The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1911.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3168, 14 March 1911, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1911.

The Australian Referendum.

The battle over the Referenda proposals which will shortly be put to the vote of the Coin in on wealth electors is attracting a good deal of attention in New Zealand. Under the present constitution, it may be explained, the Federal Parliament is empowered to make laws for the peace, ortler,, and good government of the Commonwealth, with re spect to—(1) Trade and commerce with other countries and among the States; (2) foreign corporationsj and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth; (31 conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State. But if the proposals now under the consideration of the pen-, pie of .the Commonwealth be adopted the Federal Parliament will be invested with much wider, powers. It would then have authority to make laws with respect to—(1) Trade and commerce: (2) corporations, including the creation, dissolution, regulation, and control of corporations; corporations’ formed under the law of a State—except any corporation formed solely for religious, charitable, scientific, or artistic purposes, and not for the acquisition of gain by the corporation or its members —including their dissolution, regulation, and control; and foreign corporations, including their regulation and control; (3) labor and employment, including the wages and conditions oF Labor and employment in any trade, industry, 'or calling; and the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes, ' including disputes in relation to employment on: or about railways, the property of ahy State;' (4) combinations

and- monopolies in relation to the production-, manufacture, -or' supply, .of : goods or services. • There is another proposal to the effect that when each House of the Parliament, in the same session, has by resolution declared that the industry or business of producing, manufacturing, or supplying any specified goods, or of supplying any specified services, is the subject of a monopoly, the Parliament shall have power to make laws for carrying on the industry or business by or under the control of the Commonwealth, and acquiring for that purpose, on just terms, any property used in connection with the industry or business. As to. the presentation of the proposals, there is (it appears) much discontent as to the form in which they are to be submitted to the electors. It will be observed that there are, in all, five proposals, but four of them are grouped, whilst the other proposal only may be voted upon separately. From a glance at the proposals it will at once be noted that their object is to transfer the greater part of the powers at present held by .the State Parliaments to the Federal Parliament. According to Mr. Fisher (Prime Minister of the Commonwealth), the Constitution was carried cpily because within the Bill was power given to the people from time to time to make amendments. “I have never,” he says, “had any doubt as to the road our party should take. We are going to safeguard the interests of democracy, Australian men and women who produce the wealth of the country must lie protected as regards their labor, health, housing, and children, and whatever mse is necessary.” Only recently he muoted with approval a statement by JjMr. (now Justice) Higgins as under: — j|“lt i-s a matter which has been discussfed among employers and employed in I all the States for some time. We feel 3 that these problems—especially the problems of the tariff—are so inextricably intertwined with legislative attempts to regulate wages, hours, and conditions of labor that we cannot properly fulfil our functions in one respect without having power to deal with the other. Australia by having one tariff will be practically made one economic area, and being one economic area we ought to apply such legislation as we enact to the whole area.” His (Mr. Fisher’s) own comments on the situation are equally emphatic. “There is no doubt,” he believes, “that these questions which are to be submitted to the electors are so interwoven with each other that they are absolutely essential to give effect to the views we have and the purpose and the aim that we have in view. As regards monopolies, it will be impossible to prevent them from skinning you alive if we do not have this power. We must have power over corporations as well, otherwise they can carry on their monopolies in other States under different names. No State could deal with them, nor could all the States united together, so I am advised, effectively deal with them. Thus I say that these matters are inextricably interwoven with the industrial powers for which we are asking. To omit any of them would be to leave the old state of affairs as it is, to leave the Court with unnecessary, powers, and to leave a position in which a judgment may be given and afterwards set aside.” The views of Mr. Deakin (Leader of the Federal Opposition) are equally important. “Federation,” he says, “itself was from one aspect less grave than this, because then voters in every State retained their power to stand apart from the union altogether if they so chose, and they rested on their individual sovereignty. But, having all accepted it, in this next vote which will be submitted to you no State can retire, no portion of our population can withdraw. The minority of States or people, however large, will be absolutely bound by the vote of the majorities of the States and the people. It can be demonstrated that this is one of those votes which accomplish results from which there can be no going back.” The ideal which his party cherish is, he has remarked, contained in the opinion of Professor Wood Wilson, the great constitutional historian, when he declared “that the strength of the American nation lies in the vitality and virility and activity of its States. It would not be possible for all the affairs of this great country (America), with its seething activities and its incessant development, to be governed and directed from any point in this continent. ' The main star of American success is the independence, freedom, and activity of the people under one great national guidance and control.” In further explanation of his platform Mr. Deakin has stated that it includes the federalisation of all the industries of Australia to this extent:' that there shall be no unfair competition, no undercutting of wages or hours by one manufacturer against others in another State or against manufacturers in another State. With regard to trusts and monopolies, he holds that there are to-day three Acts on the Commonwealth Statute Book dealing with the position —measures which are envied in Great Britain and America. “The one cheering light on the horizon,” adds Mr. Deakin, “is that the. work we did to bring the influx of healthy and .active men and women into this country is beginning to succeed; We shall not have them here any too soon. The great crisis in which the fate of nations will be at stake—and the fate of Australia at stake, too—will be decided before this continent can hope to stand in its own strength. We have to utilise every moment that remains, and that can only be done by a policy of settling the unpeopled portions of Australia, peopling them and enabling us to defend them. Nothing less than that will do, and no narrow'policy, no biassed policy, no policy which is striking at our own people

should attract the electors for.moment;” It is expected that • heavy pol - ’ings will take place on the proposals, which will come before the electors for decisionfon April 26.