Queensland

Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]

Legislative Assembly

WEDNESDAY, 30 JUNE 1897

Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy

Address in Reply. [30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 145

WEDNFBDAY, 30 JCNE, 1897.

The SPEAKElt took the chair at 3 o'clock.

QUESTIONS. SuPPLY m' PoLICE 1'0 OoxiJoonoo.

Mr. McDONALD asked the Home Secre­tary-

How many, if any, armpd. police were supplied to Oondooroo Station dul'ing the late shem·ing, an<l was any c-harge made for same?

The HOME SECRETARY replied-No armed police were supplied to Oondooroo Station

during late shearing, and uo charge was made. On evening of 23rd March last two constables left 'Yinton on ordinary pn.trol to Oondooroo shed., as complaint 'vas made by :Mr. Ramsa;> that some 1nen camped lW-Lr ~bed were, at mght. vi;:;iting the shearer~' cook and demautl­ing ration¥:, n.nd were also abu..:;ive. 'l'lv-;e constables returned to station on the 23th idem, and reported thcrv were some men campHl about shed \Yho ldt soon ~tfter arrival.

REPORT OF QVEEXHf,AN!l NATIO:'!AL R\.NK Cmnrrssro.'!.

Mr. McDOXALD asked the Acting Trea­surer-

Can he give the House any assurance as to whether the House will rer~eive the report of tlF1 commissioners inquiring into the affairs oE the Qneenslantl Xationnl llank before the ses~ion closes r

The ACTING TREASURER replied­No.

DAXGEB FROM TRA3!WAY \VIRES. Mr. TLIRLEYa,ked the Postmaster-General­Has any actwn been taken by the Government to

protect the lives of persons working at the telegraph and telephone ·lines in the event of the trolly wirc3 of the Electric Tramway OonllMUV coming in contact with such wires'? ~

The POST.:\IASI'ER-GENERAL replied­Due prec:tutions have been tak3n to protect versons

employed working at the electric telr"graph and tele­phone lines.

COLLISI0:-1 BETWEEN "KAllRAKATTA" A.'!D "\VODOXGA."

Mr. BRO\VNE asked the Acting 'l.'reasurer-1Vill he cause a full and complde inquiry to 1Je ma1lc

as to c mse of reported colli.sion 1Jet\veen II.3l.S. "Karralmtta" and th A.'G S.X. Uo.';:; stt:a,mer H \Vodungn" at Bowen on Tue;:;;da,, last?

The ACTING 'fREASURER replied-This case has been partly heard at B'1wen. On

arrival of the "'\Yodonga" flll't1121' L\'iaencc wiH be taken.

SE!ZU!Ul 01!' PEARL-~HELL.

Mr. BROWNJ<~ asked the Ac7.ing Trm·:urer-1. Has any action bren t.~keu lF the Government

with regard to the dispos tl of the' vea.r.-'5hell seized {~~;~?Jas. Clark and Cu., of T!JUl'-day !::;land, during

2. If so. what action hn.q b··-t,n tn.k,~n? 3. If not, when do the Government in tC'ncl to take

action in the direction of the disposnl uf 'a.id fJrfeitt:U pe<trl-shell.

The ACTING TRBASURER replied-1 aucl2. Xo. 3. Shortly.

DISCOVI~RY OF THE CLER:\IO:'\"T GOLD I<'IELD.

On the motion of ;\Ir. CR03S, it w:ts re­solved-. 'l'hat the~·e be I~id on the t~lhlc of -nw IIonsc all papers 1n connect10n w1th the chum of John ~lemon itch as discoverer of the Clermont Gold _Field.

ADDUESS IN REPLY. RESGMPTIOX Ol•' DEBATE.

Mr. BJ<~LL: I admit that it is not absolutelv necessary that I should take part in this pro­longed debate, which from the momenr. of iGs initiation haH seemed to be characterised by listlessness and want of interesG. The debate upon the Address in Reply is a teHG of the

1897-L

feeling which prevails throughout the country in regard to the actions of the Government. It is a safety-valve to the representatives of the com­munity, and I think the Government deserve congratulation upon the general tone that has characterised the debate. An animated and a critical discuosion may not lead to dis­coveries that are effective in undermining the power of a Government, but it exhibits at all events a feeling of some dissatisfaction on the parG of those who bring that criticism to bear. i::lo far, in this debate there has been none of that energy or denunciation that in seosions hereto­fore we have bEetl accustomed to listen to from hon. members on the other side. The discussion is not over yet, aud there are one or two hon. mem­bers on the other side who may pluck the brand from the burning and redeem the reputation of thiH debate as a critical ani retrospective inves­tigation, and who may also redeem the lack of denunciation of hon. members on the other side.

An HoNOcRABLE MEMllE!t: \Vhat about Mnrray?

1\Tr. BELL: The1·e has been one exception, · not, when I think of the standards of former sessions, a very brilliant exception from the general observation I have made upon the debate. But instead of tho,t criticism coming from the phtee from which we might have looked for it­from the Opposition side, where adverse criticism of the kind usually comes from-in order to uphllld the character of this debate and give it some resemblance to what a discu~•iou on the Address iu Reply should be, a member on this side had to get up and uphold parliamentary us,.ge. "What was the contribution of the hon. member for Normanby? It was an expression of utterances to which in a frag­mentary form we have been accustomed to hear from the hon. gentleman in years past, and, however vehement may have Leen the form in which he gave utter,mce to hiR principles, I am rejoiced to think that his emotions upon the subject have ll<>t been so far stirred as to lead him to go acro.,;s to the other side with hon. members opposite. I do not think that the Government need feel any apprehension from supporters who bring that form of critici,;m to bear. On thco whole it is probably a very healthy attitude for supporters to take up, for after all it is not the verbal utterances which take place within these walls that really damage a Govern­ment ; it is the praclical concrete vote which takes place upon a division. It is uot merely for the sake of the parlictmentaryusage and the character which should distinguish a debate on tbeAddressin Reply that I regret the tameness which has hiLherto charac'oerised this debate. I am disappointed from another point of view. I am sorry to find th>1t the rJenunciations of Ministers that rang throughout the country districts of this colony wherever hon. member., opposite took it upon themselves to make speeches have found no echo or reflex in this Chamber, \Vhere are the rl>ging lions of the recess? \V hen they come into this Chamber they r<Jar like any sucking dove. In a 1nrliamentary "ssemblage we usually find that if the critiCisms of the recess are sincere they are brought to bear when the House assembles, but instead of that we find that the insinuations and inuendoes made in the country districts are not made upon the tloor of thi" Chamber. No doubt there is something stimulating in the uncritical atmosphere of a remote country electorate that prompts hon. members to make the reckless statements they do make, but a member of Parliament should always remember that he is a member of Parliament and should never make in one part of the country announcements and assertions which he is not prepared to make in another.

HONOL"RABLE ME>IBERS : Hear, hear !

146 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

Mr. BELL: I have been disappointed in another respect--

_Mr. KERI\ : In not getting a portfolio? Mr. BELL: If I was disappointe:l in such a

re,pect, which I am not going to arlmit, I hope, at all events, that I should receive the sympathy of the hon. member for Barcoo. I have been disappointed that there has been no direct attack upon the Rr.yal Commbsion on Lanrl Settlement, which came into existence in the month of YI:arch last. There have been a few reckless references and a few furtive intf'rjec­tions, but I have not met the man who, inside of this Housp or-out of it, is prepared to stand np and criticise the report of that commissir>n or the t>vidence upon which it was founded, or who is pre­pared to state that the evidence was wrongly gathered, that wrong questions were put to elicit the evidence, or that the conclusions come to are erratic or untrustworthy.

Mr. LEAHY: This is not the place for it, anyhow.

Mr. BELL : I hear the familiar voice of the hon. member for Bulloo. I differ from him to the extent that I shall make some reference to the report of the commission, because, unless upon the second reading of the Land Bill, I do not know that we shall have any opportunity for a debate upon the document itself. The hon. member behind me has so far departed from the principle he has just referred to as to make one or two interjections with regard to the commis­sion. I think we should recol:ect what the functions of a land commission are. "\V e were told by the Secretary for Lands that there was very little in the report of the com­mission that was new to the officials of the Lands Department. I say that the func­tions of the Royal Commission did not refer particularly to the education of the officials of the Lands Department. "\V e had a wider ~cope than that. Our duty was, if we could presume to do so, to educ'rte and inform hon. memlwrs of both Houses upon the opinions held in the country on the question of land settlement, and also to educate the people at large upon the principles that suggested themselves to us as the result of the invest1gations which we c.uried on. I say we have performed that duty in a way th~t carries valuable lessons with it. I •hould hav0 been sorry if, as th0 result of our investiga­tions, we had discovered many matters that were new to the officiols of the Lands De1 .art­ment; but in regard to thA officials of that department we have done this : "\Ve have, I believe, largely, if not entirely, rehabilitated them in the eyes of the country, because if we have come to one conclusion more definite than another it i• that there is no serious fault to find, generally speaking, with the pe1·manent otlicials who are administering our land laws. 'l'hat at least is a very s~tisfactory conclusion at which to have arrived. I think it is an important out­come of the duties of the Royal Commission that we should be able to as,ure the communit.y at large in connection with such a large and comprehensive measure as our land law, that the general provisions which exist upon our statute-book in regard to the regulation of our land affairs is a wisely-conceivt>d mea­sure, and that in the form in which it exists it is for the benefit of the country. And even if our report had consisted of that sen­tence-if we had been able to give that assurance to the community--we should not have been unworthy of the duty we were called upon to perform. I do not think toe Secretary for Lands has any rea,.on to feel dissatisfied with the report or any of its recommenrlations. I feel called upon, somewhat lothfully, to make a reference, which is not entirely eulogistic, to the Secretary for Lands in regard to one

part of hJS administration. I am sorry to see that on the important point of the sales of land he does not take up that attitude which I believe a Minister for Lands should take up in the best intere·lts of the country. According to the pn blic prints, I understood him to say at Rockhampton that the sale of large areas of our \Vestern lands was largely a Treasury necessity, but I understood him last night to advocate that comse as one best calculated to serve the general interests of the colony. He now supports as a policy that which he formerly recommended as an ex­pedient.

The SECRE'£Al1Y FOI\ PvBLIC LAl>fDS : Entirely from a revenue point of view.

Mr. BELL: I think even from that point of view, however well it may suit the temporary exigencies of the Treasury, it is not adapted to the permanent interests of the country ; and I believe even if we had to turn to some other mode of taxation-and I am not afra.id on any platform to say that the time is coming when we shall ban~ to look for some other form of taxa­tion-if we have to turn round to a more direct form of taxation, let us do that rather than sacri­fice the best land of the colony. The Secretary for Lands stated last night that the district where these lands are being alienated was not adapted for close settlement. Let me remind the House that what is now taking place in regard to those Western lands is exactly what took place twenty-five or thirty years ago in regard to the Darling Downs. It was stated then not less emphatically than it is now that those lands were unfit for close settlement. I am of opinion that. the "\Vestern lands now being alien~ted at 10s. an acrt:, though they may not be fit for close settlement in the sense that term is understood on the continent of Europe, wiil be adapted for close settlement in a sense which is very much ch•ser and minute than most people imagine ; certainly they o,re fit for a more elat•omte purpose than running sheep in brge numbers. I believe we shall find, if the Act for the repurchase of estates continues in force, that not many years will elapse before a demand will arise to apply it to the lands now being alienated at 10s. an acre. Unless the progrt'SS of this colony is to be stopped, unless the interior becomes unsuited for the support of a white povulat ion, it is as certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow that a demand will arise for thro\1 ing open to closer settlement the lands which are r.ow being alienated by scores of thousands of acres in the cream of the \Vestern country. "\V e are apt to talk about them as if they are illimitable in extent, but the belt is a comparatively narrow one within which exi"ts the cream of our Western country. When you get to Barcaldine on the Central line, or to Prairie on the Northern line, you have passed out of the inferior coaotal lands, and entered on the rich pastoral lands of the intetior; but you have not to go comparatively such a long distance beyond in order to enter upon a region which, as to its soil and grasses, is not less rich than the vick of the "\Vestern country, but which as to its rainfall is very mueh illferior. And the country now being alienated is in the rain belt. When you ap­proach Bonlia or go down the Diamant.ina you enter upon a dry belt, and it is that reawn and that know ledge which makes me so keenly regret that by the alienation of such brge blucks of country grazing fann settlement i.s being bltJckeri. It is idle to say that there is plenty of land to the westward, and that when the runs now in the unscheduled districts are brought under the 1884 Act their resumptions will be open to grazing farm settlement, bec:a.u"e if grazing farmers are to prosper to the west of Winton, out towards Bonlia, we shall have to give them larger areas

Address in Reply. [30 JuNE.] Address in Reply. 147

than 20,000 acres, and the alienation of land is now taking place in that region which is peculiarly fitted for grazing farms of 20,000 acres. It is idle to talk about the rent that the men who pmcha~e tho3e lands are paying. The State i;; not like an individual landlord, and rent

the1r dignity as men and members of Parliament to a.ssert that we who were placed upon that cornmission were bought.

Mr. STEW ART : So you were. Mr. BELL : The hon. member interjects "so

we were." I do not believe there is a man in this Hom;e or in this c >lony whose opinhn is worth anything who in his heart believes that a~s~rtion, and I am perfectlycert tin that no action that I may take in the future will be found incon-

is not the only factor in the case. The State hns to consider innumerable things to see that its tenants are prospering, and it is not putting the : land to the best use when it allows one man to j

occupy that which, under other conditions, might be profitably occupied by half-a-dozen. Some reference has been made to the portfolio of Agri­culture; and I think that if this debate has done nothing else it has given us an a,3urance that when the Premier feels called upon to look around for some hon. member to fill that portfolio there will be no dearth of candi­cL:cte3. \Ve have seen durhg the debate that there are hon. gentlemen who devote con­siderable attention to the subject of agriculture. But after all I am not at all sure that in order to be a successful Agricultural :Yiinis~er it is necessary to be an agriculturist.. I am not aware that it i" necessary for the Secretary of State for War to be a soldier, and so I am not going to subscribe to the theory that in order to administer properly the Department of Agricul­ture it is necessary that the man who does it should know how to handle the plough and grow potatoes. And I am not in httnnony with the contention that has fallen from some hon. mem­bers that the Secretary fol' Agriculture should sit in this Chamber. I think we have got a man in another place who has, so far as we can see, administered the department energetically and capably, and I do not knilW why w~ shot!ld distmb him in the work he is doing. If it is necessary that there should be Rome direct representative of the Depart,nent of Agri­culture in this Chamber, we should intrvduce the principle of pat·liamentary under secretaries which operates in the House of Commons. Such

sistent with any action that I have token in the past, and th'lt no man will be able truthfully to say that such criticisms as I may bring to bear

·, upon the Government in this or in succeeding ses­. sions have been in any way tempered by

their appointment of me as a. Royal Com­miRsioner. I can only hop; for the sake of the dignity of this House of Parliament that we have only temporary occupants of this Chamber

! who can descend to such depths of unworthy comment. I shall now allude to some observa­tions that were made last night by the hon, member who sits for the electorate of Flinders. That hon. member produced a document which he said emanated, as I have no doubt it did, from the Warrego Pastoralists' ABsociation, and in which it was stated that the association had brought pressure to bear upon the Minister to bring about the withdrawal of thA L·1nd Bill. There is not a member sitt.ing on this side of the House who do~s not know that that is an abso­lutely inaccurate statement. We know perfectly well what took place at a certain meeting at the end of last session, and that the one man who was opposed to the withdrawal of the Land Bill was the hon. gentleman who was in charge of it. I am quite certain, however, that th~ugh that state­ment is inaccurate, it was not deliLerately inaccu­rate on the part of the \Varrego Pastoralists' As­sociation. I am quite sure that in making it t'1ey were undf'r the impression that the argu­ments they had brotH.;ht to bear had operated effectively on the Secretary for Lands. I think there are some unions connActed with hon. mem­bers on the other side, and some official publica­tions which are wont to claim credit f,>r events with the occurrence of which they have as a matter of fact had very little to do. No doubt this spirit has been to some extent cont,tgious, and the Pastorulist.s' Union, acting under the same influence, has felt a disposition to claim credit for that which, although it occurred, yet did not occur in any degree through any re­prese'ttatiom t.hey had made. The hon. mem­ber for Flindero alsJ referred to the fact that in the sa.rne annual report it was stated that a sum of £200 had befm paid to Mr. Lee in connection with the evidence he gave at the trial of the Ayrshire Downs prisoners, and the hon. member attempted to make out-and possibly there are pordons of the colony where his attempt will he re­ceived with sympathy-that that avmrd was paid !18 a direct acknowledgmentoftheevidence :Ylr. Lee ga,·e in ordert'> bring about the conviction ofthose prisoners. Now, what are the facts? That money Wc<S paid because Mr. Lee w~ts ahso~utely debarred from employment in Queensland. R'cause he did his duty in stating what he saw

a step might be taken without ruuch extra charge upon the revenue, and if it is necessary that de]Jartrnents like the Post Office and Agriculture should have their representatives here, the men who are the p.<rliamentary under secret:.ries coulrl perform the duties of such represent~tives. I am quite sure that if tbis large c Jlony remains intact, and goes on cuntinnally dt.~velopin~, we shall either have to make a very large n.c!ditiou to our list of :Ministers or introduce the principle of parliament,ny under secretaries. That principle is not merely a convenient one for bu"iness ; it has also the ad vantage of educating for Ministerial office men who will probably ultimately succePd to it. It has just occurred to me that when I was making some observations in regard to I he Rny'11 Commission on Land S«ttlement I omitted to say a word with reference to the appointments to the co:u­mission. That Rnyal Commission w>ts called, not as it seems to me by any very happy effort at nomenolatnre, a "consolation corr1n1ission.'' I am not aware that there was a single man on that commis~ion who wanted anv cmH;oln,~.ion. It certainly was not my><' if. :iYiy political career­perhaps I cannot dignify it hy calling it a career -my volitical existence, which has continued lor four year", has been an exceedingly agreeable one. It has nut been attended by disappoint­ment in any respect, and certainly I was not in the slightest degree in need of any coBso­lation such as was L>estowe.J hy conferring on me the dignity of a Ro;'al Com•nissioner. I believe I am not taking too much upon myself in saying that that applies equally to all my brother commissioners. Undoubtedly, it "PPlies tc. my­self, and I can only regret th•t there are member~ on that side, notably the hon. member for North Rockham:pton, who' have nnt thought it bene,,.th

, take place th 1.t night at Ayrshire Downa, he was · brought under a sy,tem of terrorism ; his occu­

pation a' a wool-clas<er was pract.ically gone in Queensland. He was threatened that wherever he went he would be boycotted, not only in t h,is colony, but also in the adjoining colony, and that a strike would be produced by his presence at any station he went t'>. It was a recognition of that fact that th" Pastoralist,' Union, doing-, as it seems to me, an essentially m'lnly and proper t>1ing, paid him that sum of money to recompen.<e him for the disabilities under which he was suffering through no fau't of his own.

148 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

Mr. HooLAN: He has been a bad character all his life.

Mr. BELL: I know him a great deal better than the hon. member for Burke does, and I say that to assert that he has been a bad character all his life, or that he is a bad character now, is to state that which is absolutely untrue. The Pastoralists' Association, in paying him that money, were only making a fait· recompense for the ClisabiliGies the man has been under. And let us remember that the proposal to pay that money did not emanate from any Pastoralists' Association in Queensland, but came fr .m Sydney. It was the Sydney Federated P>"IS· toralists' Association which wrote and sa.id that under the circumstances they thought the man ,,hould get some recompense for tht· disabilities he was labouring under. Therefore, it i8 l!Ot quite fair fighting to make it appc<tr that the Pastomlists' Association were paying moner to a man on account of the evidence he gave.

Mr. HooLAN : It remains a J:,ig fact all the satne.

Mr. BELL : The hon. member for l<'linderA­and it was really. the only point of economies touched upon durmg the whole debate-r~ad out the q nantity of exports and imports of the colony during last year, and pointed with patriotic dismay to the fact that the exports exceeded the imports by about .£4,000,000. 'l'hat is the first time I have ever heard it stated that it was a matter fur regret that the exports of a country should exceed its imports. Broadly speaking, l should say it wouln be a matter of greater regret if the imrJorts exceeded the exports. \Vhat does the fact mean that the exports are exceeding the im­ports by .£4,000,000? Are our exports going out of the country for nothing? Does it not mean that the money for those £4,000,000 of exports is coming back into the country. I shall be very glad if some of those hou. members who discredit that statement will subsequently attempt to show us that it is more heulthy that the imports of a country should exceed its exports than for the converse to hold good. I will now refer to another matter in which the hon. member for .Flinders takes a very warm interest. No doubt "absence makes the heart grow fonder." The h n. member made a warm allusion to the Attorney-General. I do not know what pr'>positians are to be placed before this Assembly in regarCI to tbe move· ments of. the Attorney-General in Europe. I know this, that when we recollect the career of that hon. gentleman in the past, and what moclt of ns hope it is going to be in the future, it seems a matter of rejoicing that he has been present at the celebrations that have bt~n taking place in Engbud lately, and that he has been visiting the continent ",nd learning the lessons that are to be learned in :Europe by any intelligent man who visit~ there. Any man who gives fair-minded attention to the pe?'Sonnel of those who play a part in Queensland politics must rejoice that a leading figure like the Attorney­General has been present at the Jubilee celebra­tions in England, and that he is in proximity to the Imperial deliberations that are now taking place. And if we are i\sked to make disburse: ments from the public revenue on account of his expenses-as to which I know absolutely nothing, a.Ithongh I am probably not le." ignorant on the subject than hon. members oppoHite, who have had a great rl.eal to say about it­I shall consider that this colony will be getting value for its money. The ho'n. membor for Jclinders had a greEtt de,;] t.o say abomc the policy of the Government. From no fault of his own he has not yet had an opportunity of exhibiting any policy hitmelf, not ha\ ing· so far received an invitation to sit on the Treasury

bench. But he made some observations during the recess which enable us to gather some idea of the general scope his administration will take when he is called upon to promulgate it. Speak­ing· in the congenial atmosphere of his own electorate, in the townohip of Cloncurry, the hon. member announced what he thought were the broad line~ the colony should follow. He thought it was a great mistake that we shonid remain under the Imperial rule, and I believe the hon. member, in giving utterance to his demo­cratic impulses, declined to drink the health of the Sovereign of the British Empire. I do not share theindignationsmnepersonsfeel when a man refuses to drink the health of the Sovereign of the British :Empire, or proclaims himself as a republican. After all a republk&n is adopting a perfectly intelligible policy, and if a man feels conscientiou~ly that he cannot drink the health of the Sovereign of the British :Empire, I shall not join in the general censure, the sincere censure, tlu.t is heaped upon such a man. I am prepared to take his policy on its merits, and to tell him this : that however much he may gird at the Imperial connection, tmd however earnest may be the C<)nvictions that prompt him to decline to drink the h<·~lth of the Sovereign of the British Empire, there is not a republic in the world where he could do such an act with impunity.

HoNOURABLE ME}Imms: Hear, hear! Oh, oh! J\Ir. BELL : If he wants to give free exnber­

ancg to the democratic instincts that prevail in his boeom, he must come within the confines of the British Empire to do it. If the hon. member were in the United States of America, occupying the position he does here, and were to refuse to drink the President'" health at a public banquet, we know what the result woul<i be. If in the Republic of l!'rance, as a member of the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, he was at a public banquet to rdnse to drink the health of the President of the French Republic, we know perfectly well what his fate would be ; we should find him between a cout;le of stalwart gendarmes trotted off towards the frontier. The British :Empire may have its drawbacks, but it is the sole haven for politiceJ refugBes, and it possesses the oniy Constitution in the world under which a man can say the thing he will.

Mr. DAWSON: That is pure bunkum. Mr. BELL : I am sorry to hear the senior

member for Charters Towers, for whom I haYe a great re,pect., use such language. I trust that in future he will not lower his dignity by descending to snch indecent criticism. I shall read, in reference to this matter of the Consti­tution, some line.s that came beneath my notice within the last few hours. They appeared in a paper pnbliRhed by a man of whose democratic symp:1thies nobody need be under any appre­hension-iYir. T. P. O'Connor, the member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool-and the•:e lines appeared in his paper known as the Weekly Sun. 'l'hey are an extract from a book just publi;hed, called " A Commentary on the English Constitution," written by Professor 1\Iaeey, of Iowa College. The book was strongly recommended by Mr. O'Connor, and although the pass,"ge may not very parti<·ularly interest hrm. members, I have decided to r~ad it, beca.us3 I shall he glad to see it in HarwLrd-

I can mare easily believe that the few who have felt that their persrJnal interest. la.v in the perpetuation of the high prt.rogatives of the Crown have been clrlutled. into the not i.-m that it was to their advantage to main­tahl ail the forms of Royal poweT, and that thf'y have 1ut perceived that tbey were thus contributing to the formation of the mo;;.t absolutely democratic constitu­tion that has yet been attempted in any country. I can undm·,-tand how an instructed democrat ma.v insist upon perpetuating those forms which no longer~ flelude, for the sake of _perpetuating this free and uncheekcd democratic government.

Address in Reply. [30 .TUNE.] Address in Reply. 149

That is what intelligent outsiders think of the British Constitution, and yet, in the face of that we have men in our midst who do not think it unwise to get up and say that they would prefer an alteration of the British Constitution. The hon. member for Flinders recommended that alteration-that we should dissever ourselves from Great Britain, and in the same breath he recommended that we should exclude Japanese from this colony. Those were the two planks in his platform, and I sav that a more destructive platform was never laid down by a politician, for if this colony separated from the Imperial connection, and if it announced its determination to exclude J apallese the inde­pendence of this community would r:ot be worth two months' purchase. 'Ve should have a Japanese fleet and a Japanese army upon our shore,, and all the efforts of the hon. member for Flinders-and I have no doubt he would be energetic enough under such a >:tate of crisis­would not result in repelling the force that that power coul:J. bring to our shores. I can only hope that 1f the turn of the political wheel ever results in the hon. member for Flinders occupying a seat upon the Treasury bench he wil~ see fit to modify that fragment of his pohcy whwh he somewhat prematurely announced at Cloncurry the other day.

.Mr. DA~S,ON: I may be permitted to open With ~he o_r~gmal remark, very rarely, if ever, heard m th1s Chamber, that I am not anxious to speak ; that in fact I had no intention of speak­ing on t.he subject before the House, but owing to certam remarks made by an hon. member on the other side I felt that silence was no lonooer possible, and I am driven to speak. The h~n. member for Dalby-an hon. member whom we are always pleased to lis~en to, who generally !Bakes eloquent and VIgorous, if somewhat maccurate speeches-started by giving a lecture, and to some extent a censure to hon. members on this side, because they h;d not adopted an attitude of strong antagonism to tbe Govern­ment during the progress of this session-that they had not advanced any hostile criticism. No•v the. whofe of our experience since we have been m this House-and that dates from the day when the hon. member for Dalby had the honour of a seat in it-has been that wheneYer we have offered the >1dverse or hostile criticism mentioned by the hon. member it has been immediately stigmatised by his friends as fire­works-as purely el~ctioneering tactics-and by the hon. member hm1self as a kind of limping discourse. He, with hio we'-1-known intuition wit.h his ability to gra.sp the situation, certainly should have understood that it was not necessary for the members on this side to offer any hostile criticism of the proposals of the Government seeing that the friend~ of the Government wer~ doing that for us. The hon. member onooht to understand that it is much better to be a spect.a­~or of a fight than to be actually in the fight Itself. I would much rather witness the hon. member for Normanby and the hon. member for D>J;lby combatants ag-ainst the Government than be one myself, because it is much better to see them do the work that otherwise we might have to do. Thehon. member for N ormanbv has been com­men~ed by the hon. '?ember for Dalby for what he said. Vve can qmte understand the attitude not only of the hon. member for Normanby but that of the hon. member for Dalby. They are both in exactly the same category. They both sit on the cross benches. They get up and adversely criticise the Government. The first portion of their speeches goe;; to "how that the Government i;; not worthy of the confidence of this House, and they wind up by fulsome adula­tions, and say that the Government should be unanimously supported.

Mr. MURRAY: I deny it. Mr. DA WSON : They remind me very much

of the candidate spoken of in Lowell's "Big low Papers," who said-

! all us like to speak out straight, To strike a noble note;

I allus slate the Government, And all us '"ith them vote.

The hon. member for Dalby very kindly gave me a little ad vice, and I notice that he is very fond of giving advice. He has been giving so much of his mind to other people lately that he will shortly have none left for himself. It appears that my criticism is not decent. In that case the contest between the hon. member for Dalby and myself is decency of criticism t'ersus truth in debate, because the hon. member, while protesting against what he considered inaccurate statements made by the hon. member for Flinders, made inaccurate statements him­self. The hon. member in his defence of the Pastoralists' Associati•m paying £200 to Lee for giving evidence in the Ayrshire Downs case, and securing a conviction, stated that the money was paid because the man Lee, owing to a certain tyranny thatexistedin the bm<h, was debarred from following his usual occupation in Queensland. He left it to be implied that there are certain people in the bush who have an organisation and who exercise such tyranny that the man Lee could not get any work, and the Dnly chance of preventing him from dying frorn starvation wets the action of the Pastoralists' Association in paying him this £200. Now, lay my statement on top of the words used by the hon. member for Dalby. The man Lee is at the present time following his old occupation in his old place of employment in Qneensland-Kilcummin Station. So much for the ac,mracy of the statement of the hon. member for Dalby. It is not necessary to quote the ·.vhole of the hon. memb.er's remarks to estimate their worth, so I put this down as a sample, :md will allow the general public to draw their own conclusions.

Mr. BELL: I rise to make a personal ex­planation. I did not say that Lee is now unable to find employment. I s"id he eould not 15et employment 2"t that time. \Vhat I was refernng to took place a couple of years ago; I did not refer to the present time.

Mr. McDoN,un: It is only twelve months ago since the men were tried. .

Mr. DAWSON: I am afraid the hon. mem­ber's explanation has not improved matters. The circumstances had not arisen a couple of ye>trs ago, but as a fact Lee has been following his usual occupation, and is working for the mgn he used to work forformerly, and there has been abso­lutely no tyranny whatever exercised over him, and any statement to the contrary is not in accotd­:>nce with fact, I am rather surprised that the hon. member should have given this as information from what he considered a reliable source. I should have thought that his own natural sense would have immediately suggested to him the absurdity of such a position, l have yet to learn, and the hon. member for Dalby should prove to us, that the unions in theW est are the employers of labour; that they have it in their power to say who shall or shall not have work in \Vestern Queensland. As a matter of fact, during a number of years past the case has been quite t.he reverse, and the men who have had the pluck to stand up for the unions have been persecuted in the West ern districts.

Mr. KmsTON : They never got £200. Mr. DA WSON: No; they would have 11

better chance of getting 200 lashes. The ~on. member for Dalby made reference to a htt]e social function that took place at Cl on curry 111· honour of the hon. member for the district, Mr. lYicDonald, and it might be just as well if the

150 .Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

plain facts of the case were stated. The people of the town desired to do honour to a man wh<lm they considered had done good work for them, and in arranging the matter it was dAcided that it would be a graceful tribute to the hem. member if his own particular opinions upon the drinking of toa~ts were respected at that function. That was the understanding, but owing to the in­fluence probably nf conservative or coalition politics, or Cloncurry rum, the bargain was broken at the end of the evening, and one person insisted upon proposing the loyal toasts. That is how the conflict arose, and I say that the hon. member for Flinders and the other persons present at that function did a very good thing mdeed when they promptly •quelched the one man who disturbed the harmony of the evening.

Mr. GRIMES : That is very thin. Mr. DA WSON : The hon. member for Oxley

may laugh, but if he had been cast out like the man who proposed this toast he might not have considered it healthy, if it is so thin. Then the hon. member for Dalby gave us a great lecture, and I must say that his peroration was rather more eloquent than we are used to hearing in this Chamber. It was very finely done, although I feel bound to say that my feeling was that it was more skilful than justifiabh". Among other little bits of history, he 1 old us that the only place m the world where there is freedom of speech is witl:in the British dominions. At the time I challenged the statement, and I challenge it now. Notwithstanding the very great amount of freedom that we enjoy in that particular within the British dominions, they enjoy con­siderably more in the United States of America.

HONOURABLE MEMBEI\S: No, no! Not a bit of it.

Mr. DA 'VSON: I challenge any hon. member on the other side to take up the point, and dis­prove what I am saying. There is no country on the face of the earth where there is the same freedom that there is in the United States. 'I' here are two kinds of freedom. One is allowed by the law of the land, and another is allowed by the authorities who refrain from enforcing the law; it is really toleration. The amount of toleration allowed in the British dominions i8 equal to that allowed by the United Statee, bnt the freedom allowed by law is much greater in the latter than in any rmrt of Her l\Iajeo<ty's dominionB.

Mr. ANNEAR : 'Ihey have Lynch la,w in Ameriea.

Mr. DAWSON: That is not law. The hon. member, who occupies an important position in this House, ought to understand what is meant by law, and should not make such a distinction. My contgntiou has been proved by the various trials that have taken place in the British dominions, and in the United States, an cl it is a most remarkable instruction for anyone who takes the trouble to read the judgments that have been delivered by the judges of the Supreme Courts of t)1e two countries. It is very easy to lay down one proposition and draw a general conclusion from it; that is the easiest kind of argument anybody can possibly ,o;et up. I do not suppose there is any hon. member in the Chamber who knows that better than the hon. member for Dalby, unless it be the Secretary for Public Instruction. If we desired to go fully into that subject we could very easily show that the freedom that is enjoyed by British subjects anywhere within the British dominions has been forced by the people from the Throne. I do not consider this Address worthy of so large a sub­ject, and I do not intend to go into it. I merely indicate what might be done. Coming to other matters, there is one thing I have been very much surprised at, and in connection with which I hav~: a grievance with hon. members on

this side. Notwithstanding that this is the season of C•Jmplirnents, when every h0n. member compliments every other hon. member whether he deserves it or not, uo one memher on this side saw fit to con1pliment the Acting Premier for tbe courteous and con­&iderate manner in which, as the present leader of the Government, he has met this side of the House. I tender the hon. gentlemen my sincere thanks for the attitude be has aesumed towards us during thisseesion. Hi> condncc i> in striking con trMtto the amount of scorn, contumely, nnd insult we had to 'ubmit to since Sir Thomas Mcllwraitb ceased to be leader of this House. Instead of inducing us to return scorn for scorn and insult for insult, his attitude is c>tlculated to r,roduce harmony in the Ch,·,mber, and accelerate public business; at any rate, it deserves to do so. One other matter has been referred to hardly in the way in which I intend to refer to it, and that is the absence of the Attorney-General at the celebrations in England. I want it to be understood distinctly that I refer to the hon. gentleman not as a political opponent now, but as one who has a friendly feeling towards the hon. gentleman and who resents what has been done to him in his absence. That hon. gentleman has publicly claimed that he was going to London as one of Queensland's representatives at these celebrations -that he was representing the Governn,ent along with the Premier. It is a matter of current rumour that the Cabinet has not been altogether a happy family, and it is a most peculiar thing, in view of the inharmonious relations in the Cabinet, that when a public document like the Speech from the Throne come" before the House there is only one of these delegates mentioned; the other is not mentioned at all. It appears to have onlv one explanation, and that is that it is a personal insult to the other man who is particu­larly ignored in the Speech. Nobody reading it can understand anything else fron1 it. If that were all, some little explanation might pass it away, but I call bon. members to witness that ever since this debate has been in progress speaker after speaker on the other side has con­gratnlated the Government upon sending home the Premier, has said all sorts of nice things about him, and what good he would do for the colony and everything else, and they have never mentioned the absence of the Attorney-General at all.

The AcTING PREMIER: I did. Mr. DA WSON : The hon. gentleman only

mentioned it when it was drawn from him by the hon. member for Bundaberg. There is a perRistent ignoring of one of the delegates to this CPlebration by members on that side of the House, and it appears to me that things are being done in that hon. gentleman's absence that some members would not dare to do if he were here. The hon. gentleman has claimed that it is not on his own behalf that he has gone; the action of the GoYernrnent is to show that it is on his own behalf, and we should have the fullest informa­tion to show whether what the Government are trying to say is correct or whether what the Attorney-General has said is correct. I have no intention of going risht through the Speech. It would not be satisfactory or profitable to the House, and it would not give me much enjoyment. There are in it a lot of words and ink, and very little of any· thin<r else. I never read any criticism that fitted this Speech so well as Lord Macaulay's descrip­tion of Dr. Nares ; that he was a writer who took three pages to say as much as another man would say in one, and his one page was as tedious and unprofitable as any other man's three. That is the Speech from the Throne, There is one

.Adrlress in Repl!J. (30 JtrNE.] .Address in Repl,y. 151

thing which I very much regret to see that the present Government have not made an early plank in their platform for the session. In 1894 an Act wa' passed permitting garnishee orders to be issued from a small debts court. Some time Rfter it was found that it led to a very great grievance; it was taken advantage of in a most unfair way in one portion of the colony. In order to get over thh difficulty the Attorney­General introduced in the following year what he termed a Workman's Lien Bill. That Bill was passed by this House ; if my memory serves me, there was only only one hon. member in this Chamber opposed to it. Its object was to pre­vent the attachment of wages ; to provide that no person should be allowed to garnishes the wages of working men. It went on to the other House, and failed to become law simply because it was dealt with on the last day of the session, and there was not a quorum present sufficient to justify the hon. gentleman in charge in thflt House calhng for a division on the second read­ing. :From that time to this nothing has been :lone ; the grievance has been gradually growing, and in Charters Towers it is a perfect scandal. Hardly a week goes by there but some unfortu­nate .working man finds his wages attached by a ga,rmshee order.

Mr. SMYTH : They even garnishee sick pay now.

Mr. DA WSON: That is news to me. Does the. h<;n. member mean the sick pay from benefit somet1es?

Mr. SMYTH: Yes_ Mr. DA \VSO~: That is even worse than

garnisheeing wages, because a man only gets money from a benefit society after he has met with an accident or has otherwise become in­capacitated, and to garnishee sick pay is bringing things very low down indeed. I hope that, thongh the Government have not seen fit to reintroduce that Bill or to mention it in the Speech, they will recognise that the grievance is a great one, that it is spreading rapidly, and causing great dissatisfaction and misery to the working people, and that they will see their way as soon as possible to lay that Bill on the table and see whether we cannot get it through this se :sion. Referring to the J apttnese question, the hon. member for Burke went fully into that matter, and saved other hun. members, who have seen the same thing, from moking long speeches. The hon. members for Croydon and Carpentaria took the trouble to warn this A,,sembly agamst the influx of J apan0Re, and I do not believe there were half-a-dozen . members who took much notice of their remarks. I was sitting alongside the hem. member for Carpentaria, and his remarks, true as they were, did not impress me so much as I have been impressed since, because there is a great difference between hearing about a thing and seeing it for yourself. I do not think any member can go to Cairns or Thursday Island without coming to the con­clusion that the Japanese question is the greatest and most urgent difficulty we have to deal with at present. Black labour, the Chinese, and all the other alien races are not a circumstance to the influx of the Japanese. As long as the ChinesP. remain in the colony they are after all China­men ; but it is not the same with the Japanese, who is fit to compete in most branches of trade with the best white men. The invasion of the Japanese is not a menace to a man like Hooley, who can organise affairs on a large scale, or to a man like James Tyson. They are not men of very large enterprise, but their geniu~ lies in small co-operative work, and they are fitted to absolutely rub out every labourer, tradesman, artisan, and small business man from one end of Australia to the other if they are not checked. On Thursday Island the people engaged in trade

are absolutely afraid of the Japanese. Even the strongest man on Thursday Island owns that he is afraid of the Japanese. \Ve shall be able to prove that men who had a desire to give information to the Mine'' Commisskn to show that the Japanese were not a desirable class dared not do so in case it should become known among the Japanese, and they would take their own revenge. I may say that the manager of one of the strongest firms on Thursday Island said that the Japanese boycott was the severest thing a business man had to meet with in the wide world. Some time ago there were about twenty white men who owned a single boat, each employed their own crew, and did their own diving. The J aps came aloPg, with the result that to-day there is only one in that position at present, and he is not altogether dependent on his boat. Out of the whole of t.he white divers at Thursday Island there are about two left. They are squeezing- out nearly all the shopkeepers, they have squeezed out every ship's carpenter with the excaption of one man who superintenrls the work for a firm that does the boat-building. They have every slip on the island, and are going a long way towards monopolisiug every­thing- they put their band to. The ordinary Samoan, Chinaman, or natives of any other coloured race engaged at Thursday Island, if they come to the island after a <opell at sea and desire to h:we a spree, copy the white man. They go to the public-house, put down their money, and have their drinks. But the J aps even carry out their little sprees on business principles. They club together, send one man to buy colonial beer and make the best bargain he can, take it to some central place and drink it there. Another thing, there is no possibility under existing conditions of white people competing with the J aps in pear ling. The regulations only permit one diver to one boat, and he must take out a license. A white man finds his own uniform, goes out, and goes below; and he is a good 1nan if he puts in four hours diving a day. But among the J:1panese, every man of the crew is a diver, and as soon as one comes up from below, the helmet is put on another and he goes down; so that they have from ten to twelve hours' continuous diving to the white man's three or four hours. :Further, if the ,Tap desires to be dishonest when he is working for anyone else, he can do so successfully, because there aru no people in the world who hav-e such great confidence in one another as the J aps. 'fbere are !lOO of them on Thur5day Island and one has never been known to tell a tale' against another; so that if a J ap were to steal a pearl, though he might not know another J :1p on the island, and they all knew he stole it the authorities could not trace it. The Japan~se also have a footin!l" in Cairns, Town.s­ville on the Lower Burdekm, Mackay, and m Brisbane. Seeing that they have monopolised Thursday Island, and are spreading down the coast it is about time the Government awoke to the u~gency of the situation and took action at once. I may eay that if they intend to take up the matter, fully recognising the urgency of the danger, they will r.ece)ve all the assistance we can give them on th1s s1de of the House.

The AcTING PREMIER : There is a prohibition arranged against them now.

Mr. DA WSON: I am very glad to have ab­stracted that information, and I believe it will be very reassuring if that information is .made public at once. But thm;gh that P.artw':lar question may be settled the d1fficulty whwh ex1sts at Thur"'day Islan~ still remains, and still r~­quires remedy. It lS necessary for those on th1s side to take action in the matter, as those on the island dare not, because the J aps are too numerons for them.

152 Address ·in Repl:IJ· [ASSEMBLY.]

Mr. McMASTER: A session or two ago it would h:we been rather VPnturesome for me to reply to the senior member for Charters Tower~, because he was then looked upon a' a very able man; but I am quite certain that his speech this afternoon must have fallen very fht on thi~ House, and particularly on his own friends. He has been an able advocotte for tLe side that he is supposed to a great extent to represent. He commenced this afternoon by trying to make oat that the demonstration in commemoration of the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's reign was not rea.Jly genuine. I a.dmit that there are a fe,v members on that s1rle of the House, but very few, who will not admit by their voice that it was a genuine demonooration, t.hough in their hearts they know that it was. Y on cannot pick out more than two or th1·ee member,; in that oornerwhodo not believe that the British Constitn· tion is the most liberal0onstilutinn on this globe. The hon. member for Charters Towers wanted to make capital out of the fact that Americ >,

and other democmti0 or republican countric,, would not join with the British nation in cele· brating the Diamonrl ,Jubilee of Her Majesty. But he proved nothing. If his words proved anything they proved that there i9 no Constitn· tion in the world that has been more honoured and more aocepted than the British Constitution. The hon. member tried to ridicule !he hon. membet· for Dalby and his speech. I take it that the speech of the hon. membe1· for Dalbv was to the point, and that it went home. But tlie members on that side do not believe in it; they do not believe in my remarks, for they are walking out of the Chamber. That shows that they are not men who will stand fire. You never find " Scotchman or an Irishman running away from his guns. But what do those men do who call themselves republicans? They simply walk out of the House. I do not think they are the men who would stand if fire actually came in their way. We are the men who would stand np to defend the Throne, the Queen, and Queensland. Those men would be found far away in the bush -if they could be found at all, for Isuppose they would be planted somewhere. I do not think the senior member for Charters Towers would be one of those who would actually run awnv, bnt he would get behind the scenes if he possibly could. He said the people of Queensland are not loyal.

Mr. DAWSON: I never 8aid anything about it. Mr. McMASTER : The inference I drew

from the hon. member's remarks was that there were only a few people who expres·-ed themselves as loyal subjects, and that tile British Constitu­tion was not more liberal than republican Con-stitutions. ·

Mr. DAWSON: I never said anything about loyalty at all.

Mr. McMASTER : I can rt'ad between the lines, and I kn<)W what th<~ hon. member meant to say without committing him~elf. He said that the British nation were no more loyal than the republicans of America. If he and his col· league choose not to drink the health of the t,lneen, that does not show that the British nation are not loyal, and I am certain that the people of Charters Towers do not voice the s•·o.· timents of those two hon. members. I believe that they are quite as loy11l as the people of Bris­bane and the majority of the people of Queens­land.

Mr. HOOLAN : It is a different kind of loyalty up there.

Mr. McMASTER : The hon. member for Burl;:e changes his politics as it suits him ; he is a shrewd man, and he suits hi~ speech to the P!lciple whont he is addressing. At first he was going to drive capital out of Queensland, but after a while we found him saying that he wished to bring capital into the colotiy. He

has said that he has a seat on the Government bench. I have not seen it myself, but I am told that it is hew, and that all the Premier has to do is to say "Come acros,,. ,. The hen. member told the people up North that the seat was waiting for him. Possibly he may mean the bench behind the Treasury bench. If so, I object to his coming alongside me. I do not object to him perscmally as a gentleman, but I do object to him as a supporter of the Gm·ornment, because we c1n never depend on hitn; he would be here lo-dav and away to-morrow. ·rhe hon. member for Cba.rtef' Towers mu,de some c.1pital out of the fact that a sum of money had been paid by the \Varrego Pastoralis~s' .i.ssooiation to a person of the name of Lee. I do not know l\1r. Lee, but I have been informed that he has hken boycotted. And by ;vhom? He has hc,en boycotted by those hon. mem­bers who have gone ont \Vest and tried to raise discord betweEm man and man. Thb man Lee, I am informed, is :; bardworking man. He came to this colony, anrl rec8ntly he was told that on account of the evidence he gave ngainst ?coundrels nu more work would be given to him in Quermsland; and that gentleman is now in New South \Vale~. Any man who will stand up for his rights and liberties I 011! a gentleman. \Vonld yon ca1l those hon. members wh0 sit opposite gentlemen because they happen to be in Parliament? A man nmy have a seat in Parlia­ment and yet not be a gentleman, ~]though while in~icle the Honoe they may be called by that name. This he,rd-working man, whose only de,ire io to earn his living, with liberty to do what he possibly can for himself and his family, I say, is a gentleman. The Government have set forth in the Speech a policy that every member of the House may fairly adopt, and it says a great deal for that policy th:tt neither the leader of the Opposition nor the would-be leader of the Opposition, the senior member for Charters 'l.'owers, have been able to find very much fault with it. It is not my habit to mince matters. It is well known to most members that the senior member for Charters Towers clid wiFh to be the leader of that side of the Hotme. I am not at all sorry that he has failed, for with all the faults of the leader of the Opposition, and he hos mauy, I prefer the hon. member for Bundaberg to the hon. member for Charter' Towers, taking him all through. Although I am not going to snvport everything in the Spe6~h, I think the Government have put forward a policy that wiil commend itself to ~he colony as a whole. I will 'conclude by ,;aymg that I listened attentively to the speech of the hon. member for Dalby, and I would recommend, not only every member of the House, but every member of the Government to read that speech carefully. I do not think the criticism of the senior member for Charters Towers is worth any­thing whatever.

Mr. KING: With regard to the sending home of the Premier to represent Queemland in Eng­land, I belime, with the majority who have referred to the subject, that it was the correct thing to do. The other colonies sent home repre­sentatives, and we should have been failing in our duty if we had not also a representative to look after our interests on an occasion of this de?cription. I also take exception to the fact that no mention of the Attorney-General is made in the Speech-whether he has gone home on his own responsibility, or as an assistant to the Premier, or as an extra representative of the colony. However, it will be time enough to refer· to that matter when the question of the hon. gentleman's expe'lses comes before us. No one can possilJly :aise any objection to the Attorney.General gomg to England. I would not object to any member going, butwhenib

Address in Reply. [30 JUNE.] Addres8 in Reply. 153

comes to a question of paying his expenses I should take a different stand. lf I wen~ home on my own responsibility I do not see why any hon. membet· slllJuld take foxception to it. The first par>graph in the Speech to which I should like to refer is where it spe 'ks of the prosperity of the colony. I have travelled over a certain portion of the C)Untry since the House rose, and I must say that this paragraph is not in accord with the a"pect of ,_fLirs that came before me. In my own district the buoiness people, the farmers, in fact eYerybody, say that the depression is gnater now than it was after the floods and the financial crisis of 1893. It is very s tti,factory for hon. members on this side b see hon. members on the'+ her side taking up the position we have alway; previously taken. Tl1ere has been some influence brought to bear on hon. members oppo.,ite-verlm1Js their con­stituents have represented to them that it is not advisable to be so blindly led as they h'we hen in the past. The leader of the "faction" made "' very stron~; speech when criticising the Speech. That wa' expected; but when hon. membHs sitting behind the Government critiri:;e the Go­vernment, even t'wugh they do not do so as forcibly as the leader of this p.u'ty, it has a great deal of weight, and it is a very healthy sign. I hope they will continue in that strain. However, hon. members on this side arf' perfeccly sati"fied as to the way they will vote even after their criticism. ParagraphS deals wit.h the public debt. \Ye on this side of the House have cause for congratulation in reference to this matt8r. Ever since the advent of the Labour party in this House, the loans which have been put on the London market have brought better prices than tho3e which were floated before we came here.

Mr. CR0~9 : \V e restored confidence. Mr. KING : That in itself ought to be a big

satisfaction to both side,. At any rate it is to me, because prior to our advent the strong whip we were flogged with was that we were going to hunt capital ont of the country. The succPss of the last loan sufficiently bears ont my statement, and should prove to the people, both here and in Great Britain, that the weapon which the Government has usnd against us in the past should lie in nbeyance at any rat0 until its fallacy has been forgotten. Paragraph 10 refers to the past;Jrallandsin the interior. \Vith the exception, possrbly, of the last speaker and a few others­mere city men, who know very little about tho country outside the metropolis and its surronnd­ing.s-the majority of us who have been in the back country know very well that our \V estern lands are a great source of >H•alth. \V e say in this Hou'e that we are desirous of settling people closer on those lands, but that is hardly true. At any rate in some districts-mine for one­many settler,; have come from the other colonies to look ac our lands, but, owing to the terrible delays-possibly some people would call it red tape--in gett.ing their applications in and getting them confirmed, these men have gone away in disgust. \Yhy thould we try to lead the people to believe that we are serious in our statements about wishing to settle people on those lands? It appears to me th:tt there is some otber force at work. What thttt force is I do not know ; but we are not so succecsful in achieving the purpose we ,,ay we have in view as I would like to see. No doubt a good many of these settlers from the other colonies are men wrth capital. When these men have to go away again without getting land, I hardly see the force of this or any other Government wast.ing money in sending lecturers home. I disapprove of that policy altogether-not that I object to immigration, but I do object to the class of immigrants which we are likely to get from the old country. They

will not be the class of people we want to settle on our \V estern lands. They will know nothing of the conditions of life therP, and I am perfectly satisfied that the report of the Acting Agent­General is correct- we are not likely to get moneyed people from home, and we shall get very few labourers, con,idering the condition of labourers in the old country at the !Jresent time. There is no doubt that in some parts of Queens­land our workers are in n. far ·worse con~ dition than that of the agricultural labourers in the old country, taking the statements contained in the report of the Acting Agent· Geneml to be correct, and how we c"1n expect those people to come here pcteses my comprehension. Our vVestern lands are waiting to be settled. I must cnrt ainly say here that the hertd of the Lands Department is doing all he po,";;ibly can, and it would have bPen bettet' for bon. members opposite to allow the Secretary for Lands to refnte the little paragraph read la,,t nig;ht by the h<m. member for J!'linders. Why hon. members sitting behind the hon. gelltleman, who are not even members of the Pastoralists' Union that sat in Oharleville, should say that the statement of the hon. member for :b'linders was untrue is beyond my knowledge. No doubt the Secretary for Lands did contradict the state­ment, and we must acc1pt his refutation as correct. Still the fact remains, and I might as well say here that a great many people think that it is true. The small settlers believe that the pastoral power behind the Government is so Rtrong that they cannot get land in small areas. That is the impression that exists at present.

The SJ>;CRETARY J<'OR PVBLIC LANDS: \V here? Mr. KING: In my district. I have received

letters since the House rose last ses;ion with reference to the new Land Bill, and to the ex­pectation that it would be a fairly liberal one. \Ye members on this side, when the Bill was before the House last session, gave it all the assistance we could, believing it to be a fairly liberal measure; but if thP remarks passed by the executive of the United Pastoralists' Associa­tion at Oharleville are true, can we exped a more liberal Land Bill this session? I do not think so.

The SECRETARY FOR l'UBMC LAND~: You will get one.

Mr. KING: If we do get one, there are twenty·fivp members on this side who will give the hon. gentlPman every as,iAtance in passing it through this HoU3e. If it does pa'd through this House it will do more to strengthen the Government than any other measure they have passed hitherto. With regard to the .\.gricul­tural Lands PnrchMe Act I spoke against it, and I am still of the opinion I was then. Thme hon. members representing the Darling Downs may advoc:>te such a measure, and I would not object to their doing so, but we have a great amount of land belonging to the State, and I do not see why we need to purchase more. There is good land in the Western part of the colony, and tha.t land might be nlade as suitable for close settlement as the land on the Downs, by employ­ing labour to clear the scrub. If it were cleared it would be a good bargain for the Government, and the work would employ some of the surplus labour, and possibly some of the immigrants to be sent out by Mr. Lyons and some of the other lecturers. The money spent in reclaiming that land would be quite as well spent as that laid out in repurchasing lands upon the Darling Downs.

Mr. DANIELS: It would cost more to clear those lands than to repurchase others.

Mr. KING: At any rate the land belongs to the State, and, with due respect to the hon. member for Oambooya, I contend that there is plenty of land in the back country which, if

154 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Repl!f.

reclaimed, will all be taken up. At any rate, if we are going in for repurchaBing land I hope the purchases will not be confined to the Darling Downs. The hon. member for Bm·nett told us that there was plenty of lmd in his district suitable for close settlement, and if it is neces­sary to buy it there it should be bonght as well as land anywhere else. There is another ma'ter which I would refer to, and I have waitc"d patiently to 'ce if some members of the r lrliamentary agri<:;ulturctl union would mention it. Last year some members of that union formeJ themselves into a deputation to wait upon the Premier with reference to obtaining ao.,istance for the erection of flour­mills, and it is very strange that ont of all those representing farmiug districts only the hon. member for Burnett should have referred to it. I understood that at the end of last session It was arranged that hon. members representing farming districts should travel through their districts and get the opinions of the different farmer3' unions in then1 in writing, and a ml~et­ing of the members had been convened in Bris­bane to put the matter into shape, and present a report io the Premier. The Premier laid it down as clearly as poseible that if the deputation could get s~>me information from the farmers, and the concessions aske<i were found acceptaule to the Government, there would be no difficulty in the way of establishing central flour­rnills. This debate has now run into the third week, and none of those farmers' representatives have said they have any intimation from the farmers' associations in regard to this matter. Without wishing to reflect upon any person, I must express the opiuion that the Parliamentary I<armcrs' Union was got up for one particular purpose, and that was not to assist the farmers. It was got up simply because there was a port­folio in the distance, and it has done actuallv nothing to get any concessions for the farmers. There have been two or three meetings this session, but I have not attended them, because I could see that we woUlld get very few con­cessions, and some members were only trying to get information from other representatives of farming districts for purpos s of their own. There is another mattAr, referred to by the hon. member for Charters Towers and some others, in regard to which some steps should be taken­that is, in regard to aliens. When this subject was brought forward in former sessioms it was tn·11ted as a kind of fireworks by hon. members opposite, but it appears that the subject has assumed a different a"pect now. The Japanese were then only a danger to the working men and labouring clasqes, and thGrefore nothing was said, but ihe little fellow has since become a clcmger to the commercial classes, and that is the reason why hon. members opposite are now taking an interest in the matter. Th0re is no question Jmt that the Japanese are quite capable of com­peting in business, and I am satisfied that if they do it IS likely that some of the large merchants here will find that competition will be very severe. I do not wish to refer further to this matter, because there is another which demands our attention also. There is another class of alien who is bPJoming a danger to the country, in the back districts as well as the city and suburbs-namely the Syrian hawkers. These people travel about the country, and do the busi­ness which should be done by shopkeepers and storekeepers who pay rent and rates and taxes ; and they should be dealt with. 0 f course, they are here now, and they have got licensE's, but there is nothing to prevent the Government from refus­ing to renew their licenses as they fall in. In the Maranoa district last February I met them with their baskets at every corner, and some of those whom I saw a couple of years ago

carrying their baskets outside, I have lately seen driving their lmggies in South Brisbane. That shows that there is sufficient reason for the Government taking some steps in the matter. I am not a very severe critic at any time, and I do not know that I have any very severe criticism to offer upon the Speech. I hope the goon measures mentioned in it will be brought on, and they will rpceive every possible support from this side of the House. The Secretary for Lands has told us that the L[tnd Bill will be a very liberal one, and I hope it will. I think the people would prefer that the Land Bill should precede the Local Government Bill. A large number of people in the back country who desire to take up 320 or 640 acres of land are waiting to see what kind of a Bill it will be. It is the most necessary measure mentioned in the Speech, and I hope the Secretary for Lands will proceed with it as soon as possible. I hope there is more in the reference to the Bill fort he registration of voters than appears on the surface. No one in the cities and large eqntres of popula­tion can know the difficulty which men in the back country have to get their names registered as voters. JYiagistrates in very many instances know the political feelings of individuals who come to them to get their claims witnessed, and I know of one case where a justice of the peace refused to witness the claim of a young man whom he knew to be a native of the town and of full age, simply, it appeared to me, on the ground that his political opinions tended in one way. A justice of the peace who is prepared to prostitute his position in that way is not fit to hold the corr1mission.

Mr. KERR: I have listened with interest to this debate, so far as it has gone, and this after­noon the hon. member for Dalby imported a new feature into it by accusing hon. members on this side of not taking up their proper position as an Opposition, and of forcing himself and other members on the other side into that position. The hon. member started in an Irish style-who will tread on the tail of my coat, I am ready for a fight-and he complained that there had been no strong denunciation of the policy of the Government and no criticism of the Lands Commis•ion. He had apparently forgotten his own pc•sition on the Lands Commission, and that though he was a meml.'er of it he was not present when valuable evidence was taken in Bourke, and be was not present in Sydney when the Under Secretary for Lands there was examined. Where was he? Away enjoying himself with the Governor. I want to know from him, as a member representing a constituency largely interested in the work of the Lands Cnm· mission, if he intends to draw his scre1v when he was not present? That is one of the things the taxpayers will want to know. He wants criti­cism of the Lands Commission, and he will get enough of it when the report comes before the House. I will follow the hon. member for Rock­hampton in his references to the eales of the Corona and Katandrl'L lands in the Central division. That hon. member, at the request of the people of Rockhampton, waited with a depu­tation on the Secretary for Lands, and he, being a newchum at the job, gave the situation and the GovArnment completely away. It is reported that after he came back to Brisbane the Acting Premier took him very severely to task for having given the Government away on that occa8ion.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : Where was that reported ?

Mr. KERR: The hon. gentleman stated that he had been misreported. It is very unfortu­nate. I thought the hon. member for Barcoo was the only member who was ever misreported, but I find I am in good company, because on

Add1'ess in RepZ'f [30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 155

every occa~ion at Ro~khampton, at Warwick, and every impor;mt function at which thA h<m. g-entlemrtn has spoken, he must have spoken after dinner, and not before dinner, as he ha3 been misreported on every occasion. I think the Acting Premier was qnite correct in complaining that the hon. gentleman ought not to have allowed himself to be tnrned outside in by the hon. member for Rockhampton when h6 was interviewed by him.

The SECRETARY l!'OR PUBLIC LANDS: You do not know what you are talking abont.

Mr. KERR: The Ministe,· strtted that the sale of these lands was necessary for revenue pur­poses, because there was a deficit in the Trea­sury.

The SECHETARY FOR PcBLrc LANDS : I did not say so.

Mr. KERR: He said there was a deficit in the Treasury, and yet in the Speech brought down to us we have it stated--

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS: I rise to a point of order. I am not aware that the hon. member is correct in repeating that which I have denied. '

Mr. KERB : Look at the report.. The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS:

I do not care what is in the relpart. I have n-ot read lt, and I do not want to read it. I never said I was misreported. I repeat that the hon. member is incorrect. I did not refer to a deilcit in the Treasury at all. I a~k your ruling as to whether I am to be charged with having said that which I distinctly deny having said.

Mr. McDONALD: If the hon. member never read the report, how does he kno1v what is in it?

The SPEAKER : I must remind the hon. member that the Secretary for Lands has denied that he spoke in Rockhampton of a deilcit in the Treasury, and the hon. member for Barcoo must accept his denial.

Mr. KERR : I think I shall be in order in reading what is reported to have taken place. [The hon. mmnber quotPd from the .iJforning Bulletin report to the effect that land was being sold to prevent the necessity of addition>tl ta.xa­tion bec:1use the Treasurer had to make both ends meet.] That presupposes a deilcit, anrl that is what was left on the minds of the deputation. The report goP" on to ~ay-

1Vhat we ha.ve to deal with is the question of current finance. As to whether it will be for the ultimate good or the ultimate benefit, from wbat I have already said you can quite understand I am inclined to think it will not.

The SECRETARY l!'OR PcBLIC LANDS : That last sentence is very nearly what I said, but not quite.

Mr. KERR: I am glad to hear the hon. gentleman say so. The hon. member for Dalby accused members on this side of being lions in their electorates and sucking doves in this House. He has uoed that illustration every SEssion since I have been here-which is the same length of time as the hon. member-and I would ad l'ise, him to get a new on~. The hon. member for Flinders last night referred to the minutes of the \V arrego branch of the Pastoralists' Association, in which it was stated that prasmre had been brought to brar on the Government and the Minister for Lands to withdraw the Land Bill. The Minister for Lands has denied the statement, and I accept the denial; but the impression was left on the minds of the small selectors and grazing farmers and a number of people in the \VesGern and Central portion of the colony that pressure had been brought to bear. \Ve have it on the authority of the hon. member for Dalby that the Minister for Lands was the only member who opposed the withdrawal of the measure l~tst session; then apparently pressure has been

brought to bear on the Government if not on the Minister for Lands. I was rather inclined to believe that he wa~ correct, and I take it that what the lYiinister for Lands stated was correct, because the Pastornlists' Ret•iew of the 15th June, 1807, says-

The working of the Lands Depa1·tment gives the impre~.,ion that the holder of the portfolio has a place wit.h that alligator on the Johnstone Hiver that let the Chinaman get away from lum the other day. Or. in other words, he is an amateur at the bu~iness, and most people will very gladly welcome the expected improve­ment.

This is not the TVorker, which is supposed to repre~ent only one class ; it is a criticiam from the pastoralists' point of view, and if I were Ministel' for Lands I would take it as a very great compliment, because a iVIinister for Land.s that does his duty in Queensland will never be ~·1mplimented by the Pastoralists' ReL·iew. \Vith others who represent pastoral districts, I would like to impress on the Government the import­ance of bringing forward the new Land Bill before thev bring forward the Local Government Bill. I \Vas not able to be here at the open­ing of the session, but I was glad to Hnd, on reading the speeches made by the mover and tht seconder of the Address in Reply, that they had been converted on one quPstion on which onr party had been endeavouring to educate the people-namely, the coloured labour question. During the last election in 1896, when I was opposed by a very strong supporter of the Government, who was sent up by the Pastoralists' Associ11tion and the Political Association, I spoke as feelingly on the coloured labour question as every man with a wife and family in Queensland shouldspeak. That gentle­man stated that it was all a matter of sentiment; and I am glad to see that two hon. members, one of whom voted against this party on the question, have since be~n converted. But during the recess both those hon. members have had ocular demonstration that these coloured gentlemen are increasing in the country, and they have come to the conclusion that if some steps are not taken by the Government these gen­tlemen will onst the storekeepers and other busi­ness people. They therefore think. it is time ~hat the Government stepped in and drd somethmg, so that these coloured aliens might be prevented from interfering with the businesoes of white men. It is very hard for those who are endea­vouring to bring about the time whEn Queens­land shall become a white man's country to lu.ve to contend with the difficulties that are met with in various quarters. On the day of the Jubilee celebration, when the traffic inspectots and police­men were endeavouring to keep a track clear for the children's procession, two Chinamen drove up in a cart drawn by a grey horse. They wanted to cross over the line of route, and when the officials attempted to stop them they said, " \V hat for you stop 'em? Me want to go along of Govern­ment House with vegetables." When we find the Governor patronising Chinese vegetable­growers in Brisbane, where there are plenty of vegetables grown by white men to be obtained, what other concl·~sion can we come to than that we have a very strong combination to fight against on this coloured labour question? It is hard enough for those of us who are living in the West, and have no opportunity of buying vegetableB from white men and have often to d" without rather than purchase them from China­men, to have to fight this question, without having to meet the difficulty that ari>es from the patronising of aliens by the Governor who is appointed by the Imperial Government, whom we are supposed to look up to, and who is receiving a salary which is largely con­tributed by the white taxpayers of the

156 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

colony. But that is not all. 'Ne have only to go on the hack balcony of this Rous" any morn­ing to see Chinamen delivering vegetables to the Parliament. .. ry Refn-,hment Room, an establish­ment which is subsidi· eel out of the taxpayers' money to the extent of £900 per annum. It is v: ry hard for thoeB who arf\ opposed to coloured labour to have to fight v;;.tinst such oppoeition. I will now refer to ea •CS showing the iustice that i" de :It out to coloured rac> s, and the jui!ticA that is dealt out to men of our own colonr. The O~serrcr of the 28th of June states that-

Constable Rchan arrivect. from G1 raldton by the Lass o' Gowrie last ni~ht l~;a:y ._ the To\Yl'"lYillc Stw· of the 2ht instnnt), escortjng twelve kanakas st ntenced to three month., in Ste"\vart's On:{_\k Gaol for parti,.'lpating 5n a trih2.l L:;ht, dlll'ing \Vhich three bOJ ~ wm·e lcilled.'' A p.tragmph below that etates that Constable :!\fcHugh brought from l\:Iackay a prisouer named 1foran to undergo a sentence of three months' irnpriconment for larceny. From the name I do not sup] JOSe that ::\Ioran was a kanaka. Rete we havekanakas,;entenc•·d to three months' imprison­ment fm te.king part in a fight in which three boys were killed, and a Europea,n sentenced to the same punishment for larneny. That is how offences are treo,ted by magistrates 3r judges. If that had been done during the time of the labour trouble,, the shE>. t that I hold in my hand would not have been able to contam the comments which the Press would have made upon it; hut because it is connected with lmnakas, whom my hon. friend, the Secretary for Public Instruction, respects and loY<3S, nothing is said about the matter. As tlw hvn. member for Croydon inter­ject,, it is much better if you have to be sen­tenced to punishment by magistrates to be a lmnaka than an Irishman. The North Queens­lnn(l Regi.;t, r, which is not a Labour paper, in its h me of 23rd June, gives an account of the fight in which those kanakes were engaged, and it de•,cribes it as "the most fiercely con tested fight that has ever been s,:en on the J ohnstone River." [The hon. member here read an extr:1.ct describing the fight referred to, in which it was stat eel that a riumber of the vanq nished took refuge in the river, in the bedrooms of a Mr. Cassidy, J\1rs. l<'rances, and in the hospitals; that the casualties were numerous; that two men were missing-. and the body of one had been found in the ril·er.] The people at Geraldton have asked for new rifles to be given to them, so that they may he able to protect themseh es, thAir wives, and families. That shows a condi­tion of r.ffairs that requires attention, and I hope the Acting Premier will take the matter into consideration. After ck-.cribing how a number of the vanquished were rescued from death, and the cheeky \1 ay in which the victors conducted themselves, the writer goes on to say-

Of late the k!tnalm has ndopte•l the role of highway­man, and bails np anyone he 1neets_after dark, lOO yards out::.lde of to\vn, for money, and searches you carefully xhonld you l'efuBc to give lt to them. Several attempts have beC'n made hy them to entrr houses, and I Blight say are, h1 lact, constantly 1nade. rertain mean wretclles of whites make a miserable existence by sell­ing them grog, and it is even said fi1·earms, powder, and shot.

The SECRETARY FOR Pc;BLIO INSTRGCTION : Who is the writer of that?

Mr. KERR : That is from a correspondent at Gernldton ; it is published apparently as authentic, and the editor takes the responsibility for it. I ask the Acting Premier, who is at the head of the police, and who is alw,qs talking about mn,intaining law and order, if anything like thi~ st,,te of affairs had existed in the vV e;;tern or the Central district, would it have been allowed for a single half-hour? No; he would have had his emissaries, his police, out, and wires would have been flying all over the

colony describing the outrages that were being committed. But see the difference when the offenders happen to be men who were brought here against the will of the people. I was living at Croydon at the time the Coalition Government was formed, and the hon. members for Croydon and Carpentaria will hear me out when I say that meetings were held there protesting against that Government, and that very strong language was used when they learned that kanakas were to be reintroduced into the colony. We all know that the Japanese have been making a home at Thursday Island, and have a "Yokohama'' at the place represented by the Government whip, and also at Cairns, where, according to the hon. member for Burke, iG is under the patronage of the mavor. 'What has been the result already ? l<'ather8 of families have come to the conclusion thaG if thP. Government will not step in and remove those abominations, those brothels, that are existing there and elsewhere, they will he compelled to do it themselves. Their children are actually able to rcttd the signs over those houses, signs statii:w the kind of business that is carried on; and th~e parents would not be men if they did not interfere to protect the innocence of their children, who cannot help seeing these atrocious signs on their ro'!'~ to and from s?hool. S~all the fathers of fam1hes allow such thmgs to ex1st? I say the Britisher, about whose ll'yalty and enthusiasm we have heard so much lately, who would not respect his own home and his own offspring, and who, if the Government refuse to interfere, will not remove those curses himself, is utterlv unworGhy of the country that gave him birth. The coloured question is not only affecting Thursday Island and tbe coast towns; it is also affecting the Central district. vV e have at Barcaldine a 1fahometan, a wool-scourer, Hasean Ali by name, who is patronised by members of this House who get up and criticise the actions of the Labour party. The hon. member for 1'\.orm~,nby, when he has his sheep to shear or his wool to scour, gets iG done by this alien, because the alien does it at 1Jd. per lb., while the white men who give good employment to their employees and reasonable hours, charge ~d. per lb. I do not see the hon. member for Normanby present, but I state this fearlessly, because I know it to be true that he patronises this Ha;"an Ali. This man has got from Thurs­day Island and from the steamers a mixed lot of coloured gentlemen, and we are beginning to feel the curse of them in the Central district as well as in other portions of the oolony. A corres­pondent writes to me that he has himself worked for Hassan Ali a short time, and knows that he only pays his black coolies from His. to £1 a week ; that they work from 6 to 6 o'clock, and all day on Sundays, at washing, pressing, and horse-driving, and on the green. He adds that the food supplied to them is of the very worst description. Let me refer again to our Acting Premier. It has come under my notice that when a carrier wants to pass through a township on a Sunday an officer in his depart­ment-the police magistrate-has refused to allow him to do so on the ground that it was Sunday. Here we have an alien carrying on his daily avocation, not only for six days in the week, but on the Sunday. He is, as it were, breaking down the institution which the hon. member for Oxley so warmly nphold8, I hear the hon. member for l<'itzroy say he is paying them for their work. If 15s. a week and tucker of the worst description for seven days' working from (; to 6 is a fair wage for a man in Central Queensland to keep his family upon, I say, God help him!

The AcTING PRE}IIER : That ie the force of example. It is your fault for employing that American native.

Address in Rep~1f· [30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 157

Mr. KERR : I do not believe in coloured labour at all. If everybody in the colony detested its coloured "gents" as much as I do, they would not be here twenty-four hours. Then this Hassan Ali is the owner of an allotment in the main street of BarcaldinP, and I draw the attention of the Secretary for Lands to this point; he has also bought out the lease of a selector on the Alice Hiver, though he is not a naturalised British subject. He is also engageci by the Wienholt Estates Company-a firm which, I think, has made money out of Queensland-to scour at ~d. per lb., which is ,j:d. leSi; than McLaughlin, who has a scouring plant at B:ucal­dine, charges, nnd,J:d. alb.le•s than the Lansdowne Pastoral Company, who have st~,rted scouring works at "\Vestbourne, can do it for. It h time that thA Government took up thi> colour<ei qnP'­tion. The hon. member for Croydon has presoed it on the Go\ ernment session after session. Several members have spoken on the subject, and others wonld have spoken but for the fact that they wantecl to take a division. But hon. members on the other side wanted to talk, be­cause they wanted no division. Thev did not want i.o o;how to tlw electors their position in the matter. If the Government refuse to move, then if the people who have to live amon~st the~e coloured people, and who suffer from their evil influence, rise as the peo[Jle of Normanton did when I was living on Croydon, and hunt every blackfellow-every coloured" gent "-out of the place, the Government ollly will be to blame; and if any lives are lost it will be upon the shoulders of the Government, and not upon the people of the colony.

The ACTING PREMIER: Is this man Hassan Ali a European 'furk or an Egyptian ?

Mr. K:ERR : He is an Egyptian. I wish now to deal with some remarks of the hon. member for Cook, who is "whi.J:>'' of the Government party, or was so until th1s afterncon. I believe the hon. member for Norman by, who took up the pnsiti<-m of the Opposition yesterday, and slated the Government, was acting as "whip" this afternoon. Last session I had occasion to speak against tha immigration vote, and I stated that farm labourers in England were getting a higher wage than they were getting in Queensland. The hon. member for Cook hid hims,"lf out to contra­dict me. Since then I have received new,papers from England which have confim1ed my state­ment, and perhaps I may have to make us • of them should the question of immigration come np. Again, the report of the Acting ,\gent­General confirms my statement that farm labourers are in a far Letter pooition in Engl:tnd than the same class of men in this colony. What are we going to get from the appointment of immigration lecturers? \V e are told we are going to get capitali,;ts. In this connection, when I was addressing my constituents, I ex­pressed my pleasure at the refusal of the Acting Premier to confirm the appointment of the Hev. Mr. Buchanan as one of the lecturers. I take up the same position to-day.

J\1:•·. KEOGH: He was one of the best of the lot. Mr. KBRR: That may be the opinion of the

hon. member, but it is not the opinion of the people. 'I' hat gentleman was not a fit person to send home as an immigration lecturer. I do not think he has ever been twenty miles awfLy from a w<tter-bag in his life, or that he has evpr "humped bluey" tw,> miles in his life. He knows little about the conditions under IVhich selectors of all classes have to li '''-' in the in­terior, and of the viciositudes they experience, ag any man in Queensland, and the Acting Premier deserves to be complimente<l by members on this side, if not by members on both sides, for putting his foot down and d8clining to confirm that appointment. I spoke very strongly 011 the

question on various platforms in my electorate, and what I said was reported. 'I'he reverend gentleman has never contradicted my statements, and therefore I consider the statements I then made proclaim him to be unfit for the position of an innnigration :ecturer. I may say that I thought the hon. membet' for Vvoothakata had vuterl against this ],"-1rty on the coloured labour question, but I have found that no vote was come to on tlmt ; it was wl:en the motion of the hem. member for Croydon in regard to refusing licenses to the J :tp:tnese at Thursday Island for their boats was before us tbt that hon. member did so. In r""ference to the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act, I opp"sed it when it was brought in, and I am oppo,,d to the principle now. So long as we have 'o much Crown land, the money ,;f the taxp;;,yers should not be expended in this direction to relieve any institution, or firm, or party. If the Go­vernment took the proper rteps to settle people on the land there would be no need to repurchase these brge estate' and cnt them np. I was nut onrprised to hear the criticitJlUS of the hon. n1en1ber for 1:-J or1nanby in regard to the Conciliati, n and Arbitration Bill; hi'< remarks were quite in keeping with his previouo actions. I rdnember v:hen the trouble, tvok place in 1891, the present hon. member for Hockhampton, Illr. Kid:ton, e,,de&,vourerl to call a mreting of some of the business peopie and the clergy, and others residing therr, to try to settle lhe dispute by arbiLr11tiun. 'I'he hon. member f<>r Normanby then stated that they ought to fight it ont to a finish; that he was opposed to arbitration. It was ali very well for him to ad ,·ise them to tight it out to a finish when he had the best me! of the stick, for he was emt,luyed by the Government to swe:Ar in special constables; knew tbe "ide with which he wa'' connect,ed ha-! the ::.Jv,mtag8, and he c•mld not see any need for conciliation. There­fore, I was not snrpri,ed to hear him s:ty he is opposed to arbitrat.iun and conciliation. \V e know he believe• in nobody bnt himself. He b, lieves in queensland for the Mmray family. }-[e i-3 th." great "I a1n," and holds the opinion tl::tt he is the only and original maker of the world. I do not agrc•e with him, but think tbat t!Je settlement of disputes by arbitr;,tion should be corn pulsory both upon the em ;1loycr and the elllployee. I have such faith in the workers th:tt I am sure thuy wiil a bide by a de­ch,ion given by an lUnpire, and if \VO can le;,en the labour trouhles \iC have boen subject to hy having an Arbitration Bill, the Govern­Inent will ha\ e the .support of every hou. rnernber on this side if they will introduvl onr. \Ve are pro.mised Cd't<.~.in otlF'r Hleasures in the Speech but I look upon most of them "'only padding", There is one Bill that I feel i"" very much wanted, and which ought to 1Je brou 'ht f,n·warcl this se~t1ion; that is a \Vorkrr1an's Li~n Bill. A casa has cume under rr1y notice lat ly in which nHm are being '' Bvreated" in conneccion with the erection of the rabbit-proof fences. Cm tractors have undertaken the "'''rk and h we sublt't it, and the labourers have not been ahle to get their 1110l1P~'. 'l,t1e case \Vas broturht undet the notice of the police magistrate at'Tambo. A poor m:tn waited upon him ·~~hi le I was in his office, aud wishe~1 to t,ake out a bum mons agaim,t the contr;H'" or, '' ho b(elongerl to :New South \Vales and had no pos­Pes8iOJ> in this colon V. rr11i, C ,ntrnctor had taken c()ntr ,ets for fenLing fron::. tbe Lnnsdowne PaF:t.oral Cmnphuy, the Nive D nvns Company, and Burenda, as well a-.: frorn other t~ta.tinlls in tLe districl", ttnd had sublet the c0ntracts to men who wPre t"ltting the p<>;ts, er c ing the fence, and rnnning the wires and netting. 'rhis n1an was certain that the men had been sweated to the extent of £3 10s. and £4 per mile, and the

158 AddPess in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Addpess in Reply.

contractor owed him and his mates £80, but there were no means of taking proceedings against him becanBc the amount was too much to mmble the case to be Lrought before the Petty Debts Court. ]t strikes people outside as something strange that money voted by Parliament and found by the taxpayers should be used to sweat their fellow-workers. The Government ought not to allow such things to exist, and if they bring in a \Vorkman's Lien Bill they will receive the gratitude of the whole of the workers of ~2neens­land, and they will also- I was going to say strengthen their position, but it is not very easy to do that.

The Ac·rJNG PREMIJm: Where was that ce,tse you referred to?

Mr. KERR: On Lansdowne Station; the name of the contractor was Row, but I forget the name of the sub-contractor, but I know he brought the case under the notice of the police magistrate of Tamho.

The Ac·riNG PREMIER : Did he not gPt his money yet?

Mr. KERR: He had not got his money when I left. He was endeavouring to take action before the District Court to be presided over by Judge Miller on the 28th June, but Row wns tra,velling from station to station, and he was unable to serve a summons on him.

The AcTING PREMIEH : The action ought to have been brought under the Masters and Servants Act.

Mr. KERR: I am sorry to say there was no solicitor th<>re from whom the man could get ad vice. I see we are to ha,ve Bills to defmy the cost of the Lamington Bridge at Maryborough and the Victoria Bridge over the Brisbane River. As a representntive of a \Vestern portion of the colony, I am totally opposed to that. \Ve get so little from the Government that we cousider it would be only fair that those property-holders who benefit hy the erection of the Victoria Bridge should pay for it.

Mr. DrmEY : So they will. Mr. ILERR: 'rhe hon. member interjects "So

they will," but they are only going to pay a part of it, and if the electors in remote districts want anything like that done tbe'' have to pay for the whoie of it. "

Tbe Amnw PI\Ei\IIER: \Ve put one over the Thnrmon for you free of cost.

Mr. KE~~R: That was a railw"Y. brid1.5e. I see there 1s a measure for the refp,tratwn of voters promised in tl1e Speech. I may state, on behalf of the electors of Barcoo, t.hat that was a matter fairly thrashed out at the general elec­tion, and it has been prominently before the people for some years. They have j,een a'king and begging for it. \Ve hope they will c:et it, bot I woulrl like to iutimate to the Acting Premier that the m em bets of tbis part,y are determined to have some measure of electoral reforn1 this r-e~sion, or we will know what's up. It has Leen said that we nllowed last session to go round very smoothlv, and allowed the Government t' do what they :wanted to do; hut they must remember that if the people do not get electoral reform from them they must get someone who will gi ,.e it. 1'be hon. member for Normanby informed us that he was not in favour of one man one vote. \V e know he is not, because if we had that system the hon. member would not be here. \Vestwood was the only pla.ce at which he ever addressed his electors, and he !'ad to speak out there very mnch against the Government. He has always sat behind the Government, and yesterday he attempted to criticise them ; he said he was really the Opposition, but the one thing that astoniRhed myself and those wbo have known l\Ir. ]Hurray for years was his state­ment that he was a democrat, He has had it

intimated to him by his electors tbat if he does not mend his ways he will not be wanted at the next electi••n. That is the ren,son why he spoke out so straight again·t the Government. Yes­terday he made a, vtry vigorous spm eh agaim=lt them, and to-day he acted as the (~overnment whip. And Mr. Murray is the sort of lflan to get up and criticise us and tell us that we are not an Opposition, and that it is time someone spoke out. Well, Mr. lVIurta,v has spoken out.

'The SPEAKI,at : Order! I must nsk the hon. member not to refer to the hon. member for Normanby by name, but by the name of his constituency.

Mr. KERR: I beg the hon. member's pardon. The hon. meml1er for Norman by has spoken, and no doubt he has satisfied some of the electors of Normanb\'.

Mr. MtJRRAY: They are all satisfied. There is not a voice of opp.,sition ever raised against me.

Mr. KERR :The hon. member hrts only visiterl one centre in his electorate.

JI!Ir. J\It:RRAY: I have been all round. Mr. KERR : I am certain that his electors

will not be satisfied with his criticism of the Government; they will want him to vote against tbe Government, and tho.t will be the hon. member's death-blow. There is a matt.or affecting the workers which ought to hfl ve he en embodied in the ]'actories Bill passed last session, that is some provision with re;<ard to the accommo­dation provided for shearers and rouseabouts, and the sanitary arrangements on stations. During the recess I visited Oak wood Station in company with the hon. member,, Mr. Tnrley and Mr. McDonnell, and the sanitar.v acc.nmnodation on that station was something disgraceful. I know the Acting Premier takes a great interest in the public health, ''nd I am bringing it under his notice for that reason. No doubt he is aware of the fact that the hospitals at Charlevillc and Tambo and other hospital,, in the district have been filled with typhoid patients, a number of whom have died, one of the victims being a manager of Oakwood Station. Several of the men who contncted the di8eose at Oakwood brought it to Lansdowne Station, ttnd it was brought to the Tambo hospital where a numLcr of deaths have taken place.

Mr. Mui\BAY: Do you a:tribute that to defective sanitary arrangements?

Mr KERH : I will give the hen. member my experience. When I wtos at the mess t ,b]e with the shearers the smell from the closets could be cut with a knife. It was something horrible, and they Wf'l'e only a short dbtance from where the men had to take their foe d. 1 SD.id e,t the time, "Mark my words. There will be a great outbreak of dii,ease." That ha' taken place, and it is tbe duty of the Government, seeing that they provide'most of the moue,;- for the hr•,,pitals, to so amend the law relating- to f.wtories as to ensure proper accomuwdatiun for c·ating aurl ~leeping, and proper sanitary arrangeinentR on stations. I wa~ very nnwh plea::~ed at other 8tations in the district to see proper accommodation and proper st>nitary arrangements for larger num­bers of men than were worki11g at Uakwood. At those stations there was no disease, aud that is proof there would have been none at Oak wood if proper accommodation a,nd sanitary arrangements had been provided. I am not going to enter into any congratulations to the Acting- Pren,ier, who has been knighted, or to the ~linister for Railways, whu b 1B been nu-tde a C.M.G. I give the Acting Premier credit for being a hard worker, and l sympathise with him in the deep trouble that he has had. I can sym­pathise with him as the father of a family, and I trust that his loss will not diminish his intere"t in snffering humanity. In the Speech we are promised an extension of the trunk lines. 'While

Address in Reply. (30 JUNE.] Add1'ess in Reply. 159

believing that there should be an extension of those lines, I consider that if the Central Railway is tn be extended from Longreach down the Thomson, near to Jundah and out that way, there should be a proper survey made in the wet season. I have bad the pleasure, if it is a pleasure, of travelling in the wet season from Longreach by Forest Grove, Bimera, Stone­henge, and on to J undab. I know the country, and the Government will be very foolish if they do not extend thA line by some other route. If the Central Railway is to be extended in a south­western direction, it should be extended from Ilfracombe out by Isisford, >tnd then on, so as to go between Jundah and Stonehenge. In that direction much of the flooded country would be avoided, and good land would be tapped. Then there is another railway promised by the late Minister for Railways, which I hope the present Minister will not forget, and that is a branch rail way from some portion of the Central line- say at or near J ericho--to Black all. \Ve were promised that after the surveyors had finished the survey of the fir£t section of the line from Longreacb to :Forest Grove they should he sent to survey this line. I trust that the present Minister will see that that promise is fulfilled. I am not in favour of light railways. I believe that the railways that we are now constructing are light enough, and what we want is to have our railwv,ys pushed out into the interior, ~o that people living in the more remote parts of the colony can be brought into closer communication with the people living on the coast. I trust that when the railway proposals of the Government are brought forward the Central district will not be forgotten or ueglected. \V P have had a good deal of money expended-and I think very foolishly expended-in the erection of a wharf at Broadmount. I do not know who is rmponsihle for the construction of that wharf, but I know that after it was built it was fonnd that at high water th~re were not mure thttn three inches of water at the wharf, and the structnre had to be extended. There has been a lot of bungling and mismanagement in connec­tion with the matter, and I hope that the officer or the department responsible will be brought to account for their mi•management. If the Go­vernment think that the making of a rail way down to Broadm unt is going to satisfy the people of the Central district they are very much mistaken. The people of that district, certainly those in the western portion of it, want railway communication from the Central Railw:ty to Gladstone, a deep-water port. I know that the Rockhampton influence is very much against that, and no doubt the members for llockhamp­ton are not in favour of it, but the people living in the western portion of the colony ought to be considered, inasmuch as it is they who ha'e to pay the rail way freights. If we had had rail way transport from the Central Rail way to Gladstone we should not have had the bungling that has taken place at PortAlma and Broad mount.

Mr. FINNJ<~Y: I wish, along with many other members, to offer my congratulations to Sir Horacc TPzer on the honour that has been conferred upon him for his public servic"s to this colony. Those services have been well and faithfully rendered, and the worst enemy of thr> hon. gentleman musL confess thCLt he is a hard­working man in doing his duty in political life. l alw wish to express my congratulations to my old friPnd the Hon. J. l:L Dickson on the honour that has been conferred upon him. I am very glad to see him in the Government, and I hope be will long be there to do duty for the colony. A great deal has been said about the Premier going home to the Jubilee function that ha" recently been held in London, and some people seem to dis&pprove of his action, I do not see

how any of the Premiers of the British colonieB conld well have refused to go home on such an invitation as they had from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was a renwrkable occa­sion, ond one of great rejoicing throughout the whole of the British Empire. Moreover, the Premiers were informed that, in addition to join­ing in the ceremonie~ conneded with th<tt g-reat event, they would be asked to discuss with the Secretary of State for the ColoniFs and members of the Imperial Government matters of great importance to the colonies. Und•'r these circum­stance,, I do not sec; how anyoue could have the slightest reason to object to the Premier going to :England. He will h,,ve an opportunity there, "ith the other Premier,~, of doing great service for the colonies. Several memuers luwe referretl ad versE'ly to the Attorney-General accompany­ing the P:emier. The Acting Premier told us that the Attorney-General wa' in a delicate state of health, that he hitcl "orkerl hard for m:my ye:n-s and seemed to be a little off colour, and that he would like to go home and hv.ve a holi­day. I do not think any\lne here will grudge him that holiday. But apart from that, I tltiL ~, it wa" most fortunate that the Attorney­General went home with tlJ,, Prewier on such an important occasion, becauBe the advice of an astute and able lawyer, which everyone will acknowledge the hon. gentle­man to be, will probably be of great service to the Ptemier in the discussion of questions that ma:" arise before they come hack. I am perfectly certain that his services will be wdl W<Tth the expense the colony m .. y be put to f.,r his trip. The utterances of men in the position of Premier or Attorncy-Grneral will have a great deal more weight with the British public than anything that may be said by our lecturers in the United Kingdom. !Hr. Byrnes will no doubt travel through Irdand. ~ngbnd, and Scotland, and Sir Hugh Nel"on will go to his rmtivo c-ountry, Scotland. 'l'hey will tell the )Jeople whom they meet what are the [Jrospects of anyone coming out here and what are tLe P•ls"ibilities of the colony, and the information thev give will spread like wiidfire. At any rate we" shall soon have them back, anrl I would suggest that if members have anything t·, say egainst the Attorney-General going home they should waituntilheretnrns, '"ndgive it him aH hot as they like when he is present torlef,ndhimself. I am very pleased to see that 1 he :Federal Council will be kept in operation until there is son,ething better to take it,; place. 't'luct Council has done good service in paving the way for federation, and will no doubt continue to do so until federation is an accompliohed fact. \Vben that is the c.tse there will be JH' fm-ther n•c~soity for the Council, and it would be a J,ity to dutroy it before that eVf'nt is brought about. As I str>ted last sessi<•n, I am a staunch federwt'onist .. Just at the close of last se,sinn, when the Upper House tbrec,v out the Dill prodding fm· the sending of delegates to t'1e Convention, it was suggeHt~d to the Government that tbere wa·' time to pass another Bill in a form more acceptable to the J,egislative ('onncil ; but some of their sup­porters sa.id it would not do to make " complete change of fcont all at once In 1ny opini('n, jf a change of front is required, the quicker it is made the better. I spokfl on that oc;'ttsion as follows:-

I agree with the hon. member for Enor:;era that it will be humiliating to Qneenslaw.l if t:he is not repre­sented at the Convention. It is nonsense to say that the Government should not turn back ujJon the action tlle\' have takPn, a.s we are encournged to redre~s a wrOng evf!U at the eleventh hour. 'rhere .,re g at deed~ d=.nc, and the salvation L'f' many i~ '"·orl.:ed ont at the eleventh hour, and I hope :sincerely that the Government will even now p 1 B::-i a. nill to enable us to send delegates tQ the Convention.

160 .Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] .Add1•ess in Reply.

That is my feeling now. The hon. member for Oxley, who I take to be a typical repre,entati ve of the farming indmtry, has tuld us that in his opinion federation would do no harm to the farmer,; of Queen··· land.

Mr. GROOM: J'\ine out of ten farmer'! will tell you the reverRe.

Mr. l<'IXXEY: I suppose doctors wiil differ till the end of time. That beemfl to he the opinion of the hon. member for Oxley, and he is a gentleman who has had a large experience of farming. The hon. m ern ber added that he was afraid federation would injurn the commercial interests of C"lueensland. But I do not see that \A'e have anything to fear frnnl any other colony if we h,-:ve feder·cttion on a fair n,nd equitable basis. 'Ye l•re in one of the most dangerous positions possible alongside a free port like Sydney, with our high protective t~riff ~nd ad ralorr ·n duties. A great deal of the t-rade of Queenslaml has been mchect awoy secretly by people sending goods up here through their frienJ., from Sydney, and getting them delivered without r<aying duty at all.

An HoxouR.\BLE ::'lff::I!BER: Y on should inform 011 tbr-m.

Mr .. FIN!\EY : I am not going to he an in­fonner; it i·J the d·-1Ly of the Customs' officers to look after those people. \Yiutt I am stating is a fact. \V hen I was in Sydney the other da:: a man asked me if I would take a parcel to Bris­bane for a friend of his. I asked him what it contained, and he said a suit of clothes, and when I told him the articles were duti<tble he said his friend did not want to pay the duty. I c•m­sidered he had a great deal of impertinence to ask me to do any such thing, and I took care to tell him so. He said it did !Jot matter, he could get plenty of friends to take it up, and it was done every day. There ought to be more supervision than there is over paHsengers cmn­ing from a free pmt to a country of high tariffs aud heavy duties like Queenslt;nd. Every­body knows that l'ery high duties demoraliRe trade. The payment is so great that there are" lwa-;s lot< of people rearly to smuggle good8 in if they c:tn. Our h1gh duties are an induce­ment to that kin<l of thing. As lollg as duty we,s charged in New South \Vales we were pro­tected to a great exter,t, bnt in the bnsineos that I am interested in most of the duties are all off in Sydney, and some people have no idea of the difference it makes to the purchaEer. They never think of adding the dutv to the invoice price to Lringont the net co"t. ~The con­seqnence is that a good dec1l of trade goes to Sydney that properly belonc:s to thi.; C"lony. I h<tve not th·e slightest fear·, everything being equal, that with fede1ation the Qneensland merchants ·nd busine·.s people will be ab~e to compete with the Sydn··y houses. But to bring that n.bont ~L good rnany things will have to be done, to which I will allude by-and-by, in the way of getting better ports, better steamer.:-, and rnore frequent and ra.pid communication with the old country. There is t•, pamgraph in the Speoch which ex­prtci·';es pleasure at the measure of prosperity which the colon," is enjoying, and also at tb'e fact that the rev0nue will ha snfficient to meet the expecnditum for the year. It is very satis­factory to learn that the rev0nue will be snffi­cient to meet the expenditnn•, but I am afraid we should not be too sanguine a~Jout the pro~~ perity of the colrmy. There have heen heavy lnHes in the sug"r industry, also through the tick plague and the drought, and it must take the country some time to recover from those lm~ed. If we get a good season things may improve in a short time, but at present it does not do to be too sang nine. I aru very pleased that there is to be a Bill introduced to

establish councils of conciliation and arbitration for the settlement of industrial disputes. If it is a Bill that is likely to do any good, it will have my stronge,t suppurt. This is a measure which should be found in every ci vilieed country. Industrial disputes shou!J be settled by arbitration, instettd of having recourse to means which often de;troy property, and reduce people on both side' to poverty and distress. I reg-ret that there is no mentiun nmde of a Bill to amend the Fire Brigadec< Act. The fire brigades of this colony are in a very unsatis­factory positiou. The metropolitan fire brigade is in a very bad way, a, it has to P''Y interest on an overdraft, and has not suffie.itut funds to carry ou its work in a ~atisfactory m:;uner. The HmneSecretary ha.s on several t ,::c,.,.,_~ion~ pron1iscd to bring in an amending Bill, and 1 hope he will soe his way to clo so this session, and that our m0!ropolitan brig·. dr- wiil be put in a position ,,, hi eh will enable it to discharge its duty as well a' the brigades in the other colonies ; but that eom "nly be done by improving its financial potdti•.m. I would like to poinL out that the volnnteer briga.des n-.:~eive no as~istance ft·mn the GovernrHent. '1'hHy gi\-e thdr services voluntarily, and they go ronnel and collect Iuoney then:l'1elveH to Ret their uniforn1.c~ and app!iu1wes. Several of th(Jse volnnLer brig·arlns are well drilled and well equipped, but th"y will have to di,hand and sell their plant., if th. y do not receive s01ne a'3Nistance, and that 1vould be a great pity, as some of these plants cost as much as £1,000. I also want to mention a grievance in conuection with the water supply of Bris­bane. The Board of \Vaterworks do their best to give pure water to the people, and on fwhalf of the board I have to complain that the Lands Dermrtment have lea -ed the right to cut timber on the Enofrgera waterworks reserve, which lel\ves the "'"erve op<:>n to all the <"attle in the district-in fact, makes it a com­mon. This makes it uselHs for the buC<rd to try aud supply pure v. u,ter. The Gm·ernment will not give ns the right to fence in the watershed. On the lOth October la,t the Government }ll'O­

elaimed a resen'e, to be pernmnently under the control "f the board, but t!J··y reserved to the Cro·Kn ,;11 timber right' and •h·: rig·ht. of access to contractors, Cro\1 n Lnd~ rangerfo, n.nd other officers of the CrrnYn. On the 2nd of Novetllber the board wrote to the Under Secretary for Lands that t':ey did nut feel thc.mselvc·> en­couraged, vrith the cont.rol that was given then1, to incur the expt•nr;o of fencing in the reserve. I shall read an extr,:ct from a nport furnished Ly the Gnvern1nent ~-\naly::-~~ to the ~3nard of \Ya.terwo!'ks on the water in the ]1~noggera. reservoir-

rnfortunately that exception, the free ammonia, points lo auim:-1 cont~._ndnntion. VegeL:tble matter is also present, but it is only from anim I .~outnminH,t.ion that oise:-tse r~''l.U~~ing-J)at~teria conld be dc~riverl, a1tbongh \Vlteu oncu p;_·.:seut in this water tht'Y could casiJ.y iind plenty of rood on ·which to subsist. 'l'hc most -strikins items in the three analy~es are tllo lat _;,~ a:nonnt of '·oxygen consumed in moist combustion" and the extremely lar.g'e amount of free ammonia. in the cret-'1\: \Vater. ri1lle latter is the largf>St I hnve .fnnnd. in any wat0r, an<l I eau only explain it by ~-.lppm;ing that numbers of t'a.ttlc bave been gnt;~,inh on the -.~ato·sbed, and the rain h~ "w:'~h3d down the aunnonia from the urine, etc. After pointing out that the proportion of anunonia is incrca:--,ing, he t:ays-

I am sm·u if the watcl'sllcd v. re k, 11t fiTD from animal cont.nmination, and the ve?:ctable matter mostly re~ moved from the water, it -v.onld. 1Je a spleltL1id. one for all purposes. So long as this re ervoir is 1 ft in the open state it is in now, through the GovernnH'nt having allowed the timber to b~ cut down by contractors, so long will the board be powerless to dBal with this matter. I should like to say a few words

Address in Reply. [30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 161

about the Brisbane River and the port of Bris­bane. I am sure the hon. member for North Brisbane will be able to speak upon the same subject, and will bear me out when I say that it is necessary that this should be mad•c a first-class port. If it is not, our trade will rapidly drift to Sydney, and although the Briti-.h India Com­pany has done well in the past, their service to London is now inferior to those which go to the southern coloni<>s. The Peninsular and Oriental and Orient Companies have contracted for a fifteen - knot service ; their steamers will arrive in Sydney every week, and if we can­not make our ports suit:1ble for such ve,sels it will be impossible for us to hold our trctde B.s we ought. In my opinion the ports are as much national highways as the railway", and it is no use building rail ways to bring out pro­ducts to the coast unless we make suitable po1 ts for ships to come in and take away that pr •. duce. Our steamers take nearly two months to travel from here to England, which is a great deal too long. Competition in business is so keen that anybody who is behind the times is sure to be left in the lurch, and, therefore, I hope the Go­vernment will do something in the direction which I have indicated without any delay. The best way would be to create a tn1st, and endow it in such a manner that it will be able to carry out the work entrusted to it. Some of the bends in the rh·er ought to be cut off, as that would be a grl at assistance to navigation; and I mi~ht point out that the sandbanks below the Hamilton might be made a vailn,ble if reclaimed. If the sand dredged out of the river were tbro wn up there instead uf being carried aw<>y that land would become very valuable and a source of profit to the Government. This mn,tter of improving our ports cor;cerns the whole colony, and not Brisbane alone. Since the port of Bris­bane was first taken in hand oorne £300,000 has been spent upon it, and something like .£il00,000 has been expended at Townsville; but I think all our ports should be made available fur merchant ships with all the !~>test impruvemeut'. I may also refer to the flouds in thf' BriJ­bane River. Since tl1e devastating flood of 18!!3 the Government have dune nothing to prevent the recurrence of such a dis·cster. "'vVith a first-class dredging plant, and the latest professional experience, the river might be so improved as to make a repetition of such a disaster almost impossible. J\.bny lives w."re lost, people were left houseles' and pennikcs upon that occasion, and there was a great deal of t11lk about flood prevention ; and as we never can tell when we may have such a vieitation again, I hope that the Go<ermnent 'A ill not con­tinue merely talking about it until we oxe over­whelmed with another flood. In regard to thR Japanese, their presence at Thursday Islanrl is the beginning of a great deal in this colony, and I fully endorse what W<lS s>cicl by the hon. member for Charters Towe1s that the Japanese are sh,np busine"s people, and if they get a footing here, the)· can anrl wil; work at such low priCf'' that white mm will not be able to live and rear their families. They will be­come mechanics, go into other bumne·.s, and become chemists, and doctors, and hwyers, and I never knew any people who har! such a talent for imitation as the ,Japanese. I was in J ctpan, and it is a very lovely country to trav"l in, but they do not allow Europeftns to go about anywhere they like in Japan. You are only allowed into the treaty purls of Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, and 'l'okio. To go outside into the country you must get a passport through the British Consul. \Vhen I went into the country to buy goods I found I could only do so through a Japanese agent, and I had to p~y

1897-M

through thd nose for them. Then, beyond the concession to which Europeans are confined in the treaty ports, they are not allowed to hold pl\)perty in ,Japan. I do not see why we should allow those people advantage' which are denied to us in Japan. I think their introduction here in numbers wonlrl be a grave danger, and I was glad to hear the Acting Premier stRto that already measures had been taken to prohibit any influx of Japanese.

Mr. HARDACRE : After the somewhat pro­tractecl debate on the Address in Reply I shall not detain the House long, and I should not have spoken at all bad it not been for some remark~ made by the hon. member for Normanby, and for one l,<>ragraph in the Opening Speech. The hon. member for Norman by made some strong re marks about the cost of the· Ci vi! Service and the wages of the lengthsmen on the railw,tys. His remark; were, in extremely bad ktste coming from a m m who got two guineas a sitting for being a member of a Royal Commission, while he was receiving his ordinar·y s?<lary as a member of Parliament as well.

Mr. Mt:RRAY : I deny it in toto. There ic, not a word of truth in it..

Mr. HARDACHE: If he has not received it yet, he is going to receive it.

Mr. MunnAY: I deny that also. Mr. H ARDACHE : The"t two gnin.;as a sitting

would be sufficient to restore the wages t;dmn from about forty railway lengthsmen, and if the hon. member gave back the money when he gets it for that ptlrpoee be would s·tti-;fy his Cimstitu­ents very nn1ch better than he doeH at present.. I am quite sure the hon. member dare not go to \Vestwood and make the remarks he l:as made in this House.

Mr. MURRAY : That is for them to say. They am better satisfied than yours are.

Mr. HARD ACRE : It is f.,r them to say, and it is what they inteud to say, which largely accounts for the chang-e of attitude on the part of the hon. member for Normanby yesterday.

Mr. Mt:HRAY: There has be:;n no chcmge of attitude on my part.

Mr. HARD ACRE: The hon. member re­minded me of the converts who, h~tving oppooed for a long time the principles they have he en converted to, turn round and become extreme fanatics. He has woke up to find that there js no opposition worth mentioning in the Chamber, that. the Labour party is gone, and that he is the only bona .iide opponent of the Go­vernment in the Chamber. He should remember that hp has been one nf the 1n'"'rnhers mo"t r1:3· fHHJ'iib!P for keeping the Government in p0wer during the last three or fonr years, and be now tnrns round and is extremely op:>osed to them. 'l'he p.1ssage in the Speech to which I 'hall refvr is as !ollows :-

I have much satisfaction, however, in stating that notwithstan·Ung a con~·.iderabie reliuctlon in Cn~toms ta.x:ation authorist·-i la'.:lt session and a liberal inm·ease •.A .. ,_clariE:A ·und wages t.o p"'.r"ons in the on~)loy of the Govt- ;:nment, parlinnlarl.r tho:..n in receipt of small .. aluries, the finance" of the eolony are in a "ound eou­dition. I do not think that is anywhere ne.cr aprroa.:::­ing the truth. So far frurl! giving- liLeral iucreases of \Vaget3~ and PBpemally to persons receiving :-:;ma1l wagT ,, the wages~rnen hn.ve been treH.ted in a mo"t niggardly v1ay si,,ce last :-;e:-;sion. Person~ in receipt of high · :.daries have had incre:t,:es, but \vage,-nten have be~n reduced even sine,~ h,st sa~:-sion, a.nd wherever i~.. ha~ Lf··~n possible to take Gd. or lt'. off th1--u1 it has t)L-:n dnne. That has been es,,ecinJly the case in the Central district ; th•' men have been t-1·eateU as no private employer wuull trettt his men. .After

162 Address in Replg. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

the busy season had passed, in which men had almost made themselves ill by overwork, for which they got no increase of wages, they werp, dismissed wholesale and mercilessly. Even cleaners who had served three and four years of their terms as apprentices on a small wage of about 3s. while they were learning their businees were dismiesed ithout a word. I know of one case where a widow was de]Jending on the small wages of her boy. He was dismissed and had to hunt for a job 300 miles away, leav­ing his mother without support. Then we have the regrading-which means the degmding-of men with wives and large families to the level of 5s. a day. That is not a fair thing after taking all they could out of the men during the busy time, and it is not in accord with the shtement in the Sreech. Last year there was a motion carried for the restoration of the wages of the railway men; and ,,o far as this House is con­cerned it pledged itself to the restoration of wages ; but up to the ]Jresent no action has been taken to put that pledge into <lperation. I m:1y say, however, that the other day I w11itetl on the new .Minister for Railways, who re­ceived me very courteouoly, and I believe that personally he is inclined to do what he can to give some effect to the motion. The matter is under consideration, and it will be a question later on as to whether the action which will be taken will be satisfactory or not. There have been a good many conrrratulations during thi" debate, but one appaars to have been over­looked. I think Sir Hor'ace Tnzer ought to be congratulated on the position he now occupies as head of the GoYernment, :1nd I cDngratulate him so far as "' member on this side can do so ; not becctnse I de,ire to see the Government in power, but bee mse he now has an opportunity for usefulness which he never had before in his life-"n opportunity to ca:ry out what the Bri3bane Courie1· has often called a forward poliP-y ; an opportunity to foilow some of the other colonie., in progressive tmd democratic legislation-a )'olicy which h:ts not been carried out by the Government here for the last three or four years. There has been a democratic Government in New Zeahmd for some years, and it is just as well to notice the effect of their policy and l<gislation. There b&s been no colony in Australia that has prospered so much as New Zealand has prospered since a democratic Government came into power. Before JYir. Ballance took office, that colony '"'s in a most depresged condition, both indust1·ially and financially; since then it has been on the up g•·ade, and for the last four years there have been surpluses.

Mr. BARTHOLO}!EW : ·what about the taxt>tion '/ Mr. HARD ACRE: They h!tve cb~nged the

taxn,tion there, not by putting it on commodities used by the people but on large estates and large incomes. 'l'hey have a land anrl income tax there. I have here an extract from a memo­randum put before Pttrliament during the absence of the Treasurer, in placJ of the Trea'lirer's Statement, and this will have more weight than any remark made by the hon. mdnber for i'dary­borough, Mr. Bartholomew. It says that the receipts for the financial year 1896-7 were esti­mated at .£4,484,000, while the >tctual reccij,ts were .£312,000 in excess of the r.mount e8ti­materl. The total surplu, f•:r the Y<':lr as £340,000. There are some things in which the Government might very weli follow New Zealand. One is in regard to loans to settler«, which are an aid t,o settlement and an advan­tage to the farmer. The firRt year there was a loss in connection with these loans ; but the second year they returned a surplus over working expen>es, and pro?ed profitable t the Government. In South Australia there is success-

fully in operation a similar Act, and while I was in Victoria I noticed this Government advertise­ment in several of the newspapers-

The commissioners of savings bank~ are now granting loans to farmers and otherM up to two-thirds of valuation in sums from£ :o to £2,000 at 4~ per cent. interest, and from H- per cent. in reduction of priucipal. Loans may be paid off any half-year.

Mr. SMITH: Peop:e are leaving there. Mr. IL\.RDACRE: Yes, but not in con­

sequence of an Act. like that., but in spite of the Act. Victoria' has unfortunately very little Crown land, therefore farmers have neces­sarily to go beyond the borders of the colony in order to get the land they require. That is one reason why there is an exodus to some extent to other parts of Australi"· but that exodus is not to Queensland. It is to country as near to Yictoria a'" they can get; that is ]{iverina, in New South \Vales, where they have in opcr. tion one of the best and most successful Land Acts that has ever been passed by any of the legislatures of Aus­tralia. That Act do8g more than any other Land Act I know to prevent dummying and the evils connected with alienation, causei1 bond fidr settlem'nt, and has been mo,t successful in its operation ever since it wJs passed two years ago. It has been a,n enorrrwus success under the administration of Mr. Carruthers. Mention is made in the Speech of the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill for the settle­ment of indnstdal disputes by conciliation and arbitrati<,n. In New Zmland they have a con­ciliation and arbitr atic.n measure w"hich makes it compulsory for parties to Rettle their disputes in th:,t w:1y, and the Premier of that colony gtated some time ae;o that it had saved New Zealand more than £1,000,000. I am therefore very gbd to see that such a mea>ure is mentioned in the Speech, and I hope it will be framed on the linH of the New Zealand statute, because I am quite sure th :t it '"ill not be a success if the application of the measure is to depend on the con-:ent of both parties to a dispute. There is one other matter to which I wish to refer, and it is one in which the action of the Go­vernment is deserving of verv strong cenRure. I allude to the agreement eritered into by the Government with the Queensland National Ba:•k. I have n'lthing to say against the bank it,elf; but the Government have again, as they did in 1893, cleliber ttely deceived the mem­bers of thi' Hou :e as to their intentions in thi1, bosineos. \Vhen tbe Qneensland :t\ ational Bank Agreement Biil was brought before us last sc·ssion, 1t was understood by almost every member that the agreement that would be entered into would be on the lines suggested in the committee's report. At any rate, it was certainlv nnderstond that the old proprietary was neV~r to come into existence 3gain, that the Rh:>reholders wuuld be gone as proprietors. The Attorney-Geneml said-

It iR not a matter, as the Treasurer pointed out, of dealing with the directors or the bank. I look upon the directors of the b:.nk as practicaily jun(fl ojjir:d.'J. rrhGy are gone, and the t-re,.en t proprietary is gone. In the f:.tce of the comtllittee's report I a.o not see that they can occupy any other po~ition.

Again, speaking of the recommendation of the committee, he said-

Their recommen<lation is that n new proprietary should be formed- that the sharehold.crs should march out, and that somebody elsr who really own the institu­tion should come in. Over <tnd over again that statement was mrcde to us la,"t ye,n, and it was partly on that al:isur­ance, and partly because the committee stated that the bank whi·n reformed would be an Px· ceeding1y strong jnstitution, that th8 House agreed to the Bill. I remember the hon. member for Kennedy especially discussing thaL question

Address in Reply. [30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 163

with the 'l.'reasurer, and quoting from the Mel­bourne Argus on the subject. He stated that one reason why he would vote for the Bill was that under the new scheme recommended by the committee the bank would be one of the strongest institutions in Australia. But now we find that an agreement ha" been entered into under which the old shareholders are to continue to be the pro­prietors, and the benefit of all the sacrifices made by the country and by the depositors will be reaped by them, or at any rate they will get the lion's share. And we have at the same time a sd1eme that will not be effective in bringing the bank out of its dilliculties. I s8,y >J,g'.tin that, as in 1893, Parliament has been delibc:rately deceived, and I am not alone in that belief. At the very moment when we were being told that the shareholders would never be allowed to come into existence again as a propri\ltary, the Premier and the Attorney-General had in their pockets the agreement which has been entered into with the bank. Had members known that the old shareholders were to be continued as proprietors they would never have passed the Bill giving the Treasurer power to make such a.n agreement. '!.'he shareholders have £2 Ss. more than they have paid into the bank, having £10 s,, for £R. But whether the agreement is a bad one or not, my point is that the Treasurer had no right to deceive the House as to the kind of measure be was proposing. \Vheu the Bill was in c nn­mittee the hon. member for J!'linrle~s asked for some explanation with regard to t\n amendment. The report says-

:.\ir. l\icDo='l"ALD was not sati~fied \Vith the Treasurer's explanation. rrhe hon. gentleman said tlle amendment was of no importance, and yet he refused to withdraw it. Surely he must have some other reason for wishing to carry it. It was that very amendment which enabled the Bill to cover the new agre<ement whieh has be9n entered into, and the Brisbnne Courier, in e m­menting on the new agreement, said the differen­tial treatment embodie<l in the scheme w IS anticipated by tlhe Government as a probability and expressly covered by an amendment of th<~ mea•ure on the motion of the Treasurer. "It is evident," the writer ~tdds, " that the management's scheme was then in exist­ence, and confidentially (and properly) kn,,wn to the Government." That is not faie to the members of the House. \Vith regard to t,he agreement it,elf, the Attorney-General :,aid it would be perfectly a,bsurd to enter into a new agreement th:>t would not succeed in rP.-toring the bank to a sound condition. I beiieve that that is exactly what has not been done. I see no hope of the bank ever being- re.>tored to a sound position through the agreement <mtered. Under the commissioners' scheme there was some hope, as it not only wiped out th slHre­holders altogether, but it wiped out the depositors as depositors and made them proprietors.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : '!.'he depositors would not have that sclwmc.

Mr. HARDAORE: In their reuort the com­mi~sioners said, "In no other \vay th 1t ,1.·e know of, save a full and permanen' g 'are'cntpe by the State, can the depositors hupe to bloOoer their position." Instead of being in t stron" JHlsition it has not really improved to any consiclerable extent the position of the bttnk. It still has a deficit of over £2,000,000, while on the com­missioners' recommendation it wou!rl have hul a surplu;; of £2,000,000.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : vVhat about the interminable stock.

Mr. HARD ACRE: That is still owing. The bank always has to pay interest on the int,er­minable stock. According to Ollfl &tatement there would be a saving in the bank manage­ment of £1001000 a year under the new scheme,

bnt according to the chairman's speech at the meeting of shareholderil tl>ere will only be a saving of £50,000 a year. If we put itat£50,000, it will take more than forty years for the bank to become even in a solvent posit.ion, and it would then have no cUJlital to start with and no r~serve fund; it wou!<f have barely met its liabilities. lf we take the more sanguine estimate of Mr. R ~lston, it would tnke twc;nty ye;,rs for the institution to work off the dead horse and get into a fair positinn, and then it wonld have no reserve fund to carry on with. And there is thi;; fear that in the meantime it may be getting further into the mire every year. No one will know what the true position of the b.:tnk is.

Mr. ANNEAl\: What is the point? Mr. HARD1\0lUJ: \Ve h><ve been inveigled

into passing a Bill which has put the share­holders back; w,Jaresacrificing,,ome£30,f00aye.tr of the public funds, and we have cacrificed the depooitors. All for what? That the share­holders may stand. As b.' tween thc:rn and the Government and the depositor.s it i.-s a to~·-£~11p­" head8 I win, tails you lose." If the institution is a succ8t;s the shareholders get all the proflts. If the new scheme is a f,,ilure the Government and the depositors go clo,.vn, and the share­holders do not stand to lose a penny. That is the point, and a very strong point, too. If we had known the real fact,,--

The ACTING PREMIEI\: Do you say the Go· vernn1Pl1t knew it?

:Mr. HARDAORE: Yes. '!.'he Am'ING PHEmER: I say they did not. Mr. HARDACRE : I say they had in their

pocket at thD time the very agreement that has now been entered into, and they expressly brought forwgrd an amendment, without telling the purport of it, to cov r the agrc1ement which ha.~ since been entered into, while they were telling us t!mc the other agreement "as to be ad0pted.

The AcTING PR!l~IIER: There is not a scintilla of foundation for that statement.

Mr. HARDAOR:l<J: T'l1e BriRbanc C'o11rier is with me in that, and J\1r. Halston distinctly sta•ed that he snbmit,ted the proposals of the new ag-reemen\ to th, Government at the tin,e~ on Lhe 13th Kovember la9t, when we were diS­cu,sing the mnsure. If the Government did not know it, CL'rtainly Mr. R·tl:=;ton WLLR deceiving the sharehold rs "nd the public. But I am convinced from the facts I ce., in print that the GovGrnment did know it, and had the amend­mel,t brought in exprBssly to cover the new agrep:uent. Th.-ou~hout the whole of the tr.1ns­aecions with that institution we have had, by the G\)\'erntnent, HL b::t.nk first, the country Hec<md, and the depositors nowbd'A :'et all; whereas it shou1d have been the depositors and the country first and the shareh,,]ders last. I have i· 1id that in my opinion the scheme will not be succes,ful, though I hope it 1dll be ; I am one of tLe last to wish to do anything to the injury of the institution. But it is no noe slllltti;cg our eyt s to the real facts. One of the d·mgers will be that the Lank may go c·n for sevt-r;l ypar·~· g(·'Hir;g into a wor.se position, \\ hiist tl,e count,ry w11! not know 1t. Sh .. >-es m:ty b•3 sold to a cm fining public at fictitbus and infhted values, and in the l'IJd we o;hall be worse off in dealing with the bank than we would have been if we had dealt with it in a n1or';: energ;:~tic n1a;n1or In~>t ~'ear. I may 1nention further that the agremnent that vvas come to was drawn up b) :1-h. RalcL'n, the matL',ger of the in-titution, nncl wa< accepted with<Jl<t a single ame'ldtnH•t bv the Treaenrer of thi,< co],,ny. In a eircular ud,dre;;s·:d to Lhe Rh ue'.nlders, .Mr. Rahcon menti.me l that he hai drawn up the agreement, .and" ho urge~ the sl:areh~~d~~s to accept 1t1 becau,e, he sa1d, ~nrs

164 Arldress in Repl1f. [ASSE.MBLY.] Address in .Repl1f.

agreement is distinctly more favourable to shareholders than the agreement recommended by the commissioners." It has been asked why the depositors consented to an agreement which was more favourable to the shareholdeis than that w hi eh was suggested by the commissioners. It is not very difficnlt to answer that question. It w::.s impres~ed upon them that there was no alternative but liquidation. But there is anotl.er and more important reawn. After the agree­ment of 1893 was come to, a large number of depositors, who had locked-up deposits, borrowed money on the security of those deposits. At first they were able to Lorrow 75 per cent. of the amount of their deposits, and afterwards 50 per cent. On looking at the amounts in the bank, it will be found that apparently there was more than £2,000,000 more in the bank in 1893 than there was last year. That money had been advanced to depositors on the security of their own deposits. Now sup­posing the agreement submitted by the bank had not been accepterl. by the deposit<•rs, the first thing that would have happened-and this would be pointed out to them-would be that they would have had to pay up the advances that had been made them, and then they would have had to stand their chance of getting wbate\'er they could, and they would have to wait a long time to get it. They wet e thus compelled to accept the agreemmt, willy-nilly. I can give an in. stance of thie. A constituent of mine had £1.500 locked up in the bank, and he borrowNl £750, with which he built an hotel. That was llf'arly all the money he had, and if he bad been called upon to repay the .£750 it would have meant ruin, as it would have been impossible for him to raise that sum. Therefore he was compelled to accept whatever terms the management offered. I 8:>Y that the Treasurer in the interests of the colony, and in the interests of the depositors, ought to have endeavoured to make a better agreement than he did, and one less f1Avourable to the shareholders. He ought to have kept faith with this Parliament. I do not intend to detain the House any longer except to expres:± my regret that there io no mention in the Speech of any assi~tance to be given to a la1ge number of people who are suffering partly from the extreme drought and partly from the qua!'an· tine regulations which have been ill'll'"ed on stock by the Government. That is a matter requiring immediate attention, and I trust that before we get very far ir,to the session some steps will be taken to give relief to these people. In many instances they have not sold ~took for two years owing to the quarantine regulations, and it is almost impr.ssible for them to pay their rents. I hope that, if nothing further can be done, gome such action as !me beeu taken bv the Secretary for Lands in New South Wale, may be taken­by which those who are not able to pay their rent will not have to forfeit their sdections for at least twelve months, in order that they may be enabled to get over their present difficulties, and ultimat,Jy keep their selections and pay up the rent which is due.

Mr. J~ISSNER: I believe we are still discuss­ing the Address in Reply to the Govt'l'nor's Speech. It is most probable that most hon. members have really forgotten what is before the House. I was present in the other place when His Excellency read the Speech, and it took him about twenty-five minutes to get tbrongh it. There were four solid pages of real intelligence; it contained all wrts of good matters, and His Excellency must have reen Yery sorry when he came to the end of it. Ther'e is no doubt there is hardly anything that is not mentioned in the Speech. Nothim: is omitted that ought to be there; in fact it fits all o\'er. Since the advent of the Labour party in this

House it has been customary for every hon. member to speak upon every subject that comes before U", We started this debate on 15th June; this is the 30th, and rt:1lly those hon. members ohonld consider the ccst of running a Parliament like this in current expenses, such as lighting, stationery, attendance, prmting, and so on. \VhateYer might be the value of the speeches delivered by those hon. members, I think they are overpaid for by the taxp ,tyers, and if this discussion were let out by tender the country would save money, and we would be further forward with the business of the sessi<·n. If we continue at this rate the real business will not come on until Christmas, and then the Govern­ment will be accused of hasty legislation. I tmst this d0bate will be closed this even:ng ; that we wili be able to go on with lhe federation debate, and the other things which are promised in the Speech. If every Bill that is promised there is passed to the satisfaction of hon. mem­bers the millennium ought to be here, and this ought to be our tinal session, as no fmther legis­lation will be required, and <.,lueensland will be a paradise of peace and plenty. There will be no more grumuling, and the occupation of the Labour party and every other party will be gone for ever. The hon. member who has just sat down accused the hon. member for Normanby of being very ungrateful, of •itting on this side under false pretences, as he was the real leader of the Opp<>sition. He said the hon. member received £300 a year and £2 2s. a day for sitting on the Land Commist-ion, but the £2 2s. is not much, and anyone who begrudges it is not a very liberal employer. The only conclusion I can come to is that the hon. member who made those remarks is very sorry he was not on that com­mission, and if he had been Wb W>)Uld ha\ e heard no more about it. I think both of the com­missions appointed dming th~ recess have cone good work, and tbe evidence taken by the Mining Commis~ion particularly will be of great use. This is a country that teems with minerals if we could only get them, and I am very sorry that the report of that commission will not be ready in time to let us get to business this session. I have really no axe to grind. I am satisfied with the Government. I was also satisfied with the remark of the Governor that he was well received in the North. I believe he was highly pleased; he was particu­larly well attended, and enjoyrd the trip so much that before he left he declared Cairns to be one of the prettiest places in the universe. Several hon. members on the other side in referring to Cairns have mentioned the J apane•e ladies who live there, nnd who, accord;ng to them, are under the l'atronage of the mayor and aldermen. I think they omitted to mention that they were also under the patronageoftheMining Commission. I do not know how many members of the Land Commis­sion were there, but kome have bad great pleasure in tellin[( the hon. memLer for Cairns that it was a very pretty piace to go to. These ,J apan<c.,e ladies were referred to by tl:e hon. memters for Croydon and Burke-places v.here beauty would be very much admired if it were there, but being so vuy fastidious they take offence at seeing these ladies in Cairm, and accused the mayor of having said, v. h,n he ge,ve his casting vote in favour of retainit.g them, that they were a nece'­s:;,ry evil. I suppose the mayor was wise in his generation, and we are bound to believe that everything the Lord has created is for some useful purpo>e. 1\'[o,quitoes were created for some useful purp<•se, although some people do not seem to know what that purpose is. Probably it is to tickle people when tlwy are asleep so as to induce the father (•f a fan,ily to in vest in mosquito nets ; and if the mayor of Cairns said these Japanese ladies were a neces-

Addre.ys in Reply. (30 JUNll.] Address in Reply. 165

sary evil, I believe he knew all about it, and preferred to let well alone. I think I have said enough about Cairns and its beauties, and will now get on to feder,.tion, in regard to which I think it would be better to get away from the;e academic speeches and discuss the Bill at once. The Government were very indifferent last Sf\Ssion as to whether we joined the Con ven­tion or not, but I have since made a trip through the other colonies, and individually I feel that we did wrong in not joining them. \V e are too much isolated already ; the more we can come into contact with other people to make a nation of m the better. Some hon. members look at it in a very narrow light, and representa­tives of the farmers do not seem to appreciate the idea of federation. They have an idea that federation would prevent the farmer from getting as much for his produce as he is getting now. I do not think there is anything whate1·er in that argument. With an influx of population the farmer is bound to prosper as well as other people. We have any amount of waste lands, and we have resources in abundance that have never been looked after for the want of popula­tion, anrl if we attach ourselves to the other colonies upon equal terms we must get some benefit from them for the development of re­sources that are now inoperative. I know the Northern pe.>ple are not ltfraid of it, and if the Southern people looked into the matter properly, and not from a narrow standpoint, they would find that the sooner that we are federated wit.h the other colonies on an equality the bettflr will be their position. The hon. members for Mary­borough, I believe, are dead against federation.

Mr. ANNEAR: No; but we want the delegates elected by the popular vote.

Mr. LISSNER: I am glad to hear you have progressive ideas. I believe in the referendum myself. It would not hurt M"ryboroul'(h to have the colony fedemted. Their oranges are going now to the south, and they are getting good money for them that they could not get in Q•teensland. As for the machinery and foundries, it is generally believed t.hat they want protec­tion ; but I can give the hon. members for Maryborough an instance. I am a eo-director of a \Vestern Australian Company, whose directorate is in this place. We wanted machinery for certain mine~, and we asked for tenders, and, strange to say, the be.•t and cheapest we received were from l\Iaryborough. There is no protection neceesary about it; Mary­borough can compete with them anywherll. The hon. members for Maryborough need not be afraid that· the Maryborongh foundries would lose any business or any money by it. They would only increase their orders if we became brothers and sisters all over. Before the House met this session there were all sorts of rumours that a reformation was to take place. It was sometimes pointed out that there would be a sort of coalition between the leader of the Go­vernment and the leader of the other side. There was to be another party, led by the hrm. member for Toowoomba. It was said al'(ain, "Oh, no! he won't do it now. He is on a Londs Commis­sion." To my surprise when I came back to the House I found that hon. members took their places as they had sat before. There has been go revolution and no coalition, and I believe that the House as constituted now is in a proper con­dition to do business if hon. members will only go to it. The hon. gentleman leading the Left took a great deal of nmhrege about the nomina­tions to the Upper Chamber, and especially to the nomination of Mr. John Archibald. I knew the hon. gentleman for many years. He was on Charters Towers, I do not like to say in my boyhood, but I suppoee twenty-five years ago. He;was then clerk of petty sessions, and o,

most intelligent, cap:thle, and energetic man. He has worked his way up, and he deserves, more than anyone else that I know of just now, a place in that Home for integrity and intelligence. The leader on the other side wants to know why this appointment was made-whether it was because l'IIr. Archibald gave way at the last election for the benefit of the Attorney General? I gave the hon. gentleman credit for enough common sense not to ask the question at all. He ought to know all about it. I remember when the hon. gentleman WM out in the cold himself and could not get a seat-and what would this House be without him? a blank-the member for Burke gave him his seat on a long-handled shovel. The next thing I expect to see is that when the hon. member for Burke is out in the cold he will get a seat in the other House under the same conditions. It wonld be only the correct thing for the Government to do as between the parties. Another complaint made of the Upper House is that it does not represent the different districts of this vast colony. I believe that is so. I want to know, for instance, who is nn there representing our vast sugar indus­try? There is no member in that House north of Townsville representing the North. There are plenty of members there representing squatters, but it is not so easy to have every district repre­sented. I admit that some of the Northern members are not always there when they are wanted. It is often difficult to form a quorum, and you will not get members who will be likely to mo.ke a quorum unless you make the House elective, the same as this, and pay hon. members. If you have them elected and pay them, you will have a quornm. No money, no business, no fun. I expect a good deal from the work of the Lands Commission. It is one of the greatest contracts in the world to make land hws that will suit everybody; but I think after those gentlemen have seen all parts of Queensland, and all the different conditions in different parts of the colony, and spoken to men located in the West, South, and North, the evidence they have taken will lead to an improvement in our land hws. I hope the Bill will come in this sesAion. \V e seem to be very fond of isolat­ing ourselves. When in the other colonies I heard bitter complaints about putting a stamp on their pa].Jers; but that was not so much talked about as the want of union with them in federation and other things. I hear any amount of gush "bout being brought nearer to the old country ; but if we want to send a cable to the good old mother country we are still charged 9s. 9d., except it goes through Reuter's agency which is sponging on the other colonies.

The PosTMASTER-GENERAL: That is on the eve of being changed.

Mr. LISSNER: Our cables must go from here to Reuter's in Sydney and from Sydney to home; that is what we· call federation. vVe have been told to wait till we get the Pacific c"ble Wait, till the pigs begin to fly ! Years have passed, and still th6re is no Pacific cable ; yet for a few hundred pounds we could get direct com­munication. I see in the Speech that it is pro­posed to build light railways-cheap lines. Not being an engineer I do not know how they will answer but ·I hope that whatever lines are wanted will be'made. I am the representative of a dis­trict containing a bit of a main line which has not had any extension for a number of years. The last Minister for Railways promised to extend it, and I h?pe the pr\sent. M_inist<;r will take up the runmng and brmg 1t m tlus session. I refer to the line from Mareeba to Atherton. If you want to settle people on the land, instead of buying land on the D•rling Downs you can get thousands of acres of valuable land for next to nothing, and settle thousands of

166 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Addre.rs in Rej;ly.

peot,le if you will only give communimtion. All thu"e people want is twenty miles of a railw1.y. I know that the O~tirns people are chmonriug for a line to put then1 in Cl)mtnunication \Vith GeorgeLu.-. n, anrl the Gonrnment ;,lwuld take step.s to bring thr.t about ~ts soon vJs potisible. Then there iR a line wan~ed frmn Croydon to the Ethel'idge. It. would not c.JSt m'uch ; it would b, ing a l"lrge area. of aurift:rou.:5 land into conL\ct \Vith Cruydun and the coa..;t ; .:Lnd I hope tha hon. mrmber f,,r Croydon ·-••ill assist me in tkkling tbe Government till it is built. I f, .1 very sorry that come members of the Labour party thought it nec•·;sary to haVl\ a debate on the Address to Her ::\Iajesty, anJ still more Furry that seven of them-oome of whom are old friend;; of mLe-sh·mld have fo-:nd it nt1cP-sr>ry to vote againbt it. There was no necm::t-:JitY to dn so. 'rhey might havA let the Ad,drc.ss tjO inster>d of getting this colony marked as one that has uny a·lH;unt; of nl:l1cdntent3 in the House. Ho'''e\?er, thf1SG b,}ven ;nerr!lJers were more fort.unut<S tha:.1 ::Jlr. Lowry, who showed a gr~at dt&l of pluck ill t;roJ-~ting 3J~;._uinst; Che de.monti: rut-ions. lie did it in the open ; only l r>tn sorTy th. t he met with an accident. I believe his jn.ws are now uncl6r repair, a.n~-J I hope they will be be:cter by-and-hy. It i>; all very · ell ttl rio thi"W' under the privilege of the Huuse which many members might not like to do ont.side. }"~or in~taw ... u, l ~ ·.t night tl:e h1)U. nwmher for :B'linders infeneJ thr>t a new direc­t<•r of tbe (~ueensle,nd ~atiune-l Brtnk, a gentle­ln:t.n connected with an iron tinn, is now causing notices t~J be sent to other iron firn1s calling on them to pay np their oV9tdr ,fts, flO that kettles rtnd pans can be got on thG cheap. I do not t-hink it is very mr>nly Go nuke a stat0ment like that. Unle,q such statements C,tn be made' and proved in the open, the; are not good enough to be pro­nounced in this Hon-e. I mn very gl"'d that we are repre·;ented at home by our Premier, and I h;.cve no objection to the Attorney-Geneml being with him. As to the expenses of the Attorney-General, if the House does not a-'ree to pay them they will be prtid anyhow, a~d I think a g·ood deal too much has be'ln said about the matter. As far as the recent demonstrations of loyalty 8,re concemed, I am sure that they were gennine; add when Her ~1ajesty recog·~ ni.,erl the services of the Actin;~ Premier (Sir Hue tee Tnzer) and Mr. Dickson, I think she did ~·h.\', 'VH~ corrPnt. The o·nly thing I regret is that the "K" in front of Mr. Dickson's title was omitted. I think they forgot it, but that it will come by the next mail.

Mr. FRASER: I am not going to give an amusing rtddress like the hon. member fc.r CairM, P<nd I would uot. have sp:.ken on this occn.sinn except to expres:s rny di·--:tppointment at; not S<·eiug the Brisbane Harbour Boo.rd Bill in the St,<>'>ch. La t SDssion it was shelved; but before the Premier went to London we had a deput>ttion from the Chamber of Commerce, -,nd he pro­mised faithfully that the Bill woulJ be one of the first brought forward this sP"sion. Seeing that it wa;; omitted ft "m the Speech, I waited on the Treasurer, who has pledKed his word that it will be bmught forw trd this session. He does not sr>y at what time. but I hope it will be brought on soon. The hon. member for Toowong made some remarks in connection with federation, and also meutioned the matter of deepening the Brisbane River. I quite agree thr>t if we are to b.lVe fedemtion and intercolonirtl freetrade there will be no need for a harbour hoard here. \Ve shall be only » suburb of Sydney. In sp<<tking against fedemtion, I am doing so against my own interests, but I look at the matter from a national point of view. If we h"'ve federation and intercolonhl freetrade, it will be found that all those industries thr>t we

have been fostering for the last ten years will be wi!'ed out in one act. The people do not wr>nt federation. I remember the Acting Trer>snrer Hpuaking on one occm;ion on I he :::;ubjE::'ct of federa .. tion saYing thr>t he believed thr>t if a poll were taken it would be found that the majority of the people of Qneenslanct were again"t federation. Th·.:n why should we "hove it down their throats? \Ye will never lmve federation as long as it is put forw:.rd by paid politicirtns. 'rhe thing must come from the people, and you will not see felleratiou for the next twenty-five years. Hrtve there been any public meetings in favour of feder-cttiou?

J'.Ir. LRAHY: tbve there been any r>grtinst it? Mr. :B'RASER : I s>J.y there hrtve been none in

favour of it. The hon. member may be in favour of federation bec;1use he hopes to be appointed as one of the delegates to go down to the Oonventiol!, but he will find that he will not go. 'What Js the use of spending the people's money in sending ddegatcs to the Convention when we can read all that is said there in the public pr>pers for a penny? I sroeak as~.>.inst feder.ttion in the interest of the inr1ustries that we :have been fostering f"r the last ten years. A lot of them are only branches ,,f establishments in the south, like Dixson's rtnd Cnmeron's tobacco factories, Hunter'" boot factory, r>nd others. All tho;e will be wiped out under intercolonial freetmde. Anyone who sr>w those 15,000 children at Bowen Park must h8,ve wondered where we are going to find ernployment for all our children; and as I hrtve already stated, if we get fede­r,;tion we shall hrtve existing industries wiped out in one r>ct, because they are not old enough to compete with the industries of the other colon if'_;, We shrtll become a dumping ground for t!Je shoddy and "sweated" stuff from the other coloniee. Some members have referred to the immigmtion lecturers. As lecturers I have no fault.to find with them, but as specimens of humr>nity I should have picked better men. The rtppearanc~ of those dried-up specimens of humanitv on a platform would frighten r>ny number of people from coming to Queensland. \Vhy not get men for those positions like the hrm. member for B.Jwen rtnd the hon. member for Rosewood? The very best lecturer of the whole lot who was engaged to go home hrts been left out in the cold altogether. An agreement was made with him thr>t he should start on the 1st of July, and he hrts a free r>til way pass to tmvel all over the colony to collect information before he started. His appointment has not been cancelled, rtnd he ha., not been rtsked to return his railway pass. I should, therefore, like to know from the Aci ing Premier why his name has not been g"zettPd. There is 9,notber Biil that I am disap­pointed to observe is not mentioned in the t:-\pcech. That is r> Fire Brigades Bill. The Acting Premier promised two or three years ago that such a mea"n·e should be introduced, but it has not yet been submitted to the House. Under the present statute the brigades have not suffi­cient funrls to crtrry on, rtnd I hope that bef?re the session closes the Acting Premier w1ll brmg forwrtrd " Fire Brigades Bill that will meet present cliflicnlties.

Mr. S1M: I reg-ret that in co~sequenc.e o~ the outbreak of " malarial plague m the distriCt I represent, I wr>s unable to reach Parliament until yesterday. I am, therefore, to some extent under the di,advantage of not hrtving listened to the speeches mad~ on previous days on the Address in Reply. I do not intend to occupy much of the time of the House, but there rtre one or two que,tions on which I should like to sr>y a few words, especially as I think those few words are neces;,ary. It will be in the recollection of the House that a little more than twelve months

Address in Reply. [30 JuNE.] Address in Reply. 167

ago it was my duty, at the request of a section of my constituents, to call the attention of Parliament t•J the fact that the Chinese Res­triction Act was being deliberately and openly broken. I wish now to bring before the House this fact :I was in theN orthern Territory of South Australia, at a station fiftr miles from our own border, and my attention was directed to the fact that six Chinamen who were encamped on the station were making their way from Purt Darwin to Queensland. I passed them on the road and learnt that they were bound for Queensland. On my arrival at Camo,1weal I gave notice of the matter to the police, and saw the men duly arrested and put in the lockup. They were after­wards tried by the magistrate and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, because t.hey were unable to pay the fine of £50. But they were imme­diately afterwards di,chargecl on the im.truct.ion, I believe, of the Acting Premier. I do not make any charge of insincerity against the hon. gentle­man, but I wish to bring this matter before the House, because I have been told over and over again that some means would be taken to make the Act operative instead of allowing it to continue to disgrace our statute-book, as a law that is continually set at defi,nce. Laws that in any country are supposed to exist for the public good should be enforced. I am now giving- an instance which occurred within my own knowledge not more than five weeks ago.

The ACTING PREMIER : It is not correct ; they are in gaol now. \V e made a gaol at Camooweal to keep them there.

Mr. SIM: I Wits informed by the police at Normanton that they httd been discharged by order of the hon. gentleman, and I also saw it in the public prints.

The ACTING PRE1IIEI\ : It is not cortect. Mr. SIM: Then I apologise for h9,ving made

a statement that is not in accordance with fact. At the same time the fact remains that during twelve months this evil has continued to exist, and the efforts of the Government to deal with it have certainly been anything but energetic. I do hope that the intentions of the Premier and the Acting Premier, both of whom have spoken to me on this Bnbject, will be carried out, an<l that they will deport theo'' men inste11d of allow­ing their incursion into the colony to compete with white men. The life of white men in that part of the colony is hard enough without their having to meet this unfair C•>mpetition. \Vith reference to the influx of J apane,e, I am exceedingly glad to find that during the last few months not only has the attention of the people in the South been attracterl to this great question, hut that the Press of the metro­polis and of the colony generally are beg-inning to be alive to th6 necessity of finding some mode of dealing with it. I very much regret that on a f!Uestion of such moment the Government have not thought fit to make eome statement in reference to it. The onlv statement we have is the reply of the Acting Premier, who says that some prohibition is to be put in force, but we have no information as to t.he nature of that prohibition. I trust that the hon. gentleman will take steps to prevent this evil continu­ing to increase-that we in the North will be protected against the incursion of alien races that is threatening our very existence. I ventured to remark last year with reference to ticks t.hat if that plague had not begun to threaten the Centre and the South nu steps would have been taken to cope with the evil. I say now that as the Japanese are knocking at the door of the Centre and the Scuth more at.tention will be paid to the matter than has hitherto been the case. I do not inter,d, as I said, to touch upon any other matters in the Speech, which seems to me to have been penned

for the purpose of concealing the policy of the Government, if they have <tny policy. I have searched in vain to find out what great measures of reform are to be introduced, and I am astonished that a Government which came into office a year ago under a manifesto issued by the Premier, in which he stated that anomalies existed in the electoral law of Queensland, have, in the qecond session, mane no reference in the Speech tn the burning and important question of electoral reform.

The ACTING PREMIER: There is a reference to it.

Mr. SIM : There is no promise of a lar((e and comprehensive measure of electoral reform. Last year when the question was broug;_ht before the House several strong Ruppnrtercl or the Govern­meet said they declined to embarrass the Govern­rr.ent by pressing for it the first session, but that they would take care it W:J.S brought forward during the present session. The Government, in justice to their own followers, and with a view to prevent that disaffection which is largely spre"ding thr,mgh their ranks, and which thre<>tens to cause a dissolution some of these clays, ought to take the. opinions of. those gentlemen into consideratwn, and gtve us some promise that we shall have submitted to us this session a comprehensive and sweeping measure of eh;ctoral reform. It is a rrmtter of the utmost unportance to a large number of men who are practically disfranchised. There is one small matter which 1t is desirable I should refer to. I was present in Melbourne the time the mining exhibition was held there, and .I was astonished to find on the walls of that exln­bition maps of every goldfield in the colony, even the smallest but no map of any kind referring to the impo~tant gold field which is represented by the hon. member for Oroy.don. I dC? not know who is responsible for th1s extraordm~ry omission. The hon. member for Cook was w1th me at the time, and I drew his attention to the fact. .

Mr. HAo!ILTON: I saw on the wall the geologt­cal m»p of Queensbnd on which the Croydon Gold l<'ielcl was marked.

Mr. SIJYI : I went three or four times to the exhibition »long with several gentlemen from Croydon. \Ve searched the we.lls from one end to the other and every map relating to the gold­fields of Qu~enslaud was exhibited f :wept a map of that goldfield, which on one occ~swn took the second place amongst the goldfields of the colony. There are enough grievances in the North without the addition of any more by those entrusted with the management of the Mines Department. I mention this as the matter ha,, been brought before the House, and to corroborate what the hon. member fnr Croydon ha' stated that that map was not on the walla of that exhibition.

Mr. TURLEY: I do not intend to occupy much time with what I have to say. I rtse chiefly to ask the Acting Premier if he wi)l make a further inquiry into. thE? staternen~ wht?h was brouaht under his notiCe m connectwn w1th the late Medical Superintendent at Dunwich. On the second day after the Home opened I asked a few questions on this subject, a_ncl the answers ~o those questions were not satisfactory. I w11l give the House the information which was given to me and which I gave to the hon. gentleman. It w~s a letter that came to the Carpenters' Union in Brisbane, the writer of which said, referring to the Medical Superintendent at that time, Dr. Moloney-

For the last five or six months he has employed an inmate, E. Bremuer, making furniture for his new residence, situated. I believe, in Ann street, Valley.

r.rhis consists or dining and other tables, <?hests, bookcases, pigeon-holes, cupboards, presses, lntchen

168 Address in Reply. [ASSEMBLY.] Address in Reply.

drr,_scr-in fact, everything in this line required in his new hou.se, wllieh in ihe ordinary cour::e he would have hud to pnrcha.se and }my for. ~ot f,atisiied with this, he has given an order 1or a sideboa.rd to l)e maue a<1d for trrlE 1 to him in Hr:·_,b~nv, and I may atw mer:.tion that tll inmate Bremner goes up hy the steamer to-d~y to do any carprnter's work rPquircd to complete hi f-. new 1" Fidence. 'rhe gr1 --ttPl' portinn of this hn~ been m!tdf' from timber provi 1 Cd by the Government for the U~'e of the ill'S-t.itntion, and the rerruisite 1ittings obtained from the C.)loni;,.J Stores on his rPqnisition.

I do not think that there will be ~wy o11jection on :\1r. 'l't)Jer's part to an inquiry, as he is, I believe, already acquainted \vith the greater part, of the facts. That letter was brought before the hon. gentle­man by myself ott the end of January. L>1ter on a reply, Rigned by Mr. Ryder, WcoS received, stating that-

Aft.er inquiry into the matter, it appears that it ·•nts only after perRistent solicitation on the part of Brcmner for some v;,·ork to occnp.r his time that Dr. )Ioloney ohtainrcl some boards, which he bonght from J1e-;srs. Pettigrew, of Brisbane, anrl emplo~'etl Bremnm· to make a {'ouple of rough kitehen tables and some other artielt"g, for the making of which lle was well paid, and that any material obtained by Dr. 1-IolDney from the Government· Stores \vas paid for by him out of his own IJOCket, It ie acknowledged in that letter that eome of the. material wa•' obtained from the Government stores.

Tl1e AcTING PRE,liER: The Colonial Stores. One i~ ueder o!le departTnent and tl1e other under an~ther. The Colonial Stores are under the TreaHury, and the Government Rtore-; are at Dunwich.

Mr. TUHLEY: That is practically a quibble. I under,Jtood all the material goes through the one department when requisitions are sent in. The firet question I asked was, ""\VhaL were the mal;eria!s obt»inei from the Colonial Stores by Dr. Mnloney?" l w"~ informed that there was nn material obtained on tb{.; requisition of the medical superintendent, and also that any per­s ·n in the employ of the Government couid nb· tain material from the Colonial Stores on p$,ying for the oame. I want to know whether the hon. gentleman will inst.itute an inquiry into the whole of the circumstances. I ha 1·e· been sup­plied with a list of all the articles that were made for Dr. Moloney when he was at Dunwich, and I shall read it so that there may be no misunder­s!.mdir;g as t~ wh8ther the· re wera only two or thrcr Mtle tbmgs, aq was stated in the letter frnm the Home Secretary's office. First, I may say 150 ft et of timber were for­W8rded to Dunwich, to the ord~r of the ]de roedic:.tl superintendent, from :Messrs. r ttigrew's mill. The following articles were sent from Dunwich to Brisbane :-A lady's chair, eight small round tables, a packing ca's·', a firescreen stand, two small cabinets, two large b"okcases, a clothes chest, four picture frames and stands, a double washstand and cabinet two fancy tai.Jles, a cupboard, a large ward;·obe, twenty-two Oxford picture frames, one large kitch<·n dresser, one cheffonier and bookcase, two kitchen table", one large dining-table a square parlour table, a skirt board, a sle~ve board, a rolling-pin, a paste board, and a round table 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. I was under the impression when this information was supplied to me that it would be a very hard job for any person to obtain all those artich.·" out of 150 feet of timber, and I made inquiries as to how it had been done. Then I was informed that other material had been obtained from the Government storeY., or the Colonial Rtores-which I understood were one­on the requisition of the late medical snperin­tendent. It is stattd also in the letter that was submitted to the society from the office of the Home Secretary that the articles that had bten made by this inmate of the asylum had been ..

well paid for. On inquiry I find that the value of the labour in these articles is estimated at about £15.

Mr. STORY : Is that liHt anonymous? Mr. TLJRLEY: Yes. That is the reason I

am asking for an inquiry-to see whether the statements are correct or not. The amount ar,tually paid to the man who made these articles I ,,m informed was £1 13s.

The SECRETARY FOR Pt:BLIC LANDS: Did he make all those things?

1\h. TURLEY: Yes. His food was provided bv the country.

'Mr. BAT1'ERSBY : Then he had no business at Dunwich.

Mr. TURLEY : I am told that the sideboard was ord,ored, but it was !lever sent, because when t.ho man c 1me to the house of the late medical snperintendent from Dunwich there was a slight row between him and Dr. Molon<y, the result beinv that the sideboard was not made. In addition to the things I hlwe mentioned, the carpenter of the institution has been making further articles at the imtance of the late medi­cal superintendent, whose term of office expired on 31st December last. The articles made by the carpenter, according to the list furnished me, are as follows :-Three boxes with ornamental pedes­tals and octagon rings, eight packing cases for ornaments and pictures, two sets of flower­stDnde, four steps in each ; ~· set of pigeon-holes with fifteen divisions. 'Ihese were made and forwarded to Brisbane.

The ACTING PRE~IIER : That was not brought under my noticf'.

Mr. TURLEY: No. I made further in­quiries after seeing the letter sent from the hon. gentleman's office. Then there were other tradesmen in the institntion who were employed. l<'or in,tm,ce, the tinemith made ~afes and various things that were required in the house of the late medical superintendent. It may be that the ban. gentleman did not know all these thing''·· A hill for .£5 lh 3d. was submitted to Dr. Moloney. This bill was paid nn the 18th of December, before Dr. Moloney left Dunwich, bnb no further bill was submitted until after an in­quiry was instituted-if there was an inquiry-at all evPnts nntil after the matter had been brought under the notice of the Home Secretary. Then it was discovered that the late medical superinten­dent was indebted to the institution for some con· siderahle amount, and about the end of J annary last a further bill was submitted to him-I think the amount was £5 15s. 6d.-for material sup­plied from the stores at Dun wich. In it he was charged for two lots of timber, 114 feet a.nd 261 feet, material for meat safe made by the tin­smith, Ss. ; earthenware, bends, juuction2, and pipes, about £11s. 9d. ; glass, 19s. ; and putty, £1 13s. 4d. There are other items included, I believe, in this bill which were afterwards struck out; but if there is an inquiry, it will be nec0S· sary to endeavour to get the people wbo have given me this information to substantiate it. If it is found that these statements are correct, then it is a public disgrace that any person placed in such a position should turn to his own advantage not only material-which I believe he was able to get far cheaper than he would have got it anywhere else-but should be able also to take the labour of people who are employed to do Government work, and practi­cally turn them to his own use. There are nnm hers of other things in connection with this which I could enumerate, but I am only doing this because I believe it is necessary in the interests of public morality to establish the truth or falsity of the information which has been fur­nished to me.

The SECRETARY ]'OR PUBLIC LANDS : Who is to suffer for the libel you are uttering now ?

Address in Reply. (30 JUNE.] Address in Reply. 169

Mr. TURLEY : I am not endeavouring to attach ttny libel to the pE>rson whose name I have m~ntioned, but there is no other way posRible of getting an inquiry into these matters to see if they are true than by bringing them up here. Since this information is in my poss• s­sion, it may also be in the possession of other people, and it is necessary that its truth or false­hood should be established. I have not given all the information that is in my possession, because I think that, if an inquiry was made into the state of affairs tha,t existed in that institution, we should be able to establish its truth, and I mention the matter because it i.; very hard, until these things are made public, to get an unbiassed inquiry into the position of affairs. There might be a small departmental inquiry, and a couple of men mig;ht be appointed to look into things, but people who are in posses­sion of information are not satisfied with that state of affairs, and they want to know whether people in positions of trust are in the habit of taking advantage of their positions for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of the country.

ThA SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION: Like most hon. members. I had no intention of speaking, bnt I have been in­duced to get up mainly by the statements mane by the last speaker. That hon. member brought in at the close of his speech a charge which reflects upon the Home Secretary, and told us that his reason for so doing was that unless he did so he could obtain no remedy. I would ask him if be bas taken the ordinary course to begin with. Has he been to the Home Secretary?

Mr. TURLEY : Yes. The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­

STRUCTION: Then he ought to show that he has received no remedy. He is gradually quali­fying himself for a detective, which seems to be the profession he is desirous of following. He has given us an anonymous letter, and wants an inquiry, but he has gone a very round-about way to get it. I would ask him if he has made any inquiry himself, or has he done everything upon the faith of an anonymous letter? I fail to see why in a debate upon the Address in Reply the hon. member should occupy the House with a matter of this clescription, which, after all, is a mere matter of detail to be dealt wit.b without any difficulty whatever by the Home Secretary. '£he least an hon. member can do befnre he occupies the attention of the House with a case of this sort is to make some small inquiry himself, and be responsible to some extent for the charges which he makes or inspires. With regard to the Address in Reply generally, I do not think the Government have very much to defend, because the attack has not been at all a serious one. Most of the de hate has really not been an attack upon the policy of the Govern­ment, but upon a lot of matters which I can only call extraneous. We have had all sorts of matters introduced. For instance, some hon. members have told us in the most pnerile fashion that one of the reasons they have for objecting to the Speech is its length. It would have been just as easy to object to its shortness. No one could make a speech of the exact length which would suit hon. members opposite, but if I were on the other side I think I would give an order for the Speech to be a certain length, or it wonld not suit me. The Speech, as a matter of fact, occupied five and a-half columns; it dealt with the whole of the adminis­tration of the Government, and referred to some twenty-eight matters of considerable importance to the country, but the speech of the hon. member for Rockhampton North on the reply to it occupies no less than twelve and a-half columns, while another hon. member who corn-

plained of the length of the Speech was unable to express his opinion in less than six and a-half columns. I could not help thinking of the remark in the Scriptures that the man who has a beam in his own eye will persist in finding fault with the mote in his neighbour's eye. Time will not permit me to deal with all of the various matters mentioned in the Speech; I will content myself by saying that anyone who will reflect npon what was said will see that some of the argu­ments were foolish, and that some of the state­ments could not be substantiated. There are three things I take it upon which the Government have been challenged. The first io the appoint­ment of a member of the Upp13r House M Secre­tary for Agriculture. I do not propose to go into that, as it has been replied to repeatedly, and it htts been pointed out thttt, although we have not the SecrPtary for Agriculture, we have somebody else. We have the Postmaster-General in this House, and so far as the control of this House over the people's money is concerned it is gr!'ater now than it has ever been before. The argument against the present appoint­ment is an argument against having any Minister at all in the other House. Then we come to the appointment of Mr. Archibald. That has been dealt with, and no attempt has been made to meet the explanation given of it. A short time ago we had an hon. member giving testimony to the worth of the man, and it has been stated by members on the other ~ide that he would have been elected by the people as their reprefientative. 8o far as re!lards the locality in appointing members to the Upper House, hon. members know very well that the objection to that urged by the hon. member for Cairns is perfectly valid; that if you insist upon having members in that House representing a far-away constituency such as that represented, for inHtance, by the hon. member for Burke, they must be compensated for their time. It therefore follows so long as the system under which the Upper House is con­stituted exists, so long will we be compelled to appoint gentlemen who reside within a com­paratively reasonable distance of Brisbane, or else men who have independent incomes.

Mr. DAWSON: And the South will predomi­nate.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION: It will naturally under that system. I am not in the least posing as at advocate for that system. I would prefer an elective Upper House, and I trust that some day it will be brotight about. 'I'here is another matter to which I feel it is my duty to refer. The hon. member for Charters Towers criticised the want of acknowledgment in the 8peech of the fact that the Attorney-General was absPnt from this House. I am glad he made that comment, because I have seen it in papers of considerahle repute that in the Speech His Excellency has made allusion to the absence of the Premier, and that, though the Attorney-General is also absent in a representative or quasi-representative capacity, no allusion to that fact is made in the Speech. :From that all sorts of deductions unfavourable to the Government and to the Attorney-General have been drawn.

Mr. DAWSO!<: And no mention has been made of it by the Government supporters either.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION : That no mention generally has been mane of the cirCUmRtances is the graVamen of the hon. member's charge. That affords a perfectly easy explanation, and one which has only to be made to be generally accepted. vV e know that Lhe Premier is the Minister who is directly respunsible to His Excellency by our Constitution. If the Premier resigns, his resig­nation carries with it instantly the resignation of his colleagues. If the Ministry are defeated by

170 Arld1•ess in Rep(lf. [ASSEMBLY.] .Address ln Reply.

a vote of want of confidence-which I expect is to be moved after this debate-His Excellency will not send for six or nine persons, lmt for only one person, po,,,;ibly the hon. member for Bundaberg or the hon. member for Bnrke. Tile Premier is the one perRon knot'.rn to l-jj~; ExeE>llency, :;,nd when there i; put into his moo1th a Speech of that •:ie•criJ?­lion, for which, of course, the Govr,rnment rs r.'sponsible, it is quite natural for him to refer to the absence of the Premier, who is the inter­mediRry between Parliament and the people. It is not nece,sary, and it i.s not usual to allude to the absence of any other :Minister, who is only a subordinate, for, though the Premier may be first amongst equals, it is customary to regard the other Minister& more or less as his satellites. The fact that the absence of the Attorney­General has not been alluded tn is easily explained by the fact that it is entirely in ke,,ping and in consonance with cnstom, and hac! any other course been adopted in the Speech it would have been unusual anrl contrary to precedent. Thrme really are the only matter' of considerable importance that are alleged against the Govern­ment; and if that is all that cctn be alleged against them during the last r;ix months, with the addition of the ingenuity and very ferLile fancy of hon. members oppflite, the Government is assoilised. Ihere is one other matter I will touch upon. The hon. member for Carpentaria, who has just returned from his constituency, has cmne dis~nt.isfied bec:tuse a grievance to which he called attention last session has, he thinks, not yet been ;·emedied. That is a perfectly legiLimate ground of c )m plaint. Considerin(( the distance which separates the hon. member from his constituency he must hflve been absent for some time, and during that time the grievance of which he complains has, I venture to s·ty, been entirely settled. The facts are these : At the time these Chinamen appeared in Camooweal, it was arranged that a constable should apprehend any Chinamen who appeared there, but unfler some misapprehenswn or mis­take the voliceman had not received thflt appointment as Customs officer that wou!d unable him to legally perform his functions.

Mr. SrM: \Vby w<ts not that discovered 9" year ao-o ~

",.rile SECRETARY IcOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION: The hon. member, although he draws attention to the mistake, will readily acknowledge that mistakes ,d]] occur, especially considering, as he. continually c<mtends, the diffi­culties of administration of this vast colony. As soon as the Chief Secretary was made aware of the mistake the constable wa~ appointed an officer of Cust,,m,,, the whole of the Chinamen were rearresteil, and it will be very satisfactory to the hon. member to know that the cases were brought on again, and they were promptly incar­cerated in the gaol there and the penalty re­covered. That explanation shows that the Government were in no way reluctant to t>tke action. \Vith regard to the Kanaka problem, I am not going into it to-night. I question whether some hon. members would be able to enjoy their lives, or possibly to retain th"ir seat>', if they had not that problem to deal with. With regard to the ,Japanese, some hon. members h>we appa­rently dL;covered the Japanese, but they were discovered some time ago by the Government.

Mr. DAWSON: They have been very slow to m<tke u•e of it.

The SECRE'.rARY FOR PUBLIC IN­RTUCTION : Some hon. members believe th«t the evidence of activity is in the exuberance of talk. I venture to say that the people wh" count for most in the world are not the talkers but the doers. The most difficult thing, and at the same time the most neC{cSsary thing in the world, is to have

patience. No amount of ingenuity will make an oak tree grow in a day, and no amount of criticism will enable people to overcome cer­tain obstacles always mherent in negotiations. In the matter of the Japanese I again say that the danger to the colony which has been appre­hended has been apparent not only to the Government, but to everybody who was con­versant with the facts. I have been to Thursday Island. I saw a great many J aps there, though I did not discover at that time what they call the "Y oshiwarra." That the J aps are a distinct danger to Queensland is an assertion with which I entirely agree; but the Government have been alive to the fact for a very long time.

Mr. DAWSON: Two years ago hon. members on this side were the only ones against the Japs.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION : It is only a question of degree. If one Japanese soldier landed in the United Kingdom no great scare would follow. If ten ,Japanese men-of-war appeared in the British Channel I should be sorry for them. But if 500 Japanese men-of-war of 14,000 tons, manned by 500,000 sailors, made their appe,.rance there might be reason for ap­prehension. There was a time when there was no apparent ground for apprehending any great incursion of J apanP.>e into Qneensland. The Japanese Government are not in the least desir­ons, any mere than the Kaiser, that emigration should take placB. When the hon. member for Croyd"n complained about Japanese there appeared to me, and to others whose judgment I value more than my own, to be no particular danger ; but tbe danger has arisen lately, because instead of the immigration coming to an end it has gone on in increasing quantities. As soon as the Government became Rware that there was reason to apprehend danger, and that the J aps constitnted a menace to any portion of Australia, we took action. We we re in communication with the Premiers of the other colonies on the subject ; and at two conferences of Premiers Queensland joined in propoeals to exclude Japanese. New South '.Vales and South Australia have attempted to proceed with the matter by BUls, but I do not think they will be as effective as the means adopted by Queensland, which I hope will be successfully carried out. Queensla,nd has proceeded by a more amicable method and a more effective methnd, which, without giving away any of our privileges or resorting to legislation, will enable ns to attain our object by means of a treaty between Great Britain and Japan. An agree­ment is being negotiated, and we have every rt'.!lson to believe that a treaty will be arranged with the Japanese Government by which no labourers and no artisans will be permitted to come to this colony. I am saying this to show that the indictment of the Government on the supposition that they have taken no steps to deal with this grent question falls to the ground. As a matter of fact, I believe negotiations have been almost completed which will insure Queensland from the apprehended danger, and will at the same time be an object lesson to the rest of the colonies.

Mr. SrM : \Vhy not reassure the public mind by saying so in the Speech.

The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC IN­STRUCTION: We have been cha.rged with making the Speech too long, and the hnn. member blames us tor not making it longer. There is a matter alluded to in the Speech, which is of some interest to the district I represent. I refer to tbe subject of light railways. I trust the Secretary for Rail­ways will be able to see his way to adopt lines which are really, from our point of view, light

..tiddresa in lceply. [30 JUNE.] Address zn Reply. 17i

railways. In the sugar districts, we have very long lengths of lines of a light description. In the Herbert district they have about twenty wiles of such railways, and they pro poRe to extend them; and there are similar lines in other district,, I hope thattheSecretaryfor Railway' in introduc­,ing light railways will take ao hls ba8is, not the railways which are a compatative equivalent,for the present system, but railways which will serve as a substitute for the metalling of a divisional board road. The great difficulty is to get to a trunk railway. Everyone knows the great expense of making a road in the country, and everyone knows also that the expense of carriage on an ordinary road is vastly in excPss of that on a light railway. There has been an agitation for some time in the district I re[Jresent, and the subject has been referred to by my col!Pague, with reference t,o the transfer of gear in connec­tion with light lines of rail way. The want in our district, and in other agricultural districts, is some kind of transport arrangement which will enable the farmers to convey their produce conoiderable di.tances at a le;ss cost than can be done on ordinary roads. The hon. member for Bunda­berg will, I think, agree with me in that. In India they have 2fi5 miles of railway of a 2-feet and 2-feet 6-inch guage. The gross earnings are £347 per mile, the working expenses are under 33 per cent., and concessions are now being granted to run alongside existing roads. In Egy[Jt they have now 630 miles of light agricul­tura!Jin,,s-that is to say, lines of 2-feet guage­and every year there are fresh demands for these line~, as it is found that they enable greater areas of land to be put under cultivation, and so afford a livelihood to multitudes of people. The cost of these lines is estimated by Mr. Benj. Baker, the chief engineer, at £1,325 per mile, and unlike our estimates his in­cludes plant, rolling-stock, general contin­gencies, stations, and everything. That is considerably less than the expense we incur in the construction of any of our lines on the present guage. But at this late period of the evening I will not pursue the subject further. I shall not refer to the Darjeeling Railway in India, beyond stating that it is of 2-feet guage, and ascends 6,600 feet in 45 miles, and that its earnings are 8 per cent. I have referred to this matter not only because it is of interest to the constituency I represent but also because I con­sider it exceedingly important to the progress of Queensland. There are several other matters which it would have given me pleasure to refer to, but at this late hour I shall not detain the HJuse any longer.

The SECRETARY FOR MINES: I should like f;o occupy just a fev.; minutes to contradict a statement made by the hon. member for Croydon and the hon. member for Carpentaria to the effect that no map showing the Croydon Gold ]'ield was exhibited at the Melbourne Exhibition. The hon. member for Croydon stated that he had been told that such was the case, and the hon. member for Carpwtaria said that he spoke from personal knowledge. I inquired if what has been stated was correct, and JVIr. Jack writes as follows:-

That the latest geological map of the colony, dated 1892, but really brought up to 1893, on the scale of six­teen miles to an inch, was sent by me, seen by me on the wall of the exhibition, and returned to me after the close of the exhibition in time for the opening of the Queensland Exhibition, where it can now be seen. The ma.p shows, with geologieal colouring, every field known west of the Hodgkinson with the exception of the Leichhardt Gold Field, which was discovered since its publication.

I thought that the mining members would have given Mr. Jack some praise for the steps he took in this matter. I know that everybody out-side

the mining members have said that Mr. Jack deserved unstinted praise for his exertions in connection with the exhibition.

Mr, BROWNll : The mining members said that too.

'rhe SECRETARY JWR MINES : I do not think so. However, Mr. Jack states distinctly that he sent a map to the Melbourne Exhibition, that he saw it there, and thc;t it was returned to him in time for the Queensland Exhibition. The hon. member for Carpentaria may not have seen that map; but ~.!r. Jack says it was exhibited, and I do not think there is a man in the colony who deserves more credit than lYir. Jack for what he has done in connection with the mining industry.

Mr. SIM: With the permission of the House I should like to say a few words in uxplanation.

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

Ho:«OURABLE MExiBERS : Hear, hear Mr. SIM : I should not have risen except for

the fact that the remarks of the Minister seem to cast a doubt on my veracity. I consider myself quite "s honourable a man as Mr. Jack, for whom I have the greatest po ;sible respect, as I have also for the Secretary for Mines. But I say that on three or four occasions I searched the walls of that building for a map of the Croydon Gold Field-not a map of Queensland. I looked for a map of the Croydon Gold Field, snch as was exhibited in regard to Eidsvold and other places, and I found no such map on the walls of that building. I can produce the affi­davits of at least four or five other men who searched for the same object and could not find it. I said that in my O)Jinion the omission was due to carelessness. The map may have been sent, and Mr. Jack may have seen it on the walls, but it was certainly not on the walls during the three or four occasions that I visited the exhibition in Melb~urne. I searched very diligently for it, because I had a particular interest in the field, such as Mr. Jack did not have, and if the map had been there I should have been sure to have found it, for I went orer every map on the walls. I do not wish to impute that the department deliberately tried to ignore Croydon. I simply mentioned the fact that such a map was not there, and that it ought to have been. I would like to add, and I have said it often before, on the plat­form and elsewhere, that no department is administered more in the interests of the people of the colony than the department over which the hon. gentleman presides, and that no lYiinister takes a more earnest and sincere intereot in his department than the Secretary for Mines, and I may say that I yield to no man in my respect for Mr. Jack and my acknowledgment of the great services he has rendered to the colony.

Mr. HAMILTON : As my vemcity has been impugned I desire, with the permission of the House, to say a word or two in reply.

The SPEAKER: I would draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that if this is allowed the debate will be interminable.

Mr. HAMILTON: Seeing that my veracity has been impugned also, I claim the same pri­vilege that has been granted to the hon. member for Ca.rpentaria--

HoNOURABLE MEMBERS: Hear, hear! Mr. HAMILTON: The hon. member is

endeavouring to put ns on a false track. The statement of the hon. member for Croydon was that on the geological map of Queensland at the Melbourne Exhibition no goldfield was marked north or west of the Hodgkinson. T stated that that was not the ea""• that I had seen a geolo­gical map there showing all the goldfields north and west of the HodgkinsGn ; and that very map,

i72 .Australasian Fede~·ation [ASSEMBLY.]

according to Mr. Jack's statement, is now hung up at the J~xhibition in BriHbane, and any hon. member can see for himself that it shows every goldfield in the colony.

Question put and pa~'''ed. The ACTING PREMIER: I have ascer­

tained from the Governor that he will be at Govanment Horse at a quarter to 3 o'clock to­morrow, when he will he pleased to receive the Address in Reply. I hope hon. member> will do me the favour of making a quorum at half-past 2 instead of 3 o'clock. I move that t.he Speech of His Excellency the Governor he taken into con­sideration at the next sitting of the House.

Question put and passed. The House adjourned at a quarter to 11 o'clock.

Enabling Bill.