Australasian Democracy

It would seem that the only valid objection which can now be made against the system, except by those who disagree from the whole thing on principle, is, that it may lead to the gradual depopulation of some of the islands by the withdrawal of a considerable proportion of the adult males of marriageable age. It may be noted, in this connection, that the islanders have also been recruited for Guatemala, if not for other countries.

The mode of cultivation and the treatment of the raw material have been modified during the last few years. At first the cane was grown solely in large plantations, each of which possessed a separate mill and treated only its own produce; but as prices fell and the local demand was overtaken, more scientific methods began to prevail. It was found, on the one hand, that the cane could be treated most economically on a large scale; on the other, that few plantations were sufficiently extensive to keep a large mill at work during the whole season. To meet these conditions, central mills were constructed and the land was in many cases subdivided, and let or sold on a system of deferred payments to farmers, who were encouraged to cultivate it in small areas, and to send their cane to the factories. The interests of the mill-owner and the farmers should be identical; the former is anxious that his mill should be worked to its full capacity, and has every inducement to dispose of his land upon terms favourable to cultivators; the latter have a sure outlet for the disposal of their produce. In 1894, fully 40 per cent. of the 80,000 acres under cane was cultivated in areas of ninety acres and under. An impetus was given to this movement by the temporary prohibition of the importation of islanders, which compelled planters to consider the possibility of an alternative to coloured labour, and by a vote of £50,000, by means of which two central mills were erected for groups of small farmers. The success of these mills induced the Government to pass the Sugar Works Guarantee Act, under which "any company which can give the Government security in land, has the requisite cane crops growing for a fair season's mill work, and can show that it has an area of land capable of supplying the mill with a full crop, can obtain the sanction of the Government to accept a tender for the erection of a factory, the State guaranteeing the interest and the redemption of the debentures issued in payment for it. By this measure the country has not only supplied the means for the steady development of the industry, but has taken, in its belief in the soundness of the enterprise, a direct interest in it. No surer guarantee can exist than this law, that the Parliament of Queensland will in future safeguard the prosperity of an undertaking in which the State has so keen an incentive to protect itself from loss."² The contingent liability incurred by the State in the year ending June, 1895, was £157,000, and in the preceding year £44,000: the amount is likely to be increased, as the construction of seven additional mills has been conditionally approved of, but, under an amending Act of 1895, is not to exceed a total of £500,000. The Premier sees no reason to suppose that, with proper management, any of the new factories will fail to meet their liabilities to the State.

Under these circumstances the question arises whether coloured labour will permanently be necessary, the answer to which depends upon the ability of the white man to become acclimatised in a tropical country. "If the white man," to quote a prominent Queenslander, "can live and work and bring up his children in the tropics of this continent, then assuredly the time will come when we shall require coloured labourers to cultivate our cane no more than do the continental sugar-beet farmers require coloured men to do their field work. Where can we look for proof of the European's ability to work and live in the heated North? He works on railways and in mines now, but there is an entire lack of evidence that his children and his children's children can continue to do so with unimpaired health and vigour. Again, it has to be seen what will be the normal death-rate in the North. It has been heavy, but we have yet to estimate the lowering of that rate as the malarial swamps are drained, and the dense tropical scrubs cleared away.... Time alone can solve this question thoroughly, though it may be permitted one to say that so far there is ample reason to think that the evidence is accumulating in favour of the European's ability to permanently inhabit and cultivate our tropical lands. There is some satisfaction in noting, for instance, that, despite the increased settlement in Northern Queensland, the death-rate for the Colony has fallen from 22.97 Per 1,000 in 1884 to 12.08 in 1894."³ The rate of mortality among the Kanakas is reported officially to have been 40.62 per 1,000 in 1894, and 29.64 in 1895. Their employment is absolutely prohibited in the mills, and is restricted to certain forms of work upon the plantations. The Government are anxious to replace the Kanakas gradually by white labourers and to settle the tropical littoral with a population of small farmers. This object, however, it is contended, cannot be attained without the temporary employment of coloured labour. Another aspect of the question may be noted: granted that white men cannot at present do all the work upon the plantations, Kanakas are preferable to Orientals, whether Chinese or Japanese, who would remain permanently in the country. Even in Queensland, though less than in the Southern Provinces, such a state of things would be regarded as eminently undesirable.

A considerable demand for white labour has thus been created, the extent of which may be gauged from the figures given to me by a planter who has 3,000 acres under cane in the neighbourhood of Bundaberg. Upon land which formerly carried 800 head of cattle and gave employment to a single married couple, he now employs 300 Kanakas and 80 white men during the whole of the year, and 120 additional white men during the crushing season, which lasts, as a rule, from June to December. The latter are compelled to shift for themselves during the remaining months of the year and wander about the country in the search for casual work; many, it is said, seek it in the agricultural districts of the Darling Downs.

The people of Queensland are confronted with a serious problem in the fact that of the three principal industries of the countries, mining alone affords regular and constant employment, and that only on proved goldfields. In the sugar industry, as stated, about 40 per cent. of the labourers, exclusive of the islanders, are permanently employed, and in the pastoral industry the proportion is even smaller. On a typical sheep-station in the Central district which carries 80,000 sheep, the permanent staff number only 19, and are supplemented at shearing time by some 25 to 30 shearers and as many more workmen who pick up, sort, and pack the fleeces. The shearers with whom I conversed bewailed the irregularity of their employment; they work at high pressure for a few months in the wool-sheds, and have no fixed occupation during the remainder of the year. I was favourably impressed by the men, and was informed that, as a class, they have much improved of late years, and that many of them have considerable savings. Allowances must be made for workmen who are herded together, good characters with bad, and lead a nomadic and demoralising existence which lacks the sobering influences of sustained industry and domestic associations. Recent Ministries have been alive to the importance of this question and have aimed at the gradual diminution of the size of pastoral properties held from the Crown. The Land Act of 1884 divided them into two equal parts, over one of which the holder was offered a fixed lease for 21 years, while the other was to be subject to resumption by the State as the demand for the land might arise. Under this provision large tracts of country have been thrown open for occupation as grazing farms of from 5,000 to 20,000 acres and have been eagerly taken up, as many as twenty applications having been received for a single farm where the quality of the soil has been exceptionally favourable. The Act of 1894, passed by the present Government, established a new form of tenure which was intended to meet the special requirements of the shearers. Grazing homesteads not exceeding 2,500 acres in area may be acquired at a low rental, subject to the condition that the selector must reside upon the land for not less than six consecutive months in each year during the first ten years of his lease; but, under license from the Land Board, the selectors of two or more homesteads may co-operate to work their holdings as a whole, in which case residence by one-half of the whole number of selectors will fulfil the conditions of occupation. Some of the shearers may, from the force of habit, be incapable of a settled existence; but many of them proclaim their desire to occupy land and are hereby afforded an opportunity which they have scarcely at present realised. The attractiveness of this form of tenure will be increased if the Government pass their proposed legislation to authorise them to sink bores for the supply of water to the smaller holdings.

A better state of things prevails upon the Darling Downs in the south of the Province, where the shearing is done by cultivators and others who are in regular employment. This part of the country should eventually carry a large resident population engaged in the growth of cereals and in dairy-farming. To promote settlement and "in the strong belief that Queensland is capable of and will soon be supplying not only her own requirements, but also of exporting largely of her surplus farm products, the Government have made provision in connection with the Torres Strait Service for the carriage of farm and dairy produce in large quantities, and have also submitted to Parliament a measure for the appointment of an additional Minister, to be charged solely with the development of agricultural interests, and have taken the necessary steps for the establishment of an agricultural college within a reasonable distance from Brisbane."⁴ The export of dairy produce has been encouraged by the offer of a bonus, and the construction of butter factories by loans, the funds being obtained from a portion of the proceeds of a tax imposed upon owners of sheep and cattle by the Meat and Dairy Produce Encouragement Act of 1893. The remainder is expended in advances to proprietors of meat works, and it is provided in a subsequent Act, that the amounts received in payment of interest or repayment of the principal of the loans, may be refunded to the payers of the tax. The progress of settlement has been retarded by the alienation from the Crown of much of the land that is most suitable for the purpose, both in quality and situation. The freehold has in many cases passed to financial institutions, which, having advanced upon it an amount greater than the present value as depreciated by the fall in prices, are unwilling to sell the land and to reconcile themselves to their losses. The Government have been authorised by the Agricultural Land Purchase Act of 1894, to expend a sum not exceeding £100,000 a year in the purchase, under voluntary agreement, of land suitable for agricultural settlement which is to be offered for selection in agricultural farms, and have made considerable use of their powers, but the system has not been sufficiently long in operation to enable an estimate to be formed of its results.

The irregularity of employment has engendered among the working classes a widespread feeling of discontentment, and constitutes one of the main causes of the numerical strength of the Labour vote, which amounts to about 34 per cent. of the whole. The Parliamentary Labour Party in Queensland differs from that of the other Australian Colonies in its close identification with directly socialistic aspirations. It was founded to give effect to the political platform of the Australian Labour Federation, published in 1890 under the influence of the communist, William Lane, which advocates "the nationalisation of all sources of wealth and all means of producing and exchanging wealth;" its organ, The Worker, writes under the motto "Socialism in our time," and several of its members publicly admit that they are Socialists. Others, however, who look forward to the possibility of an alliance with a reconstructed Opposition ask to be judged solely by the programme of the party which contains no distinctly socialistic item, in the popular acceptation of the term, except the establishment of a State Labour Department to which men may apply as a right for work at a minimum wage; but they will have difficulty in overcoming the general impression, which their opponents, not unnaturally, do all in their power to intensify.

The Party first came into prominence at the elections in 1893, when they won fifteen seats out of seventy-two, and have nothing to show in the way of practical legislation to counterbalance the undoubted consolidation of the forces of their opponents. A comparison suggests itself with the success of the Labour Parties in New Zealand and South Australia which have co-operated with progressive Ministers in the enactment of measures of social reform. In the latter case, the Labour Party have been so moderate in their programme, speeches, and actions, that they have carried a quarter of the seats in the Legislative Council, and thus prove themselves not to have alienated the householders and small owners of property who form the bulk of the electorate for that House. In New South Wales the Labour Party have been able, by opportunistic transfers of their votes, to secure electoral reform and the taxation of incomes and land values. The position of affairs in Queensland is not analogous; the coalition of Sir S. Griffith and Sir T. McIlwraith practically destroyed the Opposition, and made it necessary for the Labour Party to trust almost entirely to their own efforts, which should have been directed towards the concentration of all the progressive feeling of the community. Their policy, on the contrary, has deprived them of the support of many who are dissatisfied with the Government, and has not materially strengthened their hold upon the working classes. Though they carried twenty seats in 1896, they only polled 964 more votes than in 1893, nor have they improved their position in the House, as, even should they be supported by the ten Oppositionists and Independents, they would be confronted by a solid phalanx of forty-two Ministerialists. It may be of interest to note that their principal successes have been gained among bushmen and miners, but that they also hold the sugar district of Bundaberg, two agricultural constituencies, two seats at Rockhampton, and three in the poorer and outlying parts of Brisbane.

The complaints of the Labour Party against the Government were directed mainly to their failure to amend the electoral laws or to pass humanitarian legislation, and to the stringency of the Peace Preservation Act of 1894. Apart from their obvious objections to the plural vote of persons holding property in different divisions, they contend that many miners and shearers are permanently disfranchised, as they are neither householders nor reside for six months in the same place, and that persons qualified to be registered are impeded by the provisions which oblige them to fill in a claim in which, among other things, they have to state their qualification, and to get the claim attested by a justice of the peace, electoral registrar, or head male teacher of a State school. The Peace Preservation Act was passed at a time when a serious disturbance had arisen from a strike of shearers in the pastoral districts of the West, on the ground that the ordinary laws of the Colony were insufficient for the prevention, detection, and punishment of crime in such districts, and was as strongly justified by some as it was condemned by others. The Act authorised the Executive to proclaim districts which should come under its operation, and to appoint such district magistrates as might be necessary for carrying its provisions into effect. These may be summarised in the words of the Hon. T. J. Byrnes, the Attorney-General: "The first portion of this legislation is to give us power to put an end to the carrying of arms and the sale of arms in the districts that have been disturbed… It is proposed in the second part of the Bill that inquests on crime may be held… The third portion of the Bill deals with the power of arrest and detention of persons under suspicion." Under the latter heading persons suspected of crime committed in a proclaimed district could be arrested by a special or provisional warrant, in any part of Queensland, and be detained in prison; but it was provided that such persons should be treated as persons accused of crime and not as convicted prisoners, and that no person "should be held in custody under a provisional warrant for a longer period than thirty days, nor under a special warrant for a longer period than two months, without being brought to trial for the offence stated in such warrant." In justification of the measure, the same Minister quoted cases in which woolsheds had been burnt and the police and private individuals had been fired upon although no actual loss of life had occurred. A stranger cannot form an opinion upon the question and can only note, on the one side, that the operation of the Act was limited to one year, that it was most judiciously administered, not more than one district, under a single district magistrate, having been proclaimed, and that it brought about the speedy cessation of the troubles; on the other, that no attempt was made by the Government at mediation between the opposing parties, although, to quote the Attorney-General again, they "knew that labour troubles of an aggravated nature were likely to occur." A Bill "to provide for conciliation in industrial pursuits" is included in the programme of the Government.

As regards the necessity for humanitarian legislation, reference can be made to the evidence given before a Royal Commission in 1891. The Commissioners were unanimous in reporting that, in many factories and workshops which they had visited, the sanitary conditions were very bad, the ventilation was improperly attended to, and little or no attempt had been made to guard the machinery. They were agreed as to the need of further legislation, but, while some were of opinion that the wider powers should be exercised by inspectors under the local authorities, others were in favour of the appointment of a special class of male and female inspectors. They also found that children of the ages of ten, eleven, and twelve years were employed in factories, and that the hours of labour in many retail shops were very long, adding that medical evidence was conclusive that the excessive hours were more injurious to health in Queensland than they would be in a colder climate; but they were unable to concur as to the advisability of legislative interference. A Factory Act, though not of a very stringent character, was passed by the Government towards the end of the session of 1896.

The attention of the Government during the last few years has been directed mainly towards the restoration of the credit of the country and the development of its industries. Queensland reached its lowest ebb in 1889, when, in spite of the recent loan of ten millions, the deficit amounted to £484,000. Since that time matters have rapidly improved, and in 1895 and 1896 the revenue was considerably in excess of the expenditure. This result has been achieved by economical administration, and the direct encouragement of enterprise which has been effected by a large extension of the sphere of State action. The principles involved appear to have been threefold.

First, that the State should facilitate the occupation of outlying districts by the construction of public works, provided they may be expected to return a fair interest upon the expenditure. The proposals put forward some fifteen years ago, that the three Western lines should be connected with the Gulf of Carpentaria by a series of Land Grant Railways, were condemned by the sense of the community, which preferred to postpone their construction until it could be undertaken by the State. In pursuance of this policy all the railways are owned and managed by the State, which has recently protected itself against the danger of the construction of unprofitable lines under political pressure by an Act of Parliament under which, upon any fresh proposal, the local authorities affected may be required to give a guarantee that they will, for a period of years, should the earnings fail to reach a certain standard, make good half of the deficiency out of the rates. In the Western portions of the Colony, in which occupation has been retarded by the scarcity of water, the Government have also incurred considerable expenditure in the successful provision of artesian water and in general works of conservation.

Secondly, that the State may assist producers to dispose advantageously of their produce. Reference has been made to the contracts which the Government have entered into with the British India Company for the carriage of farm and dairy produce. They are now considering the advisability of assisting cattle-owners, whose resources are severely strained by the low prices which they obtain in London for their frozen meat. The principal cause of the low prices and the attitude of the Premier can be gathered from the following extract from the financial statement which he delivered in 1896:—

"Our meat I believe to be as good as any in the world, and the cost at which it can be delivered at a profit at the ports of the Colony will compare favourably with any other country that I am aware of; and yet the prices lately obtainable in London are such as barely cover the charges for freezing, freight, insurance, &c. Something will have to be done if the industry is to be preserved. The only suggestion I have received as yet is that the Colony, either individually or in conjunction with the other Colonies, should take the business of distribution into its own hands, as it is believed that, whilst the consumers give good value for our meat, a great part of that value is absorbed by various graduations of middlemen, leaving, as I have said, a margin for the producer altogether disproportionate to the real value of the product. To effect this a large amount of capital will be required, respecting which I have no proposal to submit, as the matter is really one for private enterprise to undertake, but I mention the matter as one requiring speedy and most serious attention, because, if private enterprise should not be forthcoming to cope with the difficulty, it may devolve upon Parliament to adopt such measures as may appear practicable to conserve an important industry which we can ill afford to lose."

Subsequently, I understand (I was not in Queensland at the time), a Parliamentary Committee was instructed to consider the question, and reported in favour of the establishment at London and in the provinces of depôts for the receipt and distribution of frozen meat.

On another occasion, referring to the injury done to the harbour of Brisbane by excessive towage rates, the Premier said that if private enterprise could not do it for a less sum, it would be a very simple thing for the Government to take the matter in hand.

Thirdly, that the State may use its credit, after strict investigation of the circumstances and upon conviction of the validity of the security, to enable prospective producers to borrow money at a low rate of interest. The Sugar Works Guarantee Act, of which I have quoted the provisions, has led other producers to ask for similar concessions. The farmers want flour mills and cheap money; the pastoralists and graziers complain of the tax levied upon them under the Meat and Dairy Produce Encouragement Acts. Why, they ask, should the sugar industry be exceptionally favoured? Again, if the Government are to establish distributing agencies for frozen meat, why not also for other produce?

The Socialists describe these various measures as a spurious form of socialism calculated to increase the profits of a single class of the community; but the Government do not trouble themselves about abstract terms. They have steadily pursued a settled policy, and have successively assisted the sugar, pastoral, and agricultural interests; they are prepared, if necessary, to give substantial help to cattle-owners in the disposal of their produce, and they intend to propose amendments of the mining laws which will promote the further development of the industry. Nor have the producers alone been benefited; the working classes, who are the first to suffer in times of depression, are sharing in the renewed prosperity of the country, and have been able to take advantage of the increased demand for their services.