A.—sa

164

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERS

for those added payments that are demanded under outlaw, then we can refuse to give it its license to trade. Sir WILLIAM LYNE: If we were to adopt this, I don't think you could. Hon. W. M. HUGHES: Why not'.' My resolution is this : That these conditions should impose a minimum handicap upon these vessels in their oversea trade. It will be a handicap, but it will be the same handicap on all. What Sir W llliam Lyne has urged is, that it is very obvious a vessel might come from Cardiff to Adelaide with men engaged at £4 a month. We pay £7 on the coast, and as soon as they go off to Valparaiso or Rio they drop the wages to JU2 10s. and take it out of the men that way. We won't have that. That is an evasion of our law. Mr. DUNLOP : We should not do that. Mr. NORMAN HILL : Isn't this getting off the point of the resolution ? As 1 understand the Australian delegates, the one point they are anxious about is to put the oversea vessel winch engages incidentally in their coasting trade on a business equality with their own vessels. We have dealt with all questions of safety byconceding that the Australian Government can enforce such safety regulations as they think necessary. Now. there is only left the business equality. Now the whole of this resolution, as I understand it, is that when tiicy impose obligations on oversea vessels engaged incidentally in that coasting trade, that vessel should be put on an equality with their vessels engaged in the same trade. But that is all we want. It is very easy, by imposing the same obligations on an oversea vessel, to put her at a most serious disadvantage with a local vessel; and we want to say this, when you are enforcing these obligations, take care that you enforce them in an equitable- way, so as to put the two vessels on an equality. Don't put it higher than that. And when you are enforcing these regulations, which have nothing to do with safety, which have merely to do with business, apply business principles and impose equal conditions, and that is all, 1 think, the resolution points to. If we can alter the wording of the resolution so as to make that clear, we shall be perfectly content, because we have been contending over and over again at this Conference that the object is to secure equality, not to give an undue preference to the Australian coasting boats, but merely to put us all on the same footing. Hon. W. M. HUGHES Supposing a vessel comes out and home, and is away six months, and she is paying £4 a month to her men Mn. NORMAN HILL : And paying Suez Canal dues to get there ? Hon. W. M. HUGHES : We can't help that; we can't seize the canal. You have to pay £4 a month, but on our coast we won't let you trade unless you pay £7. There is no obligation to come on our coast; you can't complain ' of that. But if you are going at the end of your voyage to so adjust your wages so that when you get home after six months you won't have, paid more than an average of £4 a month, because you have lowered the wages during a part of the voyage, it is not an equality for our shipowners because they have to compete against men who are paying lower wages. Mr. HAVELOCK WILSON : I think the remedy is what Mr. Hughes suggested, that when the Articles of incut are drawn up a provision should be put in to say that should the vessels during the course of the voyage trade on the Australian or New Zealand Coast, the Zealand or Australian rate of wages should be paid. That would be quite good enough for a seaman to claim those wages in a port in the United Kingdom, and then the Australian and New Zealand Government could refuse to frant a license unless that clause was in the Articles, hat would settle the whole thing. Hon. W. M. HUGHES : If the Board of Trade would draw up an agreement with that clause in it that would be satisfactory. Otherwise a ship comes on the coast, there is no consideration in the new contract for seamen suing in a British port Mr. NORMAN HILL : You are saying that big liner which is carrying between two Australian ports, that is a liner that is manned to look after the safety and comfort of two or three hundred passengers, you say that ship is to pay the extra wages to all those men, not to the men who are employed in looking after the twenty

passengers it may pick up at the Australian port. Vou are seriously handicapping the ISritish ship by imposing any such conditions. And what we say is, when yon are applying business regulations in order to put two classes of ships on an equality, you should do it justly and equitably. IH. W. M. HUGHES : We shall impose the ..null tions just the same on a tramp coming to Adelaide and taking ore In Sydney or to Newcastle: we should impose just the same conditions although there is no pas-, yet they will have to pay the crew the same . Mil. ANDERSON : But the whole of her capacity fen the time being will be devoted to the coasting trade. But iii the i ted by Mr. Hill, it is different. Hon. W. M. HUGHES: Sou have 8 nicely. don't engage in a coastal trade that does not pay you. Mn. ANDERSON : Vou propose to impose these extra . no! only upon the whole staff, lull dining the whole lime' of her sojourn on Ihe ci ast. Now a good part of the time is devoted not to trading at all. but to business con nected with her oversea trade, either the discharge of her or overhaul lor Ihe I ovarii e. It is not merely the injustice' involved in applying it to the whole of tile crew, hut the- llll'tliel injustice ill applying lo the whole of the time. I must say I am the opposition to the- resolution. All it calls for is fair play. Mn. BELCHER : I to me the true inwardness of this resolution is tning to the surface. Mr. Norman Hill has just said in so many words, and hi n'ic instance where he does not think coastal Condi tions should apply. Why, it is the essence of the whole of our contentions here that when these vessels come on to the Australian and New Zealand coast they must comply with the coastal conditions, and if these vessels are known to escape the coastal conditions which are imposed upon them by Colonial law, well then, every ship that comes into Australian waters will necessarily ask exactly the same exemption. That is what the thing is gem resolve itself into. Where is the unfairness to the P. and 0. Company or the Orient. Company if any of these vessels trade on the coast '.' II i.s ill very well to use a case where there are only 20 passengers. But take the case of a ship where they have 150 passengers, which they do carry sometimes. Hon W. M. HUGHES : Take the case of a P. and O. filled right up, and they skim the cream of the passenger trade- from all the local boats. Mu. BELCHER : This is superfluous, "Care should be " taken that these conditions should not be such as to "handicap these vessels in their trade." You must handithem in their trade, that is from the British shipowner's point of view ; that i.s, you must impose coistal conditions upon them. If the shipowner says that is the; handicapping he wishes to escape, my consent will never be given to that resolution. Sm WILLIAM LVNK: If I understand what you said. Mr, Norman Hill, it is that if there is a loophole left under which you can equalise, though you pay the rate of wages decided on the coast, that you will equalise by only paying as much as you paid previously during the whole voyage. Mr. NORMAN HILL: No. What I am asking you to do is to equalise the conditions upon which the two vessels trade, not to subject the British ship which is calling incidentally, on a long oversea voyage, between two of your ports, not to put that vessel with regard to the coasting trade in a far worse position than you are putting your own vessel. Sir WILLIAM LVNE : But it is not a worse position, because supposing you paid one-fifth, as you do each voyage from Kreinantle to Sydney, you are there perhaps for a month or five- weeks ; you only pay the wages for those weeks, and our people have to pay them all the time. Mr. NORMAN HILL : And five passengers only are going from one port to another. The whole of the rest are going oversea. Mu. CUNLIFFE : A very small proportion in relation to the coasting trade.