Mr. MALONEY.-I will come to that. I do not wish to be unjust. Eight of those members belong to this side of the House, and only one-the right honorable member for Balaclava-to the Government side.

Three members belonging to this side of the House attended every sitting but one. The first session of the first Parliament extended from May, 1901, to October, 1902, and only three honorable members, all of whom belong to this side of the House, attended the whole 220 sittings.

Mr. G. B. EDWARDS.-If there are many more debates like this, it will take a team of bullocks to bring me here.

Mr. MALONEY.-I dare say the honorable member's constituents will be able to find another representative who will please them just as well. Three members of the Opposition attended all but one sitting I am sorry that these facts should disturb honorable members opposite.

Mr. G. B. EDWARDS.-Not at all; my temper is very good.

Mr. MALONEY.-The members were Mr. L. E. Groom, Mr. Mauger, and Mr. O'Malley.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-What time did they spend in the chamber when they were here? Mr. MALONEY.-I have quoted these facts from an official paper recording the attendances of honorable members.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-Is the honorable member aware that many of those honorable members who figure on the list from which he is quoting simply come into the chamber and go out again, and nothing more is seen of them for the remainder of the day?

Mr. MALONEY.-What the honorable member says may or may not be true, but if he complains of the present system, I would recommend him to propose that we should adopt in this Parliament the system which is carried out in Switzerland, and which is well worthy of being copied. In Switzerland a member is fined for nonattendance, and there must be a majority of the House as a quorum. They begin early in the morning, and sit till 1 o'clock; then they adjourn until 2 o'clock, and sit till 6, meeting again at 8 o'clock the next day. Any member who is absent from a division is fined. If the honorable member for Parramatta would propose the adoption of that system in this Parliament he would have my hearty assistance.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-If that system were adopted here more Victorians would be fined than others.

Mr. MALONEY.—A remarkable speech was lately made by Mr. Swinburne, the Victorian Minister of Water Supply, in regard to State-aided irrigation, which we believe in, socialistic as it may be. He showed that in Victoria £5,634,000 had been expended upon an irrigation policy that was initiated by the Gillies-Deakin Coalition Ministry. How much of that money has been repaid by the people who have benefited from the policy? Only £1,116,000, leaving £4,518,000 owing. That sum has been paid principally by the workers in the cities, because one-half the population of Victoria reside in the cities of Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, and Bendigo. Even the English Times would heard it referred to to-night by the honornever speak of Socialism in the way I have

able member for Richmond. I have already said, and I repeat, that he must have been quoting from the novel which he is understood to be writing. If his novel is as good as the splendid little lyric he has written about the woodcutters in his own district, I shall certainly buy the work, and expect to enjoy it. The honorable member must have been acting the part of the hero in his story in fighting_against Socialism and the Labour Party. I do not

believe he means half of what he said. He is too good a fellow to do so. It is a strange thing that, whereas every political economist in Europe previous to 1850 condemned all factories legislation, and said that it would mean ruin to the manufacturers, there has not been a single political economist since 1865 who has ventured to deny the advisability of passing Factories Acts. I have been twitted with having spoken about the sufferings of children. Why should I not speak on that subject, if the children are suffering? Is it not my duty as a member sent here to try and better the condition of every man, woman, and child in our midst, to do my best to relieve those sufferings? Is it not better to endeavour to succeed in that direction than to involve the country in a loss of £65,000 upon an enterprise like the Maffra sugar business?

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-What is this Maffra sugar business?

Mr. MALONEY.-Let the honorable member move for an inquiry, and I will vote for it. I have said that the political economists before 1850 condemned factories

legislation as likely to lead to the ruin of manufactures. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed by the House of Lords to examine into the condition of the factory workers in England. That Commission found that in one room 18 feet by 23 feet, where there was only one little opening 12 inches square for purposes of ventilation, fortytwo men and fourteen boys-fifty-six human beings in all-had to sleep. Commissioner Mitchell said that, though no one had slept in that room for 72 hours, on the night when he went into it, the stench was unbearable. Yet it was said that the removal of conditions like these would mean ruin to the manufacturers of England. Within the memory of living men there were manufacturers in England who could get twenty children from the parish to work in the mills, provided that they took one idiot and supported him. God only knows what became of the idiot! We know what became of the children. They were made to sleep in beds that were never allowed to grow cool, since directly one child was whipped out of bed to go to the mills another child was put in. Some children employed in the mines in those days never saw the daylight from Monday morning until the following Sunday.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-I have been in that position myself.

Mr. MALONEY.-Then I am sure that the honorable member must feel for these little ones. I know that his voice would be one of the first to be raised if any child was sent into the Newcastle mines and made to work like a beast. It was said that children had to be taken young for this work, because when they grew older the spines of their backs would not allow them to get into the proper proper position to make the good miners that were required in the mines. In those days no matter if a mine was unsafe, or whether the timbers were unsound, miners had to go to work or to prison. When 40.000 miners in the Durham neighbourhood went on strike, Lord Londonderry threatened the tradesmen who were helping these poor people that if they gave credit to his rebel workers, as they were called, their places of business would be taken from them.

Mr. SPEAKER.-Can the honorable member connect these remarks with the question under debate?

Mr. MALONEY.-Yes, I am giving these instances as a reason for the passing of an Arbitration Act which would make impossible that curse of our civilization—a strike.

A great American writer, in a phrase which has become classic, has spoken of New Zealand as a country without strikes." We want to make Australia a continent without strikes. I was sent to this Parliament to use every effort to attain that end. I hold in my hand a photograph of as fine a man as my finger has ever touched, or my stethoscope ever examined. This fine young fellow went to work in a factory where no adequate provision was made for guarding the work-people against the effects of poisonous fumes. Within six weeks his body was one mass of festering sores. there is no law here to prevent it. I know that if that great and splendid man who rules the Health Department of Victoria had the power he would not allow such things to continue for one day. Even in Germany, strong as the power of the autocratic Emperor may be, a Commission appointed by him recommended that two and a half hours work was enough for any person engaged in a factory where there were poisonous fumes. Yet in chemical works at Rutherglen-no woman who enters which will ever bear a child again

And

people work for ten hours a day. In Germany the Commission fixed as the duration of a day's work for different trades, two and a half, three, five, six, eight, ten, and twelve hours. The figures are at the disposal of any honorable member who may wish to see them. We want an Arbitration Act. If we had an Act the workers could combine and insist upon bringing their complaints before Parliament, and the Government would then introduce a measure which would cause proper scientific precautions to be taken in order to save the health of these persons. The honorable member for Gippsland said that we wish to confiscate the land. It seems to me that he has somewhat neglected to read the history of Europe, otherwise he would know that in the second half of the nineteenth century, almost one-third of the best lands of Europe were confiscated. Take the race which is considered the most degraded in Europe, and about which its enemies have lied so much. I sometimes pity them, and ask myself why they do not read the splendid books which true Englishmen and brave writers have produced. his great book, Mulhall shows how the freeing of over 4,000,000 slaves by the AngloSaxon race in America. at a cost of over £1,200,000,000, was the means of killing and wounding close upon 500,000 men, and how, at nearly about the same

In

time,

Russia freed 40,000,000 serfs, changed 11,000,000 of them into landholders, and divided 68,000,000 acres of the finest land it holds amongst those people without the loss of one single life, so that in future any head of a family, father or mother, could claim 10 acres of good land for nothing. By that means no less than 6,000,000 acres were taken from the nobles, and not one penny-piece was paid to them. The balance of the land which was taken was divided into holdings of 35 acres, and let at a rental of 6d. per acre per year. The land was bought on the condition that the freed serfs should pay 128. per male head of a family during a period of forty years. I do not advocate a policy of confiscation, and no member of the Labour Party ever did; but we do contend that the State or the Federal Government should have the right of resuming any land or property based on a fair valuation that is, the valuation on which the owner is willing to pay rates and taxes. What is the position at the present moment? A man sells to the Government, and the State is fleeced, not only in this country, but elsewhere. In England the landholders fleeced the railway companies to the extent of £50,000,000. I do not know how much money has been fleeced from Victoria, but I know that it runs into four figures.

Mr. CONROY.-Under the Constitution we have no power to deal with these matters, I think.

Mr. MALONEY.-The honorable and learned member may see with his legal eyes what I cannot see.

Mr. CONROY.-I am not asking about the justice of the policy, but the law on the subject.

not law.

Mr. MALONEY.-I want justice, and In Russia, £60,000,000 worth of land was taken away from the nobles and divided amongst the people. When I compare Great Britain, which has only 180,000 land-owners in a population of 40,000,000, with Russia, which has 11,000,000 landowners, I wish that we had a law so that any head of a family could ask for 10 acres of good land and get it. The honorable member for Gippsland knows how unfortunate village settlers were sent to hills where the land was so poor that it would hardly keep a goat. If they had had the right of getting 10 acres of good land at that time, there would have been thousands of more homes in Victoria today owned by those brave fellows than

there are. Even in Great Britain it is not an unknown thing to take land without the permission of the owners, and to reduce rents. Take Ireland, which was confiscated first by Elizabeth, next by Cromwell, and then by William III. In 1850 the Encumbered Estates Court sold 4,930,000 acres at an average of £11 per acre, and the average size of a holding was 400 acres. There was a lively chance for the head of a family to get 400 acres at £11 per acre. Under Mr. John Bright's Act, from 1870 to 1880, the tenants bought 49,000 acres, at an average of £17 per acre. do not think that very much land can be got at that price. Under the Church Act, from 1870 to 1885, 6,000 tenants settled at a cost of £1,676,000, of which the Government advanced 75 per cent. or £1,200,000, and to the honor of those persons who bought from the Government, in 1888 only £6,000 of the purchase-money remained unpaid. Compare that debt of £6,000 with the debt of £4,000,000 odd owing to Victoria, in connexion with irrigation.

I

were

Under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1881, in seven years the rents of 243,490 farmers were reduced by 20 per cent.; that is, a fifth of the rent for 243,490 farms was reduced, and there were then 61,300 cases pending. We need a true system of land taxation throughout Australia. If the States will not act, it is the duty of this Parliament to intervene. Under Ashbourne's Act of 1885, in four years the tenants were enabled to purchase nearly 3 per cent. of Ireland, as measured by the rental. In 132 years the Act would settle the agrarian question, says Mulhall, whose statement I am willing to accept. How small is that result compared with what barbarous Russia did between 1861 and

1870, when she settled 11,000,000 persons on the land, and how few we are settling in our splendid Australia. Referring to the tirade against Socialism from the honorable member for Gippsland, let me point out that in 1819 the position of the serfs in Austria was the same as in Russia. They had to give two days out of every week, and also II per cent. of their products, to the owners of the land. But by 1849 the ownership of one-half the Empire had changed. Our newspapers never publish these facts, and we have to garner the information from expensive books which the public cannot consult. It is to such authorities that we have to refer in order to show how the land system is changing.

If Napoleon, who as a leader of

but the fact is that their palates were not educated to the English taste. In order to pay as little duty as possible, tobacco is imported into England in a dry state, and then artificially moistened, whereas American tobacco is brought straight on to the Australian market. As a proof of the correctness of the position which I take up on this question, I can give an illustration which will appeal to every intelligent member of the House. In Holborn, one of the principal streets of London, there is at the present moment a tobacconist's shop where nothing but French tobacco is sold, not only to the French residents, but to English art students, who have studied painting and sculpture in France, and who have become accustomed to the tobacco of that country. Those students finish their education in Paris; indeed, the Academy compels the winner of the medal to continue his studies in the French capital. Mr. SPEAKER.-I hope the honorable member will connect his observations with the subject under discussion.

Mr. MALONEY.-I want to show that the French system of tobacco manufacture has good results; and that there is a shop in London to provide the tobacco for English art students. French tobacco is sold at two francs or two francs and a half per kilogramme, equal to two pounds and a tenth, in the mercantile marine and on the war-ships. In places in France, adjoining Switzerland and Belgium, the tobacco is sold at a lower rate in order to keep down smuggling. The State production of tobacco tobacco not only gives a revenue amounting in one year to £16,000,000, or an average of over £12,000,000 per annum, but enables the Government to provide pensions for the widows of men who have fallen in battle, or lost their lives in trying to save others. Those widows are given charge of the small tobacconists' shops, and the pensions are provided from the Government stamps which enclose every packet of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, and matches. The Labour

Party have never had a fair chance under the State franchise of Victoria. No one

electoral point of view, as in the same category as lunatics and criminals. Under the State franchise, the Melbourne Club exercises over 200 votes, but under the Federal franchise the same institution has only fifteen votes, including six waiters, four housemaids, two labourers, one clerk, one coroner, and one bank manager. I suppose they keep the coroner in order to hold post-mortems on the departed glories of the franchise. A gentleman who is privileged to be a member of the Tramway Company has, under the State franchise, a vote in every one of the nine divisions which make up the Federal constituency of Melbourne." This gentleman is a surveyor, a civil engineer, and heaven knows what else. Then it is said that the Labour Party are Socialists, and that, in consequence, our credit is very bad in the old country. But let us see what great English newspapers have to say on the question. The Morning Post, which is a conservative newspaper, not likely to be favorable to the Labour Party, contains the following:

The one great error and offence with both the Federal and State Governments unhappily is the freedom and ease with which the mercantile and

landed classes are allowed to plunder the Treasury.

Let the engineer of the Maffra sugar business remember that.

despicable kind permeates the commercial life of Fraud and trickery of the meanest and most the country. And this re-acts in turn upon those representatives in national and municipal institutions who are elected by the votes of these disreputable citizens. Consequently, the changes that are taking place are as bereficial as the most scrupulous tactician could desire to its moral force and political power. The Labour Party is a party of law and national progress. All these things show in a manner, which it may be hoped is unmistakable, that national honour, no less than the necessity of avoiding the collapse of commercial credit, make it absolutely necessary for the Labour Party to persevere.

Is that not a complete answer to critics inside and outside, who, supported by the press, are abusing the Labour Party day by day? The extract I have quoted may not

be sufficient to convert the honorable member for Richmond as to the errors of his

the Melbourne seat in the State House, because everv Tom, Dick, and Harry with an office in the city has a vote. Under the Federal Electoral Act, however, an elector can vote only for the place at which he lives, and, further, the franchise has been extended to women, though, in the State, the latter are still regarded, from an

quote from the Pall Mall Gazette, which is liberal in politics. The newspaper says