Australasian Democracy. Henry de Rosenbach Walker

William Lane, which advocates "the nationalisation of all sources of wealth and all means of producing and exchanging wealth;" its organ, The Worker, writes under the motto "Socialism in our time," and several of its members publicly admit that they are Socialists. Others, however, who look forward to the possibility of an alliance with a reconstructed Opposition ask to be judged solely by the programme of the party which contains no distinctly socialistic item, in the popular acceptation of the term, except the establishment of a State Labour Department to which men may apply as a right for work at a minimum wage; but they will have difficulty in overcoming the general impression, which their opponents, not unnaturally, do all in their power to intensify.

      The Party first came into prominence at the elections in 1893, when they won fifteen seats out of seventy-two, and have nothing to show in the way of practical legislation to counterbalance the undoubted consolidation of the forces of their opponents. A comparison suggests itself with the success of the Labour Parties in New Zealand and South Australia which have co-operated with progressive Ministers in the enactment of measures of social reform. In the latter case, the Labour Party have been so moderate in their programme, speeches, and actions, that they have carried a quarter of the seats in the Legislative Council, and thus prove themselves not to have alienated the householders and small owners of property who form the bulk of the electorate for that House. In New South Wales the Labour Party have been able, by opportunistic transfers of their votes, to secure electoral reform and the taxation of incomes and land values. The position of affairs in Queensland is not analogous; the coalition of Sir S. Griffith and Sir T. McIlwraith practically destroyed the Opposition, and made it necessary for the Labour Party to trust almost entirely to their own efforts, which should have been directed towards the concentration of all the progressive feeling of the community. Their policy, on the contrary, has deprived them of the support of many who are dissatisfied with the Government, and has not materially strengthened their hold upon the working classes. Though they carried twenty seats in 1896, they only polled 964 more votes than in 1893, nor have they improved their position in the House, as, even should they be supported by the ten Oppositionists and Independents, they would be confronted by a solid phalanx of forty-two Ministerialists. It may be of interest to note that their principal successes have been gained among bushmen and miners, but that they also hold the sugar district of Bundaberg, two agricultural constituencies, two seats at Rockhampton, and three in the poorer and outlying parts of Brisbane.

      The complaints of the Labour Party against the Government were directed mainly to their failure to amend the electoral laws or to pass humanitarian legislation, and to the stringency of the Peace Preservation Act of 1894. Apart from their obvious objections to the plural vote of persons holding property in different divisions, they contend that many miners and shearers are permanently disfranchised, as they are neither householders nor reside for six months in the same place, and that persons qualified to be registered are impeded by the provisions which oblige them to fill in a claim in which, among other things, they have to state their qualification, and to get the claim attested by a justice of the peace, electoral registrar, or head male teacher of a State school. The Peace Preservation Act was passed at a time when a serious disturbance had arisen from a strike of shearers in the pastoral districts of the West, on the ground that the ordinary laws of the Colony were insufficient for the prevention, detection, and punishment of crime in such districts, and was as strongly justified by some as it was condemned by others. The Act authorised the Executive to proclaim districts which should come under its operation, and to appoint such district magistrates as might be necessary for carrying its provisions into effect. These may be summarised in the words of the Hon. T. J. Byrnes, the Attorney-General: "The first portion of this legislation is to give us power to put an end to the carrying of arms and the sale of arms in the districts that have been disturbed… It is proposed in the second part of the Bill that inquests on crime may be held… The third portion of the Bill deals with the power of arrest and detention of persons under suspicion." Under the latter heading persons suspected of crime committed in a proclaimed district could be arrested by a special or provisional warrant, in any part of Queensland, and be detained in prison; but it was provided that such persons should be treated as persons accused of crime and not as convicted prisoners, and that no person "should be held in custody under a provisional warrant for a longer period than thirty days, nor under a special warrant for a longer period than two months, without being brought to trial for the offence stated in such warrant." In justification of the measure, the same Minister quoted cases in which woolsheds had been burnt and the police and private individuals had been fired upon although no actual loss of life had occurred. A stranger cannot form an opinion upon the question and can only note, on the one side, that the operation of the Act was limited to one year, that it was most judiciously administered, not more than one district, under a single district magistrate, having been proclaimed, and that it brought about the speedy cessation of the troubles; on the other, that no attempt was made by the Government at mediation between the opposing parties, although, to quote the Attorney-General again, they "knew that labour troubles of an aggravated nature were likely to occur." A Bill "to provide for conciliation in industrial pursuits" is included in the programme of the Government.

      1

      "New South Wales; the Mother Colony of the Australias."

      2

      Quoted, by permission of the author, from an article contributed to the Australasian Review of Reviews by Mr. J. V. Chataway, one of the members for Mackay.

      3

      See footnote p. 66.

1

"New South Wales; the Mother Colony of the Australias."

2

Quoted, by permission of the author, from an article contributed to the Australasian Review of Reviews by Mr. J. V. Chataway, one of the members for Mackay.

3

See footnote p. 66.

4

Financial statement 1896, p. 14.