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Wednesday, 13 December 1911

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) . - From the nature of the proposals which we are now considering one would imagine that we were at the beginning of a parliamentary session instead of nearing the close. I do not think there is another instance on record of a Government introducing a new Tariff measure, ripping up whole sections of the Tariff under the guise of rectifying anomalies, and thus creating material for an extensive debate, in the closing days of a session. The Government appear to have gone out of their way to invite those who hold differing fiscal opinions to extend the session far beyond the date on which they have declared their intention of closing it. Ministers must not complain if honorable members on both sides, of opposite fiscal opinions, who object to the re-opening of the Tariff at this stage, are forced into the position of attacking these proposals and trying to prevent further injustice being inflicted upon the whole community.

Mr Fenton - You do not call this a reopening of the Tariff, do you?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I do. It is practically a ripping up of the whole Tariff, because the whole Tariff may come under review. The Minister may not have had that in his mind at the time, but as soon as we begin to rip open the Tariff, even under the guise of correcting anomalies, what happens? The Minister himself has had some experience. He has been deluged with deputations. They have come upon him like an avalanche, asking that this little industry or that big one, as the case may be, shall receive special consideration. There is no end to the appeals that will be made for alterations of duty through the Tariff. We might very well be kept employed for twelve months dealing with nothing else than the correction of anomalies. But the Labour party at the present time, I suppose, wants to maintain the unenviable reputation that it has succeeded in establishing all over Australia as the heavy taxation party. It is astonishing that a party which might reasonably be looked to, if we may judge from its name, to lighten the burdens upon the people, has, in our experience of it, always been the party that has been associated with the imposition of the heaviest burdens upon those who are least able to bear them - the workers of the community. On every side we hear protests and agonizing cries going up about the increased cost of living. That heavy cost has been brought about by the Labour party in this House. Yet we have proposals made now which will certainly not tend to diminish the cost of living, which has been increased to its present limit largely through the action of those who were returned as the direct representatives of Labour. If it had not been for the votes of members of the Labour party we should not have had the present Protectionist Tariff in operation.

Sir William Lyne - Hear, hear.

Mr PARKER MOLONEY (INDI, VICTORIA) - That is a very candid admission.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - And if, again, it had not been for the Protectionist votes of so-called Free Trade members of the party the cost of living would not have increased to the present abnormal proportions. The workers have little to thank the Labour party for in so reducing the purchasing power of their wages, that to-day it costs 30s. to buy goods which a few years ago would have cost only a pound or a little less. A man or woman - and, unfortunately, it is the housewife who feels the pinch, because she has to manage the domestic purse - finds as a consequence that the weekly earnings do not go nearly so far as they did before the cost of commodities was increased all round.

Mr Roberts - The honorable member had better square his opinions with thoseof his leader.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - My leader has his own opinions on these matters, and they are diametrically opposed to mine. Honorable members opposite, however, are in the same unenviable position. Some of them hold extreme views on the fiscal question, which are directly opposed to those of other members of the party. Even members of the Ministry are in that position. Some are extreme Protectionists, and others are extreme Free Traders. Yet they sit side by side in the same Cabinet, and are co-responsible for bringing in these alleged protective duties. I say " alleged " advisedly, because Protectionists say they fail in their object, and we have here Tariff proposals which are repugnant alike both to honest Free Traders and honest Protectionists.

Mr Higgs - Will the honorable member give us some items in regard to the cost of living?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - The honorable member has only to examine any grocery and clothing lists, for example, to find sufficient facts to satisfy even his rapacious appetite. The party in power, notwithstanding that there are in the Cabinet men holding opposite fiscal views, are responsible for this attempt, which I am afraid will be only too successful, still further to increase duties which are already abnormally high. Protectionists and Free Traders, if they are honest, must alike be opposed to such proposals. Those who, like myself, believe in Free Trade as a principle, and others who look to the Customs House merely as a source of revenue, must dislike this amending Tariff; Protectionists also must dislike it, because they object to the Customs House as a revenue-raising institution. If a Free Trader is true to his principles he has no use for the Customs House for revenue. He has no use for .it as a means of imposing duties on commerce, the tendency of which must, in proportion to the rise in duty, be to make trade intercourse less and less free. Protectionists, on the other hand, if they are true to their principles, can have no use for duties which simply extract revenue from imports, and do not give the desired protection to local industries which is the basic idea of their policy. Honorable members who reflect must see that Protection itself is an anomaly, because it differentiates between one class of citizens and another. It gives to one class an advantage which the rest of the community do not enjoy, but for which they have to pay. Not only is it an anomaly, but it necessarily gives rise to innumerable other anomalies, and the more we try to correct them as they become apparent the greater the number of anomalies which we create in the process. It has been pointed out by a number of those who are interested in the various items of the Tariff, that fresh anomalies will now be created by the action of the Ministry hi this amateurish attempt to correct what are alleged to be existing anomalies.

Mr PARKER MOLONEY (INDI, VICTORIA) - Does ' the hon.orable member favour a Tariff Board?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I should like to call attention to the peculiar attitude which the Age newspaper has now taken up in regard to the matter suggested by die interjection of the honorable member for Indi. It will be remembered that a proposal was made by the Fusion Government for the appointment of an InterState Commission - practically a Tariff Board - to make inquiries into the whole ramifications of trade and commerce and their bearings in connexion with profits, wages, and all industrial considerations which arise out of a Tariff. The Age newspaper at that time very severely condemned the proposal. But I observe that within the last two or three days it has -taken up the idea. It is now urging, in its usual forceful way, the very proposals which it condemned in no unmeasured terms at the time when they were originated by the late Government.

Mr Wise - I never could understand why the late Government did not carry out that Inter-State Commission idea.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - Because the late Government were turned out of office, and had not an opportunity.

Mr Wise - Why did they not go on with the proposal when they introduced it?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - They - went to the country with their policy and were not returned with a majority. Consequently they had no opportunity to carry those proposals into effect. The Age even attacks the honorable member for Hume this morning, and strips from his shoulders every shred of Protectionist reputation, though if any man has tried to do his best for Protection it is the honorable member.

Sir William Lyne - The Age was of the same opinion as myself when it referred previously to the Inter-State Commission.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - Now it turns on the honorable member. While I am opposed to his fiscal principles, I give him credit for trying to carry out his Protectionist views when he had the opportunity. Under this very high Tariff-

Mr Sampson - Would the 'honorable member call this a high Tariff?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - It is one of the highest known to the world, but notwithstanding the duties, our imports have been increasing yearly by leaps and bounds, and are still doing so. The Customs revenue for 1904-5 was about £8,600,000, and for the present year will be about £13,800,000, and next year probably £15,000,000. There has been an increase of about £5,250,000 in seven years. During the same period the Customs revenue per head of population has increased from £2 3s. 3£d. to £3 2s. 4jd., or nearly £1 a head.

Mr Fenton - That shows that more protection is needed.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - The logical Protectionist must be a prohibitionist. The only way in which Tariff anomalies can be effectually removed is by abolishing duties. Directly you impose duties to protect local industries you create anomalies, and the more you tinker with Tariffs, and the higher you make the duties, the greater and more numerous these anomalies become. If it is bad to have trade with other countries ' it should 'be prohibited altogether, but if it is good there should be the greatest freedom for it. I am a Free Trader because I believe in freedom to produce and exchange. Free Trade is the policy which I have supported ever since I began to take an interest in- political questions, and I stand for it now. I have no use for the Customs House ; I would sooner see all revenue raised by direct taxation. That is the more honest and proper form of taxation. Under it every member of the community knows what the Government of the State costs him, but with indirect taxation, although the people know that money is niched from them, and that at the end of the year they are poorer than they were at the beginning, they do not know how much they lose, because it is taken from them by stealth in purchasing commodities.

Dr MALONEY (MELBOURNE, VICTORIA) - Did the honorable member vote against the land tax?

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I do not consider that a land tax should be imposed in addition to Customs taxation; it should be in substitution of it, and that is the only land value taxation I favour.

Mr BRUCE SMITH (PARKES, NEW SOUTH WALES) - And should not be a class tax.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - That is so. No one has the right to answer for me on the fiscal question, nor to control my speeches or votes in regard to it or any other matter. Every man on this side is free. No doubt on the other side there are wide differences of opinion on the fiscal question. That is made evident when we see the honorable' member for Calare and the honorable member for Capricornia sitting together, or the Attorney-General and the Minister of Trade and Customs. Yet the Minister, speaking the other day for his Government and party, declared to a deputation that they were Protectionists. That makes me wonder whether the Free Traders in the Labour party have recanted their fiscal opinions. If he spoke for the whole of his party, I take it that they must have recanted their Free Trade principles, notwithstanding that they had been very strong. I desire to refer to some statements which have been made by honorable members on each side. In the course of his speech the honorable member for Kooyong said he thought that there should be an inquiry into the operation of the Tariff. We had a Royal Commission appointed for that very purpose. It sat for a great many months, went carefully into the pros, and cons, of almost every industry in Aus tralia, and drew up a voluminous report. But with what result? Although the report was made available before the revision of the Tariff in 1907, and had cost the country an enormous sum, yet the Ministry of the day set it on one side, and took its own course, with the honorable member for Hume in charge of the Trade and Customs .Department. I do not know whether if another Royal Commission were appointed we would get a different result. The honorable member for Kooyong also said that the revision of the Tariff is never finished with, but that rectifications must go on all the time. That shows very clearly that there is no finality to this Protection. When first we heard the cry for Protection the argument used to induce Free Traders to vote for Protectionist duties was, " We only want a small amount of protection just to give the industries a start. As soon as they get a fair start they will be able to stand alone, and to be quite independent of the Tariff, and then we can afford to get rid of the duties." The cry used to be the same when proposals for the grant of bounties were brought down. A bounty was only wanted for the purpose of tiding an industry over the preliminary stages, and then it could be done without, but in both cases our experience, and, I believe, the experience of the world, has been that, so far from any industry being satisfied, the Tariff protection which it received in the beginning has always created an appetite for more assistance, so that there never was any limit to the protection which an industry, once it was stimulated and spoon-fed by a Customs duty, would be able ultimately to demand and absorb. Duties have been raised and raised until the power of the public to bear further taxation is pretty well exhausted. I think it will only be a very short time before we shall find that the whole of the public will be so incensed at this continual increase in the cost of living which is so largely contributed to by Tariff protection that there will be a reversion once more to something in the nature of Free Trade, at any rate there will be a pretty universal demand by the consumers - by the term consumers I mean largely the wage-earning classes who after all are the majority of the consumers - for at least a very substantial reduction in the rate of duties.

Mr Roberts - I have just looked up the division. The honorable member did vote against the land tax.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - Very likely, against the Labour party's apology for a land tax. My speech would show my attitude and explain any vote of mine.

Mr Tudor - I thought that the honorable member walked out as he usually does.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - If I did not vote for the discriminating and emasculated land tax it will be found that there was a good and substantial reason. I shall not depend on the honorable member for Adelaide, but will look it up.

Mr Roberts - I have marked it for your special benefit.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I am extremely obliged to the honorable member. I shall have a look at it presently.

Mr Joseph Cook - If you did vote for a land tax you would have voted against your lifelong professions; but that was not a land tax.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I am quite sure, that I made my attitude quite clear. The honorable member for Hume stated that if we did not have Protection we should approach to the level of the blackfellow. I might remind the honorable member of the days when he was a Free Trader - though not, of course, since he has been in the House - and held very different views. When Sir George Reid was Premier of New South Wales he practically abolished the Customs House; he only retained the duties on narcotics, stimulants, and a few other items. During his tenure of office we had as near an approach to absolute Free Trade, coupled with the principle of land value taxation as has ever been known in Australia. There never was up to that time a greater period of prosperity. People got more for their sovereign then than they can possibly get to-day. There was a general lowering of prices, a general increase of the amount of employment available, a general increase in wages, and a very much greater degree of domestic comfort, especially among the poorer sections of the community than can be found anywhere in Australia to-day. That is my answer to the honorable member for Hume in that regard. Furthermore, I would call his attention to the fact that Free Trade British wages are very much higher than Continental Protectionist wages. If we compare wages in Great Britain with the wages, not in a new country like Australia,

America, or Canada, but in some of the older countries in Europe, where the comparison will be much fairer ; if we compare the conditions, the wages, the general cost of living, and the general comfort of the working classes of Great Britain with those of the working clasess in the most highly' protected Continental countries, the answer is one unmistakably in favour of Great. Britain and her policy of Free Trade.

Dr MALONEY (MELBOURNE, VICTORIA) - I strongly differ with you.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - The honorable member has not travelled all over the Continent, but he has merely travelled in one or two countries, and taken one or two cities. Last night he spoke particularlyof Berlin, but I saw by a recent cable that at the present time no fewer than between 80,000 and 90,000 artisans and mechanics are unemployed in that city. So much for that illustration.

Dr MALONEY (MELBOURNE, VICTORIA) - In London alone there are 1,000,000 people within reach of starvation.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I saw as much of London as the honorable member. I regard his statement as a fanciful exaggeration. Speaking just now, the honorable member for Corio said that if it were not for the monopolies existing in Australia we could manufacture more cheaply than is done. I would remind the honorable member that the way to establish monopolies is to create vested interests, and that we could have no better way of creating vested interests than that of giving Customs Tariff privileges to certain manufacturers, who will profit thereby at the expense of the rest of the community. Protection is the father of monopolies, trusts, and combines of that injurious character which the honorable member himself so heartily condemns, and he is helping to build up monopolies in Australia by supporting the imposition of protective duties. What is the underlying principle of Protection, save that of preventing free competition? If free competition is destroyed, monopolies must be created, and the more we increase our protective duties the greater will become monopolies in Australia. The honorable member, and those associated with him, in helping local manufacturers to secure a monopoly of the home market, are doing their very best to build up the very monopolies against whichthey are making such an outcry. Free Trade is the only cure, formonopolies. Where you have free competition, 'there is nq monopoly, and ifwe desire todestroy monopolies, trusts, and combines,whichtendto restrict the purchasing powerofthepeople, andtofoistupontheminferiorgoods, mustvotefor the abolition pf highly pro tectivedutiessuchasthosewhichhonorable. membersoppositearenowso strongly advocating. The honorablemember for Melbourne, last night, in one of those nights of fanciful oratory in which he sometimes indulges, took us, so to speak, for a trip round the world, and, among other places, to Japan. He went to that country to show us 'how a monopoly could be destroyed, and told us that Japan' was the only nation that had been able to successfully attack the American Tobacco Combine. It was able to do so, however, only by adopting the very process that tends to build upmonopolies in America. It defeated the operations of the combine within its own borders by increasing, from time to time, Customs duties on cut tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes until they reached a level of 355 per cent. That having been done., and the tobacco indus.try haying beennationalized, Japan was able, weweretoldtocompetesuccessfulywith, theAmericancombine, in a number of instancesinotherpartsoftheworld. The. honorable member said that it was able, owing to, its, cheap, labour, to undersell the American trustinthosemarketssothat the net result of the imposition of a duty of355per cent.is that the Japanese can. enter into competition with the, American combine in certain places because the Japanese worker receives very lowwages.. The prohibitive duty has not been the means of raising, to any, appreciable extent, the wages paid for Japanese labour.

Dr MALONEY (MELBOURNE, VICTORIA) - It has increased: the wages paid.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - It certainly has not increased them tp the rates received by the operatives qf the American combine. The tobacco industry in Japan has been nationalized, and, despite the assertions of honorable members opposite that the nationlization of industry is the only means of securing better wages for the workers, we find that the tobacco operatives of Japan are in no better positipn than they were before with the combined advantages ofa355percent. protection and nationalization. They are still pauper labour men. Like conditions produce like results, and we pave no guaraptee that if we nationalized any industry in Australia we should have any better result, so far as wages areconcerned, than has followed, thenationalizationofthetobacco industry and the imposition, of prohibitive duties on tobacco in Japan. There is only one way in which Prptection. can protect, and that is by checking competition. Thereis but one wayin which monopolies can be. built up, and that is by checking competition. What are the workers to receive as the result of this Tariff revision? What is the consumer to get out of it? The consumers generally, whether; theyare workers or not, are going to pay more than they pay already for their goods. Unless prices are to be increased, the imposition of these duties cannot be of any; advantage to themanufacturers concerned, This is, therefore, a proposal to take more money out of the pockets of the workers to benefit the manufacturers. There is no stipulation that any portion of the benefit to be conferred on the manufacturers, by means of this Tariff, is to. be shared by the workers. What are the Ministry going to do about it? Despite their professions of friendship for. the worker, all that we find in. this Tariff is an advantage to the employers and absolutely none for the employes.

Mr Higgs - The honorable member's party took care that we should not obtainpower at the recent referenda to protect theworker.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - Even if the referenda proposal had been carried, the Governmentwould have had no more power in this regard than they possess to day, and any power which they do not. enjoy themselves their confreres in. the State Parliaments have. Between the two thereis no necessity to override State rights in order to secure the protection of the worker. If the Federal Government has not the power to benefit the workers under the Constitution as it stands, why do they go out of their way to benefit the employers ? That is a nut which honorable members oppositewill have some difficulty in cracking.

Mr Higgs - The honorable member does not care how much the importer makes, but he does not like the local manufacturer to earn anything.

Mr W ELLIOT JOHNSON (LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES) - I havenever posed as. a champion of one class as against another. I have always pleaded for equal justice. I have always demanded that there shall be equal freedom for all and special privileges to none. Those are the principles for which 1 have always stood and which I am still supporting. I am fighting now, and intend to continue to fight, against any attempt to give one section in the community an advantage at the expense of the rest. In my opinion, it is not the function of any Government or Parliament to legislate in the interests of any one section or class in the community. It is their function, on the contrary, to see that no obstacles are placed in the way of equal opportunities to all to earn a living, and to carve out their destinies in the way which may seem to them best. But the party at present in power in this Parliament are prepared to go out of their way to use their powers to legislate in the interests of one class in the community at the expense of all the rest, and to depart from those sound principles of freedom by which I have always been guided in connexion with any legislation m which I have taken a part. In order to give honorable members opposite an opportunity to rectify an oversight - I trust it is only an oversight, and not the result of deliberate action on their part - in excluding the workers from any benefit under the Tariff now proposed, I intend to move later on an addition to the motion now before the Committee in the following words : -

I have no wish to restrict discussion at the present time, but later in the debate I intend to move this addition to the motion now before the Committee. It will give honorable members opposite an opportunity to show their sincerity. It will enable them to show that in providing all these special advantages for the employers of labour they have at the same time done their best to secure for the operatives in the industries specially protected a share in those advantages.

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