legislative assembly wednesday november · killed, wh
TRANSCRIPT
Queensland
Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]
Legislative Assembly
WEDNESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 1900
Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy
1846 Questions [ASSEMBLY.] Questions.
LEGISLATIVE ASSEJ't
MaTsupial Board.,·, Etc., [14 NovEMDER.] Continuation Bill. 1847
EMPLOYEES IN IPSWICH RAILWAY YARDS. Mr. LESIN A ( Glemwnt) asked the Secretary
for Railways- · 1. 'Vhat was the number oE emplo~'ecs engnged in
the railway yards and workshops at Ipswich dUl'ing the past three years ended the 80th June, 1900?
2. The nurnbt:r of applicants rejected? 3. The number of those t-tccepted on the recommen
dation of the honourable members for Ipswich; Rlso the number of those rejected on similar recmnmcndations P
4. \Vhether the acceptances or rejections (if any) were determined by recommendation or examination:-·
The SECRETARY FOR RAILWAYS replied-
! would ask the hon. member to move for a rctnrn. This matter should not lJe submitted in the form of a question, as it will take some considerable ti.me to prepare a return,
Mr. LESINA: Very well, I give notice that I will move for the information to-morrow.
.RAILWAY ADVEI!TISEMENTS IN NEWSPAPEI!S.
Mr. LESINA asked the Secretary for Railways-
1. 1Vhat were the amounts paid by the Railway DepartmPnt to Brisbane newspaycrs dnring the twelve months ended on 80th October last for advertising~
2. rrhe names of the papers~ 3. A~nounts paid to eaeh t
The SECRETARY FOR RAILWAYS retJlied-
1. £772 15s. 5d. 2 and 3. B1'i8hune Courier, £213 lis. Bel.; OlJspr, t'r,
£~H lls. 3d.; Queettslanrler, £8; Telt-gf'r'ph, £20 1·1R. nd.; Week, £8; Pigato, £70 Ss ; Pi'OQJ'r'8S. £i:t~ lSs. 2d.; Sportsman, J.:32 ls. 6d.; Pla8hes, £1719:->. 6d.; Stret--t, .!:::!4: Sporting ancl Dnnuafic Ne•H:.', £1-:1_, 7~.; Austr·aliun, £:Z:3 l7s.; A(te, £12 15s. 3d.; JVorkf'J', £1-:b is. lid.; 'l'rnth, £12 5s.; CoHtJtl'tJ Life. £11 Bs.; Sahullay ~Yi(1ht, £1 l~s. t:id.; J.VOi·cl Australische Zeitlmg, £>-3 l5s.; Queenslam7 Gr11::iet. £7; f/ueensland TtO})iC'Ultur;Pf, £:1 5~.; (Jueensfruul Build.'ay and Enyiueer·ina .Seu1.<;, £() 18s; (Jueen.<ilwul Jfercrmtile Gazette, £a 17s.; (.))wen8laurl Herald, £H I2s. 6<1.
PAPER. The following paper, laid on the table, was
ordered to he printed :-Annual report of the Inspector of Orphanages for the year l~~J!I.
P AOIFIO CA BLI~ BILL. On the motion of the CHIEF SECRETARY,
it was resolved-Thnt the Hou~e will, at itf'l next sitting, rc"o1vc itself
into a Committee of the \\"hole to con:-;ider of the dcsirablenes~ of introdueing a Hill to enable the GovLrnmeut of Queensland 10 join with cert<lin other Goveruments in the cost of the <"'onstnwtion and mnJntenance ot' a cable across the Pacific Ocean, and for purposes conse(1l1Cnt upon and incidental to snch objeets.
:EXPORTATION OI<' ARYIS'BILL. THillll RJ~AIJI~G.
On the motion of the PRJ~J\I!ER, this Bill was read a third time, pa,sed, and ordered to be returned to the Legblative Council.
MARSUPIAL BOARDR ACT 01'' 18!!7 CONTINUATION DILL.
On the Order of the Day being read for the consideration in committee uf the desirableness of introducing a Bill to continue the operation Jf the Marsn[Jial Boards Act for a period of one year-
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS (Hon. \V. B. H. O'Connell, illnsgravc) : Mr. Speaker,-I move that you do now luwe the chair.
Question put and passed.
UmnrrTTEE.
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS moved-
rl'hat it is Uesirable that a Bill be in trod need to con~ tinue the operation of the :.\larsnl)ial Boartls Act of l!j97 for a period of one year.
Mr. LESINA (Gle1·mont) regretted having to speak at that juncture, as very likely an opportnnity would be afforded for further discussion of the subject laler on, but be wanted to point out that last y<ar they bad been promised a comprehensive measure de:1ling with the whole subject, and recasting and reconstituting the marsupial boards tbr<.ughout the colony. 'rhat Bill should have hHn introduc~ed earli<er in the session, wben there would have been some oppor· tunity of discnssinp: such a mea,ure, but the Government h~d broken their prumise in that respect, as they had done in other respEcts. He desired now to enter his protest, not ngainst the continuation of the existing Act, bnt tLgainst the laxity of the Government in putting off from year to year neceosary legislation ''n the subject. \Vhen in the Ulermnnt electorate recently he had met a number of kangaroo shooters, interested in the Act, and had written do\'1-'n a nnn1ber of ~uggestinn8 f(_)r an1endments, which they thought ougnt to he made in the law. He had al;o received suggestion>; from owners of property interested in the Act; but he suppoRed he would have to hold over those suggestions until next year, and he once more entered his protest against that patchwork legislation, and the waste of time that arose out of it.
.ME,mERS on both sides : Hear, hear ! Mr. LESU\ A: Ye>, waste of time, and he
gravely and en.rneRtly prntestt'd against it, and ag-ainst the constant patchwork legislation the Uovernnwnt put before the Clmrnber.
Mr. KERR (Barcuo): There was g0od reason for what the hon. member for Ulermont had said. Last year they had been promi ·Nl that a Hill would this sesd"n he bron12:ht down which would amend the Marsupial Boards Act and put it on rt go0d ha•-.i . .;;, but again it was to be put off, and they had another patchwork Bill introduced to carry on the present Act for annther year. The result was that. during the time the matter w:<s being po-;tponecl the marsupials were increasing evf'ry yP-ar. ~\nyone who knew anything abont the \vorking of tho UH1rSUJJial hoards in the diffm-ent. districts knew that owing to the uncertainty that exiHted in the minds of tlw people with respect to the Bill there were only two months in the yen.r when marsupials were being killed and paid for by the boards. The funds were exhausted in the first two or three months of the vear, and fnr the remainder of the year only the large marsupials were killed, wh<'SA hides paid thP scalpers and hnnter~. It might appear tLlight mattH to the Gnvernn1ent, bnt it was a very Rerion:-; matter to the people in districts that were infested with rwcrsupials, anrl the hon. member for Clermont d··.served er• dit fnr his action, although he had heen pooh-pnoh• cl by some members of the J\linistry. If they went into the cnuntry districts they would find a strong feeling about the manner in which the people hacl been hoodw,inked over the Bill. lf they were to have any legislation on the subjEct at all, let. tllf'm have an Act which would remain on the statute-hook f<>r some years, instead of having to deal with the qnestion year after ye:;:.r.
The ATTOllNBY- GEN"ERAL (Hon. A. Rutled~e, JJiaranoa) represented a district in which there were two or three mar~upial board~, and he certainly objected to the language employred l>y the hon. member for Barcno, who Rpoke of the Government trying to hnodwink people. Hon. members 1m"t know that the
18t8 Mar"supial Boards, Etc., [ASSEMBLY.] Conti~tuation Bill.
mn.tter of marsupial boards w .:s in the hands of the Secretary for Agricultme, and they must know-or they ought to have known-that his c,,J!ea'l'ues had be ·n g"thering material fer some considerable tin>e past. They must also know that there was a conference of mar··,upial boards some time ago--
Mr. KERH: Last yc,w. Mr. \V. THORN: This year. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: He was in a
position to know that recommendations were coming in from time to tirr,e up to the prei\ent from marsupial boards. Only last week he got son1e recmnrnendations from a 1nursupial bnarcl with regard to the matter. If a Bill had been brought in without being thoroughly considen,d, the Government would have been told that they were trying to rush legislation through. It was a matter ,,f very serious importance to the whole of the pastoral districts, and every credit ought to be given to the Government for trying to get all the material together, and for introducing a Bill which wou~d be likely to be received with favour by the people living in the various marsupial board districts. It was not generous -to put it in the mildest language-to be C>trping at the Government, and using such language as had been used, as if the Government were really trying to delude the House with a promise of a proper MarsupinJ Bill. Let them get the proper material for such a Bill, and let that Bill be such as the Government conld fairly ask the House to accept, and then it would he introducec1.
i\lr. McDO~ALD (Ji'linders): The hon. gentleman told them that he was continually recAiving rPcon1mendations-even up to withill tlw last day or two-in connection with that Bill. The hon. gentleman nmst know that if its introduction was postponed till next ye1r or the year after, that sirnilnr recommendations would be coming along all the time. The Government ha'! delayed intrndncing tbe Bill. Last sc.;sion a Bill was brought in re-enacting the old Act, and the Government ought early this year to have been jn a pnr;ition to introduc2 a cnrnpre~ henRive measure, b •cause the Attorney-General admitted that they had all the in'formation gathered.
'J'be A'rTORXEY·GJ;CNERAI,: Not all. Mr. McDONALD: \Vel!, the confer8l>Ce of
which the hon. gentleman spoke had Rat this year. The ATT01<N};Y-GEN!CRAL: The Secretary for
Agriculture has Leen incapacitated from dealing with it.
Mr. MoDONALD: They wne all sorry that the Secretary for Agricultnre was ili, aud hoped that he would soon be buck in the Chamber; but there bad been ample time to intrndnce the llill before he became ill, but the Government had marle that important lef(islatinn subservient to private railways. The Government knew that the Bill had to be pa<sed, and should have introduced it "t the earliest possible moment. The result was, as the hon. member for Barcoo pointed out, tbat the marsupial boards wne paraly:sed. They were afraid to move for fea.r some vital alteration would he made in the Act which might involve them in some way, and the consequence was that marsupials were increasing at an alarming rate in some parts of the colony.
Hon. D. H. DAI"RYMPLE: They are diminishing owing to the drought.
Mr. McDONALD: The position of affairs was exactly the reverse, as there was not the same opp~rtunity •Jf killing the marsupials probably that there was before the drought, and, owiPg to the state of uncertainty, the hoards were afraid to act, and so WPre tbe scalpers. If the House had iutroduced a comprehensive measure it would have been J>aesed in a very short time.
Mr. KEOGH (Rose1vood) trusted that provision would be made in the Bill whereby those districts in which there were no ma1sur•ials would not be compelled to contribute to the tax. In his district they had bren collecting the tax, although no marsupi(lls existed there.
Mr. W. THORN (Au~igny) disagreed with the lwn. member for Rosewood. 'J'he time had been when the rest of the culony had been compelled to contribute to the cost of killing marsupials in the hon. member's Plectorate, and it was high time that the people there should now pay to get rid of them in districts further out. In committee he intended to see if he could not get an alteration made with respect to the· way some of the boards required the scalps of marsupials and dingoes to be taken off.
Mr. BOWMAN (Warngo) said that when he a~ked the question last week and received the reply that it was the intention of the Government to introcluce a 1farsupials Bill, he came to the conclusion that they would have a new Bill, and not an extension of the old Act. He had rccei ved communications from the district that he repre;ented, and was informed by the secretary of the Cbarleville Progress As"ociation that the number of dingoes in and around that place was a very great dar.ger to the stockowners and scalpers. He had met a number of scalpers travelling through various parts of the West, and one and all were desirous that the Government should pass a new Marsupials Act with the object of giving them greater protection than they had at the present time. The difficulties that they experienced at the present time were these: They were precluded from going on to the runs
to shoot the marsupials, and that [4 p.m.] was considered a great grievance.
He had collected information with tbe object of getting amendments included in the Act which would give greater facilities to the men who were employed as scalpers, as the trmt· ment of many ot the scalpers had been of :1
scandalous nature. 11any of them had to wait for months and did not receive their money. In fact, some boards had told them that they could do what tlwy liked with the scalr s, and that it was a matter of indifference to them, He had known some scalpers •"vho had had to sacrifice eome of the best skins hy taking a G-inch strip off them down the back.
The Hmm SEOI\ETAI\Y: \Vhat was the value of the skin?
JI/Ir. BOWMAN: He did not know exactly; but he knew some of them went up as high as 2"., and he was as,ured by some of the scalpers that they were prepared to sacrifice the scalp rather than the skin. He hoped the Government would introduce the promised leg·i~lation. He did not think there wouid be much difficulty in passing it, and it woulrl give satbfaction not only to the stockowners, but to those who were following the vocation·of marsnpi,,l destruction.
HoN. W. H. GROOM (Drayton and Too-1voorn1Ja) was sure there was no member of the House who did not regret the cause of the absence ot the Secretary for Agriculture. He thought that instead of renewing the Marsupial Act from year to year they required a comprehensive measure dealing with the destruction of noxious animals generally. The flying foxes in his district had now become a far greater pest than the marsupials, because, owing to the scarcity of food in the scrubs, they bad invaded the gardens and were now attacki11g the citrus fruits, a thing which they had never done before. He might say that the fruitgrowets woul<l have no objection to prtying a small tax for the destruction of flying foxes. At a meeting of the Agricultural Society held in Toowo01u ba last Saturday one of the members who owned an orchard brought in samvles of citrus fruits which had been attacked
Marsupial Boards, Etc., [14 NOVEMBER.] Continuation Bill. 1849
hy flying foxes, and be assured the meeting that he and his neigh hours we m willing to contribute a share towards the destruction of the pest. They were certainly becoming a very serious mena~e to the livelihood of a great number of men. From what he knew of the Secretary for Agriculture he was sure that the rnatt"r bad not e;caped his attention. There was in New South \Vales a Noxious Animals Act, which gave power to the Governor in Council to declare what were noxious animab, and he was sure if a comprehensive measure dealing with noxious animals generally were introduced it would do mt;ch good. He commended the matter to the at.tentwn of the Secretary for Lands, as the increase in the flying fox pes~ was becoming a most serious matter to frmtgrowers all over the colony. \Vhat was taking place in the gardens on the rang-es would undoubtedly take ]Jlace on the coastal lands if some stPps were not soon tal1en to mitigate the evil.
HoN. G. THOitN was not inclined to support a Bill for the de·,truction of the big marsupials. Within the last twelve months he had known the flesh and skin of a big marsupial to fetch almost the price of a bullock, and for that reason he thought they should not try to exterminate them. He was satisfied that before many years were over their heads landowners would be breeding- big marsupials instead of destroying them. \Vith regard to the small mar<,upials, it was a different thing altogether. They ought to be got rid of, but the Act providing for their destruction ought to be in force for more than a year. \Vhat was the use of wasting the time of the House every year by passing the same measure? The sooner they bad a Standing Order enabling them to deal with measures more promptly and quickly the better it would be for the country. He deprecated strongly the de<truction of the big marsupioJs, as there was nothing more delicious than their flesh. Venison was nothing to be compared with it. He hoped the Government would at an early date bring down a comprehensive measure deaiing with the destruction of noxious animals generally.
Mr. HARDACHE (Leichhardt) protested against a Bill being brought in for the continu<ttion of the old Act. It would be a source of great disappointment to the people in the country districts generally. Marsupial shooters, pastoralists, and selectors bad been looking forward to the introduction of a Bill which would deal more effectively with the extermination of marsupials. It appeared to him that the l\:Iarsn]Jial Act and the Civil Service Board Act had been singled out as two of the least important measures to be dealt with, and which were to be continued in their present form. \Vhy not omit some of the other Acts-the Factories and Shops Act and the Sugar ·works Guarantee Act-instead of dea,ling in such a manner with suc;b an important llill ? He thought it must be admitted that the machinery in force for the destruction of marsupials had been almost useless, and was the cause of much complaint. The shooters complained that they c, JUld not get on the runs to destroy the m>trsnphds. The only opportunity of appealing that he had was to the marsupial boards, which were practically under the control of the lessees of the stations. In that way he had really no appeal except to the man who prohibited him from going on to his holding. Tbe Act was also defective in that it did not provide for general action on the part of the marsnr:ial boards. In one district a board might go t<J great tronble and expense in destroying the pest, and all its work be nullified by the adjoining board doing nothing. He hoped that when the new Bill was brought
in it would be more effective from a national point of view, and less permissive and voluntary than the present one.
Mr. HIGGS: He bad no doubt that this Bill would receive sympathetic treatment at the hands of the Assembly. His only objection to it was that it was brought forward before Bills. of. a more important nature. They were now w1tbm six wPeks of Christma•, and the greater portion of the time had been used up in furthering the interests of g~ntlemen who wm;e ahsent horn the country, and who were only mtenc.;ted in it because it was an investment colony. He thought that the Government might very well drop legislation of this kind, and introduce the EIPctions Bill; get that passed through both Houses; and then go t.o the cot:ntry. 'l'bere was no doubt that the geneml public, who had votes, would return a different sort of politicians to the House, who would do the business of the country in a more regular and prompt way.
'rbe PHEMIRR : I hope so. !'.Ir. HIGGS: He thought they should go to
root of the evil, and get an alteration. of the franchise. They would then have a d1fferent order of politicians on t!te Government benches, and lPgislation of this character w.ould not be bronght forward six weeks before Chnstmns. He had been in hopes that some bon. member would have rduted the statement made at a recent conference that marsupials were more numerous and obnoxious since the passing of the Marsupials Act than they were before. If that were so, those who killed the marsupia],, must be occupying some part of their time in breeding them ; and there was not much use in having the Act at all In New South \Vales that was found to be th~ case when the Government pai<l so much per bead for the destruction of rabbits, and when the Government curtailed the expenditure in that direction the rabbits began to decrease. He hoped the Premier would not t.ake up ::ny more of the time of the House hy mtrodncmg anv more private railways Bills, hut would get on· with the business of the country.
Mr. LESINA: Before the question was put he would like to say a word in reply to the Attorney-General. The bon. gentlet;Jan. b~d said that he represented a pastora.l d1stnct m which there were two boards of th1s character, but he bad not bad any urgent requests made to him for amended legislation.
'rbe ATTORNEY-GENEl\AL: I did not say anything of the wrt.
Mr. LESINA: Well, he had misunderstood the hon. gentleman, but that was what be understood him to say. He hopEd tha~ :vhen the new Bill was brought forward a provlsJon would be introduced which would enable the scalpers, on the payment of a small license. fee, say 2,, Gd. or 5s. a year, to enter upon runs m <;rder to carry out the destruction of marsupials. At pre~ent they had no right to do that, and ~ny ;;tatw~owner could debar them from tntermg upon Ius property to subdue the pest. The fact that th~y had not reached the stage of an amended Bill now was dne to the Govennnent l>aving put private interests before the interests of the puplic in their conduct of the business of the sessHm, and when be went before his constituents be would tell them so.
Question put and pa,;sed. The House resumed ; the resolution was re
ported, and agreed to.
FmsT REAlliNG. The Bill was then read a first time, and its
second reading made an Order of the Day for to-morrow.
1850 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
AGRICULTURAL LAND8 PURCHASE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
SECOND HEADING-RESUMPTION m· DEBA'rE.
HoN. T. MACDO:NALD-PATERSON (Brisbane Nm·th) : In moving the adjournment of this debate last night I did "o becau8e I felt some responsibility in connection with the mode of acquiring land under the Act of 18n4. Circumstances in relation to several purchases-as to how est:'tte> have been repurchased at the end of 1898, \nd after the last election-have been disclosed·-for instance, the acquirement of the Seaforth estate-which show that these purchases have bAen surrounded with suspicion, if not more than that.
MR;~TBERS of the Opposition : Hear, hear! Ho:'!, T. MACDONALD-PATERSON: At
any rate, knowing something of that territory, and knowing the nominal vendor of that land, a gentleman who, unfortunately, is now dead and gone-a very dear friend of njne for over thirty years- I have come to the conclusion that it is desirable that there should be some modification of the law, in order to put the reJJUrchasing of these e·otates under the control of both Rouses of Parliament-that at least we should have the right of the ratification of these purchases. In an address I pnblishe<l in .February, li>D(!, not only to the electors of Brisbane :North, but to my fellow-colonists throughout the whole of Queensland, I us£d these worJs-
No. ~. Repurchase of lands by the Crown: I believe this qnestwn wil 1 requ1re the attention of ParliamC'nt with a view, possibly, to modify, if not curtail, the existing powers of the Agricultural I .. ancl~ Pm·chase Act, to purchase large areas of land, without reference to the House of Assembly. At that time, I thought the Assembly would be quite mfficient; but observations which have been made in the Press, in this House, and by men actually not in the political arena, have led the Government to adopt the policy ot actually referrinf( the matter tu both Houses of Parlia· mer_t, I am very pleased to see that, for this is the principal CJuality of this Bill-the crux of the Bill. The Government have adopted what peonle of every shade of politics in the country have demanded ; that is, that both Houses shall concur in any agreement for the repurchase of estates, before the country i> ]Jlerlged to ally such repurchase.
Mr. BROWNE: It ought to have been in the last Act.
Mr. L];SINA : It would have saved a lot of money if it had been in the old Act.
HoN. T. MACDONALD-PATER80N: We know now that some of these repurchases were acts of political indiscretion, for which the public are paying rather too dearly. At any rate, if the different purehases had been concluded on the report of the I"and Board-if they had been real solid, hom·st, and wholesome bargains, I believe the present law would not require any alterotion, I say that advisedly, after our experience of the results of thfl operation of the law, both as regards the Government of the day and the reports of thc~e officers, upon which the Government acted. Now, nothing has been s:'tid about the principal ingredient-a most valuable onein the Bill-namely, that its object is to widen the scope of the land available for dairying purposes. I would like to know bow was it that the members of the Land Board could not report on the lands that were not suited for tillage'! The hard-and-fast rule that they seemed to go npon was whether land was fit for tillage. It does not exist in any country in the world that ~very acre of land is suited for tillage. There IS the husbanrlry of pasturage and the husbandry of tillage. I believe that lands suitable for husbandry, agriculture, dairying, and stock-
rr1ising all come within the scope of the original Bill. I do not believe that any man inside or outside this House und<'rstands that dairying land ought to he land of which every acre is fit for the plough. vVhat does agricultural land mean? One of the principal qualities of lands regarded in the United Kingdom is: are they suitable for dairying-for the production of cheese, milk, butter, egg-s, bacon, horse-s, ponies, oxen, calves, lamb,, and so on. That is the question. I heard some Victorians talking slightingly of some of our reports, that wue drawn up by a man who had little or no knowledge of dairying. There is not a 'ingle man on the Land Board "'ho knows anything about dairying. I know that some men in Australia look down on agriculture as beneath contempt-as suited only to the toilers and m oilers; but I hold that it should be the first walk of life-the very pleasantest walk of life for our populo.tion, It is one of the very best occupations the t can be snggested to men of any nation ; and within the scope of agriculture we should include the products of vines and all the other products I have mentioned. I am not at all sorry thaL this Bill has been brought forward, because it shows that the men who have reported have not had the conro.ge to follow their common sense-not even to disclose what is revealed in 2s. Gd. volumes on agriculture. 'rhe ordinary pamphlets of the day show that all the departments I have referred to come within the scope of agriculture. Take the agricultural shows all over Austrolia-at Scone, Albury, Sydney, Stanthorpe, Too\\Oomba, Brisbane, \Varnambool, or \Vollongong, and what do yon find? We find that the chief exhibits are butter, cheese, horses, sheep, bacon, pi!:(s, and dairying, and dairying does not take its proper place in regard to this measure. I am bound to make an observation or two with regard to the preliminaries of the Act of 1894, which states that it is "an Act to mnke provision for the purchase of lands suitable for immediate settlement, and for facilitating the settlement thereof." The leader of the Labour Opposition said yest•r-
day afternoon that the ratification [4·30 p.m.] of a contract would practically be
given pro fornw. I do not think that anything of the kind will take plnce. It would be a dd',onnur to this House and to the U pp or House if ratiticati< m were given ]JJ"O for·mrt. 1 assert that if more than one contract which has been made by the Secretary for Lands had been presented to both Houses of Parliament for ratification under this Bill, there would have been no ratific::ttion at the price at which the purchase was concluded. What is the difference between the mode of procedure under this Bill and that under the t're,ent Act? Under the present Act the :Niinister may, with the appr,val of the G-overnor in Council, make a contract for the purchase of land; hut under this Bill, while the Minister may still make a contract, it will only be a provisional contract, and, instead of being subject to the approval of the Governor in Council, it will be subject to ratification by both Houses of Parliament, which is a Yery wise provision, Under the Act of 1894 the Land Otmrt are required to report as to-
( I) The fah' value of the land t0 the owner; (2) r:t'he demnnd for la..nd in the neighbourhood for
agrieultural settlement; (:J) The snit>ebilily of the land offered for Hgricultnral
scttlemen t. ; (1) The pe1·manency of the water snpply; (5) 1'he probability of the immediate selection of the
land· (6! 'orhc absenr,e of a sufficient qu~mti.ty of Crown
1ands in the neighbourhood available for agricu1tural settlement.
'l'he limit to the annnal expenditure on the purchase of lands is £100,000, but .I am very glad
Agriaultural Lands [14 NOVEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1851
to s6e that this Bill eliminates that limit, because as we advance our rail ways and population increases all those suitable lands that are held by the original settlers and early pioneers of the country are becoming m<>re v-Aluable every year. I happen to know one splendid property containing all the elements demanded by the Act, which, I b3lieve, it has been suggested should be purchased by the Crown, but which has been refused simply because the country is interspersed with well- timbered ridges and flats. \V e are told that this Bill is necesoary to enable the Government to purchase such land, because it is totally unsuitable for agriculture. I have already shown that one of the primary sections of agriculture is dairying, and the by-products and interests associated with dairying, such as a few lambs, a few horse<, and a few ponies. 'l'he Imperial Government are encouraging the breeding of horses in Connemar" in order to gAt back the breed of ponies of the old days, and they are doing this by gh·ing the use of sires for nothing in that district, and establishing light lines of railway there. The whole of the United Kingdom of Gn:,.t Britain and Ireland is devoted, not so much to the production of grain as to the productiun of butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, and what not. It is not, then, surprising that we have lands rejected by the Land Court because they are not wholly suitable fur tillage? \Vhat sensible farmer would have an agricultural area all alluvial? \Vhere would he put his stock in the wet season if he had not nice wholesome ridges, wholesome hills and dales with good shade intet'S)Xrsed over his estate? He requires land which be can fence in in 10-acre and 50-acre paddocks. As far back as 1721 a weli-known man in Scotland wrote a little pamphlet for distribution among the farmers, in which he said that 10 acres well cultivated and looked after were far better for sheep than lOO acres of natural grasses.
Mr. ARMSTRONG : Somebody else said that 3 acres and a cow were enough.
HoN. T. MACDONALD-PATERSOl": Yes, but that man forgot that there were so many 2, 3, 4, and 5 acre lots in l<~ngland. The leader of the Labour Opposition asked last night why should the country purcha'e lands when we have so much fine land bt!tween Kilkivan and Nanango and in other regions outside the railway-tapped districts? vVell, it is absurd to ta!k about settling people on the land and encouraging them to produce perishable articles that require instant, rapid, and regular carriage from day to day and week to week if the land available is beyond the confines of railway communication. At one time I thought it was an unwi8e thing to begin repurchasing land wholesale and then selling it retail on long terms, but having in view the circumstances w hi eh led to the aggregation of those large estates, I am no longer of tbat opinion. When the Land Act of 1868 came into operation, th" old pioneers on the Darling Downs, and in the immediate coastal districts, naturally took panic, and thought they were a bout to lose all the best part of their holdings-I myself was under that Act-and they took advantage of the provision which allowed them to secure 12,000 acres as freehold. They could acquire agricultnml land on payment of ls. an acre for ten yRars, sec,md-class pa>st:>ral land at 7s. 6d. an acre, and third-class pastoral land at 6d. an acre. Under that provision a large amount of land was acquired throughout the whole of the coastal district from 50 to 2i'i miles north of Rockhampton, right down to the Tweed River, hut very little was taken up beyond t.he vVe?tern range. In those favoured spots, however, where the rainfall and climate are good, and the population sub,ists, large areas were grabbed by the original ;ettlers in self-preservation.
The result was that SO per cent. of them got into debt, and have been flmmdering in it ever since. The properties have changed hands from mortgagee to mortgagee, and they are now to be had by the Government at less thil.n one-third of the gold that was actually paid for them, and for the tuifilment of the conditions requisite with respect to them under those earli<cr Acts. 1 ad vo2ate the acquirement of these lands for thi;; purpose, as against throwing the settlers out into the more remote parts of the colony. I insist upon it that there is no use in securing large areas for the settlement of intending selectors, outside the good rainfall area. There is no use in opening up lands 50 miles beyond Dalby for this purpose. It is upon the lands on the coast side of the range, bet.weer. Port Curtis and the 'Tweed, that these operations should take place. vVith respect to the Tweed district, which Dr. Lang desired to see beloug to '-,lueensland when separated from New South \vales, we know that territorially, in the matter of trade, and otherwise, it is associated with us, ftnd its proper market is Brisbane. I am opposed to encouraging men to go out to the Thompson and Diamantina, to Windorab, Cunnamulla, and Thargomindah to settlf'. Let those who can affurd to take the risk of sheepfarming go there ; but the lands within i\0 or 100 miles of the coast should be the lands acquired for the men who desire to cultivate the soil and produce immediately marketable articles, for immediate consumption. We must have a fair arnnunt of wholesome, hiUy pasture, and good flats, and we mnst especially have a carJital permaned supply of w:1ter, >tr,d it is areas fulfilling those conditions which should be promptly acquired by the Government. Another matter deserving consideration is the timber supply requisite for building houses and fences. Nothing is more beneficial in close agricultural settlement than good sound fences tn keep t.he cattle from the agricultural areas, and also to maintain a change of pastme for the settler's stock. This is a matter to which the greatest attention is paid in the old country, but here there are hundreds of farmers who do not know how to breed cattle, and some of them do not know how to breer! a mule. I must admit that a. great many of them have considerably improved in the matter of breeding cattle, the quality of their butter anr! cheese, and also in the matter of mixed farming. I may say that I had a number of lambs down from a farmer on the Downs last year, anrl I sent them home to the old country, and the eulogistic references tc those lambs which I had fromjudgesoflambsin the old country were most gratifying. Their excellence was accounted for to them when they were told they were farmers' lambs. I trust both sides will allow this Bill to go through, because I believe it is a good Bill, and under it each or both Houses of Parliament will have the power to put into the wa,te-paper basket any provisional agreement for the purchase of land which does not meet with their views. If we wait much longer we will not get these estates for our peopie, as I know that within the last. year or two a couple of New Zealanders came up to the Downs and cut up an estate of about 13,000 acres between them, each taking G,OOO odd acres, for which they paid cash. I am glad to have f hese men here, and glad to have their approval of the land and of the climate, but I ad vacate the purchase of these estates where there is a population and not on the fringe of the population, where they are within reasonable distance of a rail way or of the proposed routes of branch lines, and their distribution amongst numbers of settlers. There is no use in putting farmHs on to land for dair} ing or for the production of lucerne hay where after three showers of rain they have to drag their produce through a
1852 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
quagmire for five and twenty miles to get it to a railway station. Instead of having one or two men cutting up these estates, I want to see the Government make provision for putting some hundreds of people on tn country, for thP. benefit alike of the people, the Government, and the State.
Mr. CAMP BELL (llforeton): I rise to support the second reacling of the Bill, and I am very pleased the Government have seen fit to bring it on this session. The Bill contains a radical alteration upon the Act of 1894, inasmuch as any purchases contemplated under it will require the r•,tification of both Houses of Parliament. That should meet with the approb<:~tion of hon. members on the other side, who contend that the Governor in Council should be done away with, and that Parlianwnt should always be consulted in matter·> of this kind. I do not know myself that it is an absolutely wistl provision, but at any rate il; is one that cannot be cavilled at very seriously. I think that in one way it is a confes&ion of weakness on the part of tbe Government, as showing that they have not confidence in them,elves, or in the officers advising them. Another alteration-that defining what is land suitable for BAttlementis one that has c:msed some consternation. Farming experience in Australi» generally and in other parts of the world goes to show that dairying is one of the hest a.nd most profitable forms of settlement, and it is inconceivable that so common-sense a proposition as that shonld have been oppospd by the Land Board. I speak with some little feeling in the mat\er, because I had a property offered to the Government at the instigation of a large number of selectors in the electorate I represent, and I actually pre,ented to the Secretary for Lands a petition signed hv over 500 uund ,llde selectors praying that this pQrticular property should be taken over by the Government under the proviBions of the Agricultural L1n~s Purcha"e Act, and every one of those men anticipated getting a slice out of the estate. The property in every way conformed with the conditions of the Act, and, as the hon. m<>mber for Brisbane North pointed ont, there was really n<) other land availab!.e in the district. In that resp<'Ct I wish tn answer the leader of the OpposiLion, who stated last night that there was plenty of dairying land available. Now, in my electoratP, and in others also, there is not plenty of Crown land available which is suitable for dairying. ThBre are seveml estates in different places, but there are no suitable Crown lands in any considerable areas, ancl the unfortunate selectors have been driven to the riclges for miles and miles around, because all the eyes of the country were picked out many years ago, and these people have nothing like the same class of land that there is in the property to which I am referring. I therefore welcome the alteration now prop0>ecl by which dctirying lancl c~tn be purcha,ed uniler the Act. Some little time ago I introduced to the Premier and the Secretary for Lands a deputation of sixteen members of Parliament, who were all in accord with the principle laid clown in this Rill that a airy-fanning should be included in the settlement contemplated under the Act, and I have no doubt that the members of this Hon:<e generally will also see it from the same point of view, hecause there is no room for questioning that dairying is one of the best forms of farming in which men can engage. I do not think that there is much more I need say on the matter, only this-that if certain leased properties that are now practically breeding or fattening cattle are taken over by the GoYernment, instead of employing half-a-dozen white men, and as many blacks, there will probably be in a short time 1, 000 families settled on them, and that will be an immense advantage to the district.
Mr. ,JENKINSON: What is the price they want for it?
Mr. CAMPBELL : I am quite satisfied that when the matter comes before this House the price will be found to be very reasonable.
Mr. TURLEY: £1 ~s. 6d. Mr. UAMPBELL : I take it that there can be
no question that it will be an immen'e advantage to purchase land within a short distance of Brisbane like that is-snme 50 miles. It will be certain to induce settlement, because it will mean snccPss to those who take it up. I quite "gree with the hon, tnP-mber for Brisbane North in his statement that we should think very sericnsly about purchasing lancls out on the fringes of settlement. \Ve ought to get land within " hanrly radins of big centres of population, and that will he noli t. all concerned. I join with other hon. meml1ers in expressing the hope that the House will p,.ss this mea,ure, and that a. great deal of good will result therefrom.
HoN. W. H. G ltOOM (Dmyton and Too-1VV'Jrn0n): I took a very warm interest in passing the principal Act in 1894, and I am prepared to defend the course which the Government took in passing that measure. It is an unfortunate thing in one respAct, that since these estates were purchased and opc:ned up for settlement we have had a series of bad seasons. That Ci!rlainly is beyond the control of man; and I do not think that in view of the bad seasons the administration of the Act by the Government should be condemned. I know that on the Darling Downs, where pHhaps the operation of the Act has incre"sed the popuLttion more than in any other p<trt of the colony, it has been the means of settling a very large number of people upon the soil ; it has been the means of giving employmer1t to a large number of people in all branches of trade and industry; and I am perfectly confident that the rapid pl'Ogress which has marked the town of Toowoomha, as well as of \V arwick and All ora, during the lRst four or five years, is largely due to the opening up of these lands and to the settlement of the people upon them. Not only so, hut the railways have received increased traffic; Brisbane has received increased trade; and in every way I think the colony has been benefited by the passing of the Act.
HoxouRABI,E J\ItDIBERS: Hear, hear! HoN. \V. H. GROOM: 'l'he two principal pro
visions which we are called upon to discuss in the Bill are the more extended definition-if I may eo spc:tk-of what we call agricultural land and the ratification in future of all contracts by both Homeo of Parliament. The proposal, of course, is that estates which are suitable for dairying, but not altogetber adapted for what we ordinarily unrlerstand as agriculture, may be purchased, mbject to the ratification of P"rliament. I am not opposed to that principle. If proposals C<m be suhmitterl to Parliament by which settlement can be hrought about and the clairying industry extended and encouraged, by all means let ns have such propomls. I regard the spread of the dairying industry as heing one of the granclest branches of ail'riculture which has been brought into existence in Queensland. Anyone who travels in the early morning will see the numbers of carts travelling to the cre&meries in every little place, and if they watch the trains, all the way from the border to Brisbane, they will see the scores of cans ta.ken from the different creameries all along tbe line.
Mr. LESINA: They have that in New South \Vales, where they do not repurchase estates.
HoN. W. H. GROOM: If they are not purchasing estates in New South Wales, they are exchanging lands.
Mr. AIUIJS'l'RONG: And under worse conditions to the country.
Agrlcultural Lands [H NovEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1853
Hox. W. H. GROOM:. The hon. member for Clermont must bear in mind that I am ju.;t ae familiar with the proceedings in the New South Wales Parliament as he is, and I have read all the proceedings in connection with the exchange of lands in different parts of thac colony.
Mr. LESINA : All this is done to play into the hands of speculators.
HoN. W. H. GROOM: I know nothing of the class of individu>tb to whom the hon. member refers >tS speculators; but I may sa.y that. the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894 has not been by any means administered for the benefit of specubtors in the ordinary sense of the term. It has been the means c;f settling bona fide agriculturists on the land. The return moved for by the hem, member for Lockyer shows that in the aggregate we have only purch:.sed 137,00() acres. Out of those 137,000 acres only 7,000 acres are left unselected. • Mr. TURLEY : But then there is unconditional
as well aq conditional selection. lYir. AR~ISTROC'IG: A very smallvroportion. HoN. \V. H. GROOM: The unconditional
selection is nothing as cnmp;;red with the bona fide selection which has taken place
[5 p.m.] with men resideuL on the land who are cultivating it. The hon. gentle
man will allow me to speak from per8onal knowledge and observation. f have been among the peop!e, and have seen what they are doing. I have sympathised with them in their misfortunes through bad seasons. Some of them no doubt will make a fair profit out of their wheat this season, and we can only hope th.tt with better sea,ons th(·y will be more successful, and that larger areas will be placed under cultivation, with the result that there will be an inducement to purchase more land for close settlement. The leader of the Labour Oppo,ition spoke last night of the land being all purchased in one little place. \Veil, let rne tell him that that little place at the preqent moment -I presume he referred to the Darling Dcwnshas a population altc•gether of 40,000 persons, and what is more to the point, it is a producing population. They are not cooped up in slums eating one another out and living on one another, but evt3ry one of them are producers, the sons helping the fathers and the daughter' helping their mothers in the dairying inuustry. So that after all it is not such a very little place. On the D<1rling Downs there are millions of acres of the finest land to be found in the whole of Australia. I do not want to go lnck into ancient histmy, but through being in Parliament in the early days I happen to know how the ,,e lands got into the hands they did get into. \V e could not interfere in those d,.,ys. \Ve were only a House of twenty-six members, and the early pioneers had the preponderance of votin!': power and did exact.!y what they liked. They r,ot whatever land they liked in whatever way they liked, and it is to remedy the evi's of the past that measures of this kind have had to be brought in, in order that this beautiful lancl which God destined for something better than breeuing sheep upon sh'lulcl be made the home of a happy and industrious agricultural people. I say the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act has to a certain extent :;ccmuplished that, and if this Bill can accompli,h more of the same sort of thing by encouraging farming and dairying in various parts of the country it is my dntv, as I shall consider it my pleasure, to give every t>ossible facility for its paSS%;€. Now, with regard to the ratification c]a,use. It is not to be forgotten that in 18!J4 that formed a very prominent feature in the debate in this Chamber, but it was thought by the majority at the time that there was a great deal of force in the argument
advanced by Sir Hugh Nelson when he said that there were very few properties which were not more or less in the hands of mortgagees and financial institutions who would object to have their private affairs exposed to the public, as they wou~d be if overtures for the purchase of properties were made and they had to he submitted for the consideration of Parliament. Many hon. members supported that argument at the time, while there were others who supported the opposite view. My hon. friends the members fur Bundaberg untl Brisbane Suuth, ~fr. Turley, and my hon. friend Mr. Drake were all strongly in favour of the contracts beillg ratified by Parliament. In principle I was entirely with it myself, because in New Sunth \Vales tl>ey have passed an Act very much on all-fours with our Agricultural Lands Purchase Act, providing that the ratification ,]wuld be by the Legi~lative Assembly only. So that in 1900 we are goir;g further really than a great many persons m 1804 thonght it expedient to go, for it is now proposed that these contracts shall be mtified by both Houses of Parlialllent. Having in view what has occmred in connection with some of the repurchased estate~, I think it would be infinitely better in the interest uf the selector, the vendor, and the count.ry, that every contract for the repurchase of land should be submitted to Parliament, and that the whole thing should bear the light of day. There can then be no suspicion raised either that the selector is paying too much for the land, or that anything like speculation is being indulged in hy persons who want to get rid of a bad bargain. The Secretary for Lands himself made a statement la"t night that he thought there had been some mistakes made in connection with the repurchase of some of the estates, and I have no doubt that is the case. There are facts in connection with some of the repurchases which certainly astoni,;h one. I could have wished that the hon. member for Lockyer, in moving for !Jis return the other day, had also asked to be supplied with additional' information in connection with the divisional board valuations of these est~tes.
Mr. 'TURLEY: They are in the returns submitted to the Hon"e.
Hem. \V. H. GROOM: Not in this return. The divisional board valnatiur:s are given by the Land Bo:crd in their reports, but they throw very little light on the value of the land. I notice that the Minister does not propose that the divisional board valuation shoulc; be one of the matters ( o be laid before Parliamen', but I think that shrmld be iucluded. \Vhen n8sessing for probate duty I arn aware that the officers of the Crown will not accept the valuations uf the clhitiional boards, and inoist upon having an independent valuation which very often is in excess of the divisioual board valuation. So that it is not advisable in all cases to accept the divisional board valuatiOn as a true mdex of the value of the property at the time the valuation wa' madP, because divisional boards may under·value for the pUipose of reducing taxadon, or may over-va1ue for the purpose of raising a larger revenue for carryjng nut neees;-:,ary ret)airs jn cnnnectjon with the it· respective divisions. Still, tu a certain extent the valuaticms of diviRional hoards are a material guide, and I think should in all cases be attached tu contract" for the repurchase of land which are submitted to this House for ratification. So that, taking it altogAther, I think the t•ropoi,ll that in future all these contracts should be submitted to Parliament for ratification rnay re,ult in a great amount of good. l am free to admit that, accurJing to my value of the land, some of these estates have been purchased at a higher yrioe than I believe the land was worth;
1854 Agricultuml Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc , Bill.
and I think it is no argument to say that the whole of the area of some of the estates has been selected is proof that the bargain was a good one. It is perfectly true that the State is not the loser by it, but then, on the other hand, the whole of the selectors who have taken up this land will ha Ye to work for the next twenty yc·ars to pay the additional price put upon the land, which, in my opinion, they ought not to have to pay ; and I do not think they would have had to pay if these contracts had had to be ratified before they actually came into effect. Now, I think it is not fair to refer to t.he Scaforth Estate in the absence of the Minister for Agriculture, but when I see that there is only 7,000 acres of land unselecte<i in the estates )mrchased, I crtnnot but remark that that includes nearly '1,000 acres of the Seaforth Estate, which has been open to selection. Sn that it will be seen that if you take the whole of the esb1tes that have been purchased, outside the Seaforth Estate and the :Fitzroy Estate, which is still unselected--
The SJWRE'l'ARY J<'OR PUBLIC LA:-!Ds: There was some selected quit.e lately.
HoN. W. H. GROOM: But still, according to this return, if ynu take the estates in the Southern portion of the colony-on the Darling Downs and in \Vest Monton-you will find there is nothing left, but all has been taken up, showin!2: that a great want has been >npplied.
Mr. LESIXA: But the want for land always exists.
HoN. \V. H. GROOM: The hon. gentleman will pardon me if I 'ay that I have bad experience in land settlement and land lP;islation. The hem. gentleman will in the course of time learn t.hat Queensland is "' country of varied comlitions. I might remind him of the remark-the hi,torical remark-of the late Sir Thomas Mitchell, lllade more than half a century ago-before the hon. member was born--that you might discover another Australia, but never another llarling Downs. That was his opinion of the magnificent country thnt he saw when he came across the mollntains from New South \V ales, and dropped down on what is now the district of \Vanvick, and beheld the magnificent plains lying before him.
Mr. LESlNA : He had not seen the Peak Downs.
J\Ir. BARTHOLO~mw: And he had not seen the Burne1t.
HoN. W. H. GROOM : I have had the ]Jieam.:re of seeing the Peak Downs, and I "'m very glad the hon. gentleman has interjected, bec~use, having seen the Peak Downs on two Jr three occasions, a,nd particularly within the last two or three months, I may say that it is one of those lo~alities where the provisions of this Act c0uld be carried out with very great advantage, because I believe settlement would take place there if it were carried out for dairying purposes, though probably not so much for agricultural. l<"or dairying purposes, no doubt, it is eminently suited to close settlement in that re,;pect. I hope in the c mrse of time, if the hon. gentleman continues in the representation of that pr,sperous district, he will see the whole of the Peak D<lWns covered with an industrious population, as it has been my happimss to see on the Darling Downs. As I said before, looking- back to tbe vassin,: of this Act in 1894, and at its practical operation for the last five or six years-at the good it has accomplished-at the number of families it has settled in comfortable homes-I heli"ve it has been one of the be,t measures that have been pas,ed by the Parliament of Queenslo.nd; and, if in future the administration of this Act should accomplish the '1me amount of gol>d, and settle the same number of pr,Jclucing families in that district and in other distriets where t],e rainfall is perhaps more certain, and where dairying may
be carried on with greater success, then I say we shall have a great reason to congratulate onrsel ves on passing this measure.
HoNOURABLE ME]\[BERS : Hear, hear ! HoN. \V. H. GROOM: I know that it looks
like a strange anomaly that, with such an enormous territory as Queensland possesses, and with only 15,000,000 or 18,000,000 acres of land alienated, and in process of alienation, against hundreds of millions of ecres unsold, we should be repurchasing land for close settlement, but that has occurred, not only in Queensland. but everywhere else. Take all the colonies-New Zealalld, South Australia, Victoria, and ::\few South \Vales -the same thing has occurred there. J n this we are rectifying the errors of the past, as I dare say some future legislation will rectify onr errors. vVe live and learn, and in this I say we are only' rectifying grievous errors in lane. legislation in the past, and, if now we repair the wrong that was done, and as;;bt the settlement of a happy and industriou~ community, then I say we shall achieve a great good. I know nothing whatever to regret in the passing of this Act in 1R!J4, all(l I cheerfully support the second"reading of this Bill. I hopP that it will produce all the gncd effects that those who have advocated it desire to see.
Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lockyer): 'l'he hon. member for I!rayton and Toowoomba, in course of his remarks, expressed r~gret that in moving for the return which he referred to I did not put in a column showing the dhisional boards' valuations of the properties which have been repurchased by the Government. Now, I will p<.int out to him that in seeking for information to fill in that return I thought only of information which would be abwlutely authentic. The hon. member must know, as a member nf this House and as a public man, that the valuations which are made by divisional boards or other local government hodie;; of property are absolutely and entirely misleading as a basis of value. He must also know this-becnuse be must have bel ped to pass that measure-that the local government valuations are based on the unimproved value of the land. He must further know that all of these estates which have been repurchased have been improved estates-·some in a higher degree and some in a lesser degree. Now, what would be the nse to any member of this House if these valuations had been inclnded? Could any reasonable individual in this House say that the valuations hid down by the local governing bodies would be of any use as a means of arriving at the true value of any particular land? Firstly, let me say that it i' most difficult for the officers of the Government, for tbe Land Bmurl, or anybody cc'nnected with the handling of these transactions to arrive at the true value of the land. That is based upon the demand. If there is a demand a higher value will be secured than if there is no demand. 'l'hat has been the difficulty from the commencement of the Act. The hon. merr1ber also, in di~cussing this retnrn, said that there had been two or three ca,.es in which the repurchases had not been altogether satisfactory. Well, I think, in all fairness, he should have named those c >ses.
Mr. BROWNE: The Minister for Lands said so himself last night.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: The hon. member for Toowoomba has repen.tedly said that in different parts of the colony; and other bun. members have blamed me roundly for having been connected, either directly or indirectly, with one of the purchases that has been made. As such statements anrl innuendoes have been made on the floor of this Honse so often, it is only fair that I should have the opportunity of replying to them.
Agricultural Lands [14 NOVEMBER.] Purcha8e, Etc., Bill. 1855
Mr. HARDAORE: Why were you absent last session whP.n the matter' came on ?
Mr. ARMSTRONG : I do not bother to be always here to listen to all the nonsense the hem. member has to say-bald st>ttements without any basis whatever that are made by hon. members on the other side. But when the leader of the Opposithn, whom the country looks upon as the prospective Premier, s;<tted that two members of the Hinistry, Mr. Chataway anrl another, we-re interested in the sale of the Sea forth :Estate-when he makes such statements he should sub,;tanti~te them, or not make tbern.
Mr. BRO\\'NE: I said it was stated in the Press, and I repeat it.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: Stated in the Press! Does the hon. member know that s• ctions <>f the Pres> publish st<tenHmts which have n•Jt, the slighte<t semblance of truth? \Vhen these bald statements <>re made by hon. member" in thi3 Cha.rnher, they are read by the public in the col<>ny and beyon•l it, and some poople may believe them. I say if hon. members wish to make such statements they should be prepan·cl to substantiate them.
:Mr. BnowNE: Any statement I make I am game to sub,t<>ntiate.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: I challenge the hon. member to substantia• e the statements he made last night, and the statements he made with reg<>rd to myself last year.
Mr. BRO\VNE: I rise to make a personal explanation.
The SPEAKER: Order! Tho hnn. m<'mher can only make a personal explanation with the permission of the hon. member who is addressing the Chair.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: The hon. gentleman has my full permission to do <o,
Mr. BROIVNE: ThA hon. member for Lockyer has attacked me with making certain statements last night, and with making certain statements about himse!f last year. But last year the hon. m em her sta.ted that he would make a personal explanation in this House, but he was not here to do so when the mat.ter came on. I can o.1y that I have never attacked any hon. member by statements which I cannot oubstantiate.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: I can only say tbat, seeing the responsible position the hon. member holds, he should be very careful in making such statements. Such statements by the hon. member ma.y be very detrimental and hnrtfnl to persons to whom he has no wish to do harm. The first offer, as shown by the return, was made to the Government--
Mr. LEAHY : \V hat estate? Mr. AltMSTRONG: The repurchase of the
Lake Clarendon Estate, in the Lockyer electorate. Thr fir,;t offer was made on the 14th December, 1897, and there was another off.-r made later on, as shown by the corresponclencl'. Now, it is well known and it hao been stated that the owner of this property is my br"ther· in-law, and innuendoes have been made broadcast which are distinctly unfair to me, because I challenge hon. members to show that I was either directly or iudirectly interested in that tra~saction. When the offer was first marle I told the vendor that I refused to take any action with re-gard to bringing about this repurchale. This wasprevioustothe last election, ami I was blan.ed roundly by my constituents for not bringing pressure to bear on the Government in the matter-for not exercising my authority ns a representative of the district to bring about this purchase. I pointed out that if I had exercised that authority it would have been saic1, "Oh, you are an interested party." Matters went to
such a pitch that my constituents thought that I should try and bring the repurchase a boutwhether the vendor was my brother-in-law or not. And at the last election that was one of the plank,; in my platform, and every meml•er of the Labour party-including the Labour can· diclate who oppo<ed me-~who spoke in my electorate said the repurchase of the Lake Clarendon Estate sbonld be made.
MEMimHS of the Opposition : Who were they ? Name them.
Mr. ARMSTllONG: I don't r,,collect their names; but there were ·several representing the Labour party who were of that opinion, and said so. Then I did what I could to bring about this repurchase. The price, £2 per acre, was known to everyone in the district, and it was clone, and I was returned by a considerable majority, which was a distinct credit to me. That places my positi"n in the mrttter in a perfectly clear light. I challenge hem. members on either side to show where a more profitable repurchase has been made. \Vith the exception of 303 acres. all that repurchased estate has been selected. Now, I want to deal with the Bill itself, and I differ from previous sp<<1kers in some respects. I think the iYiinister should be absolutely responsible for his actions in all these transactions. vVhen he accepts office he should be in a position to take that responsibility. Again, if the work of the Land Board is to be of no use, the members of that boa! rl should get the sack. If this work is taken out of their bands, there is no neces,ity for their existence. Now, we find the Minister proposes to take the responsibility off himself, and this shows what has heen going on for years. Except on twopenny·halfpenny questions, the !Vlinister refuses to go beyond what is "pecifically laid down by law. Ii the law does not provide for any question that may arise, the JHinioter takes no responsibility, because the permanent head will ad vi"e him nut to do so. That is the position we have been drifting into, year after year, and this House connives at it by such legislation as this. I do think it is time that Ministers did the work of administration and took all the responsibility attached to it. There is no necessity for every detail being laid down in the law. WiLh re((ard to the amendment dealing with dairying lands, dairying is an important portion of agricuhure, but the leader of the Opposition was not correct in saying that there are thousands of agricultural acres that are suitable for dairying herds. I would point out that to carry on dairying to the best poRKible advantage you want a certain amount of high-class agricultural land in conjunction with dairying land. We are now getting a strain of high-class dairy-
ing sttck which will not yield the [1)·30 p.m.] best return if fed only on natural
grasse~, and it is nect'ssary to have dairying land attached to farming land, because you cannot afford to gTaze stock on high-class farmmg land costing £5, £6, or more per acre. You must have poorer land close to, so as to be able to carry on the industry with advantage. \Vith regard to the proposal that every suggestion for the repurchase of an estate should be submitted to Parliament for ratification, I cannot but think that it is better to leave the matter as it is at the present time, leaving it to the Land Court. to report on the proposed purchase, and then making the :Minister respr.nsible for the contract.
The SECRETARY FOR Pl.'BLIO LANDS : The Governor in Council is responsible.
Mr. AR:WbTROXG: That is practic•lly the Minister. \Ve kno .v very well that the Cabin et carries out the re commendation of the Minist.,r. There have been ins I ances in which estates have been discussed on the floor of this Chamber.
1856 Agricultural Lunrls [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
When the Rosewood Estate, in my own electorate, was pnrchaRed by the Government, the hon. member for J!'assifern spoke about that land as being overrun with nutgrass and swamps, and as being of a useless character; an<! the leading authority on agriculture on the other side, the then hon. men1ber for Cambooya, said it was impossible to ride over the land on account of bogs and swamps. Yet eYery single acre of that estate hn.s been taken up, every single pound owing by the eelectors tu the Government has been paid, and there is now settled on the estate one of the most prosperous communities of farmers that have been settled under the Agricultural J ... ands Purchase Act. Had the prnposition for the repurchase of that estate been submitted to this House for ratification, would not some of the utterances of the hon. member for F'assifern and the hon. n1ember fnr 0Hn!bOt)yB~ hav0 been listenPd to by hon. members?
I\!Ir. HARDACRE : They did not object to the purchase of the land ; they objected to the price paid.
Mr. ARMSTRON'G : They objEcted to the bud; and there were as many members on this side as on the other side who objected to it. Yet it has been proYed to have been one of tl,e best purchases the Government have made. If contracts for che purchase of estates are to be submi! ted to this House, then we shall have them discussed by members who probab:y know no more about the land than the land knows about them. I think it is better to trust to the experts of the Ag;ricultural Department, and to the Land Court, and for the Minister to take the full responsibility in regard to any purchases. If they do wrong, turn them out of office. The present is a very much more sensible and business-like proceclure than the one proposed in this Bill. While this Bill pro!Joses to amend the existing Act in certain directions, I hold that there are other directions in which a1ncndrnents are rr1nre necessary than those indicated in the Bill. At present there is no J•ower given to the IVIimster under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act to afford any relief to selectors ,,f repurchaeed lands. One of the"e days we may have a ;\'linister who knows conRiderably less about the condition of agriculturists than the present Secretary fur Lands, and who has no sympathy with them ; and if be has no power under the Act to afford them any relief in times of pressure, he may show them no consideration. I consider that power should be given to the Minister to d.-fer ]myme.nts for an extended periud. Then, ag-ain, on all these repurcha~ed estates a certain area of land has been re· served, and the full value of that land as paid by the Government has been added to the portion selected by the settlers. That being so, I think that in con1n10n fairness to those selectors provision should be made for the appointment of trustees to control the reserves, b;,cauw as they are now they are a perfect nuisance and danger to the settlers in their neighbourhood, all kinds of derelict stock and rlisea<ed cattle being shot on to the reserves. When the Bill goes into committee I intend to move an amendment in the direction I have indicated. Sollle hun. members opp site have said that the working of the presenc Act ha' not been satisfactory. I would ask th<>se hon. members to refer to the report of the V nder Secretary for Lands, where they will find it stated that the total amount. of money e.<pended in repurchasing- the several est<ttes which have been aquired is £342,567, and that the value vf the land resold is £326,683.
Mr. HARDACRE: You know the department have not got that yet; the p:>yment of that sum extends over twenty years.
Mr. ARMSTRONG : Does the hon. member not trust the settlers? I say that those men
who have gone ou that land, though they have met with ad veroe seasons, are absolutely as reliable as the hon. member for Leichhardt, and that they will pay every penny they owe for the land. A brmer may have five bad seasons, and the sixth year be may be able to recoup the losses he has sustained in those five years.
Mr. HARDACRE: It is not ca'h down. Mr. ARMSTRON'G: It is not cash down, hut
the Government bold the "ecurity of the land. The value of the improvements which the selectors have effected on the several estates amounts to £82,943 in actual cash, and that is expenditure irrespective of the sums they have paid in the oha!Je of rent and purchase money.
JY1r. HARDACRE : Caoh in twenty years is not c«sh down.
Mr. ARMSTRONG : The cash is not on the table of the Honso so that the hon. member can see it, but we gi vc the men who have purchased these lands credit for being upright and straightforward, and by improving their farms to the extent they are doiug they are showing that they are doing their best to pay for the land, as they ultimately will do. By the operation of the Act 127,000 acres of l"nd have been selected, and 1 086 farmers have been settled upon land which o~ly a few years ago wa' held by eighteen or twenty persons. \V hat more do you waut? I think the Ac~ has been a great benefit to Queensland, and that it is a pity that the applic<ttion of the Act is likely to be curtailed, as in my opinion it will be under the amending Bill now before the House.
Mr. HAROACRE (Leichhardt): Ou the whole I approve of the principle of this Bill. It has some provisions which I think are of doubtful utility and likely to lead to abuse unless they are altered in commiLtee, but it also contains some good provioions which counterbalance these drawbacks. Members on this side opposed the passing of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act in the past chiefly on acc.,unt of the lack of proper safeguards in the measm'B, which we contended should be ins,:rted. One of those safe"'Uards was that contracts should be submitted to Parlian,ent before they were ratified. 'Ne have generally opposed the Act on account of dangers in its adrrnniotration, and not on account of the principle of the Act itself. The v,0ry necessity for an Act of this kind points to the disastrous effects of the administration of our land laws in the past, and shows the shortsighted policy adopted in the alienation of some of the best lands of the colony, as regards position and character. I admit that these evils are not confined merely to Queensland, but exist in the other colonies of Australia as well as in (..jueensland. This is shown by a brief extract I v.ill read from a standard author upon the land "Ystems of Australia, in which, after dealing with the enormous aggregations of estates in the other colonie' of Australia, he sums up with these remarks upon the results of the admiui,tration of the land laws--
Mr. LEAHY : Who is the author? IVIr. HARD ACRE : "X," of Kew South
\V ales. I think he waR secretary to the Pasturalists' Association, but he has written an able and moderate work full of information upon the land systems of Australia generallv, an-:! upon the evils resulting from past land administration. He says-
Such results can hardly be re~arded as other than appalling. That the operatior.s of the land systems of these three provinces for sixty-five years in one ~·olony and a little over fifty Yt'ttrs in two others should have resulted in 1,250 persons securing almost one-lv-tlf the totnl alienated area, while 105,0110 others between them po~sess only just about one-fourth of the total extent alienated, is a striking commentary on the methods adopted. The unquestionable yerdict must be that the systems have failed to produce true settlement. They
Agricultural Land.s [14 NOVEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1857
ha.ve resulted largely in the building up oi great freehold estates, tb_o consequent locking up of capital in land which, leased under a gecure tenure, \vould probably have shown vastly increased productive power, and the alienation from the Crown, that iu the next gener,ttion or two woulll have supported a povulaliou of some millions of people.
So that the evil is not confined to Queensland alone. ·whilst the evil in Queensland calls for a remedy, I do not think the system adopted under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act is the hest system that could have been adopted. The party genemlly on this side think that a better system for dealing with these large estates would have been the imposition of " tax upon land values. That system would have resulted in what in Victoria was called " the bursting up of the big estates." I would not put it in such a harsh way as that, but I say it would have resulted in the owners of those estates being compelled to throw thPm open to settlers, because they could not have afforded to hold the land idle. It would also h.\ ve been a j nster method of dealing with them than the one adopted here. Why is it we want these estates now which at one time it v,as s<tid would not grow a cabbage? It is simply becanse of the increase of popuhtion, the con<truction of railways, and the adoption of better methods of farming, and the increased demand for productions which may be grown in the colony. That is what has made those estates no'w required fur eloser settlement, and that also has made the land valnable. The imposition of a tax upon land values would have had a siniilar result and would have been a juster method in the interests of the colony, and it would have enabled settlers to get upon the land rct a less cost. ·whilst this is not the best syste-m, it is still a system in force in other colonies of Australia and with good results. It enables us to get back again the lands alienated in the P»kt, and to that extent I support the system and this Bill, which has some good points in it.
lYlr. LEAHY: How d,, you get the land back again when you give it to someone eb:e?
Mr. HARDAORE: I was jmt going to deal with that question. It b true that the system has brought about some improvement, but there is still room for amendment of the systew, and certainly one ridiculous feature of the system is the inconsistency of repurohasing land in order to realienate it, and probably lead to eviL, in the fnt.ure of a similar character but not of the same extent as those which now confront us. Another objectionable feature of the system is that under it persons are able to take up repurchased land without the nece ~sary personal residenc". "\Vhatever reasons there may be for unconditional selection in other parts of the colony, and I do not object to it altog~ther, I think, in the ctse of these repurchased lands near to markets and railways, and in connection with which the State has g,me to so much trouble to recover them, personal residence should be compulsury. I think there would be ample selectors found to take up those lands with such a condition impo.~ed. \Vhil-t the evils of alienation in the past have been great, the evils of recovering the land under the present system have been nea,·ly as barl, a,nd, in some instanCl"S, the transactions that have taken place under the Act have been almost scandalous. \V e know that some of them, and especially those connected with the SMforth, Olifton, and Rosewood Estate~, have been before the House over and over again. I point out that the hon. memh r for Lockyer misrepresenttd the late member for Oambc,oya. The htte hon. member for Oarnbooya did not object to the purchase of that estn.te, but to the am•mnt p .dd for it, and in that objection he was in the good company of the hon, member
1900-5 X
for Toowoomba. The transactions under the Act in the past have increased the cost of the land to the settle"', !m ve increased the taxation upon the taxpayers, and h»ve gone a considerable distance to endanger the system of land purchase itself. \Ve have had some figures given us as to the financial position of the estates, aud, on the whole, I thiok we will come out all right in the end, but I do not think tbe condition of things is by any means too good. The total amount spent in debentures for the repurchase of .estates is £333,000 in round nnmbers, and the land has been thrown open for sttle at a total price to the selectors of £342,000, making apl'arently a profit of £8,000. But in this matter we have to consider that under the Act there has nece~~sarily been added one-tenth to the original price paid fur the e1ta~es, and the selectors' p tymunts ext.ond over a series of twenty years, with in~~erest a<lded, of comse. I pointed out by interjec'oion that cash in twenty yeam' time is not the ec1uivaleut of c.tsh now, and we do not know what risks n1ay occur in the Ineantitne, and what amount of land may be forfeited. Iu addition to that we must remember that 7,000 acres of the land purchased still remains in the hands uf the Government, and has so far been unselected. So that really there is a slight net deficit up to the present as the result of our oper<ltions under the Act. If they got the whole of the money from the selector' to-morrow morning, it would not ainonnt to as rnuch as the outlay of the Government.
The SECRETAllY l:'OR PUBLIC LANDS : Then you have to take into account the land that has not been selPcted.
Mr. HARlL\.Ol'tE: \Veil, that only amounts to about 7,000 acre,<, and, as it is natural to suppose that it is the worst of the land in the estates, I do not think it is likely to realise more than £1 per acre.
The SECR,;TAUY FOl\ PuBLIC LANDS : It must bring the price that is put on it ; it cannot be sold for less.
Mr. HAl:tDAORE: If it is not sold for less than the average price put upon the estate, it will not be sold at all. We cannot fairly assume that it will reali<e morP than £1 per acre, so that there is kss than £7,000 as a margin of profit in return for all the trouble and risk the Government have been put to, so that the final position is not too good. However, apart from the admini,tration of the Act, there has been a great rl.eal of good done by the Act, especially on the Darling Dowas. It has given rise to settlemellt, increased prnduction, increased traffic on the rail way~;, and generally has assisted the progress of the colony. I d" not agme with the contention of the leader of the Ot,position that we have plenty agricultural Crown lands. "\Ve have none that is not either too far from a nmrkei;, too far from a railway, or else in a portion of the colony where population will not be likely to settle. \V c know that tlw people settled r'mnd a district prefer to have almost barren land in that district thn.n go to the best of land in another portion of the colony. It is considered as equal to en1igratiun in many ca"es, as it involves separati'm from relativ0s and friends. There is undoubtedly some fine land available in the locality referreci to by the hon. member for Moreton. IL is near to a railway, and it would be matter for regret if lands like that were passed over in order to go to the Northern portion of the colony-say to the Herberton di;trict. I just wi,h to say a few words with reference to the proposal to include dairying lands. That is a provision which ha3 its advantages, but, uniess it is amended in committee, it is liable to lead to abm;e and difficulty, just in the same way as difficulty has arisen already in connectl\m with what i" meant by "agricultural lands,'' It should ue
1858 Agricultuml Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Pu1'chase, Etc., Bill.
madP pet fectly clear that dairying lands do not include grazing, nor shonld it me>m town allotments, as in the case of the Seaforth Estate. Tt1e Land Court would have just as much difficulty in interpreting wh·tt is meAnt by dairying land as they now have with reg>trd to what is meant by agricultural land.
Mr. BELT,: .1:-Ltve they had any difficulty in making that interpretation?
Mr. HARDACHJ~: It appears that the Land Court• objt c .er! to pnrch • ..:iJJg certain land, because they said that it could lmrdly be properly classed as agricultural.
Mr. BJ<JLL: I never heard that they had any difficulty in interpreting the word "o:.gt;cultural."
Mr. HAltDACl(l£: They had in the case of the Lake Chrendon .!';state.
Mr. McDONALD : ,,\_r.d in the case uf the Sea forth Estate.
Mr. HARDACHE: In order to prevent any doubt on the "ubject, it would l ,, '" well to define what is meant lJy "land used for rL,iryin~ purpr;ses." It should deline what proportion of an estate should be agricultural, and wl1at proportion shonld he d»irying land.
Mr. FoRSYTH: vVhctt is the•1ifference brtween grazing and dairying land?
::\fr. HARDACJU~: There is a great cl al of diff,'rence. I can hardly define the difference offhan•l, hut grazing land might be delined as land under natural gra,;ses which is u·md for rearing stt.ck; vhile dairying land is htnd-it may be under natural grasses, as well as under artificial graoses--w hiclt iB used for the purpose of supplying milk, butter, and cheese. I do not intend to say very rrlllch more, but I think that we shonld still keep tu the present limit of £100,000 to be spent in any one year.
The SEOHATAI\Y l!'OR PUBLIC LANDS: If Parliament chose to sr,end more it shonld be able tu spent! more.
Mr. HARDACRE: Yes; bnt the remrmtl of limitation might give rise, as the leader of the Oprosition poin•ed out, to log-rolling. Hon. members on either side might say to otiJers, "If you will a.ssist me in getting this estate purchased, I will assist you in getting that e<LtH purchased."
The SECHETARY <'01\ PUBLIC LA:oms: That difficulty will exist in any case.
Mr. HARD ACRE: 'l'bere would be very little probability of it happening if we retained the limit of £100,000 to be spent in one year.
The f?·Ef~HE'l1AB.Y FOH PuBLIC IJAND~: Smnt. of the estates that are offered would cost more than £100,000.
Mr. HARDACRJ<~: On the whole, I think that £100,000 is a fair amount to spend in any one year. These two minor ohjectinns to the Bill will no d<mbt be modified in committee. I personally approve of the Bill, a.nd ecpecially of the proviHion ..,nbjPcting all provisional C'ontractr-; to ratification hy Par1iament. That principie is embodied in the Act that W:ls pas,ed in lH()U in New South \Vales, and I think it is also contained in the New Zealand Act. I wish now to refer to the complaint made by the hon. member for Lockyer abunt memhers on this side having made statements and innuendoes about the purchase of the Lake Clarendnn Estate. YVell, in jnstice to himself, the hon. member on~ht to h>we been here last session, as he promised to be, when the matter was discussed, and when all the official documents were laid on the table of the House. I happened to see the correspondence in the Lands Department, :1nd to my mind the whole action of the hon. me m her in connection with the matter was suspicious. He r;ot only introduce<! the deputation, but he personally carried on three-quarters of the correspondence. He interviewed the department over and over again, and
finally- I will not say that he personally drew the cheque, but he was instrumental in the cheque being paid for the estate. The hon. member's
action I therefore think wa' unde [7 p.m.] sirable in every respect. The Mini
ster in his speech place.l the blame on some of the officer" of hi< department.
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS: Not about Lake Clarendon.
Mr. HARDACR.!'~: In some cases the whole of the officers have reported adversely against the reJ<urchase of p.otates.
The SECRKTAl\Y l<'OR PUBLIC LANDS: I newr mentioned Lake Clareudnn.
.i'ilr. HARDACRE: 'rake the case of the Seaforth Estatl"', where the con1mi1:1sioner, the Crown lands ranger, the agricultural adviser, and even Mr. I-lume reported adversely.
The tlECitE1'AHY l!'OH PuBLIC LANDS: I do not think th:>t i.·' correct.
Mr. HARDACRE: Yes, and the surveyor also.
The SJtcl\ETARY FOR Pr:BLIC LANDS: YVill you voint out where the commissioner reported adversely?
Mr. H.~RDAURE: I think I can do so. Hon. D. H. lJALHYMPLE: YVe want something
more than snppusition. Mr. HARD.'lCRI<;: In any case, I am certain
that the surveyor, the Crown lands ranger, the agricuhural expert, and ~:Ir. ,Hume repotted in not very eulogistic terms. In tht-~ case of Lake Clarcndon, the Land Board absolutely declined to visit the estate, and said it was simply waste of time because the area of a?riculturalland was S•> >mall compared with the area offered. I think therefore that any maladministration has not been due to officers of the department.
Hon. D. H. DALRDIPLE: Is not what you s:cy abouG Lake CLneudon disproved by the bet that it has all been taken up with avidi~.y?
l\Ir. HARDACRg : Not at all. Hnn. D. H. DALitDIPLJ>;: Nothing will
disprovd it, then. Mr. HARDACRE : Action is not always
ju~tified by iu:; success. Hon. IJ. H. DALHYMPLJ>;: It is in this ca,,e, Mr. HARD ACRE: As a matter of fact Lake
0~arendon has nPt yet bPen proved to be a succes'1 hecan'•e it has not all been taken up; the margin between the total purchase price and the amount which the Govermnent will get for the estate is exceedingly small, and we do not know what will happen to those who have taken up the land. \Ve do not know whether the conditions will be fulfilled or not. It has not yet proved itself a succeH, though certainly it has been more of a success than I anticipated it would be.
Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE: You area pessimist. Mr. HAltDACRE: No, I do not think I am.
At any mte, the reports by the Government officer> un that escate were such as to ha.ve made this Honse hesitate if it had been asked to ratify the contract, and I do not think the case constitutes an example to be followed in future. I do not think the hrm. member for Lockyer, being a relative of Lhe vendor, wM justitied in conducting the correspondence, in carrying on the whole of tbe negotiations, and in finally practically tctking up the cheque, and that is one of the reasons I have for suspecting the transaction.
Hon. D. H. DALRYli!PLE : Suspicion haunts the guilty mind.
:Ylr. HARDACRE : It is not action that the hnn. member should have taken.
Ti,., 8JCOl!ET.>RY FOR Pr:BLIO LANDS: He was only dning what he promised his constituents he would do.
Mr. HARDACRE: \V!mtever he promised his c.mstituents, he did not promise to conduct the correspondence for his brother-in-law, However honourable his action may have been, it
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Purcliase, Etc, Bill. 1859
was not action that I woald 1qre to imitate. In any case, the hon. member has no cause for complaint. He ought to have been here to defend his conduct when the discussion was warm and interest in the transaction was very keen. I am able to quote now what the hem. member for Dalby asked me about in reference to the definition of agricultural land. The report of ~ir. Hum6 says-
It is here assumed that the term "l';ttita,ble for agricultural scttleHieut" refers only to lnnd which it i!:5 worth while to plong'b and plac:J under crop; and aLtcmtion is drawn to the fact that under this interpretation 1t is open to (lonht whether the purchase of the csta,t.e is within tlw scope of section 5 of the Agricultural Lands Purchase 1 et. I think that is one of the reasons why the Government ought to alter the name of the Act, so as to make it jJ<Jssible to purcha'e land which may be suitable for dairying as well as for agriculture;. I would point out again that the same difficulty may ari"e in reference to what is meant by dairying land, when the dermrtment have doubtful estates offered to th~m which may be three-fourths grazin!! land. I think we should have a definition of what is meant by dairying land.
Hon. D. H. DAI.RDIPLE: Do you make a distinction between grazing land and dairyingland?
Mr. HARllACRE: Of cour,oe, there is a distinction, and I think it would tend toward' convenience in the working of the Act if a definition of both agricultural and dairying land were inserted. Without detaining the House any further, I will say that, on the whole, I approve of the Bill. I hope that, with thn amendments which will be vroposed, and I hope inserted, the purchaeing back of estates will enter upon a new period of usefulness w;thout the oLjections which have existed in the past. I m:oty say that I appreciate the kind speech of the Secretary for Lands in introducing the measure, and I feel sure that the repurchased e, tates in future will redound to hie credit. * Mr. BELL (Daluy) : The hon. member's spee-,h, which was not on the whole an unami•ble deliverance, sugg>csted two ideas to me. 'rhe first was, that in order t0 be best equipped and armoured for the ccmting<mcif'i of QuPensland politics, it is a very good thing to have no relatives at all. I realised th~t only a night or two ago, when I ventured some criticiRn1-as I conceived n'•t of a particularly severe character -upon a public officer of this cnmmunily, and I found that on the strength of a relationship, which does not now exist, but which did exist at a fairly remote period, my motives were very directly challenged. I find that in this debate the quality of the motives which inspired the hon. member for Lockyer in the exertionswhich he believed, I "m sure, were disinterested and patriotic e:<ertions-that he brought to b•ar in inducing the Government to acquire the Lake Clarendon Esbte, have been viewed also in the light of relationship. I ,, y that hHppy is the man in this colony· in puhlic life v, ho is able to boast that he hns no relatives.
Hon. D. H. DALRYliiPLE: It is awkward for the Australian native-you will have to get a foreigner to be a member of P.uliament.
Mr. BELL: Yes; and I have seen foreigners who adopted this as their country succ8ed very well.
Hon. D. H. DALRDIPLE: They should have no relatives.
i\1r. BELL : Perhaps they succeeded because they had no relatives. The other sentiment or idea that the late Minister for Lands sugge,;ted to me in his remarks was that after all there was some justification for the Government amending the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act in the
way they have done in the Bill now before the Chamber, because, although the hon. gentleman did not get up, I believe, inspired by any particularly vicious ideas towards his opponents, but wished, w far as he could, to give a general kind of criticism c.£ this ,;ide, he followed the rather bad example set by his leader in his criticism of the Government, and undoubtedly went very near to questioning the honour and good faith of the Government in the matter of the administration of thi•< Act. So that when we remember that a criticism which was made with no de;ire to he pm·ticularly severe is after all simply one of a long series of criticisms n1uch rnore severe. and IIHlCh rnore venoruous in their nature-I say we mtn quite understand the Government fe•,ling some disposition towards bringing in the amendment of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act that we see before us. I should have Leen quite content, as one who hopes, so1mer or later, to Sf''J it pnt into operation in his own electorate, to ha \~e allow !d the original rneasure to rPrnain as it was, bnt, althuugh I do not echo or yearn for the amendment that is embodied in this B1ll, I do not think it is of such a great or radicttl character as to make it worth mv while to ~i ve ,.ny opposition to it. I think" that it may be some irnpediment in the acquisition of these estates, and undoubte.dly the man who owns property and the company that owns property will think more than once before they submit the estate to the gauntlet of criticism in this House, because, however much members may desire to l<•ok into the merits of the transaction fron1 ~1n unbias~d standp(jint, human nature is such, and the constitutir.n of our political system under the British Constitution is such, that we shall find the offer of an estate, however excell•>nt it may be in itself, however great the demand for the ,ccquisition of that estate may be on the p.ort of the peul,le who desir8 to henefit by it, and become sett.lers-we shall find, I am afraid in the great majority of instances, that that estate will be made a st~lking· horse for partisanship. Ho~ounABLE lYIE~rm~us: Hear, hear ! :Yir. BELL: It will be made the hedge, as it
were, frum which the sharpshooters who are opposed to the Governm,,nt will be able to discharge their shots at the Ministry for the time being. I am very much afraid therefore that men who own estates, the vendors of estates, will hesitate to a grr 1t extent before they submit an estate, the value of an e,,tate, and all the features of it, to the analysis of this Cbamber, bec:tuse they will f, 1r, rightly or wrongly-and I think, perhaps rightly-that the criticism that it will receive here will not be an impartial criticism, but a partis,,n criticism.
l\Ir. PLUNKETT: Why ? Mr. BELL: Because, as I was trying to point
out in one or two &entences, human nature is such that if the Government were to come down to this Hons' with a proposal to buy an esLateI am not talking of this p~rticubr Opposition, because I have no doubt that we would do the same if we were in Opposition-motives will be imputed, and I say that property will be made a stalking-horse for partisanship. I really do not think I "m taking too pessimistic a view when I say that there is certainly a great danger of that happening.
Mr. KEOGH: Particularly if the property is in the hands of ,., Hnancial institution.
Mr. BELL: P~trticularly, as the hon. gentleman appositely says, if the property were in the hands uf a financial institution, because then there would probably be not only a disposition to criticise the value of the property, but the character and composition of the company which offered it. To continue the line of argument I
1860 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etr., Bill.
was following, I think that vendors will hesitate before they will submit their property to this, because, however good the property may be in itself, they will fear that it will not be analysed and criticised on its merit~, and thnt probably during the debate it will be subj octed to such an ordPal th~t if the proposal of the Government is not accepted-<md I understand that all the proposals of the Government are to be considered as far as possible as non-party matters-·which is one of the ways of saying that the Government will not bring their majority into play-if the proposal does not receive the support of the majority in the House, undoubtedly it will go out with a damaged reputation. Therefore, I am afraid that the brake will be put upon the anxiety of a number of vendors to submit their properties to Government. I do not know that it will go to such an extreme as to prevent the <lisposal of properties-on the whole, I do not think it will. I think, in that particular matter, l agwe with the view of the Minister for L'md , who, I t.bink, holds the opinion I do-<n', rather, I bold the opinion that he does: that there will he a check to the offering of theHe estates, but not n complete cessation. While I am referring to the Minister for Lands, I may as well get rid of some little criticiom l am going to m11ke. First of all, as I interjected last night, the hon. gentleman-perhaps in an unwary, contiding moment-g,;ve the first official intimation, either outside or inside this Chamber, that any mistake has been made in connection with the purchase of these estates. I don't know that any proof of any such mistuke hlls been given; but I know that the purcbas~ of one estate is viewed by mtwy hon. members with a g·ood deal of suspicion ; but until that estate is thrown open for selection, and we see what disposition there is to acquire the land in it, it is a great deal too soon to pronounce judgment on the transaction. I do not wish to embark on or to indulge in a prolonged discussion in connection with the Seaforth Estate; but I only wish to say thi, : that the whole c >mmunity of the district in which that estate is ;ituated earnestly desired its acqui>ition, and that not by any vague or hding form of verbal assurance, but they put their desire on paper in order that it should remain as a permanent memorial of their desire.
Mr. KERB: The same may Le said about the Fitzroy Estate.
Mr. BELL: Does the hon, member mean to say that that estate is not going off well?
Mr. KERR : No, it is not. Mr. BELL: Nearly one-half of it has been
taken up, and there is this distinction, that none of those who l•ave taken up land in that estate are as yet in arrears. I do not think it was a mistake in acquiring that estate.
Mr. KERI\: It was. Mr. BELL: I am surprised at the hon. mem
ber saying so. Mr. KrDsTON : I am sure it was not a mistake. Mr. BELL: Here we have two opposition
doctors differing, and perhaps it is not proper for a layman like myself to offer any criticism on the mattRr. I am disposod to think that it was not a mistake. And I. would again remind the hon. member for Barcoo that those who have taken up land on this estate are not in arrears, which, unfortunately, is more than can be said for people who have taken up land elsewhere under the Act. It is too soon to pronounce judgment on the Seaforth Estate purchase, became there is this feature conn,ct,·rl with it which does not belong to any other estate: that it is in the neighbourhood of one of the most excellent harbonrs in Australia, and some people
confidently assert that the time will come when the new port of that district will be situated at Port N ewry, instead of, as it is now, at the mouth of the Pioneer River. In that case, the price paid by the State will not represent the value this estate will yet attain to.
Mr. :FISHER : Good sea-view allotments. Mr. BELL: Has the hon. member ever been
there? No. I have not been there; but I h•we been very clos~ to it, and I think the value of the Seaforth Estate will not be gauged on the principle of villa re,idences n,erely. Now, the Secretary for Lands made a distinct slip twice in his remarks last night when he was justifying the acquisition of these various estates. :Firstly, he said-
In thu samo way, with regnrd to the Lands Purchase Act, the Government of the day, in accordance with the provi.sion::; oi' that Act, gave crc!leucc to the informa· tion supplied by officers of the department, in order to guide them in their ~ction, as to whethm· it was desirable or not to purchase estates.
And later on he repeats that. I think it is due to the Land Court and to the hou. gentleman himself to point out that the members of the Land Board are not officers of the hon. gentleman's department--they are a body absolutely independent of the hon. gentleman.
Hon. D, H. DALl\YlllnE: And of this House. Mr, BELL: Not quite. They are servants of
this House. 'fhe hon. gentleman cannot end their existence, but we can. And that makes the opinion of the Land Board all the more valuable than it would be if its members were the merP cteatnres of the Mi,,istel' for Lands. Then, again, the Minister for Lands in his speech la"t night referred to the recommendations which the Land Board made in connection with the purchase of estates under the existing Acts; but, in order to make assurance doubly sure, under this Bill, before an estate can he purchased, the matter has to run the double criteria of requiring the direct recommendation of the Land Board and the approval of both Houses of Parliament, whereas under the @Xisting Act the recommen· dation of the Land Board was not e>sential. And that is where the hon. gentleman made another slip. He enumerated the duties of the Land Board when reporting on an estate; but he will find that all a member of the L>tnd Board has to do is to answer certain statutory questions embodied in the Act, and after that is done he makes no recommendation one way or the other. The wholP rc'spomibility rests with the Government or the Governur in Council.
'fhe SEORE1'ARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS: There must he a favourable report from the Land Board to induce the Government to purchase.
1\Ir. BELL: Yes; under the old Act. The hon. member for Leichhardt touched on a very interesting topic when he referred to the wisdom of these lands being realienated, and he suggested a much wiser course-a course that had been followed in connection with grazing farms -that the lands should be leased out for a long period. I am very much diopoeed to hold that view, vV e are following a peculiar cuurse "it,h regard to the lands supposed to come under this Bill. Originally the State alienated these lands, then
it rtacquired them, and now it is [7'30 p.m.] again alienating them, that is after
reacquiring them for the purpose of divesting them of the form of large estates in urd, r to tr "''Af0rm them into small farms occupied by a yeomanry and farming class, the State is repeeting the process which resnlted in the aggregation of those estatee. The la> ge estates on the Darling Downs and elsewhere were not, generally speaking, acquired in huge blocks a,s the western estates have been under the Specia,l Sales of Land
Agricultural Lanrls [14 NoVEMBER.] Purchase, Btc., Bill. 1861
Act, but they were acquired through men and from men who took them up in areas varying from 320 to 1,280 acres. Therefore we are now really repeating, in regard to the alienation of these lands, the same process as took place thirty or thirty-five years ago when we parted with them in small areas, and I am disposed to believe that, however gradual it may be-it may net be as rapid a process as that which took place originally-still gradually we shall again see large estates growing up in those localities. We sh~ll find that men who acquire small areas under the existing Act will sell them to men who will come along and weld them into large estates. Therefore I should be disposed to give my adhesion to a measure which proposed merely to give long leaoe8 of these lands, instead 0f alienating them, and I believe that nnd~r such a system we should find thttt the demand for the lands would probably be just as great as it is at present, because, after all, what is wanted in regard to farming l:tnds, as well as in regard to pastoral lands, is merely security of tenure. I find that, in New Zealand, they are not adopting the process which we are making use of here, but that, when an estate is to be acquired, the question of purchase is referred to a board of land purcha<e commissioners composed of the inspector, a, per~ manent chairman, three other Government officers, and a member of the local Land Board, who is supposed to bf' more or less an expert. It is solely on the advice of this body that the Government act. That measure w.ts passed in 1892, and I find that an amend in.; Act was passed in 1896 which contains a provision that I am disposed to recommend to the very careful consideration of the Secretary of L;tnds. Under the provision to which I refer, "preference is given to landles,, people, requiring applicants for rural land to satisfy the Land Board as to their means to stock and cultivate the same, and to erect suitable buildin!{S thereon." I am inclined to the opinion that priority shon1d be given to those applicants for land under the existing Act who are able to show that they do not hold any land, ami have not held any other land under any other Act. As I have already said, I shall not vote against the second reading of this Bill, though I should have been perfectly c •ntent to have allowed the exi,.ting law to remain in force; notwithstanding that I am not enmnoured of the measure, having regard to what has transpired with regard to the acgnioition of estates under the existing Act, I can quite forgive the Government for bringing in t.his Bill.
Mr. J. HAMILTON (Cook): The h•m. member for Leichhardt said a few minutes ago that the hon. member for Lnckyer should have been here to have justified himself when his hononr was attacked in connection with the purchase of the Lake Clarendon l~state. I have not seen anything that the hon. member needed to justify, but it seems to me that it is a strange theory that it is justifiable to slander '' man if he is absent. It is just as cowardlv tn rep:•at a slander as to invent a slander. 'I don't refer to the hon. member for Leichharrlt, because I do not think he is capable of doing s,,, but one remark made by him when the hon. member for Lockyer was speaking that Wf1S not replied tq by the hon. member for Lockyer. It has been frequently said by the Labour party and by their organs that the Government g~ ve too much for the land, and were actuated by improper motives in doing so. Hon. members who made that statement know perfectly well that Ministers have no power whatever to interfere with the assessment of the amount to be p>tid for land purchased under the Act. 'l'he Land Court value the land and decide what should b8 ginm for it, and neither Minister nor members of this
House can interfere with the decision of the Land Court. The Government cannot give a farthing more than the Land Court recommend.
Mr. FoGARl'Y : "What about the Seaforth Estate?
Mr. J. HAMILTON: Th<tt applies to the S, :tfort.h :b;state and to every other estate, and any man who has read the Act and has sufficient intelligence to understand it knows that perfectly well. Let us look at the facts in connection with the Lake Clarendon Estate.
Mr. McDoNALD: The Land Court never give the value of the land.
Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE: The Land Court do, and that shows your ignorance.
Mr. ,J. HA:YIILTON: The hon. member for Flinders is a.pp1trently as poor an authority on these Acts as he is on the Standing Orders. The :J,rnount received by the Government, from the sa le of the Clarendon Estate, proves that they did not pay too much for it. The total area of land purcha,ed by the Government nncler this Act is 137,780 acres, for £342,567. The Government have sold 124,000 acres of this land for £32G,G83, or within £15,884 of what they paid for the whole of the hnd purchased by them. They hn.ve also given 5,955 acres out of it to the people for ro<1ds and reserves, and in addition to thi; they still retain an asset of 7,614 acres, which is worth considerably more than the 15,884 that I have referred lo. The hon. member for Leichhardt said the Government have no security for the land sold by them. They have the land itself, the value of which has been increased by the purchase, as, according to official returns, they have expended over £70,000 on improvoments, and over £30,000 have been received by the Government in payment. In addition to this, the result of the policy of the Government has been to se•tle 1,008 separate families on this land. They have actmtlly spent a sum eqnal to onefifth of the whole of the purchase r!loney in improvements. I always understood that it was the policy of the Labour party to settle people upon the land. vVell, here it has been done with immense Fmccess. The Government have, by virtue of their policy, settled over 1,000 families upon this land, and without one penny of expense to the State.
HoN. G. THORN: I should not have risen but for some remarks made by the hon. member for Lockyer. He stated that I opposed the pnrohase of the Clarendon Estate. I deny it in toto, because I considered it n very good purch"oe. He insinnated also that I opposed the purchase of the Rose wood Estate. I did nothing of the kind, hut I opposed the selection of the site for the Agricultural College, because there was not g-ra·d in the vicinity of it, and I knew that as soon as the first flood went over the cultivated ground it would be ntterly useless for tillage again. There ha' not been a flood there since the establishment of the college, but when the next flood does take place there it is good-bye to the Gatton College so frrr as agricultural production is concerned. \Vith regard to the Bill bef.,re the Houst·, like the hon. memher for Dalby, I am not enamonred of it, and I thi,,k the Act might very well remain as it is. But if this Bill is to P''ss, I shall look npon it as a direct censure UJ.on the members of the Land Court, and it will be their duty to resign at once, and it will be the duty of the Government to put nther and more practical men in their place. Tbe members of the Land Court are all honourable straight men, hut they are not practic ,.] men and do not understand the requirements of tbe colony. I can prove that myself. An estate in the Rosewood electorate and contiguous to that of I<'assifern was offered l;o them,
1862 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etr., Bill.
and, though it contained the best land in \Vest Moreton, the Land Court refused it on two grounds-that it was only dairying land, ond that the price asked for it was too high. So far as dairying is concerned, I have yet to lef1rn that it is not a most important branch of agriculture. In the old country and in the southern colonies dairying land is held to beagriculturalland to all intents and purposes, and I do uotsee why we should make an exception in Queensland. I agree with the hon. member Ior Leichhardt that under this Bill the same difficulty will arise in the interpretation of what is dairying land, as has already arisen in the interpretation of agricultuP·lland, unless when the Bill gets into committee there is some definition of "dairying land" inserted. Jlily own opinion is that dairying is the most profitable part of agriculture, and wore it not for the da-irying carried on now in our farming districts there would be very little agriculture in thia colony of a profitable character. It is the dairying that bas tided the farmers OYer the last two or thr•ce dry seolsons, and it is the part of agriculture that gives the best returns to the colony. With respect to the estates already purchased, I could not get at the bottom of the P)JrC~ase of the Seaforth Estate in the Mackay d1strwt, bnt I know now the strong motive with regard to the purchase of that estate, and it was a motive on the part of tbe members for Mackay to get a central mill e,;tablisJ,ed there. It will make little difference whether the selectors get that land for 10s. or for £i\ an acre, the Government will not see the money, for the land will run out in ten years. The land in the Mackay distl'ict is not good land at all, ann it is not agricultural land. I say that the land there ~for sugar-growing is not as good ae the land in the Rosewood and .Fassifern scrubs, and it is not as rich land. Bnt for sugar-growing the Mackay district is doomed, and all the hmd south of Mackay. That is my honest O]Jinion, and for land for cane you must go further n,wth than Mackay. Even further north the land is discarded for a!rricultural purposes after eight years. The Chinese discard the bnd for grnw~ng bananas after eight yt arB' cultivation, and 1f by the growth of bananas the soil is impoverished in that time, how long will it take for sngar-growing to impoverish it, where the land is not rich agricultural land at all but only dairying land? Unless there is some promise given by the Government that a central mill will be established on the Seaforth Estate that land will not go off, hnt if they give a promise that there will be a mill there tbe land will be readily snapped up, and the Government will have to look for their security, for they will never see their money back. I do not wish to question the introduction of this Bill. I supported the existing Act., but once this Bill is passed there will be very few re·pnrchases of estates take place in this colony. We know that members of the Labour Opp,sition are heartily opposed to the Government repurcha,ing estates, and under this Bill they will kEep thin~;s going for months unless there is an alteration in the sessional orders as well as in the Standing Orders. It will be good-day to any more estates being repurchasec1, am! for 'that reason I am not enamoured of this measure. The hon. member for Leichhardt g-ave a hint that the way to get rid of large estates was to have a good land tax imposed, and the hon. member went to Victoria to prove that. \Veil, in Victoria there is a heavy land tax upon large estates ; but it has not had the effect of bursting up those es~ates. Its effect has rather been otherwiee, and estates are still being increased in size there. I am gi dng facts which I challenge hon. members opposite to contradict. I f1m giving no opinion upon a land tax ; but we will have one here no doubt.
We will have a heavy land tax put on here after the ]federal Government is established. \Ve will have no end of land taxes then, and there will be no living in Queensland. This land tax will be brought about by freetrade mPmbers representing Northern corstituencies and by Labour members representing Southern constitm ncies. Hov,ever, I am digr.essing from the question before the House. I do not rise to oppose the Bill, but I warn those who are anxious to see it passed that it will not realise all their expectations. I say that especially to the hon. member for T<Jowoomba, who has always been opposed to the aggrEgation of huge estates, and has always been a strong ac1vocate of the repurchase of the estates on the Darling Downs. I can tell him that very little more of the Darling Down" will he repurchased under this Bill, although I should like to see a great deal more repurchased. I am also anxious to see land bought back in my district, but I am afraid that will not be done bv means of this measure.
Mr. PL UNKE'TT (Albe1·t) : I shall warmly support this Bill. No one who has watched the results that have be, n achieved so far by the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894 can do otherwise than admit that it has been most successful in settling people on the land. The Bill, so far as I can see, contains two principles: One is the inclusion of dairying land, and the second is the ratification of all contracts by Parliament. In connection with the first, I nlways thought that land that is suitable for dairying "as agricultural land, but the Land Court decided otherwiBe. As a dairyman, I consider that dairying is the best and most profitable portion of agricultural employment, and it ha- been so for the last five or six yearf, and, to all intents and purposes, will continue to be. I believe that the main reason for introducing this Bill is, because of the difficulty that arose in connection with the purchase of a certain estate. I do not care about mentioning names; but it is well known that it was the Durundur Estate. I hrtve no hesitation in saying that the price, quality, and position of that bnd, make it a first-class investment for the Gonrnment ; but I would ask the Secretary for Lands, if that or any similar land is purchased, to make the areas of the selections larger than the areas into which the estates which have already been purchased have heen cut up in order to make dairying succed .ful. Anyone who has been engaged in dairying !mows that it is necessary to have paddocks for dry cows and others for milkers. If it were not for dairying, I am in a position to say that the great bulk of the farmers of Southern Queensland would be in very poor circumstances. In fact going in for dairying was the tnrning point in their career. In order to make it successful, you require land suitable for agriculture as well, so that you can grow feed for your stock in winter. I believe the land comprised in Dnrunrlur is suitable in that respect, and contains both agricultural Bnd rlairying land. I shall say no more about that. property, because I am satisfied the bargain offered is a very good one for the Government.. One remark that was made by the hon. member for Dalby struck me as being very prculiar. He caid that if the Government asked Parliament to rrtify the purchase of any property, nwmbers on this side would oppose it. I do not think that is w. Members on this side are just as anxious to s<e the country well settled as any hon. member on the other side. It has al•·.o been s<tid that there are only some 7,000 acre, of the estates which have been repurchased unselected. That seems a rather extraordinary thing. One of the serious mistakes that wr.s made when we p"'s"ed the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act in 1894 was
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Furclzase, Etr., Bill. 1863
allowing any of the land to be taken up as uncondit.ional selections. 1t was never intended by this House that people should select any of this land, never go near it, and then sell out.
Mr. HARDACRE: They sell it on sha1es. Mr. PLUNKETT: It was a mistake to allow
it to be taken up by unconditional purchase at all. When the Bill was going through the House it was intended that there should he permanent residence; but we allowed selection to be without condition, except, perhaps, orw week'~;; l't.sidence in six months.
Hon. D. H. DALRY:\JPI,E: The residential selector has priority for three months.
Mr. PLUNKETT: In connection with the C1yna Estate, men with plenty of land in thfJ vicinity were allowed to &elect. They could live on it for a w bile, and then tram fer it to anyone else if they chose. The result has been tl at it has agajn got into the hands of large owners of land. I c1•nsider that a rEsidence clanse shonld be one of the things insisted upon in this Bill, otherwise the same thing will happen in thf· future that has happened in the l'ast. I consider it a very wr<>ng thing indeed. Land suitable for agriculture is not the best land for dairying, although it comes in very well, and can be used for growing lucerne and things like that, but for dairying purpnses pmely agricultural land will not pay.
Hon. D. H. DALRY:\IPLE : The better for agriculture, tre br tter for dairying.
Mr. PLUNKETT: There shonH be a clan;e in the Bill insisting upon residence, if only for one, two, or three years, before a selector can transfer to any b dy else. Now, with reg1trd to
the principle of ratificJti<•n by rar[8 p. m.] liament. \Vhen the original Bill
was going through I may >a.y that I supported that principle, mod moved an arrwndment to that effect. I considered that. no matter who the land wa;. purchased from the bargain ought to be ratified by Parliament. There was a division un the amendment., with the remit that 22 voted for it and 2G against. The Secretary for Lands said last night tlmt he thought he voted f,,r the amendment, but l can assme the hem. gentlem•tn that he did not. These are the names that appear iu the division-
AYES, 22. l\1essrs. Kerr, Reid, .Taekson, IIardRere, "\Vi1kins.on,
Tnrley, Ogden, Fis.he1·, Cadell, H:n.wlings, Bole~. Danit·l~. Curtis, Plnnkett, Ki11g, Brownn. Hamilton, Dnu~fo1'(1, Cross, Dawson, l\1eDom~ld, nnd D1·ake.
Xo~<:s, 25. :vressrs. Barlow, rroz:cr, Groom, R:yrnc:.::, )i<'}fnstcr,
Philp, C.tmcron, Chataway, }1organ, Stephens. Lord, Cnllan, Bell, Kil11!1';bury, Dalrymple, Cm·ficlrt, I)hillipR, 1Vatson, Armstronp:, lt10xton, Smith, Batter~ by, Fogarty, Crombie, and )Iidson.
I think if the .MiniRlry of the day had acceptf d my armndment it would have sa\ ed much heartburning and many difficulties which have cropped up during recent years. Some hon. gentlemen on the other side have blamed the Secretaty for Lands for his truthfnlm·'s in saying that in one or two of the repurchases mistake·. bavtJ b,,en made.
The SllORETAlW l<'OR PuBLlC LAJ\IJR : That was my personal opinion.
Mr. PLUNKETT: \Yell, io does the hou. gentleman credit whether it is his j)ersonal opini<m or not. It is the first opinion of the sort I have ever heard expressed ],y a gentleman on the Treasury bench. There is no doubt that grievous n1istakef:l have been made, but not one Niinister before the present Secretary for Lands has had the manliness to acknowledge them. I do not think that outside the supporters of the Government there nre ten men in the ct>nntry who do not believe that mistakes have l'em made in some of theFe repurchases. There is nti get
away from that at all. I neecl only refer to the repurcha'e of the Seaforth Estate as an ex,.rrple of what I mean. I think the repurchase of that estate was a serious miHtake, and the only upinion I have heard expressed throughout the country is that the tmnsaction was a disgrace to the Government. It has been said tonie;ht that the prupo:,al to have the>+e contracts ratified by Padiament will prevent people from <.!fering eotates to the Government. 1 do not believe anything of the kind. I believe they will offer them as readilv as ever thev have done in the past. I mu~;t say, however, that I have often wondered that the Government have not taken advantage of the rich lands alo1.g the coas1J from hero to Cairns. It is perfectly true that we ha V<' a !ut of rich and vt~luable coastal land. l believe in every case the lease has fallen in, and the land is now held under occupation license. I do not know whether auy great demand exists for it., but my opinion is that while we have such land it would be very unwi'e tu place an un· limited amount of money in the hands of the Government for the purpo:,e of buying back pro· perly front priYate owners, whPn we have so much excellent land of our own. I would be very much inclined to limit the amount to be expended in this direction by the (~overnment in any one yee~r. I have very little more to say. I believe the Bill is a necessary orw, and that it may be worked very beneficially for the country. The t:lecretary for Lands has blamed the Lo,ud Board for some of the mistakes that have been made, and has said that the iYiinistry are in no way responsible. I say tbat chat statement is very much upen to doubt; I believe that Ministers have had a gre11t deal to do with what has taken place. 1 intend to support the Bill, because I believe it is a step in the right direction, but I would impress upon th<> :\Iinister the desirability ,,f arranging some methr,d by which the aggregation of these lands wben purchased can be prevented. I will "'rpport the l\111, an<] thoroughly approve ,,f the new departure by which all contracts are to be ratified by Parliament.
Mr. lcOGARTY (Drayton anrl Toorwo11~ba): I do not think any person.:' took a n1nre active part in the pa<sage of the original Act th:w the Downs mprescntatives. The passage of the Bill involved a conHider .... ble amount of discussion, and one all-night sitting. I have a clf~ar recollection that when a number of members advocated that all contracts for the repurchase of land should be ratified by Parliament, thfl then Secretary for Lands, iYir. Badow, intimated very clearly that if the amendment was c.rried the Bill would be withdrawn, m'd it was only on account of the fear of jeopardising the passage of the Hill that many of the agricultnral representatives reluctantly fell in v.i:h the views expressed by the then 11inister. Sn,ner than lose the Bill we sank our individual OlJjnions, a11d Yoted against the amendment. 'l'he amendment which many of us approved of at that time has been rather tardy in cr,ming, but it is better lnt" than never, and I cong1 atnlate the Gnvernment <>11 the introduction of the Bill \dth that. proYision m it. I think the Ihll is c>tpab:e of improven1ent, but when the cnltimted and intellectual member, who represents the important electorate of Cook, was SJ,eaking, l in terjecteJ "the Seaforth Estate." I am uot anxious at all to wash a11y dirty linen, nor aTn I anxious to go into ancient history, but it is quite within the recollection of this House tha>· when the laud commis,ioner reported on the Scaforth Estate the value he put upon it was not in accordance with the price submitted by the owners, and he was ask, d to make a second report, and the secun<l report wns not very satisfactory. The divisional board valuation was His. per acrP, and the country gave £3 lSs. 6d.,
iso4 Ag1•icultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purrltase, Etc., Bill.
and I think the least ,;uspicious pers)n would naturally turn his mind into an attitude of reflection, with a view to ascertaining, if it were possible, why tbtre was this -;re at disparity between thelnCfd authority's vahmtion and that of the Government. \Ve were very anxious that we should receive a quid pm q,o, knowing perfectly well that if a fancy price is given, eventually tb1s fancy price would fall upon the unfortunate selector, and that was one of the strnnp;est reasons why we advocated that each proj'osal should be submitted to the House. I do not agree with giving the Government unlimited purchasing power-- I think that a limit shoaldbe ilxed.
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : It is the Parliament. The Government canno~ purchase anything.
Mr. FOGAitTY: True; but from my experience of parliamentary life, when a matter is made a party qnestion, member;; often sink their individuality of opinion and sup"ort their leader. 'rherefore, I s~y there should be a limit. I arimit that £100,000 is not sufficient now we are about to irnrrove the present Act. £100,000 was ample until now, when, under the Bill, all propo"als have to be submitted to this House, and daylight thrown npon them. I r,elieve there are members ou both side~ who will be quite as cap:tble of giving an unbiased opinion as any member of a Land Court, and it is possible tbat they may hav.- information in connection with the particular land offered for sale, extending over a good nuny years. And this will be certainly an advantage over the Land Court, for the reason that the season may be an exceptionally good one when the Land Court vi"it the particular district, and the block of land may be attired in its holiday garb. Therefore, they would not be in the same position to give an hone•t ouinion on the conntry as the perwn who has kno"m it, say, for ten, or ilfteen, or twenty years. Consequently I believe the idea of submitting tbe propos<tls to the House is a wise one. Still, I think there shonld be a limit ilxed beyond which even Parliament shnnld not be allowed to go. 1 heard that a cet·tain property was offered to the Government --Rnd I have no heo;itatinn in saying there is no better property in Southern Qneensla.nd for close settlement-but the £100,000 was not sufficient to ena>,le the Government to aeqnire it, and the Government were compelled to decline to purcha3e it. There are other places ontside that that may be as goocl, but I certainly think there is none better. If the J<'dton property is purchaser], I think its 100,000 acrc3 will be the means of settling probab 1y 1,000 happy and pro"perous families upon land which is now a sheepwalk. 'rherefore, I say if the Government purchase a property of that sort, it will certainly he the best n1l·.tns of creating a permanently settled population. There was a peculiar statement made by the member for Lockyer in the course of this dc'hate, wherein he was of opinion that there should be no alteration made in connection with the purchase of those estates, and things should go on exactly as they have done under the present hw-the Government to be at liberty to pnrchase any estate they liked, am! if the purchase was not ·a judicious one then, when the House met, the Government could be taken to task, and perhaps turned out of office and a fresh one substituted. Th2,t may be very well theoretically, but, aB I have already pointed out, ,-e know hnw people will vote and do vote, on party line;. They sink all individual opinion and all individual feeling, and they vote almost according to instrnctiom. Therefm·e, if the Government made a land purchase, and gave morA than the lanrl was renlly worth, it would crer>te a considerable
amount of discussion, and it is very possible some of their following would speak very strongly in condemnation of their actic ns in &quandering money; but, when the vote was to be taken, those who were loud in their condemnation WN1ld be found supporting the action of the Government by their vote. That is my experience, and I am sure it is the experience of a!most all other people. I also think that the idea of extending the provisions of this Act to dairying is not a judicious thing. It Bhonld be approached very carefully. Dairying requires ilrst-claso agricultural land, and the d<>irying industry at the present time is one of the chief in the colony, and in a very short time it will be the foremost one of the whole colony. The dairyman must improve his herd, and he must provide for housing his stock in winter; and if he has to house his stoclc in winterand I am snre it will pay very handsomelyhe must have a considerable amount of cultivation. Therefore, I say we should not make the mistake of buying inferior land and turning that land over for dairy settlement, as has been done undEr the existing Act. The hon. member, Mr. Plunkett, is probably one of the most practical men in the House in connection with the dairying indmtry, and be has pointed out that it is I)ecessary to have the very best land for that purpose. If we purchase property for dairying purposes in the way foreshadowed by the pre"ent Bill, no doubt the are, will be considerably enlarged, and I am afraid, unle•"~ very great care is tnken, inferior property will l'e purchased. Therefore I say that dairving should be knocked out, and the present .Act should be ex I ended in the direction of extending the time of payment to the repurchased selectors. It is well known thut for the last ilve or six vears these unfortunate men ha,·e not bad a "single crop, and this year has heen the only one out of four in which there has been any prospect of a return in the shape of a paying crop. \Vhen a number of those men solec~ed the land their capit3.l was limited so far as cash was concerned. They possessed stout hearts and brawny arms, but that was not sufficient to enable them to meet. their engagement". It is true the Minister for Lands - the vrcoent Minister and his predecessor-has l1een anxious to assist bona .tide wen, and, in evEry case, he Ita~ given a most liberal interpretation o£ tbe present law, and allowed the selector to remain in possession without a £ne being inflicted. In some caseq fines '~'<ere inflicted; the MiniRter carried out tbe Act as he found it, He had no discretir,n; he was compelled to inopose fines; but now, I believe, thtre is a regnlation by which, in the event of a nwn being in arrears, he applies to the local commis,ioner, who inspects and make" certain recommendations, and if they are favourable the time is extended without a penalty being impoRed.
The SECRE1'AHY FOR P1::m.rc LANDS : By J1~xecutive minutP.
::Vlr-. FOG ARTY: That is a very wise provision. I can speak from experience with regard to the sympathy of the present 11inister for Lands with selectors, for I visited hin• a few months ago, al"d he gave relief to the struggling men, whose cases I represented. I think the time should l•e t'xt< ll(led from twenty to thirty years, for then these selectors would he in a better position to meet their payments than they are now. I do not know whet.l1er the Minister for Lands will accept an amendment in this direction ; if be will, I shall he pleased to approach the Parliamentary Draftsman with a view of submitting snch an amendment to the House. The hon. member for South Brisbane, Mr. 'l'urley, pointed out that some of the repmchased land was taken
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Furdase, Etc., Bill. 1865
up on conditional selection, and he evidently thought that no person was allowed to obtain portions of repurchaeed land except on certain conditionR. The hou. member interjected that, and I thoroughly endorRe that view. People should be compe lied to reside continuously on their selections, for by that means alone shall we be able to secure a permanent agricultural population. I do not agree with the hon. member for D>tlby in his remark that if the propo,als were not a.ccepted by this House that would have a tendency to reduce the value of the land. It is well known that any statement that will have the effect of reducing the price of land to benefit the incoming selection will not carry much weight in the financial market. If by my vote I could reduce the price from £3 to £2, I would gladly do so, knowing that the selector would reap the benefit. I am sure that no hon. member of this House will take advantage of his position to make statements that are at variance with facts; but I do say that if 8ome of the purchases made had been submitted to this House probably a reduction in the vendor's price would be effected. Now, the Hon. Mr. Barlow, in 1804, gave us to understand that if we insisted on the amendment proposed that the Bill would be withdrawn, and we would be in the same position as if no Bill had been submitted, and it was quite possible that legislation in this particular direction might not have passed from then up till now. As has beer1 pointed out, by the means of this A et thousands of people have been settled on the land. On the Downs there is sonJe of the mo't suitable land in the whole of Australasia for dairying purposes. Some time ago I met three gentlemen from Shoal haven-a Dlace that is noted for its butter-and they said there was nothing in the whole of Australia equal to the Darling Downs land for dairying purposes. The greater portion of the Downs--
JI!Ir. TURLEY : £40 per acre has been given fur dairying land at Shoalba ven.
Mr. FOG ARTY: That is the very reason why we should omit dairying land. If land is worth £40 per acre, it must be exceedingly rich, and we should approach the dairying land purchase with a good deal of eaution. I am sorry to see tlw.t the Minister has not introduced other amendments in the Acts of 1894 and 18!)7. The hon. member for Cook pointed out that the Land Board was free from political influence. That is quite possible; but by my interjection I intended to convey to hon. members that althouRh the Land Board reported on the value of a certain estate, the Government were not satisfied and they were not satisfied with a second rep~rt of the board, and they ultimately paid urore money for this e'tRte than was recommended. That either mel<ns that pressure was brought to bear on the board or the Government acted independently of it. So I was quite justified in making my interjection, and I do not mind the rejoinder of the hon. member for Cook, for small things amuse small minds. It has been suggested that these reserves should be placed in the hands of truste•·s or divisional boards, and if that is done I think there should be some law compelling them to be kept clean of B.athurst burr and prickly pear, and other noxwus weeds, because some of the reserves on these repurchased lands are hotbeds, more or less, of these noxious growths. I think the Minister might very well consider
the keeping of the reserves clean, [8·30 p.m.] and that provision to that effect
should he embodied in the BilL It may be possible to do it by Executive minute, hut it would be done much more effec
tually if such a provision were made part and parcel of the BilL I shall gladly vote for the second reading of the Bill, and I may tender my thanks to the Government for having introduced such an excellent measure, which, howevel', is capable of very considerable improvement in the direction I have indicated.
Mr. STEW AHT (Rockharnpton N01·th): I intend to vote for the second reading of this Bill, not because I am S}Jecially or particularly enamoured with this kind of legislation, for I think that, under normal conditions, it should not be necessary in a new country like Queensland, with the vast areas we have of unalienated and undeveloped land, for the Government to go into the market and repurchase land that has been alienoted. However, we are here to deal with things as we find them. Unfortunately, I dare say, for Queensland there was no Labour party in Parliament twenty or thirty years ago, and the present muddle has arisen in consequence. Before entering into the merits of tbio measure, I should like to say that I was rather surprised at the tone adopted by the hon. member for Dalby this evening in referring to the Opposition. That hon. member said the Government were exposed to the venomous and partisan criticisms of the Opposition. The only inference I could draw from his assertion was that the Opposition attack the Government without cause, that their opposition to the Government was inspired more by hatred of the members of the Government and the mpporters of the Government personally th:m by any objection to their measures. I can assure the hon. member fur Dalby, and I can "ssure all hon. members opposite, that we like themselves a great deal better than we do their measures, and that if their measures were at all equal to themselvEs, they would not meet with such criticism from this side of the House. Another thought borne in upon my mind as I listened to the hon. member was that the Opposition in their criticism have pressed too hard upon the Government, that they have di>covered weak points in the Government's armour, that they have exposed the Governments failings, the Government's foibles, and the Government's misdeeds, and that on that account their criticism is extremely distasteful to hon. members on the Government side of the House. So far as I am aware, we are here for the purpose of criticising the Government, and any Government which really desired the welfare of the country, instead of wishing to burke criticism, would offer every opportunily to members of this Assembly to criticise their measures to the fullest possible eYtent. If a man knows that he has a gnod case, he is not afraid of the fullest and freest discussion of that case, but if he knows that be has a. bad case, if he is consci<,us that he is trying to do something which he ought not to do, then be interposes every barrier bel ween himself and discussion and criticism. That, unfortunately, appears to be the position in which the Uo,·ernment continually find themselves. It is becoming rathe.r common for members on the other side to attribnte personal motives to members on this side of the Chamber. Not very long ago one hon. member, talking in a very be:tted fashion, said that the or,position were malicious in their criticisms, and that they were slanderc,us in their criticisms. I submit that such words as those are calculated to lower and degrade the tone of Parlhment, and to convey the idea to the outside public that we are not discussing me.asures for the welfare of the country, but merely indulging in wranglE·s with each other. So far as I am concerned I di>avow all that sort of thing. I am here, not to criticise hon members opposite, but to criticise their measure~. 'When I get up to speak in this Clmmher I speak as though hon. members
1866 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Pur('hase, Etc., Bill.
nppoeite had no existence at all; I do not even think of them, I think of the country behind me, and of the measures before me.
Hon. D. H. DALRDIPLE: A good picture of you<Relf drawn bv yourself.
Mr. STEW ART: The greatest artists have drawn pict.nres of themselvee, and who so competent to draw a picture of himself as a man himself. I am quite sure that if the junior member for i\Iackay brought up to this House a picture of himself it would be one of the richest works of art ever experienced in this Chamber. But I should like to ask hon. members opposite, who seem to be displeased and disconcerted by the criticisms of hon. members on this side, whether we have not good reasons to criticise the adminisiration of the special Act now under discussion? Have hon. members forgotten the fearful and wondPrful disclosures in ccmnection with the famous Seaforth Estate? I do not want to stir up that stink again, for we have had quite enough of it.
Hon. D. H. DALRYliPLE: That is a North Rockhampton expression.
Mr. STEW ART: If the hon. g-entleman will turn up J ohnston's dictionary he will find that the word is good Queen's English, and the bon, gentleman being a most loyal subject of Her Majesty, that at least shPuld recommend it to him if nothing else does. \Ve have not forgotten the aroma-perba.ps that word will please the hon. gentleman better-we have not forgotten the perfume-perhaps that will please his delicate sensibilities better tban the other word--we have not forg-otten the perfume, the aroma of the farnousSeaforth business, oroftheLakeClarendon business, out of the loins of which sprung that industry which has now become almost famous in QuGensland-that is, the brother-in-law mdustry. Nor have we forgotten the Fitzroy J<},tate. I am sorry to say that I gn ve ~ome little measure of support to the repurchase of that estate. I was certainly under the impression then that that e'tate would have been selected. There was every reason to believe that it would be selected, but so f"r as I have been able to gather it has not yet been t:1ken up.
Mr. FonsY'rH: Half of it. ba' b'en selected. Mr. STE\V AR'l': \V ell, it has gone off very
slowly, indeed. The last time that I consulted the land agent at Rockhampton on the subject I found th:<t only one or two J>Ortinns of t,he estate had been taken up, but I am very glad to find that it is going off now. As I said at the beginning, I intend to support the second reading of this Bill. The proposal to submit every proposed purchase to Parliament is an improvement on the existing law; and, for the life of me, I cannot understand how eome hon. members on both sides of the House can have such a strong objection to a prtrliamentary examination of these repurchases. One would think, to listen to the hon. member for Dalby, that parliamentary sanction of these rmrchascs was something extremely undesirable. The hon. gPntlcrnan says that if this h'comes law it will stop the repurchase of land, because owners of land will nnt submit their estate,; to the Government. vVhy should they not? vVhy do they fear to run the gauntlet of parliamentary criticism? 'fhe conclusion I can come to is that it is b,cau;;e they prefer the old system of backstairs intrigue; that they fJr"fer to bring political influence into operation ; that rather than sell their lands to the State for what they are worth, or under such terms as will stand the scrutiny of Parliement, they ];refer to sell them by the backdoor of the Governor in Council. The very force with which some hon. gentlemen have used this argument convinces me that there has been >omething wrong in thfl r,revious administration of this Act; that politcal influence has had some-
thing to do with it; and that backstairs intrigue has been more to the front than is at all desirable in the interests of the general public or nf the people who repurchase these lands from the State. That is the only conclusion I can cPme to, and I am very glad that the Government finds it"elf at last compelled to adopt a principle which, upon every occasion that this Act has come before this House, has received the unanimous support of hon. mnnbers who sit on this sine of the Chamber. \Yell, I support this proposal, but I support it only as being the lesser of two evils. As I have said already, it seems to me to be a most extraordinary and unfortunate circun1stance, and one which carries with it a scathing criticism upon the previous administration of the land laws in this colony to think that here, in this young c<·lony, with the vast bulk of the lands of the colony still in the hand., of the State, we are actually reduced to this position : that we are compelled to repurchase lands which have been already alienated for the purpose of enabling us to settle people. It seems to me to be a most ridiculous position to be placed in ; and the misfortune is that we are going on perpetuating the same state of things in other portions of the colony; and I sup]·OSe that at some future period some future Government of the colony will have to resume lands for the purpose of reselling them again to people who desire to sRttle on them. Anyone in Europe reading of this measure in the newspapers would imagine, if they did not know any better, that Quecnsbnd was a very old country, and that every acre of land in it had been taken up and settled upon jJerhaps a hundred years ago. I cannot imagine anyone, however strong his imagination might he, thinking for a moment that. in anew country, with such vast areas of land as we have got, available land should be >o scarce as it appears to be. As I have f<1id, it is a startling comment,•.ry upon the way in which we have administered our landed estate. It appears to me that in the :<nxiety of the Government to settle people upon these estates on the Darling Downs it has rather reglected its own estate. \Vhile I have >aid that I have no particular objection to the resumption of these lands if no b"tter wav out of the difficulty can be found, yet I can .. see clearly that there is something behind all these pro]•osals. Why do not some of these companies cut np their lands and sell them to settlers themselves? The only reason I can imagine for their coming to the State is that they get a much better price from the State than they would get anywhere else. That brings me to this point: That, in my opinion, at any rate, the State has been paying too high a price for th• 'e lanrls in the past. I think the State bas been paying more than the market value for these lands. Seeing that it is to be hoped that in future purchases the State will take full advantage of its position, and buy at such a price as will enable it to resell to people who desire to settle upon the lands, at rates which will enable those people to make a decent living. That is what I hope will happen, although I mmt say that I have very little expectation it will he brought about. The fact of the matter is thi,;: that we find that these large areas on the Darling Downs have now becorne the property, iu rr1any casEs, of banldng companies and financial institutions, and in smne few caRes of private inriivicluals, and we know what a powerful influence £ s. d. has in the government of this country.
Mr. FoRSYTH: Or anv country. Mr. STE\V ART: ()r any· country, as the
hon. member interjects. But I belie\e it has a more powerful influence here than almost anywhere else. Hon. gentlemen are elected by the people, no doubt, and they govern the people;
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Purchase, Etc , Bill. 186'1
but the.y are themselves governed by a power which does not personally apper upon the scene at all. The larger I remain in this Chamber, and the more experience I get in the dark and devious ways of government, the more convinced I am that what I have just stated is neither more nor less than the fact. \Ve find these financial in>titutions can bring pressure to bear upon the Government.
The SECRETARY FOR Pt:BLIC LANDS: In what way?
Mr. STEW ART: The hon. gentleman asks me ''In what way?" \V ell, I do not care to specify particnlarly in what way .•
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : I do not think it is fair to make a general statement like that.
Mr. STEW AHT : I think it would be much more unf<dr if I were to descend to particulars. Hon. gentlemen opposite know just as well as I do that it is extremely hard to prove these things.
The SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS : What things?
Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE : Why cannot you get out out of the region of innuendo?
Mr. STF,W ART: It is not innuendo. It is extremely difficult to pro' e that financial instrtu· tions exercise any influence in the government of this country, but I think hon. gentlemen must know better than I do bow it is done.
Hon. D. H. DALRYiiiPLE: You have explained that it was by overdrafts.
Mr. STEW ART: I never explained it at all. The hem. gentleman knows much more about it than I do, and he can enlighten me a very great deal upon that particular subject if he desired.
Mr. Hwos : He s:>id so the other night. Mr. STEWAHT: We all know that these
institutions exercise a powm-bl influence in the government of this country.
Hon. D. H. DALRH!PLll: That is not true. Mr. STEW ART : I might not be able to prove
it in a court of justice. Hon. D. H. DALRYMPI,E: You would be afraid
to say it outside. Mr. STEW ART: I have said it outside a
hundred times. Every person in the colony believes it.
'fhe SECRllTARY l'OR PUBLIC LANDS : It is not true, all the same, whatever they believe,
Mr. STEW' AHT: The hon. gentleman Petys it is not true.
Mr. FmtSYTH: Neither it is. The SECRETARY FOR PuBLIC I,ANDS : You know
it is not. The SPEAKER: Order! Mr. STE\VART: \Ve can accept that state
ment with the customary gr-,in of salt. Of course, according to parli:· rnentary usage, we are bound to accept it, but it is usele'" for hon. gentlemen opposite to deny the fact. The influence of finance upon the Government of this country is not confined to the financial institutions which have their habitat within the C111ll·
try, but it is also exercised by financial institutions which flourish 15,000 and 16,000 miles away. Have we not recently had financial institutions in London interfeting in the conduct of a certain industry in this colony-or attempting to interfere? Does anyone mean to tell me that the representations of those institutions had no influence with the Government?
The SECRETARY l!'OR PUBLIC LANDS : They were Crown tenants.
Mr. STEW ART: They were not all Crown tenants.
The SECRRTARY FOR PUBLIC LANDS: No, but th<ey were interesterl in the p::tstorallands of the colony, and they had a perfect right to come to the Government.
Mr. STEW ART : Crown tenants have a per· fect right to exercise any influence they can bring to bear upon the Government as Crown tenants, and as citizens, and as electors of the colony. Hon. gentlemen may deny my general statement with regard to the influence exercised upon the Government by financial in8titutions.
The SECRICTARY FOR PcBLIC LANDS: We deny it absolutely.
Mr. S'fEW ART : They say that I merely imagine it. \Veil, I hope that I am wrong, but I must say that all the available evidence appears to justify the assumption upon my part.
Mr. FORSYTH : \V here is the evidence ? Let us have a. look at it.
Mr. STl<JWART: \Vel!, we have had a good deal of evidence recently. I do not suppose I would be in order in relating the evidence, or even in referring to it.
The SPEAKER : Order ! Mr. STE\VART: Even in connection with
the Act which we now propose to amend, I think we h:>ve had evidence of the influence of financial institutions,
Mr. KERR: \Ve had it in connection with the Seaforth E,tate.
Mr. STEW ART: vVe have had evidence of how the finar,cial institutions pulled the politician, of how 'the politician pulled the Government, and of bow the Gover:1ment pulled the taxpayer. The evidence has been sufficient to justify me in making the assertion that I have made. One question of very great importance has been alluded to this e,·ening, and it is this: Is it not possible that in repurchasing these estates and reselling them under tbe system which we have adopted that we are merely perpetuating the same old evil-t bat in a few years these small areas ''ill have been again aggregated into big estates, and that a further process of repurchase will lmve to be gone through? \V c ought to be p~rticu!arly careful that nothing of this kind happens. The sole object of this measure is to sectle people upon the land. Now, a much better way of achieving that object than that proposed in the Bill would be to grant long leases--ninety-nine years' leases, or perpetual leases, as they do in New Zealand, with periodical revaluations. Or, if that system is not adopted, then there is another \vhich might be tried, and which, I believe, would he much better than the one in operation, and it is this : Sell none of these areas exc•cpt to people who will reside upon it bona fide.
Mr. Tum,EY: \V e tried to get it. Mr. STEW ART: Yes, we tried to get it, and
we were defeated. I would go further, and say that no owner of one of the'e areas should be permitted to sell without the consent of the Government. The object of that provision would be to prevent these small areas again getting into the hands of big holders. Either have the consent of the Government, or give the Government the first option of purchasing. Some provision of that kind is absolutely necessary if we are to prevent the continued aggrega· tion of these lands into big estates. There is another thing to which the hon. member for Dalby alluded, and it is this: In New Zealand there is a provision that preference shall be given to persons who already hold no land-whether a;; freehold or by selection. That provision might very well be imported into the Queensland statute in connection with these repurchased lands. That is an excellent provision, and one which is well worth the consideration of the Secretary for Lands. The measure does not appear to have been such a success as might have been expected, bnt perb::tps that is owing to the past two or three dry seasons. It is to be hoped that the dronght will break up
1868 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purcllase, Etc., Bili.
shortly, and that the people who have taken up these resumed areas will get g-ood seasons so as to give them an opportunity of demonstrating what they can do; and I trust this abovP everythingthat, unless some very serious calamity bdalls them, they will be kept up to themarluofar as their payments are concerned. This seems to be the weak link in every dealing with the State. Now, this is a semi ·socialistic experiment, and believing in socialism as I do, I do not s>ty one thing, think another, and act some other way. I believe ir. socialism-I belieYe even in semisocialism, when we cannot get the whole thing, and, this being a semi-socialistic experiment, I desire to see it a success. If it is to be a success, the people who take
these areas must get them on such [9 p.m.] favourable terms as will enable them
to perform their part of the bargain, and if they fail in their payments they should get no more leniency from the State than they would from a private firm. I believe that is the only principle on which we can carry on this kind of legislation. Any other system will inevitably lend us in failure. I hope the hon. gentleman in charge of the measure will consider the suggestions which have been made by way of improving the Bill. I am sure we are aH desirous of seeing people settled on the land. I cannot say with what feelings of shame and regret I read recently in the newspapers of a number of Cheshire farmers who had come out here to look for lani!, and who could not get an acre in the whole colony to suit them. A number of Finns also came here and could get no land.
The SECRETARY FOR PuBLIC LA:<rDS : They sat down on Degilbo lnnds and said they Wl1nted a particular site.
Mr. STE"\VART: In any case, it appears to me f"xceedingly difficult for anyone wanting good agricultural land to get it, and when we have a number of persons who want to settle down together and form a community we c.•nnot find a spot in the entire colony where they can carry out their ideas. I trust the hon. gentleman in charge of the Bill will still further amend it when we get into commiGt.ee.
Mr. STORY (Balonne): There is e>ne clause in this Bill Ro valuable that it makes it oblig"· tory on every member of the Honse to vote for the second reading, and Olli'3 so mischievous as tn make it almost a necessity to vote against it. The clause which I think is valuable is that which provides for acquiring land for dairying purposes. I have seen nothing less attractive for a farmer to settle upon than some of the lands occupied by agriculturists on the Darling Downs. Good land no doubt ; as good as could as could be got, but shadeless, treeless, waterless, and with no back country at all. A farmer there has to have the whole of his interesLs in agriculture alone, for there is no opportunity of doing anything else. Some country I have seen reminds me very much of country I was well acquainted with in New Zealand, both the climate and appearance of which was afterwards altered by planting hedges round t.he paddocks. Some of the Darling Downs country is bleak, and not fit for anything else but agriculture. I maintain that no farmer, unless he farms in the American style, can depend entirely upon agriculture. I speak with a twenty years' knowledge of dairying, and maint~tin that it is absolutely necessary tn have both agricultural and grazing land in addition to some inferior land on a dairy farm. The inferior land. is, of COJ1rse, obtained at a lower price, but 1s nevertheless useful. No man who knows anything abont dairying would keep his young stock in his dairy paddocks. They are sacrerl to the dairy herd •and for milking purposes. The heifers that ::tre kept are run outside the dairy
paddocks, and therefore it is necessary to have some inferior timbered country as a run for the young stock. An acqnaintanca of mine was remonstrated with lately by a friend for acquiring some wooded conntty at the back of his selection, and was asked what he had done it for. His reply was, "Do you sleep in your dining· room," and on receiving an answer in the negl1tive, he continued, "Neither do my cows, they come out to feed and go back into the timbered country to sleep." The best pastoral country is wanted for the dairy herd, grazing country is required for the dry stock not in use, and thnbered country is necessary, not only as shelter for the stock, but for a' ariety of other purposes. As an adjunct to a dairy farm, limber country is most valnable, and none but the man who has to make his home on timberless country knows how difficult it is to make it really homelike. I am quite sure that nobody who knows anything about dairying, and the quality of country necessary for it, will make any mistake at all. Directly he sees land he can tell whether it is fit for dairying or only fit for agriculture.
Mr. HARDACl\E: \V e do not propose to go in for grazing farms under this Bill.
Mr. STORY: I do not know how a milking cow gets her food except by grazing. I never heard that it w9.s injected into her. (Laughter.) It is necessary to have grazing land to graze on, and the better the grazing land the better for the dairying cattle. The hon. member means by grazing land the inferior and ridgy country. Y on want that for the young stock, and you want good grazing country for your dairy paddocks. Now, alluding to my second point-the mis· chievous part of this Bill-I cannot imagine why the Government should have introduced this clause making it necessary for Parliament to Ntify t.he purchase of any country at all. The Land Board, I believe, stand pre eminent as perfectly honourable men who are not swayed by self-interest or by any influence at all. That it is po.,,;ible for tbem to make mistakes I admitthe same l1s anvone else-but there has been no evidence hrom(ht forward of any mistakf' having been made. Until the l:md that they ,,aid it was desirable to 1mrchase has been refused by the commnnity, we cannot say that they h:tve made a mistake in recommending the purchase of any country whatever. As any business man will know, any property submitted either to the, Government or to a compl1ny, or to a private individual, is always in confidence. The price is always in confidence; a man has a certain t.ime to accopt, and if he does not want it at that price he refus 'Sit; but he certainly does not hawk it all over the place and tell every· body th:1t he refuses to take it at that price. I can imagine a property offered to the Government, and recommended by the Land Bol1rd, coming before this House. I say, without exception, no man can judge of the value of land and the capabilities of it under these circumstances. I will just read from an extract taken at random from the commissioner's report, and I would ask the House, ''n this bald state· ment, if they could eay whether this land is worth one pric c or worth another price? The extract says-
rr'his estate cnns.i~ts of about 4,000 acres of agricultural land, worth on an average £2 lOK. per acre, the remainder being only fair grazing land, worth on an average about 16s. per acre. The we~tern portion of the estate 1Redbanl\: Creek: side) is watered by dams~ one on portion :38, parish of LoPkye1·, and the other on portion 190, parish of Clarendon, the remainder being watered by Lockyer Creek and several lagoons.
That is about the sort of thing that would be put before thf' House to debate as to the value of that land. Now, the physical features of the country altogether determine its value, especially
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1Be9
for dairying-the warmth, the position with regard to the sun, the shelter, the water, and a hundred other things ; and I will defy any man, I d<> not care how practwal he i,, to judge the value of country from any such report as can be submitted to him.
The SECRETARY FOR PuBLIC LANDS: How are the Government going to decide it?
Mr. STORY: The Government were never intended to decide it. If you have a member of the Land Board or members of it to inspect the country, and you trust them, then I say they are better guides than any ratification you can get from this House under any circum"tances. l!'rom a baltl statement like this the House is asked to say wlmt is the value of the land which is submitted to them.
The SECRE~'ARY FO!\ PUBLIC LANDS : The Governor in Council have to decide whether it is desirable to make a purchase or not.
lVIr. STORY: I will remind the Minister that somebody has inspected it and has recommeuded the purchase. I am only just urging how unneces-sary, how superfluous it is, to have the opinion of the hon. memher on the matter under any circumstances, unless thev go and look at it, and then in a good many cases, when they lutd looked at it, they would know as little ttbout it as they did before they went there. It is not every man who is '' judge of the value of land. Because a man is a member of P .;rliament, it does not follow that he knows the value of land. It takes a fttrmer to be any sort of a judge of land for the purposes of this Act. I say there is not a member having property to offer who would offer it to a number of men to diw,uss in public, and publish all over the country, whether they thought his country was worth what he asked for it or not. I am perfectly con· vinced that if any members of P .trliament went out and looked at a property, e'en with the restricted experience th>tt they might have, they might c •me back and say we have looked at this country and we do not think that it is worth what it is said to b6--there is this or that against it. There would be something tangible about that, but for them to debate on another man's report, and say what the country is worth without havmg seen it, is just as reasonable as buying a mob of horses without knowing anything about them, or disputing what their v:tlue is without seeing them. I think my,elf that we tihoulrl trust the Land Board. The Land Board have given us good reason to trust them, and they have given justification for our faith in them in years past and, so far as I am concerned, I am perfectly prepared to trust them still ; and if this particular clause is taken out of the Bill I shall think it is a much more valuctble Bill than it is at. present.
Mr. \V. THORN (Aubigny): I do not intend to delay the second reading of this rueasnre to any extent. I intend to support the second reading. The only thing I rose for was to call the attention of the Minister to a report that has been tabled. I notice here in regard to the Pinelands Estate we do not get the credit we should in my opinion. We are debited with 702 acres 1 rood 17 perches. \Veil, the Minister is well a ware that there are three selec\ions on that estate that have been v-ithdrawn, and they have never been offered to public sale, and the Government up to t.he present have received fro1m £1,500 to £2,000 for the timber on those three "elections. Therdore the House will see that the Pinelands Estate is actually free at the present time. We have heard a great deal to-night about agricultural land and pastoral land, as far as dairying goes. In every selection that is taken up, whether it is unrler the Agri· cultural Lands Purchase Act or under the Crown Lands Act, there is a portion of it not fit for
agriculture ; and I cannot see for the life of me why that clause should be in this Bill. One hon. gentleman lms made out that a portion of grazing land is required for dairying purposes. \V by, I can take the hon. gentleman to my electorate and show him 4 acres of scrub land, just fallen, and planted with prairie grass that will feed fifteen to tv.enty cows all theyearronnd; and the butter and miik produced from those cattle is equal to that given by forty or fifty or sixty fed on roughgmss. If you want to breed good co~> sand get got,d products, you must give cattle good feed and not turn them out on stony ridges, as the hon. member for Balonne has said. There is no don bt that there are thousands of acres of Crown lands that the Government could throw open for selection, which would be the means of forming close settlement. 'rhe hon. member for Hockhampton North m'de out that a number of farmers came out here and could not get good land to settle on ; but that is ridiculous, for in my own electomte there are over 2,000 acres of good scrub land, where there is some of the finest timber to be found anywhere-pine 80 or !JO feet iu length, and hardwood of all descriptions. If these Cheshire farmers want to take up land, let them go and look at that district; hut I say that in order for a farmer to make a decent living-so that, in a sense, he can be his own master-it is absolutely necesoary that light lines of railway should be built to far.ning centres. The only reason, I believE', why the e Rep'nrchase Acts have been brought in at all is because tile repurchased lands adjoin our prtsent railways. If the Government wish to settle people on the land, they will b,we to build ligbt lines to farming centres, and now, I sny, is the time v. b.· n a light line should be built to Goombungie. (Laughter.)
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE (iliackay): I wish to make a few remarks in reply to what has been said by--
:Mr. HIGGS: It is necessary. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I do not kuow
that it is at all necessary ; but seeing that the histrionics and utterances of hon. members opposite are intended to guide people wrongly or rightly, then one is bound to take more notice of what goes on in this House than they would otherwise dream of. However, that is not worth discussing. The hon. member who has last spoken on this side said he was in favour of the Act as it stood with regard to leaving it to the Minister, or the Gnvernor in Council, to decide as to the advioctbili: y of purchasing estates or otherwise; aud he did not know what necessity there was for bringing in this amending Bill. 'l'here is one thing that is perfectly clear: That if any Minister makes a purchase at all, he will run the risk of being grossly misrepret ented by hon. members opposite for partisan purposes, and outside by the labour Press. There is no doubt about that, and perhaps there will be a little more difficulty in doing tha,t if these matters are dealt with by the House itself. I give hon. members opposite aredit for being pedectly capable of making their represen· tations, whether they have any foundation or whether they have not. During the course of tbis debate, misrepresentations have been made in connection "ith the Sea forth Estate, which hon. members opposite desire to make capital out of for party purposes. Mr. H. B. B:ack was the opposing candidate to myself and Mr. Chataway on three occa-ions, and on three occasions he was defeated; but he was always plea~ed to make use of anything of this kind during the elections.
Mr. TtJRLEY: He was not the first. to do it. HoN. D. H. DA LRYMPLE: The hon. mem
ber knows nothing what.evcr about the matteror more than he chooses to confess, unless he has
1870 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchaee, Etc., Bill.
been pulling the wires in JliJ ackay, and has been supplying them with more erroneous information th>tn they h,we the ability to invent.
The SPEAKJ<;R: Order ! HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE : It is evident
that hon. members opposite are trying to make a little trade property ont of 1.his Seaforth Estate. There is an election coming <>n, and I have no doubt the Seaforth transaction, or somet.hing of that kind, is nece~sary to them. I will not say that thnir object is to put this Government out of office, but they wish to get r•ack themselves and retain their salaries as long as possible. That is the main object of their lives.
Mr. McDONALD : Ditto. HoN. lJ. H. DALRYMPLE: No; not in my
case. It is very poor imagination that has nothing else to say but "ditto.'' Hon. members opposite must have some stock property. vVhether it has got any founnation or not is a matter of the most perfect indifference to them. It serves their purpose. The stock property in this case happens to be the Seaforth Estate, becau"e that estate is in a district which returns two members suvporting the t;overnrr:eut. That is their handle. Now, the hon. member for Rockhampton North-who, I think, is not greatly appreciated by his own constituents just now- I non't know '" hether he represents them or not, but he may be taken to repre,ent the views of the L:~bour party, and although his words may be found in. Johnson's dictionary, I venture to say that there are many words there which are hardly parli,1mentary-the hon. member said that the Se•forth transaction stank. I gathered from his remarks that that transaction was in some way a shamefully improper one. Evidently it is the intention of the Labour party to try and make the public believe that.
Mr. HIGGS: \Vhy not, if it is true? HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: Exactlv. But
there is not one scintilla of evidence to prove their stalemeuts. But I will deal with that pr<·;ently. And they are eqnally as :mxious to have stock property in the Lake Clarendon business, but it is rather more difficult to make much profit out of that.
Mr. McDoNALD : The poor farmer has got to pay the iucreased price.
HoN. D. H. DALRY:VlPLE: First of all, hon. members opposite say the estate is not worth the money, and, if it is, they say the price is too high; bnt hon. 1nembers do not see that that is a complete rehnttal of the first cha.rge.
Mr. McDONALD: The Minister ·.ccid the price was too big·h.
The SECRETARY FOR PcBLIC LANDS : I said nothing of the sort.
HoN. D. H. DALRY:YIPLE: I do not p1y particular attention to what the hon. member for Rock ham pton North says. I only want to show that hi' statements do not rest upon fact.<, but that they are simply a kind of political property, out of which hon. members opposite expect to get a partisan profit. The hon. member made statements to the effect that the Labour party were not slanderers ; that they a! ways dealt with meaF-ures, not men; that they never made personal reflections; and he depicted himself in exceedingly fancy colour''· He never calumniated anybody. He did not
slander ; and when he did speak it [9"30 p.m.] was in an excercdingly mild manner
of the proposals which his opponents bring forward. The hon. member then spoke of backdoor inflaence on thi9 side of the House, and showed, in the course ,Jf his speech, how little justification there wos for the portraiture which he drew. \Vith regard to the L1bour party, I shall not characterise them by any words of my own, but shall quote the words of one who is thoroughly familiar with their tactics.
What I quote may or may not be just ; but, at any rate, it was applied to the Labour party and their tactics by one nf themsehes-a gentleman who stood very high in their estimation, who is thoroughly familiar with them, and who knows their methods. With regard to what was said by the hon. memberfor North Rockhampton as to the way in which that party dealt with public measures, I will read what Mr. Benjamin Tiilett, a very celebrated and distinguished L:~bour leader, said in writing to "Heynolds's :Miscellany." He dewnbes the leaders of the Labour party as "sewer rats, who wallow in the cesspools of their own calumny." I would not make such a use of the English bnguage, nor do I desire to make any comment upon that statement. The opinion which the hon. member for N•.rth Rockhamptun entertains as to the general processes and methods of the Labour party I contrast with the opinion of a more disinterested observer-namely, Mr. Benjamin 'l'rllett. Now, I come to the remarks which were made by the generally somewhat uninteresting jUHior I!' ember tor Drayton and Toowoomba.
Mr. HIGGS: You would not say that if he were here.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: The hon. m ern ber judges me by himself. You c"n go and fetch the hon. member if you like. I am very glad to see that I have a very respectable audience now, though there was not "" quorum when I began. The hon. member to whom I have referred we may generally take to be a kind of weak reflection of the senior member for Drayton and Toowoomba, but on this occasion he told us that he came here in order to show that on a previous occasion he was in favour of the amendment proposed in this Bill, and that he got np fnr that purpose alone. He talkPd for about an hour and said a good deal on very many subjects. In the course of his very discnrsi ve address, he harked back on this stale property of the Labour Opposition with regard to the ;•nrchaseof the Reaforth Estate, and made a statement which I can characterisA as absolutely incorrect. The h<m. member said that a member of the Land Court sent in a report on that land to the Minister, that the Minister then demanded or asked that an amended report should he furnished, and that the Land Court then yielcted to pressure from my colleague, who was then Secretary for Lands, "nd made a different valuation of the estate from that which the Land Court had previously seen fit to make. I say that is absolutely incorrect ; it is not true. And really, when the hon. member for Drayton and Toowoomba backs up or lends himself to a slander of that kind without taking the trouble to look up his authority, without knowing anything about the matter, then I say the hon. member is acting in a manner that is unworthy of any member of Parliament, for it is more or less an attack upon the personal honour of the Ministry. \Vhat did t.he hon. member for North Rockhampton-who uses no innuendoes, who slanders not, but deals with measures not men-·mean by speaking of financial pressure being put upon the Secretary for Lanns? ·when I interjected in what that financial pressure consisted, the hon. member said, "Overdrafts." \V hat the hon. member would like the public to believe, I presume, is that the Minister bad an overdraft, and that he was subjected to some pressure in consequence.
MEMBERS of the Labour party: Oh, no ! HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE : What else did
he mean? Re could mean nothing else. In order to assist his colleagues to rise to political eminence he" ould circulate, by innuendo, a gross and grotesque slander of that de,cription over the length and breadth of the colony. With regard to my having an overdraft, I have not an
Agricultural Lands [14 NovEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1871
overdraft, and at no time of my life was I ever amenable to preesure. But I am sorry I said that, because I do not wish to follow the example of hon. members opposite and toot my own trumpet. The statement made by the junior member for Drayton and Toowomnba. that the Th'l:inister or the Government were not sati,fied with one report mc~de by the Land Conrt with regard to the value of the Seaforth E3tate, and th<1t they asked for a second rep.>rt, is false. I do not charge the hon. member with making" that st-lternent knowingly, but I charge him with carele>;.Dly giving support to sonlething which, after all, i,; neither more nvr less than a gross and lmseless cl1lumny. As this shameless imposture has been repe.1ted, I think it is jnst as well--
Mr. McDoNALO: When you have got a bad case abuse the other .~ide.
HoN. D. H. DALRY.'.IPLE, You h;1ve been doing nothin;~ dse hut abus~ the other sidP ever since you and y .. ur JHrty have been in Parliament., and yuu abu?e it ten tirnes rnore outside. ·when this charge is made, a chart(e whi~h I presume the hon: member hopes to profit by, I am justified in saying that it is an imposture, and in quoting evidence to show that it is an irn posture. An ~ttack has been made on the hon. mAmber for Lockyer with reference to the Lake Clarewlon Estate, anrl so far as I am aware there is nothing that cm be said with regard to the Seaforth :Estate that has not been said about the Lake Clarendon J£,tate, and there is not the slightest ground for believing thctt the Ln,ke Clarendon Estate could have been got for less than the price paid for it by the Government, which was the price that was set down as its fair value by the Land Court. Here I am reminded of an interj· ction which I made to the hon. member for J<'iinders in ~onnection with this matter. l said that the LP.nd Court fixed the value of the land. To a certain extent that is not right; hut it is right in this sense: that the L:tud Court fix thtJ fair value, and that the lVIioister canno\ give morG than that value. The only e'<tate with which I had to deal during my term of office as predecessor of the hon. member for Leichhardt was the Lake Clarendon J£,tate. I endeavoured to obtain that estate if po"'ible for a less sum than that at which it wag offered; but I discovered that it was entirely impossible to get it for a less sum than that which the L<tnd Court had stated was its fair valne.
Mr. MAXW!lLL: £17,000. HoN. D. H. D.\..LRYMPLE: Whatever was
the fair v.tlue as as,;essed by an impartial tribunal was given. If there was any fault in the valuation-I do not say there was-we have the best evidence to prove that no more than the value was given, in that the htnd has been taken up. I may s"y with regard to the relationship whicl1 hon. members are paltry enough to bring forward, that it is quite true that the memlwr for the district happened to he a relative of the gentleman who was the vendor.
Mr. HARDACHE: Did he not work it for all he was worth?
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: The hon. member can talk for himself. I do not think the hon. mcjmher for Lockyer did anything in the matter which he did not think he was conscientiously justified in doing, having bef··re him the well-beir,g of his own electorate. That is my opinion, and the hon. member, if he ever assumes office and hag a brother-in-law--
An HoNOUHABLE MEMBER: He has none. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: He may have
by that time. The mere bet that the hrm. member for Lockyer was related to the gentleman who had the estate for ale certainly did not in any way assist that gentleman to sell his
estate. On the contrary, I think it opposed difficultits in the way. I knew the facts at the time, and no attempt at disguise was made about it. The hon. member for Lockyer could not help his relationship, and I suppose his relation could not help his conneetion with the hon. member. The question was whether an estate should be purchased or not, and Par·liament had ~:~aid that under certain circums~_,ances an estate might be purchased. I say that if the relationship had any effect at all, it w><s to make the :Minister mor'' guarded, more c.neful, and more ae.oured-so far as a man cunld be assured before thtJ real te"t of throwing the land open to selection after purchase-that the purchase was for the public ad vantage and would be a success.
Mr. GrvENS: 'l'hat was what made the Minister purchase it when the Land Board said it was not fit tn be pureha<ed.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: That is another ab*1lutely incorrect statement.
Mr. GIVENS: You will see it in the papers. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: That the Land
Court--Mr. GIVENS: The Land Board. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPL:E: Here is another
attempt to mislead the public. \Vhat the Land Board said-is the hon. member not alluding, not to the facts upon which this purchase was based, but to some other facts which appeared years before, when a matter was referred to the Land Board?
Mr. GrvENS: No; ynu will see it in the papers.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I guarantee that the price was the fair v:1.lne put upon it by the Land Court, and I gtmrantee further, in spite of the hon. member's endeavours to cloud and darken the is"1e, that the Land Court reported favourably upon the purchase. If it is true, why should tbe hon. member endeavour by some allusion to something which had taken place before--
Mr. GIVENS: No. HoN. D. H. DALHY11PLE: I know per
fectly what I am talking about, and I know the object of the hon. member. It is quiLe in keeping with that of a political partizan, and it is not in keeping with the object of anyone who wishes to bring forward the plain facts of the case for the information of the public.
Mr. HIGGR: Let us have the facts. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE : The facts have
been before the bon. member long ago, but we know it is sa.id that not.hing is more often dist<~rted than facts. The hon. member has got the report before him, but when an hon. member talks of backstairs influence, and when the Junior hon. mernber for Toowoon1ba comf''i here with a statement that will not b ar the light of day, hem. memh~rs opposite who know pretty well the position of affairs take very great care that they will not intervene, when he says that the J\1inisler exercises pressure. \Vhat pressure could the Minister exercii\e? Let t.he hon. member for the Trades Hall-I should say for Fortitude Valley, the l"te editor of the Worker, that most ioflnential journal, if he pleads ignorance, say what possible reason be can give for that ignorance when he has got the r'"port bPfore him? Do~es he not know very well that l\.fr. Hume, "' the Land Court, reported on this !Il.>tter? He does; but it is the object apparently of hon. m ern hers to crawl to power by methods of misrepresentation, which I hope in day,; to come people will decline to use, Let the hon. member take the original report of Mr. H Ulll·', a., the L"nd Court, and see what he had to '"Y on thP Seaforth ]<~,tat e. The report was favourable, and Minioters were further justified, in fa.ct, that there was a petition signed by most of the people of Mackay,
1872 Agricu1tural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
that this estate should be obtained, and also, in fact, that no estate whatever eo far had been purchased in the North, and all the money had been expmded in the South. Evm the hon. member for Rockhampton North, who attacks Ministers and their administration of the Act, could see his way to approve of the purchase of an estat•~ in his own pa.rticular district. He thought it desirable that that estate should be bought, though I must say that now that it is bought he is going to wty that it was very improper for the Minister to buy it.
Mr. HIGGS: You know the SeaL,rth Eo;tate will never be taken up.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: Whether it is taken up or whether it is not, it is quite clear that the action of the Labour party wiLh respect to it has been the same as their action in con· nection with the L:.ke Clarendon Estttte. They would not wait for it to be taken up. They insisted it was a failure. It mn't be a failure. \Vhy? Because hon. gentlemen rnu"t make political profit, and as they could not get it on their own merits they preferred to disparage hon. members on this side of the House.
Mr. LESINA: It is impossible. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: It is not impos
sible, I regret to say, but it may be impossible ultimately to do them any real harm. As long as a man respects himself he will n;,t trouble about the calumnies of interested political opponents. Bnt it may do them harm in the eyes of the public. It may lose them votes, and it may make it more difficult to win the election for Too won g. That is why these things are said. The hon. member for Forlitude Valley is a very accomplished strategist. "Fling muJ," says he, "and some of it will stick."
]\.fr. HrGGS : I never said anything of the sort. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: That is the
policy of the Labom party, and alw:.ys was their policy. I do not wonder at the hon. member smiling, because he knows wh.lt a profitable policy it is. lf they had to ::lepend on their own merits they won ld never win a seat.
:VIr. HrGGS: I will have to ask if this is parliament:.ry if you continue.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I will just read the report of the Land Court, because I want to get it into Hansard, to show how basele.,s these unjustifiable innuendoes are with regard to the Gu\'ernment having givon more than the Land Court recornmende,>. I will put this report on record to give a flat and absolute contradiction to the st",tement nf the junior member for Toowoomba that there has been more than one report. There was only one report, and the Minister has no power w batever to eend the Land Court b .ck for another report. They are independent of the Miuister, and can exercise their own discretinn. It certainly wo:uld not be proper for the Minister to "ay to the Land Court, "I am dissatisfied with your report ; go and make another." My opinion is that if he did the La11d Court would assert their dignity and the position tbey occupy in virtue nf their appointment by the Houses of Par!iamert. Here are the facts : As in the case of the Lake Clarendon Estate, the Labour party have jumped to a c:mclusion. 'vVi: h no knowledge whatever persond, nine·tenths of them never having seen the estate, and kno .dug nothing of the locality, they take it upon them· selves to gainsay the report and valuation and recommendations of the L1nd Court. They did not wait until it was provo•d to be a failure. They assumed it must be a failure, and they denouncerl the Government acnordingly. I call the Lake Clarendon E'tate a distinct snccess. I will not go into particulars; hut facts will proYe it. The neighbourhood believes it ha< been a distinct success, and, for aug-ht hon. members on
the other side know, the Seaforth Estate may also turn out very profitable. It comprises a very fine harbour, so that in gaining the SeaforLh Estate one of those things is obtained which hon. members on the other side are continually saying the State should own. 'l'he estate at present com· mands, not a frontage here and there, bnt a frontage to a, bay which some day may be a very valuable harbour. 'fhat, at any rate, is regained to the public. One would suppose that that bein~ in the direction which hon. members opposite favour, and which I favour myself, they would have been prepared to wait ; but their animus, their bias, their determination to score some political point, is shown by the fact that they did not wait until the estate was thrown open for selection before they proceeded to vilify tbe Government and myself, more or less by innuendo, as if we had the slightest interest in the matter. I have no more interest in the Seaforth Estate than I have in the Trades Hall.
Mr. LESINA :. The worst job ever perpetrated --there is no questiou about it.
Tbe SPEAKER: Order! HoN. D. H. DALRYJYlPLE: That is exactly
what I expected from the hon. member, wbo, I believe, on one or two ucca~dons, iu consequence of his language, has had to suffer in his body. I am not in the least surprised at his sayin~ that. It just shows how exceedingly careless some members are even when they have to suffer for it, and, if that be so, bow little regard can we hope they will have of what they say about people in this Chamber, where they are safe ?
Mr. LESINA : The Mackay papers pnt it in cold print., and you were at the head of tbe depe,rtment when the job was pervetrated.
The SPEAKER: Order ! Mr. LESINA: It is a job. The SPEAKER: I have repeatedly asked the
hon. member to maintain order. If I have to do so again, I shall take action to present his conduct to the Hon"e.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE : I shall confine myself as closely as I can to placing the facts as they are-not as they are represented to beREPORT BY \V ALTER CUNKI::-.rGHA:J-1 HU::-'J:E, A l\fK~IBER OF
THE LA:\D COURT, IN TER1.1S 01-" SECTIO~ 4 OF ''THE AGRICULTURAL LANDS PURCI-tASE AcT OF 1894," FPO:'l THE SEAFORTH ESTATE, O:FFJ<;Rim BY H. MACKKNZIE FT=-'l"LAYSON TO JH~ SURRENDERJm TO TIH: CROWN l''Olt TH.E: PURPO::Ot:S QI<' THA'l' ACT BY A LETTER DATED 15TH ALTGU8T, 1898.
The Seai'orth Estate is in the ::liackay district, on the coast between Cape H1llsborough and Port Xewry, and about 30 miles from the town of .Mackay, by a very circmtous road.
(1.) Th~· Fair Valu.e of the Land to the Owner. The pricP- asked by the vendor is £-:t 7s. Id. per acre,
and the total area of the estate is 6.198 ''cres. In determining the value of this land collateral facts
and circumstances have to be taken into consideration. In the South of the colony it would not be worth 15s. an acre, and at the end of a road 30 miles from the port of JYfackay, as mere land, it would not at present fetch 30s. an acre on the spot. But there are other points from which the question must be regarded. It is quite cler1r farmers dE.sire to obtain small farms, consisting of virgin land, within reasonable distance of tramline·~, suitabie for sugar-growing, in order to engage in the profitable pursnit of raising cane and s:elling it to the mills. At present, under these circumstances, it is found they do give, rmd are still willing to give. from £4 to £8 per acre for such land. rrhese prices are only obtained where there is a tramway from a mill to the purchasers' doors, or within a short distance of them.
1 he Seaforth Estate generally I'Onsists of undul ~ ting land. with a certam area stony and useless for :'S!:rieultural purposes. 'fwo-thirds, incln&ive of some excellent scrub on volcanic ::ml suitable for coffee~growimr, is good sugar land, appatently equal to that in other localities, where standing crops are to be seen.
A tramway from Habana plantation is now within '; n iles of the estate, and would, I bave ascertained from its owner, be continued to Seaforth in the event of that estate being purchased.
Agt·icultural Lands [H NOVEMBER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. lb7J
Immediately to the north-west of Finla,yson's POint is Port Xewry, a. small but excellent harbour into which ships can enter in not less than 7 fathoms water. vrcre a jetty made for them to come alongside, there can be no doubt the wholR of the sugar from the adjacent part of the district wottld be shipped there.
'faking these facts into C'JllSldcra,tion-namely, that the land is suitab:e for snga.r-growing, that there is a stea.dy dem·tnd for such, that a tramline would connect the estata with a mill, and th:tt there is the possibility or the formation of an exuellent port in the immediate vieinity-the value of the whole estate is put down at £8 13s. per acre, an<l attention is drawn to the fact that tills valuation has only been arrived at <tfter careful inqniries made amiJng bnsine-.s people of the district specially qualified to give information on the point. There is the opinion-not uf a political p:utisan, bt1t of someone who is specirtlly appointed by Parliament to ascertain the facts in such cases, and who made a personal inspection of the place. Now, unless it can be shown-aud it cannot be shown-that one penny more was given thttn the value which the assessor set forth, and it is considerably less than the vendor asked-then I say that these me>tn, paltry, and contemptible inuendoes with regard to the honour of the Ministry or any of it.s members, fairly fall to the ground, and the hon. member knows it. If there be a mistake-and that has to be provenif hon. members are willing to deal merely with the facts as honest politicians, they would wait until thPy fotmd out from experience whether this valuation was not justified by facts.
Mr. Hmos: Is that tbe only official valuation 1
HoN. D. H. DALRY;ylPLE: The hon. member ought to know, if he does not know, that all the official information will be in the pos~ession of the Land Court. Does the hon. member mean to say that his conception of the proper action for the Minister to take is to get the opinion of t.he Land Court, and then, without knowing anything personally about it, that he should reject that opinion, and say, "No, I will not have that" 1 DoeR he believe that the Minister will do precisely what the junior member for Toowoomba would like to make the public believe the Minio;ter has done, and call for a second report 1 It is tbe duty of the Minister to accept the opinion which is given him by tbe Land C.mrt. It is supposed to be compelent, and it is the du y of the court to get the evidence, and to weigh it, and present the Minister with their conclusions. It is the CDnclusions which the Minister has to deal with. Whatever position the Minister me,y be in, it would be ten times worse if he was to summon witnesses and estimate the value of their testimony. Parliament has a great deal too much wisdom to take any other course than that which it has followed; and yet, when it has been carried out thoroughly, and with integrity, that does not prevent hem. members opposite from taking advantage of the opportunity, and making base and mean accusations. 'rhere is, at any rate, the report with regard to the value.
Me. Hroos: Is that the only valuation? HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: It is the "only
vnluation that was furnished by the [10 p.m.] Land C.lllrt to the Minister, and it
was upon this report and that repdrt only that the Minister wa:; c:1lled upon to act. If there were forty other reports I Bhould say that he would not pay any attention to them. Now there is the other het which the L'tnd Court were requested tc, pronounce upon-the demand for land in the neighbourhood for agricultural settlement, and this is what the report s~ys-
'rhere ls undoubtedly great demand for land in the }fackay district suitable fm• sugar or coffee growing, consequent upon the present system of cultivation by small farmers who dispose of their cane to the m1lls. These men appear to want virgin land-cultivation on the old estates tha.t have been long under crop not now being profitable.
1900-5y
There have been three petitions received in connection with thi& estate. That headed by the :llayor of 3:Iackay only shows that the busineNs men of :M.ackay desire the purchase of Seafortll, not that farmers do, as out of 160 names only thil·ty-fom· are those of men belonging to the farming class. The other two appear to be bond fide, and express the wish of the district.
(3.) The Suitability of the Lund 0./fere<l for Agricultural SettleJnFnf.
'l'he estate generally consists of undulating ridgy country, thickly timbered, the rocl{s of the locality being basalts aud greenstones-ncarly ah'irays an indication of good land. rrhe soil is of the same eharacter and depth --namely, light, and from 9 to 20 inehes-as at the present time iEl in other localities growing good crops of cane. This of course refer~ to the two-thirds of agriculLural land referred to in clause l. 'l'ho remainder, consisting of stony land and poor forest, CHn only be classed as grazing land, and would be utilised ior paddocks by sugar-growers.
(4.) The Permanency of the Watm· Supply. There ia an excellent supply of permanent water con
tained in Victor, Plantation, and Seaforth Cl'eeks, and judging from appearances, it could be obtained at shallow depths by sinking wells.
(5.) The Probability of the Immediate Selection of the Land.
Fron1 inquiries made in various parts of the district, it appears certain this land would be selected at once, if proclaimed open to selection in suitable areas.
(6.) The Absenee Q( a Sufficient Quantity of Crown Land in the ~\:-e'ighb(Jurhood Available for A{Jri~ cultu-ral SetllPment.
The whole of the good land in the neighbourhood of this eshtte has been seleeted, and although there are Crown lands now held under occupation license, they do not comprise land suitable for tropical agriculture.
In the event of the Seaforth Estate being purchased, attention i" drawn to the PxpecUency of marking out a town at or near Finla.)'son•s Point. as there are strong reasons to believe that allotments would be ea~erly purchased by the public, in view of the possibility of the development of Port Kewry.
It is also suggested that means be adopted to preserve the beautiful grove of cocoanut palu.s on the beach below the house.
Hereto are append<:d the report of 1fr. Winks, of the Depart,mcnt of Agriculture, two petitions from inhabitants of the l\Iackay district, and a letter from Mr. W. D. Little. signed also by other residents of the ofaekay district.
Mr. McDoxALIJ: Read Mr. 'Winks's report. Hox. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I will read that.
I merely want to put the facts before the public, and not the l'arbled accounts which hon. members opposite would like to put before the public. In the r'port which I ha,ve read, the various points which the Act says shall be dealt with are dealt with in ~he fullest possible manner, and in evt•ry possib!A respect the report is a favourable one. Now with rega.rd to the report of Mr. Winks. This is what he says-
! have the honour to submit the following report on the suitability for agricultural purpnses of the land in the Seaforth Estate. 1'he property comprises about 6,200 acres, is situuted 30 miles north of Mackay, between Me Bride's Point and Victor Creek, which flows into Port Newry. The distance by land. but for the 'vant of a bridge over Constant Creek, could be reduced to 15 miles. 'l'he estnte is divided into four main parldocks, with further subdivisions, horse paddocks, etc. No. 1, IIJme Pa.ddock. where the head station is situated, and containing about 3CO acres, is typical coast lanch;; the ridges incline to be stony, or gravelly, with but little depth of so1l, and the fiats along the beach of a \~andy nature. A grove of cocoanut palms and mango trees in front of the house, and running parallel with the beach, by their forward cor..dition, prove the adaptability of the land for similar products, but for genernl farming the soii is too shallow or too light. Xearly all of the timber--originally ti-tree-has been cleared off this portion. ;; o. 2, Grey Cliff Paddock. eontaining about 2,100 acres, named after a rugged mountain in the centre of the paddock, occupies the extreme north-west portion of the estate, terminating at I~'inlaysou's Point.
Mr. McDONALD: That is very favourable. HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: Ridgy mountain
is the very country on which some of the very best sugar lands in the North md~t, but of course
1874 Agricultural Lands [ASSEJ\I.BLY.] Purchase, Etr., Bill.
one cannot expect the hon. member to know anything about that. All he sees in this is something to laugh at. I do not know whether he has ever been at Cairns and seen the conditions under which nne is grown there.
Mr. 1\icDo:s-ALD: No cane would grow on that particular rnount dn.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: The hon. g,n. tleman can make any statement he likes. \Y·e know the opinions of Mr. Ben Tillet. The report goes on to ~ay-
The soil for several chains in vvidth along the sea coast is similar to that deRcribed in l\'o. 1, 'vbilo from Finlayson 's Point to the entrance to Yictm· Creek it becomes darker and of a more loamy nature, well suited to the growth of frnit tree.'1, pineapples, f'tc. Inside of this cordon is fiat conntry dens.lY timbered with ti-trec n.nd hone,v::mekle; wllile the ·centre and back of the paddock is chiefly dry rif1gr ~. ht':t.vily timbered with poplar, gums. bloodvvood. and ironbarlL The soil is of a white sandy natnre on top. with clay and gravel subso!l. A great p.~rt of this paddonk, owing to the mountain allucled to, and the spurs le·tding from it, is extremely stony. (Opposition laughter.) Hon. members jnrnp clean ahead of the report. The report do s not say that that particular portion is g<lod land. It says that portion of it is mountainou,; and extremely s'ony, and you will find similar conditions existing in the neighbourhood of a place like Killarney. There are ridges there which are extremely stony, but that does not prevent it from being an agricultural neL;hbuurhood. The hon. member yet has to travd and observe.
No. 3, Bull Paddock, with about 3;)0 acres~nutrked 1193 on the plan-on the west of tlk £<;tatc, adjoining the occupation lease, is principrdl~T grazing country, bloodwood. and iron bark. most of "'hieh has been rin;.;ba.rked. rrhe soil is ~imilar to that of the ridge lands in Ko. 2.
Ko. 4, Plantation Paddock. with an area of 3/:iOO acres, on the sirto of thr, estato nearest Jhn~kay, cmbr:wcs more than half of the land nna·-·r offer, and contains the largest percentage of agrieultura.l Ja,ncl on the property. It is pl'incipally high ridges. sevr>r ,l of which n.re covered with thick scrub. antl a~ I had an opportunity of inspecting the cotl'ee plantations at :\Ionnt .Jnke,._, and Hillsborough, where, under simil;u· condJtjom;, coifee trees apparently thrive, H sbouW follow thnt thi~ land is also :-.uitable for coffee ( ulture.
The for<'3-t Jnnds, too, though in mrmy places rough and stony, are of a more open and friable natnr~, and compare favourably with the ridge lands at present under cane in the ~f;~.ckay district.
The faet must be bornB in mind that the eonditions, climatic and otherwisP, are so entirely different to those oht::tining further Rout h. and land that might be considered next tn worthlc-:s in the one. mip:ht produce good crops of cane of a, bi£;"h clcn!'iity .in the otlwr. This I made a speeial point nf ob~;m·vation; and as much of the high la11ds now nndPr cane jn and arouud Mackay are exaetly like a considera'ble portion of Sr·aforth-a li..;ht loamy soil, from 9 iuclH .. '-' to 1 foot Jn depth, with a subsoil of yellow marl. or decomposed rock~the infer~~nce is that if sugar-cane will do in the one place it will in the other. rehough, under the present system of ~~ontinuously cropping with so exhausting a crop as ~~·Jgar-canc without some mea,ns of fert.ilisation, I fail to see how anything lil\:e a fair yield can be kept up. 'rhe depth of soil and nature of tl1e subsoil Pverywhore on the estate Cfll1 at present be plainly seen from the thousands of trees uprooted by the recent cyclone.
Assuming that the land ju,t described will grow sugar-cane. and can thus be classed as agricultural, I estimate that---including such of the scrub lands suitabl~ for coff:~e-£TOwing, where the hi.11~ are not too precipltous~there \YOuld be abr~ut 2·,0C··) acres, or 33 per cent. approximately of the '\Yhole, suitable for agricultural purposes
All the diffet·ent paddocks arc well grassed, and permanently watered by Victor, l)lantation, and Se;·1,forth Creeks, besides numerous freshwater l'>-priugs.
The improvement~ cons~3t of a good 5-even-roomerl ho:use on a charming site overlooking the sea, fourroomed kitchen. meat-house, stables, bug-gy-house, milking-yards, and stockyards. There are al~o 400 cocoanut tree~ along the beac-, man\' of which ar, bearing, and numerous mango and orn"inneutal trees.
In all about 1.500 acres have been :t>ingbarkcd, the timber chiefly poplar gnm, ti-tree, blood woOd. iron hark, ;tnd mahogany, and al:>out 80 acre& ne•~r .the eastern
boundary have been grubbed. There arc about 12mile~ of wire fa1cing on the estate. inclufling boundary andl subdividing tcnces-chiefiy four Xo. 8 wires, with a. bat'bed one in places.
One u~rt of the eastern boundary facing the land left for the~villagc of Ui1lsborongh, where the scrub forms a. natural barrier, iR unfenced.
I might mention that the terminus of the IIabana tramway at Oon~tant Creek is within 8 miles of Seaforth. and in the eYent of the repurchase of the property the line for which there is an easy nnd well-defined. route would, ju all probability, be extended.
That is 1\lr. \Vink's report, which is not, to my· mind, particularly nnfa vourable. ):le says a thir_rl'. of it is Yery goud land. If that lH the case, thrs. seltct.ion P.S a whole would be what, in Mackay,. we call very go"d land. There is good ogricultnrallancl, and there is g-no·l grazing land. But. that is not the pr•int. It i,, what conclusion did' the Land Court comP to? They have got this report, and probably other informetion, and they come to a certa.in conclusion. They are the judges ; they have before them the facts and the evidence on which to decide.
Mr. Tci\LEY: Is JUr. Rasenkamp's report, there?
Ho:-~. D. H. DALRYMPLE: How mancv times have I to explain to the hon. member,, what h<> knows perfectly well, that the M inistev· for Lands has not to search these things out for· himself. He hands the matter over to a judiciat tribunal. Yet the hon. member seems to desire· that the JYiinister for LarJols should set on one) sirle the decision of the Land Court-that he,. whom the hon. member would denounce as a. thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly incompetent. person should take upon himself to set aside an, Act c>i'Parliament, and do the work which the Land C··nrt was spEcially appointed ta do by,r~,xliar:nent ..
Mr. TuRI.EY: I OJ1ly ask you if you have the' repott there.
HoN. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I know what the hon. membec means, anrt wh>tt he wants the public to helieve. It wonlrl be entirely improper and rf·'nrehensible for the Jl.1inister to decide upon e.' lot of evidence which is handed ove~·, and verv properly sn, to the La.nd Court.. It IS
the Lill;d Court's decision "ith which the Minister deals, and it the Minister travelled outside the line. which is marked for him, I say he should be imtJeacbed. Then, indeed, we might charge him with ,Jerelictinn of dnty, an_d suepcct his /,ona ficlc8. But i:r this case the_re 1s
no jtl>-t ground whatever. It IS only t h!" poht!C:;tl necC"·'itie·', of hon. members opposite-therr p<•litical poverty-which compels them to resort to these methods.
J1,J r. TvHLEY : That is why we want you to read JI.Ir. Ha;,enkamp's report.
Hox. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I h>tve read the who1e of the report of the Land Court, ln addition, there are two petitions, and those are all th" papers which the Land Court furnished the JY1ini·-ter with. U ncler those Circumstances I see no necessity to reprPsPnt this as a shameless action on the part of the Government generally, wh"n the Land Court, who, I say, are beyond suspicion, or should be and would be to anybody else, in every case have given a favourable reply, and practically recommended the purchast; ':'f the estate. When the people of Mackay petrtwned for ite purcha,e, what earthly su"picion is there attached to the fact that the members for the diotrict brough 1.; that petition forward? The fac~s having been inquired into by an impartial tn· bun·,], t Le fin cling· being that there were good grounds for purchasing the estate ; but t_he Iv1inis! er did not know more, and that the priCe was said by the Land Court to be a fair and proper value, and le's than the vendors askedwhat earthly ground is there, except party mendicancy, fo~ making such a lot of grave
.Agricultural Lands [H NovEMBER.] Purclwse, Etc., Bill. 1875
charges against mernhers on this side? There are none. It is poverty makes you do this, and not any other cause, and I am sorry for hon. members who :tre reduced to such extremities.
Mr. LE SIX A ( Clermont): The hon. gentleman who has just resumed his sea\ led off by remarking that hon. mem\.ers on this side-and he instanced particularly the hon. member for North Rockhampton-were in the habit of making- staten1"-'nts in this Cban1ber reflecting discredit and dishonour upon hon. members sitting on the other side of the Hmme. The hon. member forgets- I do not forget it, and other hon. members on this side do not forget it-that last year, when confronted with Mr. Hasenkam p's report-which he has nut been game to read to-night- he reviled o.u officer in his own dep~rtment-he was then Secretary for Lands-by saying that the writer of that report was a drunkard. Because his report was against the interest of the Government, the hon. member made a statement that he was a very good man, but was in the habit of taking drink. I want to know if he has been sacked since. The hon. gentleman talks about making statements. The hon gentleman was a Minister of the Crown at the time, and he still occupies a mysterious position in connection with the Government without portfolio.
Hon. D. H. DALRBIPLE : It is not mysterious. Mr. LE SIN/\,_ : It is mysterious. There is
hardly a member who knows v:hat position he occupie<, unless it is to do the dirty work of the Government. The hon. gentleman n1ade a statP.ment to cover up the deficiencies '>bt·"rvable in other reports on the estate. He threw discredit on Mr. Hasenkamp's report by leading the House to infer that he was a drunkard.
Hon. D. H. DAL!lniPLE: I never said so. It is quite nntrue.
Mr. LESINA: He is now adding to the iniquity of libelling the further iniquity of deliberately distorting facts.
Hon. D. H. DAL!lYMPLE: I never spoke of Mr. Hasenkamp in that way.
Mr. LE SIN A: :VIr. Grey. Hon. D. H. DALRYi\IPLE: You said I spoke of
Mr. Hasenkamp in that way. I did not. Mr. LESIN A: I was mixing the two. They
both reported. One said thA c-;tate was worth £1 5s. per acre, and ;vrr. Grey, the local Crown lands ranger, said it wae worth £1 OB. lOd. On the other hand, Mr. Hurne s"id it would be worth 15s. an acre if it was in the South, but the Government gave £3 13,. per acre.
Hon. D. H. DALRY1IPLE : That was the value pub upon it by the Land Court, and you know it.
Mr. L ESIN A : The divisional board rated the owner at 15s. an a~re, and he appe"led against the valuation, and got it reduced to 12s. 6d. an acre. It is no woPder the Nlackay Standard came ont with an editorial in which they characterised this as groh,, jobbery. I am not going to call it jobbery, but I cannot forget the fa:t that the busin,ss was done through an office m Mackay owned by one of the members for Mackay, Mr. Chataway, who was also a Minister, anr! anoth·'r person.
Hon. D. H. DALRDIPLE: That is not true. Mr. LESINA: Then the hon. member had
better sue the paper for libel. Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE: During election
times no one pays any attention to election lies. Mr. L ESIN A: .Just before the election two
little petitione were got up in favour of purchasing the estate, as there was an urgent demand for this land for settlement-land which turns out to be nttrrly useles; for agricultural purposes. The persons who signed the petition were members of the election committee that returned the two members for Mackay. All the Government officers reported adversely upon the estate with
the exception of Mr. Hume, who also put in one or two remarks which did not justify the Government giving the price they paid for it. Mr. Hume, when he went up there to report on the land, knew that the two l\'Iinisters representing the constituency were anxious that the Government should buy the esta,te, and his boss for the time being happened to be the hon. member for :\1ackay, :VIr. Dalrymple, who was Secretary for Lands at the time.
Hon. D. H. DALRY1IPLE: No. Mr. L ESIN A: The other member for Mackay,
Mr. Chataway, was }linister for Lands at the time. There has been m eh a juggling of por~folios that you never know where a l\1mister is, and a person may be pardoned for miJo.ing them up. There is no doubt that the promise to have the estate J!llrchased by the Government had a large effect in securing the return of those two hon. members at the last election.
Hon. D. H. DALRB!l'LE: Utterly untrue. Mr. LESIXA: The local paper says so in cold
!Jrint. Hon. D. H. DALRYliiPLE : I know it does. Mr. LESINA: If the hon. gentleman is
libelled by the statement, why has he not taken the proper course, which lies open to him, cf whitewosbin<; his politic>tl character in court?
Hon. D. H. DALl\YMPLE: It does not require it. Mr. LE SIN A: The local paper says-:Jtr. Hnme's report comes first, and is dated 7th
Kovember, and th1s:is followed by lir. \:rinks's report, to which no date is attached; and this :is somewhat significant, as the report of Mr. 1Yinks was made long before .:\lr. IInme visited the place. But what appears still more to demand explanatio11 is the faet that the other two reports made bv other valuators appointed by the Government-namely, l\fe~srs. liHsenkamp aud Grcy-do not, appear in the officbl account of the circnm"tances connected wiU1 the business. .i'vir. Hasenkamp and .i'vlr. Grey's report was snppressed, but "e secured the report later on. It may have been an oversight.
The SPEAKER: Order! The hon. member has made a statement which amounts to a serious reflection npon the Minister in charge of the department at the time-namely, that a document was suppres·ed. It has been already stated in this House that the documents were in possession of the Land Court, not the Lands Department, when the papers were printed.
Mr. LESINA: I stan,i corrected. I have such a lively recollection of the papers in connection with the Barron J<'>tlls business that I may be excnsed for thinking that Ministers would be a party to a transaction of that kind at all. The local paper goes on to say-
Jlr. Hascnlramp was the local land agent, and his valuation w:1s made, and did not exceed 2.'is. per acre. }Ir. Grey \Vas the local land ranger, and his valuation was made on the spot, and was pretty exhaustive, givin·2; the comparative areas of firf't, second, and third class laud: with the relntive values of each; in fact, it was the only really good valuation made, and the avera~e value of the whole estate, as returned by :Mr. Grry, \vas £1 Os. lOd. per acre. And the Government paid £3 13s. per acre for the land.
Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE : That only tells against the Land Court.
Mr. LESINA: The hon. gentleman was not g-ame to read Mr. Hasenkamp's report and Mr. Grey's. ''~'hy put !itcts into Hansa?'d iust prior to a by-election? If he can put forward a dis. torted view just at a by-election, why not try and whitewash the Government he has b, en so long connected "ith in various capacities, but now chiefly as wood and water joey.
Hon. D. H. DALRDIPLE : That comes well from a larrikin.
Mr. LESINA: The purchase of j;his estate was a deliberate waste of public mon<w. There can be no question ~J;bout that, The hon.
1876 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
gentleman won't deny that when i\Ir. Hume was carpeted, the hon. gentleman said the estate would go off like buttered scones.
Hon. D. H. DALRYMPLE: I don't know anything about it. I am not going to father all those extraordinary remarks of y0urs.
Mr. LESI:i\A: At any rate all that money is lying idle. The persons who in
[10'30 p.m.] duced the Government to pay such an amount are really the responsiblP
parties, but. they have attempted to evade the rAspuusihility by blaming the dPpartmeut. If they had taken tl•l(·ir officero' reports, thE•y would never have purchased the estate at all. It WHS
the department who instructed the Crown lands ranger to report upon this land, and yet when his report comes aLng, absolutely no notice is taken of it, and when we bring the matter up in the House we are rewarded for our foresight in the matter by a statement reflecting upon the sobriety of this particular lands officer. It appears to me that if they have drunken officers under their control, officers who are incapable of performing their dude,, t.he hon. gentleman •hould have brought pressure to bear to have those drunken officers removed from the department. But this was merely stated for the purpose of injuring any credit we were likely to give the report of the Crown lands ranger in this instance. This is moet regretable in a Minister who prides himRelf on his treatruent of his opponents. Here, because his officer's report shows that the land i" practically valueless, the Minister in charge of the Bill libels his character by casting douht on his sobriety, and he has not had the conrtesy or the good taste to withdraw that remark from that day to this. And when hon. gentlemen on this side of the House ask him why he has done this or that, he hao the un blushing effrontery to lecture us because we refer to proceedings which are scandalous in the administration of some of our public departments. As to the Bill, I am not particularly a believer in it at all. I think it is merely a very lame, nal try method of getting out ?f the difficulty. '.V e have in the colony, accordlllf( to our reports, some 411,000,000 acres of unalienated land, and w.o have, I have no doubt many opportunities if the Government would only encourage it, of settling a large population on the soil. I am a firm believer in settling people on the soil ; and I would like to see legislation of a slightly different character introduced with that object in view. What sort of land policy have the Gnvernment at all if this legislation is the best they can produce for settling people on the land? They are selling land with one hand and I uying land back with the other-a. most extraordinary policy. 'rhey are malnng the country a partner in a gambling speculation; it appears to me that they have not the sense of a man who drives a woodcart. According to the figures which have been given, they have bought laud on an average at £3 an acre, and they are selling it un an average at £2 an acre; and that is called statesmanship! As an idea of statesmanship it is astonishing, and yet they go on with this sort of thing, and with a solid majority behind them they will continue this process of buying and sellmg until the crack of doom, or until a change of Government. The whole of the trouble has arisen out of the fact that in the past Governments have alimated la1ge portions of the public estate r~und about the cities .and populous centres, where 1~ would be reqU!red ~or settlement, and their only method of gettmg out of the difficulty and evading the results of years of misgovernment is to buy back the big estates. That is , practically putting a premium on speculation in 1
land. Here are all these invef:tment companies . and banks interested in land and the Govern-
1
ment are buying back their estates, and in many cases hou. members on that side who voted for this hgiolation are shareholders in the institutions which sell estates back to the Government. Even Ministers of the Crown are shareholders in institutions which sell some of these estates, and they must indirectly benefit by the transaction. This is a dreadful thing, and it is almost impossible to avoid it.
Mr. J ACKSON : This Bill will change all that. Mr. LESIN A: I think it gives the means of
doing that. vVheu this Bill is passed, and any estate owned by a bank in which ban. gentlemen are shareholders i, before us, it will behove the tmmbers on this oide to challenge their voting to put m on" y into their own pockets. We have bo.nks and sur.dry other institutions selling eatates to the Government, and these are estates which will come under the provisions of this Bill. They will come before the House for discussion, and the House will have to determine for or against the contract being entered into; but the Government, with their majority behind them, will be able to carry a vote for an estate being purchaserl, even if the barg<~in is not likely to be profitable to the country, and so we should have the same evil over again. The proper thing for the Government to do is to impose a stiff land tax on the unimproved value of land, which has the effect of preventing the accumulation of large estatee, or of making people pay for the privilege of holding them idle. That is the system which has been arlopted in New Zealand with success. In New Zealand the law permits the owner to fix his uwn valuation of his estate. If the valuation 1s low, the Government purchase the estate, and pay 10 per cent. for the disturbance of the owner; and if the valuation is high, the Government do not buy, but simply tax the owner on his own valuation. The object of legislation of this kind is to get really at the root of the evil-the tendency in modern economic conditions, fc'r land to drift into the hands of investment companies, mortgage comp:mies, and large individual owners, who accumulate large areas all over the coun~ry, which they may, or may not, put to the best uses. Le,;islation of this kind really proposes a method for putting an end to that. If an owner refuses to utilise his land for many years, during which he has delayed the progress of the country, limited the investment of capital, and restrictPd the employment of labour, the State .,teps in, and provides a method of getting hi m out of the way and letting people settle on the soil. If we adopt the system of direct taxation on unimproved lnnd values it will have the effect of bursting up these enormous aggregations of land. I notice in the case of the Lake Clarendon Estate, to which reference is made in the repr.rt which has been laid on the table of the Hou,e, at the instance of the hon. member for Lockyer, that the Government paid £27,832 for it. Mr. Watt, the Brisbane land commi"sioner, who was sent up 'to value it, valued it at £17,500, and Mr. Camerou, of Ipswich, recommended that £20,000 should be paid for it. Again, as was pointed out earlier in this discussion, I suppose the great brother-in-law indnstry crept in, and what influence it may have had in determining this transac ion will never he known. A"ain, the Minister for Railways is, I think, a full brother to the owner of another estate that has be n purchased by the Government. Turn where we wi.I, in every big transaction, concerniug Lhe cxprnrliture of public money, in this connection, we always find a brother-in-law, or a full hrother of a Minister, cropping up. You never hear of lllY brother selling an estate to the Gcn ernment, or a brother· in-law of the hou. member for Fortitude Valley getting £3 13s. per acre for an estate sold to the Government, or the
Agricultural Lands [14 NOVEMBER.] Purr.hase, Etc, BUl. 1877
leader of the Opposition getting £3 13s. per acre for an estate sold to the Government, which was valued at l2s. 6d. per acre. We find that all these questionable traneactions are confined to hon. m ern hers on the other side, or to persons who are active political sup~orters of hon. gentlemen opposite, and all this should induce hon. members to stop and ponder over the devious methods employed by the Government in acquiring these estates. It may happen that when more light is thrown on these transactwns there will be such a pile of accumnlattd evidPncethat Mr. Stead will be able to write a book on "Queensland Tammany." I shall conclude by pointing out that, according to the last Lands Office report, fourteen estates have been opened to selection, having an area of 127,810 acres, and up to the 30th June last, 120,196 acres had been selected, leaving over 7,614 acres in the bands of the department. I do not know the average price realised by the Government, but I find that the rent for 142 farms is in arrears to the tune of £4,020. That is another evil of purchasing lands at a high valuation. The Government may desire to settle people on the land, but if they pay £27,000 for land valued at £20,000, they will have to get the extra £7,000 out of the persons who settle on the soil-they will be charged higher rents to cm'er the difference. So it will mean that, sooner or later, with bad season•, the visitation of God, or any unlucky occurrence, the Government will have to do the same as they have done with the men on the Darling DownR and give these selectors additional time in which to make their payments. If persons pay smaller rent~, even in bad seasons they will have a better chance of making their payments. I say that the Government, and not the departmental officers, are responsible for the bdnging about of this abnormal state of affair,;, whereby selectors will be compelled to pay higher rates when too brge price• are given for these es: ates. I think such legislation further shows the misgovernment in the past. Many hon. members opposite, who are now advocating this measure, fought tooth and nail against this principle in 1894, when hon. members on this side strove bard to have it made law. But they see the necessity for it now. Their argument was that people wonld not submit their estates if this principle were inserted in the Act. They said that such a provision would destroy the secresy which should exist in the making of contracts between property holders and the Government. But, as a matter of fact, now r)eople are rushing over one another's bodies to get • states off their hands, any man will sPll an e-.tate for £30,000 when its valne is only £20,000; but such transactions will lead to the insolvency of private in.dividualx, and if the Government ma.ke such bargains they will be on the road to national bankruptcy very soon. It only means borrow, boom, and burst. The Government buy these lands at a tremendous valuation, and then have to borrow in order to carry on public works. I should like to see inserted in this Bill a provision limiting the amount of money to be spent on the repurchase of estates in one year to £100,000. That will enable us to purchase four or five estates at fr<•m £20,000 to £30,000, and in a short time the Sttcte will have fifty estates in their pos,ession. We should certainly not expend more than £100,000 per annum in thNe transactions. * The CHIEF SECRETARY (Hon. J. R. Dickson, B1tlirnba) : I do not rise to reply to the to> rent of vituperation uttered hy the hon. member for Clerrnont, nor yet to protract this debate; but I desire to plnce on rPcord my views concerning the Seaforth Estate purchase, inasmuch as I claim to have taken special pains
to ascertain from JI!Ir. Hurne, the commis~ioner, the value of the purchase of that property to the Government at the time the negotiations were entered into. Hon. members should bear in mind that at the time when the Seaforth Estate formed the subject of con•ideration the operation of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act had been solely confined to the Southern portion of the colony-the Darling Downs principallyand I am glad to add my testimony to that of hon. members that the operation of that Act has been extremely beneficial to the colony. But it was considered that ther·e was some dissatisfaction in the operations of that Act being confined to one end of this extensive country, therefore the Government received applications from property holders in the Centre and North of Queemland, with a view of having the Act applied there as well as to the Southern districts, because the Northern coastal districts contain some of the finest land for agricultural purposes that can be found in any part of the world, and because every encouragement should be given to the cultivation of sugar and other tropical products along that portion of the seaboard. Undoubtedly it was tentative-that is to say, the application of the Act, which had operated beneficially on the Darling Downs, to the Northern part of the colony was tentative. At the same time, we had evepy reason to belie\'e that the Act wollld operate equally as benefica!ly in the North as it had done in the South. A small estate-the :b'itzroy Park Estate-was purchased in the Central district, but it has not all been selected yet. \Vith regard to the Seaforth Estate, which hao been so much in evid<>nce in this discussion, I can only say that, when the matter was brought before the Cabinet, the price at which the estate was offered received a considerable amount of criticism, as it was felt that if an <>xperiment under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act was to be made in that district, it should be under conditions and at a price which would entail no loss to the Govemment, and which would meet with early application. Mr. Hume, who by the way is not a departmental officer- as he was referred to by the hon. member for Clermont-bnt an inde;•enrlent memher of the Land Court, had personally inspected the property, and his report thereon accompanied thP. Cabinet minute which was presented by the present Secretary for Lands, Mr. Chataway, and not by the Hon. D. H. Dalrymple, who really is not mixed up in this matter at all. The pro~osal was submitted by Mr. Ohataway, whose present absence through illness we all very deeply regret, and it was not pressed by him, except to the extent that the estate was supposed to be a portion of land conveniently situated for the operation of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act. It is not too remote trom Mackay, which we all recognise to be the great centre of the sugar industry in the North. It is only 8 or 10 miles from an existing tram way, and that distance could easily be bridged over, but the point was that the land was suppos6d to be of very excellent quality for sugar cultivation. As this was the first operation under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act which was presented to the Government after I assumed the reins of a.clministratiun, I was particularly careful that there should be no mistake about it, and with that object in view I had a personal interview with Mr. Hnme, the member of the Land Court, who bad been over the land, and whose report was before the Cabinet. I inviteCl him to meet me at my office in the Treasury, nnd I bad a very long interview with him, putting to him searching questions as to the suitability of the land for agricultural settlement, and as to the probability of the land being immediately selected. Having had some experience in land
1878 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
transactions, I was in a position, I think, to catechise him thoroughly on the question as to whether the repurchase of this land would be beneficial to the comnmnity, and I c'm assure the House that the replies given by Mr. H ume were entirely s.otisfactory. I can go further, and tell the House that had I been acting in a private capacity for anyone who wanted to buy that land, or even if I had been inclined to buy the land myself fur a sugar plantation, I would have unhesitatingly accepted the opinion and advice Mr. Hume gave me concerning that estate. The land was acquired by the Government with great care, and with all the precaution" a business man would exercise, and I entirely disclaim, on behalf of my coi!eagues, that there was the slightest inflllence brought to bear on the Cabinet to induce them to purchase the property. The present Premier, who was then Treasurer, joined with me in carefully considering the matter. I had the papers in IDY possession in the rrreasury fDr, I think, nearly a month, and I saw ::\fr. Hume not only once but twice on the subject; and from all I could learn from the local newspapers the purcha"e of the property was regarded as a tmns;<ction which would be extremely benefici.>l to the State. We must bear in mind that at the time this esta•e was purchased there was a geneml demand for land about Mackay, and in the sugar-growing districts in the North. This was supposed to be one of the most convenient estates which could be acquired close io an old-established sugar-growing centre. Mr. \Vilkins's report says that presumably the land is of the same character as the best sugar-growing lands in the Mackay district, and that has yet to he disproved. I may say that I never saw Mr. Hasenkamp's report at the time; I relied wholly on the recommendation of Mr. Hume that the land was in every respect desirable, and that it would g<> off immediately, without delay. After the lnnd had been purchased, I certainly urged the Secretary for Lands to subdivide it and enable purchasers to ac,1uire it, but it must be borne in mind that since then a terrible drought has settled clown upon that district, and, in fact, upon the whole of the colony, and, owing to the bad Sf'r1,ons we have experienced, proJwrty is at a disc,;unt in all those districts, and that to-day no real estate in Mnckay or any of the sugar producing centres which have been afflicted with the drought would be sold as readily as it could have be.en sold two or three years ago, when this estate was purchased. I do not wish to occupy the time of the House on this matter, ln fact, I should not have risen, but that I wished to place on record the fact that great cn.re was exercised by the Government in connection with the purchase of this estate. I do not yet permit myself to think that a blnnder h"s been committed. I do not admit that there has been any blunder, and it cannot be fairly said that there has been a blnncler until we sr'e what reception is given to the es'ate under ordinary seasons, which is, of course, a great factor in the value of agricultural property.
Mr. lfrsHER : You could not say anything worse than that you do not think a blunder has been committed.
The CHIEF SECRETARY : I do not yet arlmit that a blunder was committed. Prudent delay in realisation may completely refute such accusation.
Mr. GrvENS: You will see b.Y and by that a blunder was committed.
The CHIEF SECRETARY: It is no reason to say that a blunder was committed, simply because a property purchased to-day cannot be
sold immediately. The same thing might apply to some of our best ]Jroperties, city and suburban, in the colony. Undoubtedly. disastr?ns seas<_ms have intervened to prevent this expenment bemg tried under bir conditions; but I .om certain that the outcry raised by hou. members opposite, who are prejudging the case, will not tend to improve the value of the property in public estimation. I believe that this est:tte will retrieve itself when
favourable seasons occur, but, as I [11 p. m.] have said, at the present time all real
estate is under a very heavy discount. I trust that hon. gentlemen who are not viewing this ma.tter purely in a party light, will accept the statement I make tha~ every yigilm;ce was shown by the Government m dealmg with this property. \Ve certainly recognised that the price demanded was higher than had been demanded for other estates; but Mr. Hume himself says-
Under present circumstances, even, they give, and are willing to give, from £4 to £8 per acre for such land.
That is very high commendation, and, as I have said, it is not on the printed document, bec;;u;e I questioned :i\Ir. Hume upon every clause of i~, and he gave me his distinct assurance that It would be a most judicious action for the Government to purchase this land for settlement under the Act.
Mr. FISHER: Before you finish, do you think it was becoming for a. Cabinet Minister t.o promote a purchase he was directly interested in?
The CHIEF SECRETARY: I have no knowlfdo-e that a Cabinet Minister had a shilling interest in it, and, if the question is directed to me, I give it an emphatic denial. I have never been on the land, and do not know the vendor; and it was purely treated as any other transaction under the Act, recommended by the Land Court. I believe I oven went beyond my legitimate dut.ies in inquiring into the matter, as I did, personally, throngh Mr. Hume, but I felt that this was a tentative experiment, inasn1uch as we had previously dealt only "ith land of ascertained quality on the Darling Downs. As this "as the first experiment of the kind in the North, I deemed it my dut.\' to personally see Mr .. Hume, who had recommended it, and see 1f there were any drawbacks in consideration d which he might feAl dispose<] to alter his recommendation. He laid gt·ertt stress upon Port N ewry and the harbour facilities; but I entirely discarded that and told him that the land was not to be bought by the Government for speculative town allotments or anything of the kind, but simply upon its merits as agricultural land, and I aske_d if upon that ground he still adhered to hiS recommendacion, and he strongly recommended that the Goverun,ent should proceed with the transaction. I throw upon him the responsibility of having recommended it to me most strongly, ancl upon that recommendation I think the Government were perfectly justified in taking the action they did.
-• Hox. A. S. COWLEY: The principle of this Bill it appears to me, is contained in clause 5, as the others are consequential amendments or matters of no importance. As entirely opposed to the principle I shall vote against the second reading of this Bill if a division is called for. I should like the Government to consider, not only their own position, but the position of future Governments, when they abrogate the power of the Executive and ask Parliament, as they do under th1s Bill, to undertake, not only legislative, but administrative duties. I for one can never support them in so doing. If they wish to purchase other estates, and come down to Parliameur and ask for the money, I shall be at one with them.
.Agricultural Lands [14 NovE;;IHER.] Purchase, Etc., Bill. 1879
As the on !cl who introduced this measure originally, and, therefore, believe< entirely in the principle of repurchasing, I say that, although a mistake has been made-and ev<,ryoue must admit that a mistake has been m;,de in the repurchase of one estate-still, on the whole, the Act has worked well, the bulk of the estates having been obtained at a fair price, and having been resold at a profit. I for one think the G . .>
vernment are making " very huge mistake-a much greater mistake than the Jmrchase of the l:leafurth Estate--when they propose to abrogate the powers and functions of the :B;xecutive, and set a bad example to all futnre Governments. I am very much interested in this matter of procednre, and feel as><ured that a most fatal nlistake is propoSed, and one whic11 evPry Ult>n1-ber of the Government will regret. I cannot, therefore, support them in tbi,; rrmtter. I do not think thi." iB the proper time to tJi,cn"s the Seafnrth Estate, but when it was upbdore, I spoke very strongly upon it, and I have since had no reason to alter my opinion. I believe implicitly the statement made by the Chief Secretary to-night, that he took every precaution. I heard from another source, independently of what the hon. gent.lem>lll h:ts s,tid, that he took every precttn tion to ascertain from the me m her of the Land Court if the land wrcs really suitable fur agricnltnre, and if it was worth the price asked. But while believing the statement of the Chief Secretary I cannot absolve the then Secretary for Lands. He lived on the spot, and must have known all about the land. He is a man who had a considerable knowledge of local government, and he must have known that thi·l iand was valued by the local authority at 15s. per acre.
The SEcnwrAHY Fon PunLIC LANDS: So did Mr. Hume know that.
The PnE~IIER : There is nothing in that.
HoN. A. S. CO\VLEY: I think there is a great deal in that.
The PmniiER : Look at the Rose wood Estate. HoN. A. S. COWLEY: I think a mistake ;vas
made there too.
The PRE>!IER: It was all sold. HoN. A. S. CO\VI.,EY: \Ve are already in the
position advocoted by the hon. member for Ulerrnont, that is, that we have a land tax based on the unimproved value of land. Any individual who wants to know the value of land has only to go to the local authority and find what value, those in the best position to judge, have put upon it.
Mr. HrGGS : That is very often an unsafe guide.
HoN. A. S. CO\VLEY: ldonotsaythatyoucan follow it absolutely, hut it is a gond basis to work upon. I have done a great deal of valuation and I have fonnd it a Yery good basis to work upon, and a very great help to a valuer, However, my opinions on the snhject are well known, and I do not think this the proper time to debate the question at leni;th. I do not think thott under cover of this Bill it is proper to rake up the whole transaction. If that is to be done it should be on a substantive motion on which the whole matter may be fairly dealt with. But I certainly am opposed to the only princi,,le embodied in this Bill --the principle of shifting the work of the J;;xecutive on to Parliament. I wish it to be clearly understood that I do not object to the repurchase of land, to vote money as we have done in the paKt, and tru.~t the Government, or any snccePdittg Government. to make the best purchases they can under the circmnstanc · s. But I certainly do obje~t to this Government setting an example
of this description, which will not only be binding npon them but upon their successors until thi., Bill is repealed. Believing as I do that this is a wrong- step, and a step which the Government ought not to take, I shall certainly vote against the second rec<ding of the Bill.
M1·. GlVENS (Cairns): Unlike the hon. member 1d1o has just sat down, I feel convinced that the principle nf referring nll the purchases of estates to Parliament for final ratification is a very good one, aud for that reason I shall most heartcly support the sec<md readh•g of the Bill. The hon. member for Herbert has arlrnitted that misr,,kes have been made by the Executive in the past with regard to the repurchase of estatPil, He says at lc~ast one mistuke has been mad". \V ell, l ::m perf,,<:tly certain that those mistake' would not have been made if Parliament had had to ratify the contracts, and for that reason I con,ider that t be step the Goverr.mentare nnw propo;-;ing tn tD.k~ is one in theTigl!t direction, and one which will greatly tend to increase the beneficial re,;ults of the working of the Agricultur~l Lands Purchase Act. 1 have always been in fa vonr of the ,;ystem of repurchasing estatrs, «ncl if ther~ have been miot"kes that does not prnve tlw.t the system is bad, but only that the administration of the Act has not been good. I got up mainly to reply to a statement made by the lwn. member for Mackay. In the course of his spe<·ch he referred to the Lake Clarendon E,,tate, and sqid that the fact that the sale was negotiated for the Hon. JlilrVanneck bv the bon. member for Lockyer, :Mr. Arm strong," made the then Minister more careful, and that be scrutinised the facts more closely than he would other"' ise have done. I interjected, when be was ~peaking in that way, "That wa,; probably the re:~<on why the Minister purchaced the eslata after the Land Coort had r•·c,orted againFt its pure' ose at alL" The hon. m~ml,er scoffed at that remark, and said that if any such report was ever made it was put in years Lefore, :md th»t it was not fair to bring it up years aft r it had been made.
C\Ir. AuMSJ'RONG: Remember one thing-that the Land Court never inspected it in the first in,tallce, while they did in the second.
Mr. GIVENS: It is unfortunate both for the junior m ·mber for Jlilackay and for the hon. member for Locky< r that we have the official papers to prove my statement. I am going to quote now a letter written by the registrar of the Land Court to the Under Secretary for Public Lands on the matter.
l\1r. AHMSTRONG: Mark what I say-that they never inspected it.
Mr. GIVENS : I say that an officer of the court inspected it.
Mr. AmrS1'l!ONG : The Land Court never inspected it.
Mr. GIVENS: The hon. member also contradicted me when I said that an officer of the Land Court inspecteil it.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: No, Mr. GIVENS: The 'luotatiou I am going to
make will be found in vol. II. of "Votes and Proceedings" for last year, page 672-
THE Rr:G IS'I'RAR 01' TliJ<: I).\1'\D COllRT to rrtn: UNDlm SECilETARY FOR rt;BLlC l•ANDS.
Oflice of the Land Court, Brisbane. 28th ~'larch, 1898.
SrR,-Referring to the offer to surrender land in the Lal\e C'larendon ]~state nndf>r the provisions of the Agricn1tural T~anfls Pnrebase Act of 189-t, I have the honour, hy directicm. to in f('rm yon that as both the Land Commissioner for the Ipswich District and the officer anpoit1ted Uy the Department or Agrieulture to iusyect ~the Lake Olarendon proyerty concur in the
1880 Agricultural Lands [ASSEMBLY.] Purchase, Etc., Bill.
opinion that less than one-third of the area offered is agricultural land-the remainder being only adapted for grazing purposes-the Land Court considers that the Lake Clarendon Estate is scarcely one that should be purchased under the provisions of the abovemer1tior-'ed Act, and that under these circumstances it would be merely a waste of time and expense to visit and inspect the bnd in question, when the area ofagriculturalland is so small compared with the area offered.
It may be pointed out that the val'le placed on the land by the owners is £2. per acre, making for the 13,933 acres the sum of £37,866. I may say that that amount of £37,86(i is evidently a misprint for £27,866-Whilst the land commissioner values the land as follows:-
4,000 acres at £2 lOs. 9,938 acres at 16s ....
£ 8. d. ... 10,000 0 0
7,946 8 0
£17,946 8 0 That was the valuation placed on it by an officer of the Land Court, whereas the Government finally paid £27,832 for it-at the rate of £2 an acre for 13, !116 acres ; or, in round figures, £10,000 more than the Land Court Yalued it at.
Mr. ARMSTRONG : The Land Court did not value it. That report was proved to be erroneous afterwards.
Mr. GIVENS: The land commissioner valued it at that.
Mr. AmrSTRONG : The land commissioner knows no more about it than you do.
Mr. GIVENS: Although the junior member for Mackay at first denie'l the existence of such a report from the Land Court--
The SECRETARY POR PUBLIC LANDS: That is not the Land Court.
Mr. G IVENS : I read a letter signed by P. W. :.>hannon, the registrar of the Land Court.
Mr. AR:IISTRONG: Founded upon the erroneous rep,rt of the land commissioner at Ip8wich.
Mr. GIVENS: There are the reports of two individuals referred to-the report of the land commissioner at Ipswich and of the officer appointed hy the Department of Agricultnre.
Mr. AmrSTRONG : That is not the L:HJd Court. They inspected it afterwards.
Mr. GIVENS: The junior member for Mackay at first denied the existence of anv such report as that which I have just quoted, and then he said that if there was such a report it must be several years old and that it was not fair to bring it up now. ·wen, I have shown that it was written on 28th March, 1808-just about a year before the purchase was completed. \Vhat increase in value was likely to take place in the space of one year? The hon. member for Mackay further said that the Land Court were the judges, and decided, after getting all the information and considering all the facts; and he said that the Minister had nothing to do with the matter. Now, in that letter did not the Land Court plainly refuse to recommend the purchase of the estate, and the then Secretary for Lands, J\fr. Fnxton, minuted the report, "No further action." It was fortunate for the Hon. Mr. V an neck that he h"d a fnllower of the Government as his brother-in-law, who earwigged the Government, and got the matter reviewed. I venture to 'ay that if the provisions of this Bill .requiring all co'!tracts to be ratified hy Parliament had been m force at that time, this transaction would never have taken place.
Mr. ARMSTRONG : The Land Court afterwards reported in favour of that.
Mr. GIVENS: Very likely, when pressure was brought to bear on them. Does it not show that there is something very fi8hy abnnt the transactim, when, after that report, and after the then Secretary for Lands minuted that no further action was to be taken, the matter wa8 reopened? I would like to know why any further action was taken. It was simply
because of political influence-because the owner of the estate was fortunate enough to have a member of this House as his brother-in-law.
The SPEAKER: Order ! Mr. ARMSTRONG: It was because my constitu
ents at the last general election forced me to do it.
Mr. GIVENS: It would be very much better if hon. m em hers would refrain from acting as agents for their relatives, or for anyone else, in conducting negotiations of this sort.
Mr. ARMS1'RONG: Even if it is for the benefit of their districts to do so ?
Mr. GIVENS: I do not think the hon. gentleman was returned to negotiate affairs of this sort. He was not return.ed to act as agent in the perpetration of any such job.
The SPEAKER: Order, order ! Mr. ARMSTRONG: That is a question between
me and my constituents. Mr. GIV.ENS: I do not know whether it is
in order to refer to the duties of an hon. member. At all events, the justification for the purchase of this land is said to be that it is a,ll selected, and that therefore it is a good transaction. It does not at all follow that the people who have selected the land have not had to pay too high a price for it, and more than they can afford to pay, or that they will not come to this House by and by for relief. I would have no objection to the purch1se if it had been made at a fair and honest price-the price fixed by the officers of the L md Court and an officer of the Agricultura• Department.
Mr. ARli!STRONG: It would never have been purchased at :>11.
Mr. GIVE::'IfS: Very probably not. The Hon. Mr. Vanneck would hardly be foolish enou~h to accept £17,000 when he could get £27,000 for it.
Mr. AmrsTRONG : He CDuld get £40,000 now for it if he had it.
Mr. G IVENS : Then the hon. member acted as a very poor agent for his brother-in-law. I never knew any individual agree to sell any property to the Government for a less price than he could get outside, and I am perfectly certain that if the owner of Lake Clarendon could have got a higher price he would not have sold it to the Government.
Mr. AmiSTRONG: I am speaking of to-day. Mr. GIVENS: It might be worth £100,000
next week, but that has nothing to do with the price paid at the time the land was bought. A thing is worth what it will fetch at the moment and nothing more. Very likely the fact of a large number of selectors settling round the estate has added to its value.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: The selectors were all round before.
Mr. GIVENS: I will not go over the whole ground in reference to the Seaforth Estate, because that has bern brought up so frequently in this Home. The junior member for Mackay has said that the Ministry had nothing whatever to do with the purchase, and left the matter entirely to the Land Court. If th~y did that in the case of the Seaforth .Estate, why did they not do the same thing in the case of the Lake Clarendon Estate?
The SECRETAI\Y FOR PUBLIC LANDS: That is what they dicl.
Mr. GiVENS: The facts are set out in the official papers. The L>tnrl Court reported that the estate waR not suitable to come under the operations of the Act.
The SECRETAHY l>'OR PUBLIC LANDS: Those were not members of the Land Court. They were departmental officers.
Mr. A R:IISTRONG : If you were a fair man you would read the last report of the Land Court.
Papers. [15 NOVEMBER.] Life Assurance, Etc., Bill. 1881
Mr. GIVENS: The letter I have read is •igned by P. W. Shannon, registrar of the Land Court, and sent to the Under Secretary for Public Landa, and yet the Minister says that the letter was not received.
The SECRETARY FOH PUBLIC LANDS: I said no such thing. I said the men who reported were not members of the Land Court.
Mr. GIVENS: The late Secretary for Lands, the hon. member for Mackay, said the price was always fixed by the Land Court, and that they decided after getting all the information, and considering the facts. The Land Court, in the letter I have quoted, appear to have got all the information it could from its officers, and they reported accordingly. But was their evidence taken ? Most certainly it was not, and for that reason I say there is something very fishy indeed about the two transactions I have referred to. There are several other estates, the circumstances connected with which I believe are just as bad, hut at this late hour I will not go into them, especially as a further opportunity will be afforded of doing so. At any rate, I believe the Bill now before us will tend to minimise the possibility of such errors in future, and will give Parliament some control over these transactions. For that reason I think the Government have madf' a departure in the right direction, and I shall be very happy to support the second reading of the Bill.
Question-That the Bill be now read a second time-put and passed.
The committal of the Bill made an Order of the Day for to-morrow.
HEALTH BILL. MEssAGE FROM THE LEGISLATIVE CouNCIL.
The SPEAKER announced the receipt of a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the amendment in clause 19 on the Council's amendment, agreeing to the amendment on their amendment in subclause 2 of clause 109, not insisting on their amendment in clause 71 or upon the omission of clause 134 with which the Assembly had disagreed.
HEALTH ACT OF lRDO AMENDMENT BILL.
MESSAGE Jo'UOM THE COUNCIL. The SPEAKER announced the receipt of a
messnge from the Legislative Council returning this Bill with amendments, and requesting the Assembly's concurrence in the same.
On the motion of Mr. RYLAND, the message was ordered to be taken into consideration tomorrow.
The House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past 11 o'clock.