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 _bona-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
{112} 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."[4]
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 {113}
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
{114} 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 {115} 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."[5] 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 {116} 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 L106,500 in the year ended March, 1896, being an increase of
L20,000 upon that of the previous twelve months. A sum of L18,000 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 {117} 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 {118}
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 L15,700, a decrease of L22,000 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 {119} 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 L3,800,000 in three years, but contends
that the whole of the amount with the exception of L210,000 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 {120} 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.
[1] "The Colony of New Zealand," Gisborne, p. 170.
[2] "The Colony of New Zealand," Gisborne, pp. 171-2.
[3] New Zealand Official Year Book, 1894. Report by Under-secretary of
Public Works.
[4] Report of Department of Lands and Survey, 1896; page iv.
[5] Report of Department of Labour, 1896; page vii.
{121}
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 {122} subject to no property qualification, and in New
Zealand, South Australia, and Tasmania they are paid at the rate,
respectively, of L150, L200, and L50 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
L100, 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 L270 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
{123} 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 {124} 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 L2,500--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 L,
subject to the exemption of L100 when the value does not exceed L1,000,
and of an income tax which, subject to the exemption of incomes not
exceeding L200, was to be at the rate of 3d. in the L on incomes
derived from personal exertion and 6d. on incomes derived from property
up to L2,200, above which sum the amount was in both cases to be
doubled. Absentees were to pay an additional 20 per cent., {125} 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
L600,000. 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 L500. 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 L2,000 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 {126} 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 {127} 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 {128} 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.
{129}
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.
The question was considered in 1894 by a Victorian Royal Commission,
which recommended that:--