Northern members, himself a supporter of separation, and by others,
that the agitation is at present dormant. The election of local men
has been promoted by the payment of members; previously most of the
Northern representatives were inhabitants of Brisbane, who were out of
touch with the feelings and interests of their constituents. Material
and political considerations also have exercised great influence. The
sugar planters, ardent advocates of separation as long as the
importation of coloured labour was forbidden, have been staunch
supporters of the Union since the removal of the prohibition and the
passage of the Sugar Works Guarantee Act. On the other side, the
Labour Party, who share in the hatred of coloured labour which is
common to the working classes throughout Australasia, opposed
separation while it was likely to lead to its legalisation, but have
been encouraged by their present strength, the tenure of seven seats
out of sixteen in the Northern district, in the belief that, if they
obtained separation, they might hope again to {63} exclude it, and
would have an opportunity of giving effect to their general political
views.
The "Kanaka" question has been so fully discussed in the press and in
numerous pamphlets, that the Imperial and Provincial Acts, which first
aimed at the protection of the islanders, may be dismissed with the
remark that they are admitted in Queensland to have had abundant
justification. The conditions have been made successively more
stringent until, at the present time, it is almost impossible that any
Kanakas should be taken against their will, ill-treated on the voyage,
or oppressed upon the plantations. Government agents, to give a brief
summary of the Acts, accompany all recruiting vessels and are bound to
see that the islanders understand the nature of the agreement into
which they are about to enter, as to rate of payment, and duration of
service; that every return passenger is duly landed along with his
property at his own village or district, and that the islanders receive
the prescribed provisions and clothing on the journey, and are
otherwise treated in accordance with the regulations. Inspectors
receive the vessels upon their arrival in Queensland, superintend the
signature of the agreements, and, generally, are responsible for the
welfare of the labourers during their residence in the country. In the
case of sickness employers are bound to provide proper medicine and
medical attendance, and they may be called upon to contribute towards
the maintenance of a hospital. {64} The contentment of the labourers
may be inferred from the fact that a large proportion re-engage
themselves upon the expiration of the term of three years, and that, of
the 1,305 who were landed during the year 1895, 250 had previously been
employed in Queensland. As the result of frequent intercourse, the
conditions are well known in most of the islands from which the
labourers are recruited. According to official figures, the number of
islanders in Queensland increased in 1895 from 7,853 to 8,163, of whom
nearly two-thirds are in the districts of Mackay and Bundaberg; all are
employed on the cultivation of sugar, with the exception of a few at
Thursday Island, who are engaged in the beche-de-mer and pearl-shell
fisheries.
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 {65} 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 L50,000, 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 {66}
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."[1] The contingent liability
incurred by the State in the year ending June, 1895, was L157,000, and
in the preceding year L44,000: 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 L500,000. 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 {67} 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."[2] 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 {68} 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 {69} 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 {70}
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 {71} 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."[3] 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 {72} 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 L100,000 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;"
{73} 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 {74} 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 {75} 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 {76} 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.
{77}
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 {78} L484,000. 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 {79}
incurred considerable expenditure in the successful provision of
artesian water and in general works of conservation.