c aclopt<:'d. <o that we may adopt some ;·e.producbve scheme of dealing with this diffi­cult question.

The SPEAKER : Order! The hon. member ha.s eo,:haustt'd his time.

The TREAS CRER: If the Jiousc will per­mit, I should like to make a few further re­marks on the subject. [Honourable members: Hear, hear!] vVhile a large number of mem­bers are impressed with the evil that un­~oubtedly. exists, I am pleased to find that it IS recogmsed on both sides of the Chamber th~t the Government have not been neglecting tlus matter-rH onnurable membl'rs: Hear. hear !]-that we have been doing, if not every. thing that the Government themselves or hon. m_embers desire, something to seriously deal With the 1,11atter. It is a very difficult matter !o deal With. Although our sympathies may oe aroused, our sympatlnes alone will not settle. this question. \illhen you come to deal wrth It m a practical way you find there are very groat difficulties in the way, difficulties even \Hth the unemployed themselves. As I have exhausted my time, I shall not refer to many matters with which I should have liked to have dealt, but there is one suggestion, made by the hon. member for Leiohhardt on which I should like to make a few obse~va­tions. The hon. member spoke about the gro,vth o£ cotton, but he did not refer to the fact that if the Government have done nothing for the encouragerr,ront of cotton-gTmYing they have done somethmg for the encouragement of a product which will be fifty timeo more p_rofitable than cotton-growing, and that is Sisal hemp. I am not by any means satisfied with the extent to which the Government have helped this matter, and I may say that mv friend the Secretary for _'\.griculture, who has boon called an anti-socialist, is proposing still further extension of this matter. And I may also just say hero that there is no member of the Government, and probably no member in this House, who has done more in a practical wa;. to develop production in this State than my friend the Secretary for Agriculture. or who has a more practical or business-like nH?thod (,f goin1r about hi~ vYork. (lieaT, hear!) The problem, as the hon. member for

Loichhardt said, is to bring together land, capital, and labour. That seems very pro­found, but, as a matter of fact, it is only comwonplace. There is no other way of work-

ing anything, and that is all the [10.30 p.m.] Government have been trying to

do. Land, labour, and capital just means paying a man to work. In attempting to deal with the question, we set out with the assumption that we had no right to use the taxpa vers' money except in reproductive works. and the reproductive work on which we could .employ any considerable number of men we took to be the improvement of the public estate. I know that a great many criti­cisms have been passed of one kmd and another on our attempt to utilise the labour of the unemployed. Some comments have been made upon the small wages the men madr. As a matter of fact, if anyone will im­partially consider the different classes of men who were sent to the improvement camps, and remember that thcv consisted of good men, in­clifierent men, ancl"bad men-men who did not want to work at all as well as good and willing workers-and' if they consider tJ:at the men were only pard for the work they d1d, and that on the whole, the average wage earned was' 5s. Gel. a clay, they will see that, if the Government overseers erred at all, they erred in paying rather much for the work done.. I do not want the overseers to ·err by paymg too much, because somebody else has to pay for the work afterwards, and not the Government. The unemployed should get only what they work for, and, if they get current rates of v, .tges and they get paid for the work they do, they have no reason to .complain. _..ll..t the same time, when we consrder the disadvantages under which thev worked, I would rather that the o.-crseers •el:red on the side of paying rather much than on the side of paying rather little, and I think that they have done that on the whole. Some hon. member on thrs side asked whether 2s. a day was not a poor wage? \Vel!, I notice that at Jondary'!n they paid as little as ls. Gel. a day. I mentiOn the case of Jondaryan because several members. on tlw other side have blamed us for spenclmg £13 an acre in clearing that land, and said· that we will never get the money back agam. At the same place men wer<' earmng 6s. 9cl. a dav. and the av<;;rag~e was 4s. At \Yarwiek. while the lowest wages were 2s~ T a dav. the highe·t were 11s. lOd. a day. No 1wrson '"ho ~has visited one of those. camps, aucl noticed how the men we-re 1.vorlnng, but must have recog·nisccl what happened. ~Ien were sent out who wNe soft from long Jclle­ue~~~,yho \Vere not ~,.-jlling to v ork-and ,~·ho ,nrc unacctuainted with the v'ork: while others Y\'f'fp, not only ,,,.illing to work, but \Vere

aconaiutecl ·with th{' \York, and determined to make mo!lCY for themselves and their families. Thl result ~Ya~ a Yf'rv \Yidc diYerg-t>ncy in the naY. I maintained that it is indisputable. fnim thE figure·, I supplied. that the OH'r'e.ers in chanre of the yariou~ camps fairly carn~d out thB instructions given them, and p~u.d fairlv a..-erarto wages for the \i\'ork done. It Is prnp'oserl tl;is 0~ear to try an extcnsi?n o~ thE' s.:heme l10· prO\·icting money, and a Bill wrll be introclucecl to enahl0 the Lands Department to settle on the land people without capital. \Ye haw heon twitte,~j with the fact that only £<.ono is put on the Estimates for this purpose. ?\ o~ ~. tho Gm·ernment have 110 intention of rH~hin~r into a larr..:.·e exnenditure for such a purpo~e until they~ are -fairly certain of the lines 011 '· hich they are going. (Hear, hear!) It is cmr intention to haYe an area of land set apart for this purpose. with an overseer who.

Hon. W. Kidston.]

972 Motion fur Adjuurnment. [ASSKHELY.J JJfotion jo1· ArljouJ•nment.

will advise and supervise the n1en. Each man vvill have his own farm, and, in proportion to the work he does, he will receiYo acsistance from the GoYernment up b about £140 or £160 for stock, tools. and maintenance for the fir ,t year. (Hear, hear!) The pre•ent inten­tion is that no maintenance will be giwm after the first year. By that time the~· arc expe :tcd to lLtve stock, so as to have 1nilk and other produce to s-elL 'l'he se>cond year they will have nothing to pay, and, after that, they will begin to pay back what has been adYanc< J by the Governn1ent. the whole arnount to be paid back in twent_7-thre'l Y·cars. I think then_ are a g·ood many farmers in Queensland \Yho had not anything likB such a chance of settling on the land, and who haYe made comfortable homes for themsAh-es. (Hear, hear!) At the san1e timo, the Governrnent reco~niso that it is 1.viser to go slovv than to spend a lot of ll10l1PY

in an 0xperiment of this kind, and bring dis­credit on the thing. and prevent this and other Parliarnents fro1n following on the .vtme lines. \Ye. cannot help remembering that a ''"'' years ago, \Yith a g·ood deal cf flourish of trun1pets, P ·rliament passecl the Co-operative Commn­nitin (Land Settlement) Act; they Sp<'nt a lot of mom',v on it, and the charitable public were appealed to, and gave to the settlero; but the r' --ult of it all v:as utter discredit was brought upon the experiment. It is the duty of the House and of the Government, when they take sue h a matter in hand. if thev want to secure real progress, to take care th'at thev ,,·orlc on lines which are likely to succeed. l haye not the slightest doubt that, if we can succeed with £7,000, this IIouoe will gladly vote £70,000 if required-[] Ionourable members; liear. hear !]-and find it profitable to vote £70,000. The more monev we can snend on sound husines .like lines o-;, that purpose the better for Queensland. At the same time, in these matters we should adopt the policy of slow and sure. As hon. members will S•"e from the Estimates, v:e have clone eYerything within our power to extend the \Yorks Esti­mates. There is a verv considerable increase in the sums put down for buildings. In what­ever way the Government have found it pos­sible, they have tried to do their duty in this matter. (Hear, hear!) If hon. members can show us a practicable method of going· further, so lonh· as we can go safely, personally I shall be obliged to them. It is one of the most painful duties a i\Iinister can perform to find it his duty to refuse a man work who he knows is anxious to work. An ordinary man in the position of :Minister would very much prefer to find a man work, and at good \vages, to turning him away. But it is the duty of ~.Iinisters to remember their obligations to the general taxpayer, who has not !Tot their ear, and whose money they are handling; and they ought not to forget the man who is absent because the man who is presPnt appeals to their feelings. So far as our dutv has per­mitted us to go, the Government ha~·e done all to improve the industrial condition that it was possible for us to do; and I believe that, if we hold to our present policy, the result will be undoubted good, althou~h I do not fancv that the permanent and final solution of the lmem­ployed question is visible for a very long ,,-ay ahead. [Honourable members; Hear, hear!]

::\lr. REIXFJOLD, in reply, said: I am pleased to see that the majority of those wbq have spoken consider that we have not wasted time to-day, and hope that some good may come out of the discus,ion. There have be-.n three complaints made against me-first, that I ga.-e insufficient evidence of the unemployed difficulty; secondly, that I dealt with Brisbane only; and, thirdly,

[Hon. W. Kidston.

that I put no scheme before the Honso. Now, I think that rtskinf! for ::;chPll1PR w~_,s the n11ly l )art of thl:;;; debate th.-tt vvaR rc~ally a ".\'a •t ~, of ti1ne. If an\· rne1uber hn. \a schen1e to prnpnse to tha. Govefn1uent, it is far 1P4S a waste nf tinlP tn gn to the members of the G"Yernment quietly anc! tell them uf it than to brin6 it forward in this Hon~e. I consider bat the :-;pnec h of thf- Trea­surer has shown conclusiv oly that it would have been qnite u:-;eles~· for n1e tn prt)po.;;e a sch~n1e to the Gu\enunent, .seei:Jg- thnt thP h'm. gPntlPman saYs that. be is not of opinion that it is the duty ofthe (}overnment to f.nd wc1rk for the nnern­ployed, aod I say that it i'. :Uy scheme •vnuld have gon8 in the opposite direction to that of f he Treasurer, and. hA wonld noc have accepted it at any price. It would, therefor~, h'we been quite useless for u1e to propose-. anytlnn&"· The only tLing I am sorry about JR that tins debate has not dealt more on that phase of the question as to whether it is th-. duty of tbe GoYernment or not to find work for the Ul1t'tn·

played. Tt) 1ny mind that i~ the only S·Jlu!iun of the difficulty. It is ndmitted on all o!de> that it is tl1e duty of the Grn ernment not to allow starvation of any kind, and if the GO\ ern­n1ent are uot going to allo\'. ~tnX\'ation c,f any kind then it n1eans gidt'g ei~ht~r charity or ernploy­ment. As tu the unfit and unem],lO] able person, I submit th·.~t the pre,-•ent condition . ., wi:l nwnn­facture that cbss uf l'erson. IV e will manufac­ture the unfit Pnd unemployable P'"''on so long as \Ye continue to havt. unemployed. Then there are those wLo approve of this obligatiun being cast on the Goven11nent in stressful times. If we approve of it in stressful timt '• why not approve of the proposal of. the Go':'ern­ment <Jffering people employment m other tm,cs to prevent them bec<m1ing unemplo:·ecl? In the debate, that took nlace it1 other years there were always 801118 Oll8 0~' two \Vhn took Up the rositiOll

that it was the duty of the Government to find work for the unemployed. It pnwed very in­teresting reading to me in g-oing over those de­bates, and I would very mach like to read some of them, hut there is no time, of course. I will, h<nvever, quote fr01n the remarks that \V ere n::~de on the q nest ion in 1861:i. 0~ that occa,wn 1\!Ir. Brooks, the member for J\ orth Bnsbane, said-

It would be for tbP Govermnent during rece~-~ to devise some means nf not only relieving the unemployed but of preYenting-so far as it was possible for legis­lation to IH'C\·ent it.- there ever being a similar com­plaint m~Ue to that House from the unemployed.

[Mr. JENKINSON; And thirty-one years later the Treasurer says the same thing.] In 1893, 1\Ir. Fisher, now a member of the Federal House of ReprescntatiYes, said-

Thi:;; is the question of the age. This i-::~ the ou_e question that mn~t be grappled 'Yith not only ?-'"~ !his legislature, but by every le~islature in the CIVlhsed world.

Then the Treasurer, in 18D7, made these few remarks au1ongst others-

As the wage-earners form by far the largest proportion of our people, or of any other people, I think it is the dutv of the Government to con~idcr tlwir interests. In auy· case it ii'; a problem that_ is continu?us and grow­in;;; it is inel·easing in intensity not only m Queen:-land but in :tlmost eYcr.\' ch·ilised communit.\". "-lleth~r Governments like it or not, or whether they think 1t their dutv or not, it is becoming every day more ami more evident that they will llave to attempt to deal 1Vith it.

Then referring to the Acting Premier, the Trea­surer said-

The hon. gentleman's kindly, humanitHrian feeling has nothing at all to do with the business. He was mucll nearer the truth when he said ·'It is not our clutv to deal with the unemployed .. , That i.s where we part company. We on this side alleg~ ~hat it. is the duty of the Government to do so-that IS one of the

Land Acts Amendment Bill. [eL OcTOBER.] _11ethodist Union Bill. 973

mo."timportant functions of an~' eiYi1i..;c,1 Gm·ernn:: ent to find work, if work is nee( "sary for the wc1l~1)cing of its. citizens. ThP- l'l,,tson for the Co'fc:rnruent lwiug there is to see to tlle well-being, happine -~. an(l pro:.:­peritv of tile c~tizens.

Then later on he sP.id-Jiorem-er. iu a yonn,:; and unpeople(1 eotmtty like

thi:-:., where we are al\vays being tol(l ot the bnnlH1tes-; re~onrr-es ::tt onr dbpo::.a!, it i:-. a rnanit'cst proof of the ineapacity of those who lmvc of tlw uational affair:.., H there are idle JuuHls and bellies in tl1e country.

Then, in 1902, we have these remarks from the Treasurer--

The SPEAKER : Order ! I would remind the hon. m<·mber that he is breaking new ground. His speech should be in reply, and he will not be in order in brccking new ground.

:\Ir. HEI~HOLD : I thought this wae in reply to the Treasurer's statements which he made just now. l am rather oorry that the Treasurer ha~ referred, or rather inRinuated, motives to the different speakers. I would ha Ye been better pleased if he had left that part out of it. The Premier also insinuated thcct there were motives "· ith regard to this matter. [The Prm­}!IER: I denied that.] I must accefJt the hon. gentleman's deni:d, bllt that was the way it irnpressed rne. Howe\ er, I would like to dra\v the Premier,~ attention to a Rimilar challenge­it was almost a challenge-which he made him­self in 1b93. Speaking on this same question, he said-

1 do not thmk the Colonial Secretar,,· quite did justice to him~elf when he suggested tlmt the object of members on this side in making S11eeche" 1\h~ to f:!"Ct them into rian.stu·d, in vraer that they might be read by their constituent~. I believe the motion ior adjourn­ment has been broug11t forward with the object of having nn intellhrf'nt debate upon a qnrsti.on that i~ a great t1nestion, and one on which the Hont'e mlght -vell Lle,-ote all the intelligence it pOP';;e~·'3t.-; with :... vi mY of relieving sn.tfm·ing.

The Premier also made some remarks that re­minded me of a letter I have here from ,J on­daryan. I would like to quote a few words from it as bearing upon the matter touched upon l:y the Premier as well as by the Treasurer. It sa,ys-

Some ot us startecl to cut, stack, and burn priekly pear at the price of £14 per acre. This work took us four weeh:s to finish, so that you will readHy under­stand hmv diflknlt it is for ns workers to obtain a decent living- for oursrlves a1~d families. \Ve !:'ent home of this money £1 l8s. each, which means that our wiYes and familie:... had out of our carniugs 9.s. Oct. per ·week witlJ whieh to pay house rent and to proVIde food for iu each case a.. familv of tlve children. I would as:I.,- you, sir, to use your inflUence in order that we may at least be put in a position to pro\ ide a living for those left at home. I need scarcely remind yon that this small amount 1v1Iieh is sent down is enough to drive any •vmuan to ab~olute destl'nction. )Ianv of the men on' the job here have not come up to oul.· wage by a. long \Vay, and very few ha Ye exceeded it. The balance of our wages is retained to pay store acconnt, blankets, ail way fare, and for water.

I beg to withdraw the motion.

:\lotion, by leave, withdrawn.

LAi\'D ACTS AiVIE~DME::'\T BILL.

RECQ;\DliTTAL.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS (Hon. J. T. Bell, Dalby): I move that the Bill be recommitted for the purpose of the con­sideration of a new clause to follow clau"e 4, the reconsideration of clause 5, the reconsidera­tion of [131 Dl in clause 10. the consideration of a new subclause to follow [131 D ], the considera­tion of a new clause to follow clause 10, the

consirleration of a new subclause to be added to cbns, 11, the recon,ideration of suhcian"e (3) of [IG:? H] of clause 21, and the considertion of a ll8'V par:1gcaph to be add(-'~ to cb.use 2-!.

Hox, R PHILP : Does the 'Iinistn for L:tnd' intend to "" on with the Bill to-night? [The Pm;3JIER: Xo; it is nni} formal.]

Question i,ut and p1ssed.

The Huu:"lJ re-snn1ed, and the ConnnitteA ob­tained lea .. ve to ~it ;:u..;·.tin to-nwrro\v,

The Home adjourned <1t four minutes past 11 o'clock.