which would bring calamity to our homes and ruin to our civilization. Mr. MALONEY (Melbourne).-I thank the honorable member who has just resumed his seat for the good-tempered way in which he has addressed himself to the motion before the House, because he has perhaps provided me with a larger audience than I should otherwise have had. Speaking with the best of good-fellowship, I should say that the honorable member must have been giving us a few passages from the novel with which I understand he intends to favour the world. I can well imagine that he has been enacting the part of the hero of that piece of fiction. I do not suppose that any member of the House not even the honorable member who is the sole representative of Western Australia on the Government benches, or the honorable member who is the sole representative of Queensland-will deny that the question of protection and free-trade was before the people at the last election. I am quite certain that the Minister of Trade and Customs will not contend that the fiscal issue was sunk in the two recent campaigns in the electorate of Melbourne. The honorable gentleman knows very well that that question was to the front throughout those elections, and that it was a live one. Not only did I not sink it, but I would not permit any one to compel me to sink it. Mr. G. B. EDWARDS.-The Labour candidate in my constituency sunk the fiscal issue; he placarded the district with “fiscal peace." Mr. MALONEY.-I did not. Mr. MCLEAN.-I think the honorable member's name was on the list of those who went for fiscal peace at the general election. Mr. MALONEY.-Oh, no. Mr. MCLEAN.-There were fifty-two names. newspaper to-day is maintaining its splendid rule as far as protection goes, and has stamped those who are not sitting with us as seceders from the Protectionist Party. An HONORABLE MEMBER.-Are they all protectionists on the Opposition benches? Mr. MALONEY.-The real protectionists are here, and a few more will come over before the division is taken. The Age has truly said that the caucus is rot new, but dates back to early times. The right honorable gentleman, who led a victorious party so long in the Victorian Parliament, used to meet his supporters in caucus. Sir GEORGE TURNER.-Only once, and they were all at sixes and sevens. I never tried it a second time. Mr. MALONEY.-I have in my possession no less than five notices. Sir GEORGE TURNER.-No. Mr. McLean's attempt to extenuate his betrayal of the policy on which he was elected was not worthy of his past reputation. It was the stereotyped fiction that the fiscal peace and preferential trade on the Ministerial programme meant a truce of three years. Who empowered the honorable member for Gippsland or any one else to make a truce for three years on the fiscal question? There is only one way of obtaining the opinion of the people, and that is by means of a referendum, but the honorable gentleman would not take that course. I remember when he came along and stabbed the right honorable member for Balaclava in his back. I am using the very words of the latter when he accused his late colleague of avoiding a straight forward fight, and stabbing him in the back. Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-Never! Mr. MALONEY.-Well, after that, the honorable member, if he really meant what he said, would say anything. I shall be obliged to him if he will not interject. I am using this incident as an argument against the tactics which have been employed in this House, whereby self-termed protectionists are bound hand and foot to free-traders. I have a much higher admiration for the leader of the House than I have for honorable members who have sunk their politics for the sake of obtaining a seat on the Treasury bench. The right honorable member for Balaclava will recollect the conversation I had with him when I told him that the honorable member for Gippsland was going to act traitorously and oust him from his position. "What!" he said, "Old Mac do that! I don't believe it." He did not believe that it would be done, and he honestly expressed his opinion. Mr. POYNTON.-The honorable and learned member for Corinella did so, too. Mr. MALONEY. — The honorable and learned member for Corinella was bumped out by his colleagues, but, like a brave man, he accepted his gruel. I always admire a brave action. The honorable and learned member is now trying on the same game here. I guarantee that if he had the courage to resign his seat and go before his constituents to-morrow, he would not come back to this Chamber. Mr. KELLY. - How can the honorable gentleman guarantee that? Is not that in the hands of his electors? Mr. MALONEY.-I am using this argument when I find that a similar action is now being tried on here, and that an attempt is being made to avoid a straightforward fight. Even the right honorable member for Balaclava must agree that he was defeated in a cowardly fight, and not on a straight-out motion of no-confidence. We did not have a straightforward motion like that which has been moved by the leader of the Opposition here. Mr. POYNTON.-The Treasurer gave a pair in favour of the Government. a man Mr. MALONEY.-I am sorry to hear that statement. I know that throughout Victoria there are many persons who are very sorry that my honorable friend has voted in that way. I regret that the second head of this Government has gone away. The right honorable member for Balaclava will remember that he was the first one who was to be "equal in all things and good in nothing with that sinuous who is now out of our political life, and who as Svengali the used bonorable member for Gippsland as his Trilby. The right honorable member for Balaclava was displaced in a cowardly fashion. At that time he said that the honorable member for Gippsland had betrayed the liberal principles in which he had believed. The honorable member for Parramatta seemed to doubt a statement I made just now. I have not come here unarmed with authority, because I never make a statement which I do not believe to be true. When the honorable member for Gippsland moved to oust the right honorable member for Balaclava from his position he did not join issue on any great plank of policy, or on the administrative acts of five years' leadership, but on a mere question of privilege. I propose to make a quotation from volume 93 of the Victorian Hansard. On page 2736, the right honorable member for Balaclava was interrupted in his speech by the honorable member for Gippsland, with this remark If there are any personal obligations the balance is on my side. I state fearlessly that I have never heard so many aspersions thrown upon the butter bonus as I have upon the Maffra sugar concern. What is the opinion of the right honorable member for Balaclava, who, unlike the honorable member for Gippsland, who has retired, is courageous enough to sit here? If some honorable member would be so good as to tell the honorable member for Gippsland what I am about to quote, and ask him to return to the Chamber, I should very much appreciate his action. Mr. MAHON.-I think that we ought to have a quorum. (Quorum formed.) Mr. MALONEY.-In answer to that interjection from the honorable member for Gippsland, the right honorable member for Balaclava said I know this, that had it not been for the unbounded faith that I had in the honorable member, I probably would never have landed this Colony in the loss of £62,000, and I would not have allowed the unfortunate shareholders in the company to lose £31,000 of their money. We all know what gratitude is. The honorable member had submitted his motion in a half-hearted way. He could not attack the right honorable member for disloyalty. Mr. SPEAKER.-Does the honorable member intend to connect his remarks with the question under discussion? Mr. MALONEY.-Yes. The right honorable gentleman received exactly the same treatment as the Labour Party has received in this House Mr. MURRAY SMITH.-Not gratitude for wasting the public money. Sir GEO. TURNER.-Gratitude for the care and interest I took in regard to that matter, and gratitude for the unbounded trust I unfortunately placed in the honorable member's knowledge. And yet he is supporting him to-day. I certainly am surprised at the quarter from which the attack comes. My honorable friend says that he was not aware of any intriguing going on when I threw out a challenge the other day. Then he must have been blind or deaf, because we know very well that it has been common rumour throughout the House. 5022 I followed the right honorable member at a magnificent meeting in St. Kilda, where, according to the Argus of 22nd December, 1899, he is reported to have said that— He could have understood the attack on his Government if it had come from the front, but it came as a stab from the back-(Shame)-and no Britisher liked that. (Cheers). These remarks appeared in the Argus on the It was said that for months past there had been as But one of the strongest reasons was that a What newspapers are supporting this Go- But he not follow that gentleman, who, when he Men can be as honest in faiths, as they can in other affairs; but political life, holding different political those to whom I object are the men who tamper with principles. The Free-trade Party have not abated one iota of their opinions, but the same cannot be said for the protectionists who are supporting the present The Protectionist Party have always been supported by the MelGovernment. I have not much to thank bourne Age. that newspaper for, but in my bitterest anger, I have never accused it of, for one moment, wavering in its advocacy of proNever in the sixteen years of my tection. waver in its fealty and loyalty to propolitical life have I found that paper to And what stand does that paper tection. take now? Is it supporting the honorable. behind the Government? No; it is advocatmembers, the protectionists, who are sitting ing protection by means of an honorable alliance. It is interesting to turn to a little page in history, in which, at all events, the honorable and learned member for BalaWhen in Vicclava will be interested. wiped out" the toria, the McLean party ، stab in the back." Turner Ministry by a the new Government had forty-seven votes There were three pairs on each side, which made the votes fifty against thirty-six. as against thirty-nine, showing a What did the new jority of eleven. do when they got into made to the An appeal was Government power? in the present instance if the Opposition In such country; as I hope an appeal will be made fail to get a majority of six. Out of the fifty politicians case, I am sure Victoria will speak in no who voted to unjustly turn out the Turner uncertain tone. Government, thirty have disappeared from public life, while out of those who voted for the Turner Government, only nineteen have disappeared. Of those who voted for the McLean Government, thirteen now have seats in the State House, with an equal number of those who voted for the Turner Government. In the Federal Goso it will be seen that political death has vernment, there are seven from each side; ma overtaken nearly 60 per cent. of those who voted for the motion which the present honorable and learned member for Balaclava characterized as a " stab in the back" from what he deemed to be a friendly hand. What can we expect from the present combination under the circumstances? What can people outside expect from the combination? In the State general election to which I have referred, three members of the McLean Government disappeared before the next general election, amongst them the present honorable and learned member for Corinella, who, as a Minister, failed to secure return on appealing to his constitu ents. Mr. POYNTON. The ambitious young man! Mr. MALONEY.-The honorable and learned member for Corinella is a man of great brain power, and he will never rise higher than I wish him to rise, though I hope he will change some of his tactics. We all admire a man of courage, even if he be wrong; and in the last dying song of the defeated candidate, he declared to the people of Castlemaine that he still claimed to be a good liberal. When the people declined to take that view, he bravely declared that though he was a beaten man, he would "take his licking standing." I honour the honorable and learned member for those brave words, but I am afraid that in this Parliament he has been carrying out the same tactics that he did when the “stab in the back" Ministry, of which he was a member, was returned to power. I doubt whether the honorable and learned member would have done what he has done on the present occasion, if under the Federal Constitution, Ministers had to seek re-election; and I challenge him to resign his seat and ask the approval of his electors. Mr. McCAY.-The honorable member is mistaken this time; I followed my leaders on the present occasion. Mr. MALONEY.-Just as the honorable and learned member thought he followed his leader on the last occasion; but the people knew he was playing the "same old game," and he got his reward. Mr. McCAY.-I was sitting in Opposition on the present occasion, whereas five years ago, the charge against me, justly or unjustly, was that I sat behind the Government, and deserted them. Mr. MALONEY.-I throw out a challenge to the honorable member. If he will resign his seat, I shall take a similar step, so that we may see what the opinion of the country really is; and I back my opinion that the people of Castlemaine would not return him to his office in the present Parliament. There was another Minister of the "stab in the back" Ministry, Mr. Fink, who tired of the unholy combination of conservatives and renegade liberals, and honorable members may perhaps be astonished at the following extracts from his observations. On the 24th December, 1899, Mr. Fink, in a letter to the Melbourne Argus, said— It was not arranged, however, that Mr. Shiels should deliver any part of the Ministerial programme, or inaugurate a period of bitter and malignant personal strife. His expressions “political Boers," 39 66 Cain," and "Judas Iscariot," used as similes to illustrate the conduct of Sir George Turner and other ex-Ministers those are the terms which Svengali Shiels applied to the honorable and learned member for Balaclava profoundly shocked the great mass of the com munity. It shocked the community so much that when the opportunity came this hybrid collection of conservatives and renegade liberals were swept out of existence, and the Turner Government came back to power. The letter proceeded— The position Mr. Shiels has taken up of an equality in leadership will entitle him to persist in the course objected to by me, and his asserted intention to so persist leaves me no alternative. The honorable and learned member for Balaclava will recall the little tiddleywinking excuses to get letters inserted in commencing, "My Dear Mr. McLean," and the Argus and Age newspapers; the letters My Dear Mr. Shiels." These were all "fixed up" in one little parlour-not a the public. bar parlour and sent out as squibs to fool But the public were not to Mr. Fink went on to say be fooled. I cannot refrain from expressing the conviction that violent outbursts of vituperation must tend to lower the moral tone of public life, and there is nothing in the conduct of public affairs in Victoria to justify them. But the line of per sonal attack adopted and justified by Mr. Shiels can only create an impassable gulf between members of the party, all of whom are pledged to advance liberal measures, and tend to substitute a desire for personal triumph for anxiety for national progress. The present Treasurer knows that when the big Liberal upheaval came at the first opportunity, and swept his opponents into oblivion, another Minister lost his seata Minister who had assisted to give "the stab in the back.” Mr. Watt, who was the first Minister who had represented ing to me, "Well, Maloney, those whom the Mr. SPEAKER.-Order! Mr. MALONEY.-Good Highlander as is the Minister of Trade and Customs, I believe that he has given up carrying a dirk, and, as for stabbing any one in the back in a personal sense, I do not for one moment suppose that he would be capable of such a thing. He joined the Ministry which was known as "the equal-in-allthings, good-in-nothing" Government, and succeeded in ousting a useful Liberal Administration. The Minister resented some remarks I made with reference to the Maffra the Maffra Sugar Works, and he stated that I had been the means of robbing some hundreds of working men of their means of livelihood. The Minister hoodwinked me, in the first instance, into voting for a project which involved a very great loss to the country, and I had to fight very hard indeed in order to secure provision for a fair wage and fair hours to the workmen. But for the innate justice of the then Premier, Sir George Turner, I do not think that I should have succeeded. I never heard any reports in connexion with the butter industry prior to the appointment of the Butter Bonus Commission to compare with those which have been in circulation with regard to the Maffra sugar industry. I should very much like an investigation to be made of all the circumstances connected with that enterprise, and to know who has been in charge of the works during, the last five years. I desire to quote North Melbourne for many years, failed to get returned. Where is that party who opposed the Turner Government, although it came into power stronger than any party under the British flag? While I differed from the present Treasurer on many occasions, I know that his acts were liberal, and his instincts always kindly and humanitarian; but the Ministry which came back as the reform Ministry, with a majority of thirty-eight in a House of ninety-five, did not pass a Women's Suffrage Bill, and did not want to pass such a measure. That Ministry, however, placed on the statutebook an infamous measure not equalled in fifty years' coercion of Ireland. Where is that party now? When they faced the electors, the majority of thirty-eight dwindled to a majority of eight; and when they face the country again I do not know what will become of them, unless the good temper of Mr. Bent, with his unfailing faculty for seizing the opportunity, may carry them through. When the Minister of Trade and Customs was addressing the House, I mistakenly thought that he was making an accusation against myself, and I interjected though I must say that the interjection I made was true. It was my privilege to introduce the first Women's Suffrage Bill in any British Legislature, but on that occasion I could not get a seconder. The present honorable and learned member for Ballarat would, I believe, have supported me so far, but I could not ask him to do so, because I was the first member to peg out" my seat in opposition to the Deakin-Gillies Administration. Ultimately, Lt. Col. Smith, to whom credit must be given, seconded my effort to get a measure of the kind passed; but that is as far as we got. On the next occasion, I was seconded by Mr. Shiels; but where was the help of the present Minister of Trade and Customs? That gentleman, however, now boasts that the measure was what was stated by the Treasurer with rebrought in by the Government of which he gard to the project. Alluding to the honwas the head. The fact was that the Min-orable member for Gippsland, he said— ister of Trade and Customs dare not throw the Bill out, because it was accepted by the previous Government, although it was afterwards rejected by the Upper House. The Victorian Government, which was "equal in all things" gave the people nothing; and I promise that much the same result will be seen in the Federal Parliament. I well remember the Victorian Attorney-General, when the Upper House had thrown out the Women's Suffrage Bill, as it had done five or six times before, sayMr. Maloney. There is no doubt he did, at the commencement of this session, and later on, when I gave him an opportunity of replying to the strictures which were passed upon the administration of that company, attempt, in my opinion, to shift whatever blame there was for that failure from his own shoulders on to mine, and I naturally resented it. Any honest man would resent having the blame wrongly placed upon his shoulders. Mr. SPEAKER.-Does the honorable member think that these charges have anything to do with the motion before the Chair? |