Mr. HUME COOK. What about the Conference held in Brisbane recently?

Mr. WILKINSON.-Queensland wants an alteration of the Tariff.

Sir GEORGE TURNER. She wants more revenue.

Mr. McCOLL.-We went to the country with a policy of fiscal peace. Why did we adopt that cry? Because the leaders of the party and all its members knew that if we had gone to the country with a cry for higher duties, we should have been beaten. If we had raised that cry, we should have had in power to-day a freetrade Government, which could have torn up the Tariff, and framed one to their own liking.

Mr. REID.-Hear, hear; that is a fair confession.

Mr. MAUGER.-The honorable member is a beautiful protectionist.

Mr. McCOLL. It is perfectly true. Mr. McCAY.-The honorable member for Melbourne Ports knows that is true.

Mr. MAUGER.-If I did I would not be such a fool as to say it.

Mr. McCOLL.-After the protectionist debates on the Tariff, and after commerce and business had been kept in a perfect state of turmoil for such a long time, people were heartily sick of Tariff discussions and alterations, and, if we had gone to the country on a policy of higher duties we should not have come back with a majority. Therefore, I say that the proposal for a fiscal peace was the wisest policy that could have been adopted at the time in the interests of protection.

Mr. MAUGER.-It was only a policy, not a principle.

Mr. FULLER. The honorable member subscribed to it.

Mr. REID. With mental reservations.

Mr. McCOLL.-It has been said that some industries are being injured by the operation of the present Tariff, but was that not expected as one of the results of Federation? It was thoroughly well known that the Commonwealth Tariff must be an average Tariff involving a reduction of duties in Victoria. It was known that it must be one which would bring in revenue, and at the same time do something to preserve industries. But, while it was known that

Victorian industries would be injured to some extent, it was looked to as possible and probable that the increased trade which would be done across the borders with other States would more than compensate for any loss by the reduction of duties.

Sir JOHN FORREST.-We lost our tobacco factory.

Mr. McCOLL.-This was part of the price which Victoria had to pay for Federation in the same way that every other State had to give up something because of it. The present agitation, as I have said before, was first of all started by the Trades Hall. But when we were battling here for these duties, and trying to get 5 or 7 per cent. more of protection on various items, did the Trades Hall give us any assistance? Not the least. We secured the duties which are in force now, simply because of the magnificent fighting done by the right honorable members for Adelaide and Balaclava.

Mr. MAUGER.-The Trades Hall gave a lot of assistance. They held several conferences.

Mr. McCOLL.-The Trades Hall gave us no assistance whatever, and that is proved by the fact that we lost many of the duties we desired, through the votes of labour members.

Mr. PAGE. They did plenty of lobbying amongst free-trade members, anyway. Mr. HUME COOK.-How was the duty on agricultural machinery reduced?

Mr. McCOLL.--The duty agreed to on agricultural machinery is only 2 per cent. less than it was under the Victorian Tariff. It was 15 per cent. in the Victorian Tariff, and it is 12 per cent. now. The difference of 2 per cent. could not make any very great difference to the manufacturers of agricultural machinery. If 12 per cent. protection is of no use to them, then 15 per cent. must have been of very little good, and it should be remembered that before Federation no attempt was ever made in the State Parliament of Victoria to raise the duty above 15 per cent.

Mr. MAUGER. I beg the honorable member's pardon. Such an attempt was made.

Mr. McCOLL.-We are now told that the Trades Hall people are all protectionists, but I remind honorable members that the electorate of Grenville, which has previously returned a protectionist, at the last election for the State Parliament returned a free-trader in the person of Mr. McGrath, who is a representative of the Trades Hall. They give £600 a year to a free-trader,

Mr. Mann, to go about the country preaching, not the doctrine which they say will find employment, and save women and children from want, but the doctrine of Socialism, which will never have the result articipated. If the Trades Hall Council desire protection, why do they not engage that gentleman to use his great powers of eloquence in preaching the doctrine of protection, not in this State, but in the other States. Why do not protectionists, instead of making speeches here about the virtues of protection, start a crusade in the other States, and try to convert the people of those States to the doctrine, as the present Prime Minister tried to convert the people of Victoria to free-trade? We went before the electors with a demand for fiscal peace. I have here the Preferential Trade Gazette, issued by the Trade Protectionist Association, and signed by Sir William Lyne, Mr. Poulter, Mr. Sparks, and Mr. Samuel Mauger, in which it is said

The free-trader seeks to destroy the present moderate Tariff. The protectionist desires to defend it. The free-trader threatens a new fiscal war. The protectionist asks for a period of fiscal peace.

Mr. MAUGER.—I have never denied that. Mr. MCCOLL.-What has happened during the last nine months to account for this sudden upheaval, demanding an alteration of the Tariff, and an increase in the duties?

Mr. MAUGER.-Does the honorable member say that industries are not languishing? Mr. McCOLL.-I do not.

Mr. MAUGER.-Then why does not the honorable member help them?

Mr. McCOLL.—I do not think that they are much worse to-day than they were nine months ago, and that they would suffer to some extent was expected when we entered Federation. Every member of the Protectionist Party advocated the policy of fiscal peace, and not one word was heard against it. Mr. MAUGER. That was our policy then. Mr. MCCOLL.-It was the policy then, and yet in less than nine months all this difference is to be made. The Age newspaper, on 23rd October last year, said

In the nature of things this was unavoidable. The Tariff, as it finally emerged, was at least a protectionist one of its kind, and what it lost in effectiveness as the builder up of national industries, the Federation was compensated in giving a wider market to manufacturers. It was a great and arduous work, done conscientiously in the main; and the business of the electors in the coming election will be to see that, for a course of at least three years, it is not interfered with. This cannot be too vigorously insisted upon.

Mr. MAUGER. -Will the honorable member read what the Age says now?

Mr. McCOLL.-I know that the honorable member for Melbourne Ports is the humble servant of the Age; but I am not.

Mr. MAUGER.-The honorable member was very glad to get the Age to help him, and he will be glad to do so again.

Mr. MCCOLL.-On November 5th the Age said this

The Prime Minister spoke words that should command attention in all the ranks of the party, when he said, "It is, above all things, desirable

that the electors should realise what is the root is the maintenance of the Tariff as we have it." and centre of the position. The root and centre We want fiscal peace, the maintenance of the prosperity we have, and the enjoyment of preferential

trade.

The honorable and learned member for Indi, I am sorry to see, has just left the Chamber. The other night the honorable and learned member interjected, "When did I promise to support fiscal peace?" If that is the attitude the honorable and learned member is taking, it is a mean attitude. It is the attitude of the soldier who is told to carry out a certain line of campaign, but who has another one in his pocket, which, when he is away from his leader, he intends to pursue on his own account. This very question was raised by the Prime Minister of the day in Tasmania. I quote from the Age of Decem

ber 11th, 1903—

trade party is putting forward a different policy It has previously been remarked that the freein every separate State. Mr. Deakin put this telling point to the meeting, "Men in Tasmania, who claim to be Opposition followers, he remarked, position candidates in Victoria and New South are adopting doctrines which are rejected by OpWales. You are entitled to judge each side by its own policy. You must look to the leader of a side, and take its pronouncement as his pronouncement alone; to that which he pledges himself he pledges his party. In this Tariff issue the Opposition leader pledges his party to fiscal war to re-open the fiscal Tariff, to tear up the present Tariff, to strike off all protection whatever, and reintroduce commercial anxiety and unrest. That is the policy of the Opposition, and of those who say they will support it. Every elector who objects to it must vote for the Ministerial candidate.

Yet the honorable and learned member for Indi asks, "When did I promise to support fiscal peace?" Because he had the satisfaction of having a walk-over, the honorable and learned member did not need to declare himself as fully as he would otherwise have done, but I say that if he had gone to the country on a policy of his own, demanding higher duties, he would

not have had the walk-over that he then enjoyed. The honorable member for Hume -who was a member of the Government who framed the policy on which we went to the electors, and who is going against his leader now-said

Regarding the future policy of the Government, he said it had no intention to disturb the Tariff. The honorable member for Southern Melbourne said

The Tariff is by no means settled, but it is not desirable to re-open it till we are forced by the book-keeping clauses to do so.

Senator Best condemned the proposal to rip up the Tariff, which, he said, had been eminently successful, and which, according to the Age of the previous day, had caused an extension of trade representing £1,500,000. The right honorable

member for Balaclava said that they were not justified in tinkering with the Tariff, and that for these three years it ought to be left alone. The honorable member for Bourke said, on the hustings

He would support the Government as regards the maintenance of the present fiscal protection and fiscal peace.

Mr. MAUGER.—No one denies that. Mr. McCOLL.-I think it just as well to compare what honorable members said then with what they are saying now. The honorable and learned member for Northern Melbourne said

There was no doubt the progress of Australia was retarded by the constant tinkering with the Tariff. Western Australia nominally sent freetraders to Parliament; but he found that the people there were very strongly opposed to further interference with the duties, recognising that unsettlement was worse even than a bad Tariff.

The Hon. J. L. Dow, who was a candidate for the Senate, said the same thing, and the honorable member for Melbourne Ports said

He had no intention of reopening the Tariff question. More was to be gained at present by fiscal rest, than by resurrecting the Tariff.

The honorable member followed with some hard remarks on the Trades Hall, which I shall not read. Mr. Wise, who stood for the Senate, also took the same view, and Mr. Barbour, who is now writing to the press, to say how badly off local manufacturers are as against those of other countries, and who stood for Kooyong, said

All parties are in favour of giving the Tariff

a fair trial. They courted the test which time alone could give it. The Tariff must not be disturbed till the expiration of the Braddon clause. Mr. REID. In 1911.'

Mr. McCOLL.-I desire also to quote what the present leader of the Opposition said when he went before his constituents. This is the honorable member who is going now to get people higher duties, in order to protect their manufactures. He is reported in the Age of 13th November last year, to have said

The

He would not, in any circumstances, be a party to disturbing the fiscal peace now reached. Labour Party had been able to knock out a few of the taxes which pressed heavily on the people, and in this way had reduced the revenue by a large amount. The proof of the prudence of their cutting down the Tariff as proposed was found in the fact that, on examination, the Tariff, as adopted, would now appear to average about 15 per cent. all round. As it stood, it was a reasonable Tariff, and should be allowed to stand un

disturbed.

He took credit to the Labour Party for having reduced duties, and for the fact that, although the duty on tobacco and spirits was 200 or 300 per cent., the average rate throughout the Tariff was only 15 per cent. Will the honorable member now eat his words, and vote for duties high enough to satisfy those who desire the re-opening of the Tariff? Even the right honorable member for Adelaide, when he went to Geelong to support the candidature of the honorable and learned member for Corio, said that the Tariff should not be re-opened during the book-keeping period for any reason whatever. He said that it had been a hard battle, and I am afraid that we shall not have a champion like him again. God help protection if those who are now trying to increase duties have to fight its battles. It is to the Labour Party that we owe the loss of many duties. I admit that several of them voted with the protectionists, and that without their assistance we could not have carried some of the duties in the Tariff. We did not expect the freetraders to vote with us, but we looked to those who claim to represent labour of every kind to help us in saving industries which had been established under protection, in order to prevent the men employed in them from being turned out into the streets, and their wives and children from being brought to want. It was a great disappointment when members of the Labour Party turned against us. The industries which are now plement manufacturers, the makers of mincrying out are chiefly the agricultural iming machinery, and those connected with

£5,737,000 in 1900, to £5,591,000 in 1901, and to £4,766,000 in 1902, while last year they were £4,839,000, or nearly £3,000,000 less than four years previously. Our exports to the other States in 1899 were £3,097,000; in 1900, £3,433,000; and in 1901, £3,649,000; while in 1902, after the Tariff came into operation, they jumped up to £6,120,000; and last year amounted to £6,093,000, or just double what they were four years previously.

Mr. WILKINSON.-But how has the Tariff operated in the other States?

Mr. McCOLL.-I am dealing now only with Victoria, and I am showing that the demand for a re-opening of the Tariff is somewhat unreasonable at the present time. The other States are in the same position in regard to protection as Victoria was in twenty or twenty-five years ago. Protection had to develop here, and it must be allowed to develop there; but its leaven will work from month to month, as industries are started, and by-and-by we shall obtain more reasonable duties if we do not interfere with the Tariff at the present time. I do not know what protectionists will gain from this alliance with the Labour Party. The Minister of Trade and Customs plainly stated the case the other night, and I need not amplify his remarks. Every man is perfectly free under the alliance, and it is not likely that men like the honorable member for Maranoa, and the honorable member for Kennedy, will turn their backs upon their pledges, and upon the votes they have given in the past. What will the members of the alliance gain personally? Some of them joined it from an instinct of self-preservation; but they will very soon find the ground cut from under their feet. Some of the strong members of the seceding Liberal Party, like the honorable member for Indi, who considers that he is impregnable, may be left untouched. But wherever the Labour Party can gain a seat it will be seized upon, and the honorable member who now represents that constituency will be torn down as if by wolves.

Mr. KING O'MALLEY.-They will shake up the honorable member.

Mr. McCOLL.-The honorable member had better be prepared for the shaking up that he will receive. In order to indicate the amount of reliance that is to be placed upon labour alliances, I desire to direct attention to what is now passing in Queensland. I may say that if I were to take up the same position as that adopted by honorable members who have allied themselves

with the Labour Party, I should sign the pledge straight away, and become a good honest labour man. I should not be a Laodicean, neither hot nor cold. We do not, however, find honorable members signing the pledge, because if they did, they would lose caste in the circles in which they move. They are content to make use of the Labour Party for their own ends, but they will never join it, because they conceive it would involve a loss of prestige.

Mr. ISAACS.-Would the honorable member become a good, honest free-trader?

Mr. McCOLL.-When the honorable and learned member was a candidate for election in 1892 he was as nearly a free-trader as it is possible for any man to be, and denounced protection in no unmeasured

terms.

Mr. ISAACS.-The honorable member is quite wrong.

Mr. MCCOLL.-The honorable and learned member says I am quite wrong, but I will show whether that is so or not.

Mr. ISAACS.-I hope that the honorable member will quote from Hansard, and not from some free-trade publication.

Mr. McCOLL.-In 1892 the honorable and learned member said

For the last twenty-five years a large and deserving portion of our community, the farmers and small graziers, have borne almost uncomplainingly, and certainly most loyally, a protective certainly not for their benefit, but chiefly for the policy which has been introduced and extended, benefit of the metropolis. I think, at this late hour, it is our duty to frankly acknowledge the justice of their claim to recognition, and, in this connexion, I would direct the attention of the Ministry to the thousands of cattle and sheep now passing over the border, in anticipation of the imposition of an increased stock tax. On the 6th October of the same year, in reply to a remark of the then Minister of Lands, Mr. McLean, he said—

He (the Minister of Lands) told us the farmers were well protected. Unfortunately for myself, I have not the good fortune of agreeing with the honorable gentleman. We are told that the farmer has his reaper and his binder free. So he has. Is his plough free? Is his harrow free? Is his chaffcutter free? Is the very twine with which he ties up his produce free? Certainly not. This shows that the farmer has much to gain, and that there is much that he ought to gain, before he is placed on a And the miner, how is he on a level with the worker in the town? He has a weight around his neck. We are told that the miners patriotically stood by protection in the past. Are we to whip the willing horse to death? His pick is weighted with taxation, every article he wears is weighted with taxation, and when he goes home every article in his house, even his knife and fork, is taxed.

level with his more fortunate brother in the town.