Australasian Democracy

In 1894 the Government passed an Act which was intended to meet the special requirements of the unemployed. Any number of men composing an association may, by agreement with the Minister of Lands, settle upon Crown Lands for the purpose of clearing or otherwise improving them, and will, subject to the authorisation of Parliament, receive from the Colonial Treasurer payment for their work. They are entitled thereupon to take up holdings at a rental based on the combined value of the land in an unimproved condition and of the improvements. This system, which is known as that of Improved Farm Settlements, has been worked largely in connection with co-operative works. In March of last year 39 settlements had been initiated which covered 63,600 acres and carried 679 residents. They have "had the effect of removing from the towns a considerable number of people who otherwise would have been found in the ranks of the unemployed, and an opportunity has been given to all who are really desirous of becoming bonâ-fide settlers to make homes for themselves, and become producers rather than a burden on the State. Many who have taken up land on this system brought no experience with them to aid in the operations of the pioneer work of settlement, and this had to be gained at some cost to themselves and the State. So long as the Government continues monetary aid by way of assisting in clearing, grassing, and house-building, all will go well; by the time this comes to an end, sufficient experience should have been gained, and the farms ought to be stocked. This latter is at present a difficulty with many of the settlers, for it is obvious that many of them can at first do little more than support themselves out of the moneys advanced for clearing, without sparing anything for stock."8 The success of these settlements, it is pointed out, depends upon the simultaneous occupation by men with capital of the adjoining Crown Lands in larger holdings on which there will be a demand for the labour of the settlers; otherwise they will be in difficulties when the roads are completed, as their blocks of a hundred acres or so will not alone suffice to secure to them a livelihood. This principle has been borne in view, as far as possible, in the location of the settlements.

Labourers for the co-operative works, I should have stated, are recommended by the local agencies of the Labour Department, and are selected on the principle that applicants not previously employed have priority of claim over those who have recently had employment; that men resident in the neighbourhood of the works have priority over non-residents, and that married men have priority over single men; while the qualifications of the men as workmen and their personal characters are naturally taken into consideration. During the five years of its existence, the Labour Department has found employment for nearly 16,000 men; of the 2,781 men assisted during the year ending March, 1896, 2,163 were sent to Government works. Under the control of the Labour Department is a State Farm, in the province of Wellington, at which unemployed are received for a few weeks or months, and, having saved a few pounds, are enabled to seek work elsewhere. The farm is specially adapted for young, able-bodied men who have been brought up as clerks and shop assistants, but, owing to the stress of competition, have been thrown out of employment. Many of them would be prepared to undertake manual labour, but lack the necessary experience. At the farm they would be able to obtain in a short time sufficient knowledge to render them capable of accepting work for private employment. The Secretary of the Department of Labour, Mr. Tregear, maintains that the farm has proved its usefulness and should be supplemented by similar institutions in the other provinces. Since the last annual report, I understand, the Government have decided, as the land has been improved to a point which renders it impossible to employ any considerable number upon it profitably, to dispose of it, and to remove the workmen to fresh areas of uncleared land. They hope to recoup themselves for their whole expenditure, but will not necessarily be convicted of failure should they fail to do so, as the undertaking was started on a charitable, and not on a commercial, basis. It aimed at the assistance of the genuine unemployed, and was not intended to become a refuge for confirmed loafers. On this point Mr. Tregear writes, and his views are those of the working men of New Zealand: "I am more and more impressed with the necessity that exists of establishing farms which shall be used as places of restriction for the incurably vagrant atoms of the population. The State Farm does not and should not fulfil this purpose; it is for the disposal and help of worthy persons, unsuccessful for the time, or failing through advance in years. What is required is a place of detention and discipline. There exists in every town a certain number of men whose position vibrates between that of the loafer and the criminal: these should altogether be removed from cities. The spieler, the bookmaker, the habitual drunkard, the loafer on his wife's earnings, the man who has no honest occupation, he whose condition of 'unemployed' has become chronic and insoluble—all these persons are evil examples and possible dangers. Such an one should be liable, on conviction before a stipendiary magistrate, to be removed for one or two years to a farm, where simple food and clothes would be found for him in return for his enforced labour. The surroundings would be more healthy, and open-air life and regular occupation would induce more wholesome habits and principles than the hours formerly spent in the beer-shop and at the street-corner, while the removal from bad companionship would liberate from the pressure of old associations. He would, on his discharge, probably value more highly his liberty to work as a free man for the future, and, as the State would have been to no cost for his maintenance, it would be a gainer by his temporary removal from crowded centres. There need be no more trouble than before in regard to the sustentation of the restricted person's family, as such a vagrant is of no use to his family, but only an added burden. While for the honest workman, temporarily 'unemployed,' every sympathy should be shown and assistance to work given, for the other class, the 'unemployable,' there should be compulsory labour, even if under regulations of severity such as obtain in prisons."9 New Zealand has a justification for penal colonies lacking in older countries in the fact that the genuine unemployed can obtain assistance from the Government to enable them to settle on the land, either through the Co-operative Works or the Improved Farm Settlements.

The special efforts of the Government to settle impecunious persons on the land are still in the initial stage and have not served to neutralise the effects of the lowness of prices and consequent scarcity of employment. The total expenditure under the heading of Charitable Aid was £106,500 in the year ended March, 1896, being an increase of £20,000 upon that of the previous twelve months. A sum of £18,000 was also spent on relief works. The administration is vested in the local authorities, who obtain the necessary funds from rates, voluntary contributions and subsidies on a fixed scale from the National Exchequer. They expend one-fifth of the amount on the maintenance of destitute children and the greater portion of the remainder on outdoor relief. No information is available as to the number of persons relieved, their average ages, the form of relief or the conditions under which it is given; but it is evident from reports of the Inspector of Charitable Institutions that the administration is exceedingly lax and tends to intensify the evil which it should strive to alleviate. It would seem that, on the one hand, the Government are inculcating habits of independence, on the other, conniving at the encouragement of pauperism.

The results of recent legislation will depend, partly, on the price of produce, principally, on the methods of administration. This matter is one on which it is difficult to form an adequate opinion, as all statements are tinged more or less with the prejudice of partisanship. It is therefore best to confine oneself to Acts of Parliament and official documents while realising that the more a State extends its sphere of action, the more are its Ministers subject to political pressure and tempted to maintain themselves in office by a misuse of the possibilities of patronage. The disposal of Crown Lands is vested in Local Land Boards, which consist of the Commissioners of Crown Lands for the district, and of not less than two nor more than four members appointed for two years, but removable from time to time by warrant under the hand of the Governor. These Boards receive all applications for Crown Lands and dispose of them in accordance with the provisions of the Land Acts. They are constituted the sole judges of the fulfilment of the conditions attached to leases and may cancel them, after inquiry, subject to the right of appeal to a judge of the Supreme Court. If any lessee make default in the payment of interest, his lease is liable to absolute forfeiture, subject to a similar right of appeal, without any compensation for his improvements. This question is one of great delicacy: it is manifestly unfair to confiscate a man's improvements if he has a fair prospect of being able to meet his obligations within a definite period; on the other hand, if such latitude be allowed, possibilities of favouritism are at once admitted. Again, are all applicants for land to be treated alike, irrespective of the probability that they will be good tenants of the Crown? The Land Boards are vested with a discretionary power to refuse applications, but must state the grounds of their refusal. The best constitution for these Boards has been much discussed; but if, as has been proposed, nomination by the local authorities or election by the electors of local authorities were substituted for nomination of the Government, the pressure might be not only greater, but more immediate. Statistics, moreover, show that the administration of the Land Laws has not erred on the side of leniency. In March, 1896, the arrears of rent throughout the Province were only £15,700, a decrease of £22,000 upon the amount reported for the previous twelve months; and forfeitures had been numerous for failure to carry out the conditions of tenure. Under exceptional circumstances Parliament is prepared to make special arrangements. In view of the losses incurred by pastoralists during the severe winter of 1895, it passed a Pastoral Tenants' Relief Act, which empowered the Land Boards after inquiry into the facts of each case to grant remissions of rent or extensions of leases at reduced rentals. The Advances to Settlers Act also appears to be administered prudently, on the principle that the value of the property which may be offered as a security for a loan, and the risk of any loss from granting an advance, must determine the result of the consideration of every application. It is a necessary limitation of the Act that many of those who most require assistance, having borrowed at high rates of interest, are unable to obtain the advances which would enable them to clear off their mortgages on account of the depreciation in value of the security. Of 2,196 applications received to March of last year, 730 had been refused, and 397 had lapsed through the refusal of the department to offer amounts equal to the expectations of the applicant.

The Acts providing for the purchase of private and native land and for advances to settlers have necessitated a large increase in the indebtedness of the Colony, and a consequent divergence from the principles laid down by Sir Harry Atkinson and Mr. Ballance. The present Premier, Mr. Seddon, who succeeded Mr. Ballance in 1893, admits that his Government borrowed £3,800,000 in three years, but contends that the whole of the amount with the exception of £210,000 is being expended in such a manner as to be remunerative. The sum mentioned is exclusive of a loan for a million authorised last session, which is to be expended upon the construction of railways and roads, the purchase of native lands, and the development of the goldfields and hot springs. Have these loans been in the best interests of the Colony? A stranger can but look at the matter broadly and will be inclined to think that they follow, in natural sequence, upon the policy of Sir Julius Vogel. The State then decided that it would use its credit to accelerate the construction of railways and roads and open up outlying districts. Such works were valueless—in fact ruinous to the Province—unless they were followed by a strenuous and successful encouragement of settlement and cultivation. The latter task has been the principal work of the Seddon Government, which has attempted, not only to settle people on the land, but to settle them in suitable localities and under conditions that will give them a reasonable prospect of an independent and comfortable livelihood.

V

CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LEGISLATION

Comparisons between the Australasian Upper Houses—Conflicts between the two Houses in Victoria—The proposed obviation of deadlocks—The utility of the Legislative Council—The antagonism between Town and Country—The Factory Acts, their justification and provisions—State Socialism: Railways, Irrigation Works, the encouragement of Mining, Subsidies and Bonuses, State advances to Settlers—The Unemployed and the Leongatha Labour Colony.

The Victorian Legislative Council is, from the democratic point of view, the most objectionable of all the Australasian Upper Houses. In Queensland, New South Wales, and New Zealand, the members of the Council are nominated for life and receive no remuneration for their services; but, as their number is not restricted, their opposition to measures passed by the Assembly is limited by the dread that the Executive may exercise the power of making additional appointments. In the other Provinces the Councils are elective; in South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, as in the Provinces already mentioned, the Members are subject to no property qualification, and in New Zealand, South Australia, and Tasmania they are paid at the rate, respectively, of £150, £200, and £50 a year. In Victoria, on the other hand, there is a property qualification for membership which consists in the possession of a freehold estate of the clear annual value of £100, which confines eligibility to a small fraction of the population; and the area of selection is restricted further by the absence of remuneration and by the size of the electoral districts, which necessitates heavy expenditure on the part of a candidate at a contested election. Under these circumstances, the comparatively low electoral franchise, which admits upon the rolls two-thirds of the voters for members of the Assembly, is absolutely useless to the democratic electors: they are unable to find candidates who will adopt their views, and have been obliged, as at the last elections, to allow all the retiring members to be re-elected without opposition. It should be stated that the members are elected for a period of six years in ten provinces, and retire in rotation at intervals of two years.

The Victorian Assembly consists of ninety-five members who are elected for three years upon the basis of manhood suffrage and receive remuneration at the rate of £270 a year. Conflicts between the two Houses were incessant during the first twenty-five years of Responsible Government. Immediately after its establishment in 1855 a struggle arose as to the right of selection upon pastoral properties, in which the Council supported the interests of the squatters. The issue could not be doubtful, as the squatters, who had been allowed to depasture enormous tracts of land in the early days of the Province, had no fixed tenure and were impeding the settlement of the country. In 1865 the Assembly passed a protective tariff which was distasteful to the Council as representative of the producers, and tried to secure its enactment by tacking it on to the Appropriation Bill. They relied upon the section of the Constitution Act which provides that "all Bills for appropriating any part of the revenue of Victoria, and for imposing any duty, rate, tax, rent, return or impost, shall originate in the Assembly, and may be rejected but not altered by the Council." Upon the refusal of the Council to submit to such coercion, the Ministry arranged with various banks that they should advance the funds required for public purposes, levied a tax upon a resolution of the Assembly and paid the civil servants without parliamentary authority. A general election followed, at which the Ministry were successful; the Assembly and Council repeated their action of the previous session, and, finally, the Council agreed to accept the new tariff provided it was submitted to them in the form of a separate Bill. Similar constitutional struggles occurred in 1867 upon the proposed grant to ex-Governor Darling, and in 1877 upon the Bill to provide for the payment of Members of the Assembly. During the following years peace reigned between the two Houses, owing at first to the great prosperity of the Province, which caused universal confidence, and the predominance of material considerations; afterwards to the equally great reaction which compelled politicians to sink their differences and combine to save the credit of their country.

The antagonism was renewed in 1894 upon the proposals for additional taxation, by which the Premier, Mr. Turner, hoped to cope with an anticipated deficiency in the revenue of more than half a million pounds. His scheme included the repeal of the existing land-tax, under which landed estates of upwards of 640 acres in extent are taxed annually upon the excess of the capital value over £2,500—an impost which obviously penalises rural, at the expense of urban, properties and was intended to promote the subdivision of the land (though it does not appear to have had much effect in that direction); and the imposition of a tax on unimproved values at the rate of 1d. in the £, subject to the exemption of £100 when the value does not exceed £1,000, and of an income tax which, subject to the exemption of incomes not exceeding £200, was to be at the rate of 3d. in the £ on incomes derived from personal exertion and 6d. on incomes derived from property up to £2,200, above which sum the amount was in both cases to be doubled. Absentees were to pay an additional 20 per cent., and incomes from land were to be exempt where the owner paid the land-tax. These taxes, it was calculated, would yield an annual revenue of £600,000. The Finance Bill was passed in the Assembly at its second reading by a majority of twenty-two, but in committee it was amended so as to exempt from the land-tax land values of less than £500. The resultant deficiency in the proceeds of the tax was made up by a continuance of the primage duties and by an increase of the tax on incomes derived from personal exertion. Upon its transmission to the Council the Bill was summarily rejected, the Minister who was in charge of it alone, beyond the tellers, being in its favour, on the ground that the questions of a tax on unimproved values had not been submitted to the electorate and that, in the existing conditions of the Province, any further burden upon the producers would be opposed to its best interests. The Ministry accepted the decision of the Council and contented themselves with rigid retrenchment, the continuance of the existing land-tax, and the imposition of a progressive income tax which rises to a maximum of sixteen-pence upon the excess over £2,000 of incomes derived from property. According to a statement of the Premier, they intend to make the question a distinct issue at the next elections, and will in the meanwhile take no action in the matter.

In the following session the Council rejected an Electoral Bill which provided for the abolition of the plural vote and the enfranchisement of women, and disagreed with the Assembly upon several important clauses of a Factory Bill, in the legitimate exercise of the functions of a revising Chamber. The Ministry succeeded in 1896 in passing the Factory Bill in a form which met some of the objections of the Council, and reintroduced the Electoral Bill, which was subsequently laid aside by the Council on the ground that it had not secured in the Assembly the absolute majority of all the votes required in the case of amendments to the Constitution.

The value of any Second Chamber must rest upon its ability, and the exercise of its ability, to check dangerous tendencies in legislation. As regards Victoria, it must be admitted that the greatest danger has lain in the tendency to extravagant expenditure due to the fatal facility of obtaining almost unlimited advances from the British capitalist. Politicians have been tempted to outbid each other in the struggle for popular support, and to promise the outlay of vast sums of borrowed money. Judged with reference to this question, the Legislative Council cannot be regarded as having been efficient. The greatest waste of money has occurred in connection with the construction of railways from which there was no likelihood of adequate returns, and with injudicious advances to Irrigation and Water Supply Trusts. The Council has been hampered by the restrictions imposed upon it by the Constitution Act, but it has not admitted that it is debarred from amending Railway Bills, though it has done so but sparingly, owing to the opposition which such action aroused in the Assembly. It would seem that, at the time of the greatest output of the Victorian gold mines and of the high prices obtainable for agricultural and pastoral produce, the Council was as much carried away by the prosperity of the Province as the Assembly, and formed an equally false estimate as to its continuance. It appears, however, to have been the first to realise the imminence of a reaction. A comparison of the British and Victorian finances shows that while, in the former case, speaking broadly, provision is made only for the maintenance of the public services and for some matters of national importance, such as public instruction, in which all parts of the country share equally, in the latter case the expenditure includes the construction of public works which benefit particular localities, and grants and subsidies which benefit particular industries. Under these conditions members of the Assembly are subject to continual pressure from their constituents, which, it is contended, the members of the Council, owing to the greater size of the constituencies, are better able to resist. As the whole body of the tax-payers are responsible for the interest on the railways, a locality has everything to gain by the increase of its mileage; if it receives advances for works of irrigation and defaults upon the consequent obligations, it hopes to induce the Government, through its Member, to grant more lenient terms. The works in many cases are of doubtful value; the liability remains as a burden upon posterity.

The evil is widely recognised, but opinions differ as to the remedy. A step in the right direction was taken by the appointment in 1890 of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways, which, it is suggested, should be supplemented by a similar Committee whose duty it would be to report upon all proposals for new works of water supply involving an expenditure of a thousand pounds of State money. Others ask that the Council should be allowed to amend Money Bills, and would do so with more reason if the property qualification for membership were removed, as the electorate already includes the bulk of the stable elements of the population. But the greatest safeguard would appear to lie in the lessons of the past, and in the appointment of Standing Committees whose antecedent sanction shall be essential to proposals for the expenditure of national funds upon public undertakings. It would be advisable to define by Act of Parliament what classes of public works might be carried out upon borrowed money; all others would then form a charge upon current revenue.

The absence of any ultimate appeal in the case of a divergence of opinion between the two Houses has recently been discussed in several of the Provinces. It has been pointed out that the power of the Executive to make additional appointments to nominee Councils is an unsatisfactory device calculated to produce friction between the Governor and his responsible advisers; that elective Councils can force upon the Assembly dissolutions from which they are themselves exempt; and that, in the majority of cases, the Councils are able, owing to the variety of issues and the influence of local and personal considerations, to deny that any particular question has received the verdict of popular approval. The measures rejected by the Victorian Council since 1891 include the Land and Income Tax Bill, the Opium Bill, the Miners' Right Titles Bill, the Mallee Land Bill, and the Village Settlements Amendment Bill. The Council has rejected the Opium Bill twice, and the Bill for the abolition of plural voting three times.