I might, or otherwise I should have asked him to refrain from those interruptions, and to withdraw the remarks objected to. But, in any case, if such remarks are made to which honorable members take exception, it is their place to ask that I shall rule them out of order. They should not take the law into their own hands by interjecting, or by carrying on conversations across the chamber, which are especially disorderly.

Mr. DUGALD THOMSON.-As you, Mr. Speaker, have intimated that honorable members should refrain from interruption, and should appeal to you if disorderly expressions are used, I draw your attention to the words used by the honorable member for Hume, who has accused the Prime Minister of bribery. I ask whether those words are to be permit ted in this Chamber without withdrawal. It is a most serious charge, which no honorable member should make against another in this Chamber, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

Mr. SPEAKER.-The charge, which was made this afternoon, was based on words used in connexion with reports of a certain proceeding in the New South Wales Parliament some years since. It was impossible for me to require the honorable member for Hume not to use the words, as they were a part of the reports on which he relied, and from which he was quoting; he could not quote without using just those words. I did not hear the honorable member for Hume use the phrase complained of just now, or, as I said before, I should have required him to withdraw it.

Sir JOHN QUICK.-I must express my regret, and I am sure the regret of every honorable member, that such strong language should be used by the honorable member for Hume respecting a public man in this House. I know nothing of the history of the case, but I decline to believe an ex parte statement.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-I proved it by evi

dence.

Sir JOHN QUICK.-I have no doubt that the Parliament of New South Wales was capable of dealing with the case referred to, and that it was dealt with according to justice and law. It is a scandal to introduce those matters into the Federal Parliament so persistently. Such a course is not calculated to assist this debate, but merely to excite prejudice, and it may be to do injustice to individuals. I hope that the Opposition, as a body, will not countenance or encourage any such unfair tactics. Debate adjourned.

ADJOURNMENT.

PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS-DENTON HAT
MILLS.

Motion (by Mr. McLEAN) proposed-
That the House do now adjourn.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE (Hume).—In reference to the statement made just now by the honorable and learned member for Bendigo, and to the lecture delivered by him against myself principally

Mr. SPEAKER. Will the honorable member kindly take his seat? Not even on a motion for the adjournment of the House is it permissible to refer to a debate pending.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-I am not referring to the debate.

Mr. SPEAKER.-The honorable mem

ber is expressly referring to the remarks of the honorable and learned member for Bendigo, and under the Standing Orders he must not refer to any part of a debate pending. If the honorable member desires to refer to any other matter he may do so.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-What I wanted to refer to was the origin of a statement I made a few minutes ago. The leader of the Government introduced the question of his financial action in New South Wales; I was not responsible

Mr. SPEAKER.-Will the honorable member take his seat? The question to which the honorable member now refers is

distinctly a part of the debate which has just been adjourned. That question has been dealt with in the course of the debate

by several honorable members, and is certainly not now open to discussion.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-May I ask whether, have an opportunity to make a personal exwhen the House meets to-morrow, I shall planation in view of the attack on me tonight by the honorable and learned member for Bendigo.

Mr. SPEAKER.-On the question of personal explanations, it may be as well for me to say at once, that a personal explanation in relation to what somebody else has said, is not in order. A personal explanation can only be made concerning some matter with which an honorable member himself has dealt, and concerning which he himself has been misunderstood.

A per

sonal explanation cannot be allowed as a reply to what some other honorable member has said in the course of the debate. If the honorable member desires to make a personal explanation concerning a matter

with which he himself has dealt, and has been misunderstood, he may do so.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE. That is good enough for me.

Mr. LONSDALE (New England).When speaking the other night I made the statement that the Denton Hat Mills were fully employed, and that statement was challenged. I then said I would produce the letters on which I based my statement, and these letters are in my hand now. The first is from Mr. Edward Shaw, the manager of the Denton Hat Mills, to a customer on the 20th July, 1904, as follows:

We duly received your letter of the 21st inst. asking us to furnish you with a set of samples of Victorian made hats. We should be very pleased to do so if we saw our way to give execution to any orders with which you might favour us, but our hands are at present so full that we are afraid in the meantime to undertake new business lest it should result in disappointment through our inability to give delivery. In the hope that in some future time we may have the pleasure of doing business with you, we are.

That bears out my statement that these

House of Representatives.

Thursday, 29 September, 1904.

Mr. SPEAKER took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

MOTION OF WANT OF
CONFIDENCE.

Debate resumed from 28th September (vide page 5045), on motion by Mr. WAT

SON

That the present Administration does not possess the confidence of this House.

Mr. REID. I am sorry to have to add to the list of honorable members who claim that they have been misrepresented, but in view of the statements made by the honorable member for Hume yesterday, I think that honorable members will see

Mr. MAUGER.-That letter was written two months ago.

Mr. LONSDALE.-If their orders are exhausted now, it is very extraordinary. A second letter is from Mr. T. Shelmerdine, of the Yarra Hat Works, Abbotsford, to a customer, on the 15th July, 1904, as fol

lows:

With reference to your request for samples, we understand from our representative that you require a special list for your own use. We regret

that at present we are so busy that we cannot manage to make a fresh set, but will give your request our best attention as soon as we have a spare set or time to make them.

It will be seen in both of these cases that the Tariff has not injured the industry. As to the nail industry, I endeavoured to get information from the Department of Trade and Customs, but I found, from men who are in the trade, that no nails are imported into Victoria at the present time.

Mr. MAUGER (Melbourne Ports).—I said the other night, by way of interjection, that the Denton Hat Mills were at the present time exceedingly slack, and that the men were working only four days a week instead of full time. The orders

refused in July were season's goods, which were wanted immediately, and such a refusal might occur in the dullest season under the most adverse circumstances. Question resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.

giving a personal explanation to this House. There are two matters to which I wish to refer, and I shall do so as briefly as possible. One is the statement of the honorable member as to the manner of keeping accounts in New South Wales while I was Premier of that State, and the. other is the honorable member's imputation of bribery.

I shall deal with the accounts first. I thought, after the correspondence which was put before honorable members, signed by every member of the Committee appointed by the honorable member for Hume, that we should hear no more of these imputations, but instead of that being so, the honorable member has repeated them. He also made some reference to a visit of one of the three accountants appointed at my instigation to my private residence, as if some sinister underhand proceeding was involved in that occurrence. The fact is that I am not like the honorable member; I am a busy man. I am a man who has some private affairs to attend to when I am not in office. One of the leading accountants in Sydneyone of the three who were appointed in the way I am about to mention to the Housevisited me under the following circumstances:-When the honorable member for Hume appointed his Committee, I protested against the appointment of one of its three members on the ground that a few months before he had been a candidate for Parliament at the general elections

of 1898 in opposition to me, and had accepted the views of the honorable member for Hume in regard to my financial administration as Treasurer of the State.

that I took? I asked the two institutions of accountants in Sydney to select two of their best men, without reference to me at all, and the two thus chosen were to select a third. One institution of accountants nominated Mr. Bowes, a leading accountant in Sydney, and a London chartered accountant; and the other institution nomi

Mr. WILKS.-Gag. Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-There is no question of gagging. I wish only for fair play in connexion with this matter. Mr. REID.-A nice slander it was that the honorable member uttered.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-What is fair for one is fair for another. I told the truth, and I wish to know now whether the right honorable gentleman can go into full details in regard to all the matters referred to the other day, and dealt with by me yesterday, without my having an opportunity to reply to him?

Mr. SPEAKER.-I think that the honorable member for Hume can rely upon having fair play. I ask the Prime Minister to confine himself strictly, as I believe he will, to a personal explanation; but if, when he has finished, the honorable member for Hume also desires to make a statement, I am sure that the House will be willing to hear it.

Mr. REID. I was stating to the House that one of the gentlemen who was appointed by the honorable member for Hume to judge me, had already, as a hostile candidate at the elections, prejudged me. I submitted his utterances, as reported in the newspaper published in the district, to the honorable member for Hume, and I protested against being judged by a man who had condemned me before entering upon the investigation, and who was a political opponent.

Mr. CROUCH.-The right honorable gentleman said the same thing about Mr. Dibbs.

Mr. REID. I hope that the honorable and learned member will keep quiet. If he has not a shred of care for reputation himself he might have some respect for the reputation of others. Under these circumstances, I refused to put myself in the hands of the Committee appointed by the honorable member for Hume. But what was the next step

in Sydney. Those two accountants nominated Mr. Richard Teece, whose name is known throughout the length and breadth of Australia as the general manager of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, the largest financial institution in the Commonwealth. Mr. Teece began his work with the other gentlemen whom I have named, when his directors withdrew him from the position, on the ground that it was a political matter, and they thought that their general manager should not be entangled in it. Then the other two accountants, who had been selected in the manner I have described, selected, as a third, Mr. Vane, of the well-known firm of Miles and Vane, accountants in Sydney. All three were selected absolutely without the exercise of a choice by me in any shape or form. But, as the matter was one outside the ordinary run of accountants' work, Mr. Davis waited on me to ascertain what the scope of the inquiry was to be, so that they might be able to form some idea as to the length of time for which they were to be taken away from their ordinary business. That was the private interview to which the honorable member for Hume has referred.

Mr. WILKS.--Mr. Davis was a prominent protectionist, too.

Mr. REID.-Yes; he was a member of the Protectionist Party. Honorable members must know that I paid these accountants myself. As I would not go before the tribunal appointed by the honorable member for Hume, I felt that I owed it to the public to have an independent inquiry, and at my personal expense I appointed the gentlemen whom I have named, who were selected entirely by others. My written instructions to them were to take the accounts of the Treasurer and the Auditor-General, and, when there was a difference between the Treasurer's accounts and those of the Auditor-General to follow the Auditor-General's accounts, and not my

accounts.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-The right honorable member did not formulate a set of questions, as the honorable member for Hume did.

Mr. REID.-No. I asked the honorable member for Hume, when he was formulating his questions to his own Committee, to allow me to put some questions to them, but he would not do so. I then asked the honorable member, when the report of the three accountants nominated at my instance, was presented to me, to allow it to go into the journals of the Parliament of New South Wales, as the report of his own Committee had done, but he refused that, too. Fortunately I have some chance now of having my side of the case placed on the records of the New South Wales Parliament. But I wish to go further. The three accountants had each separate sets of the accounts of the Treasurer, and of the Auditor-General, placed before them, with instructions to follow the Auditor-General's accounts in any case of doubt. Each of them conducted an independent investigation, and they met and agreed upon a joint report which showed-what? That my statement of the balance which I left to the honorable member for Hume on the 1st July, 1899, 1899, namely, £147,000, was £110,000 under the mark-that, instead of overstating the accounts, amounts had been advanced to public officers during my last financial year which had to be returned under the Treasurership of the honorable member. These three accountants pointed out that I had understated my balance, to the extent of £110,000. The honorable member for Hume accepted my balance, and put it in his own accounts as correct.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-That is not correct. I made a statement at the time as to why it was done.

Mr. REID. The Treasury accounts are there to be seen. The honorable member put some other statement on the table of the House, which the accountant to the Treasury would not sign.

Mr. SPEAKER.-When making personal explanations, it is not permissible to introduce new matter, and I ask the right honorable gentleman not to do it.

Mr. REID. I will now leave that matter, and come to the more serious statement of the honorable gentleman, which imputed corruption to me in the administration of the office of Premier of New South Wales. I suppose we have not come to a state of things in this House when such charges may be made against a man without some seriousness being attached to the imputation under which he is made to lie. I suppose that on this matter, considering the

nature of the statement which has gone on the permanent records of Parliament, I can claim the generous indulgence of every member of the House. I would like, with reference to it, to say this: Senator

Neild, who was at the time a member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, and had been for years a member of my own party, was going to the mother country on other business, and asked me to authorize him to make inquiries on behalf of the Government of New South Wales as to the old-age pensions system, in connexion with which he had been prominent from the first. I gave him the commission, but like a prudent Minister, I stated in it that he was to do the work entirely without remuneration. Those were the terms on which I appointed him. I expected to receive a report such as any one of us might give after a visit to the mother country-a document containing forty or fifty pages. I did not dream of the length to which his report would go. The honorable gentleman came back, and was ill for a long time. Finally, he set to work, and presented to me a report containing 515 pages.

Mr. JOSEPH COOK.-The best document on the subject in the world.

Mr. REID. It is a document containing information culled from the literature of various nations. I did not get it until it had been printed at the Government Printing Office, but the moment I saw it I said, "This must have cost you a good deal. We must put some amount on the Estimates for the trouble you have taken in this matter"; and I promised to do so. As honorable members know, to put money on the Estimates is not to guarantee that it will be voted. I am now giving merely the preliminary history of the matter.

Mr. WILKS. This is all in the sworn evidence of the Committee.

Mr. REID. I intended to put a sum on the Additional Estimates for the year 1899, but as we had no Additional Estimates that year, the matter was allowed to stand over until the following session. We prorogued in December, and the payment was made to Senator Neild at a time when Parliament was not sitting, and would not sit for six months. Not a penny was paid to him when Parliament was sitting, and I had no intention of paying him anything until Parliament had voted the money. But the honorable gentleman had suffered a number of misfortunes; his health, for instance, had broken down, and he came to me, and asked me to pay the actual expenses which

he had been out of pocket for a considerable time, in anticipation of the grant of Parliament. The amount which I paid to him did not comprise one penny for his personal labour in this gigantic work. It was merely a reimbursement of the money he had actually spent in producing it. I paid it in the full belief that Parliament would recompense him for his gigantic labours in a national cause. It was not a matter of helping rich corporations, but of providing old-age pensions for the poor of Australia, and Senator Neild's work had a great deal to do with the ease with which that system was established in New South Wales. now come to a more serious matter than that. The honorable gentleman spoke as if there had been a Committee sitting upon my conduct in connexion with that matter. Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-No, I did not say that.

I

Mr. REID. That is what one would gather from the honorable member's speech. That Committee did not sit to inquire into my conduct at all.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE.-I never said so.

Mr. REID. I accept the honorable member's statement. The Committee was appointed to inquire into the question whether Senator Neild had entered into any contract, and whether by receiving payment from the Government he had forfeited his seat as a member of the Legislature, and it did not report upon my conduct in any shape or form. I admit that it is constitutionally dangerous to make payments to members of Parliament, and no one grants more freely than I do that since Parliament did not approve of my conduct it had a perfect right to censure me for believing that it would approve, and for thus falling into an error. I have never grumbled about that. Will honorable members believe that the honorable gentleman who made this imputation against me, and his whole party, when I challenged them in the face of the House and the country as to whether their statements amounted to an imputation upon my personal integrity gave me an assurance that they did not?

some imputation of improper conduct on my part. I immediately challenged him. I came before the House upon a question of privilege, and took up this position: "If this is a mere censure upon me for making a mistake as a Minister, I am satisfied to abide by the decision of the House; but if it is an imputation upon my personal character, if it is a charge of corruption against me, I claim the right to have a judicial investigation. I do not want my character to be the sport of a party censure vote." Honorable members will see the difference between the two things. If any of my honorable friends had his personal character impugned, would he be have it dragged into the mire of a censure debate? Would he not claim the right which belongs to the meanest criminal in the land to have a fair and impartial trial? I knew what use might be made of such statements. I shall read from the New South Wales Hansard. On the 5th of September, 1899, page 1136, I called attention to Mr. Barton's words, and said this

content

to

I rise to say that my ideas of parliamentary fair play and honour are so different from those of the honorable member, that if this charge embodied in the amendment of the honorable member for Wickham

That was Mr. Fegan, who pointed the honorable member's general motion, with some words I will read. There was no charge of corruption embodied in Mr. Fegan's amendment, which was couched in these words

That the question be amended by inserting after the word "House" the words "and deserves censure for having made payments of public money to Mr. J. C. Neild, member for Paddington, without asking Parliament, and contrary to the assurance given by the right honorable the Premier."

That was a perfectly legitimate ground for censuring any Government, and I did not object to anything of that kind, but when the honorable member for Hastings-Macleay said something which seemed to me to amount to a charge affecting my personal reputation, I got up in the House and made

If this charge embodied in the amendment of the honorable member for Wickham is intended a deliberate charge of personal corruption against me, affecting my personal integrityMr. Barton.-Certainly not.

as

Now I will read a little further. I had a prophetic sense of the extremes to which political malignity can go in some quarters,