THE SITUATION IN QUEENSLAND

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 134, 1 March 1919, Page 3

THE SITUATION IN QUEENSLAND

MR. POLSQN'S STATEMENTS CHALLENGED

Sir,—ln The Dominion of December 23 appears the report of an interview with a Mr. Poison, of Fordell, in the Wanganui "Chronicle." The Dominion makes this interview its own in introducing Mir. Poison's wild statements by referring to "the chaotic state of s.iTairs in Queensland and the ominous and all too evident drift in the direction cf something tvorse" (0110 of the headlines is "Drift to Bolshevism"), and as n journalist, and as a member of the Queensland Parliament, I a«k you for the sake of honest journalism and ■in protection of a Government proceeding on sound constitutional linos (and with a programme twice ratified by a two-to-one majority of the electorates) to publish this criticism and contradiction of a hasty and prejudiced traveller who could not measure facts. Australia generally, and Queensland particularly, have made, and are making, their'progress to better conditions .by means strictly within the law. , Every adult has a-vote, and the majority can make Australia and the States of .it all they please, when they please. The only fore« that is making people impatient with the old rate of progress is the war,t.imo exaggeration- of- the old evil of profiteering. By -removing, or at least handcuffing and shackling the profiteer, I there is the lesd.excuse for Bolshevism. | The, hasty. Mr., Poison ■ shrieks at the Queensland Government becauso in the concerns of State enterprise it has been permitted to establish in its life of four years, State meat supply from State stations, State fish supply .(only recently begunl, and' insurance; it has cut the claws..of mefit," fi?h,'and insurance profiteers, and left that much less excuse for Bolshevism. ", Mr, Poison does not tell you that in an Assembly of 72 there were 44 Labour men in the earlier - Parliament, and that the Government on its Tecord went to the country last year and came back with '18. It must be admitted that with adult suffrage any country gets the Government it deserves: so Mr. Poison is attacking not so much tho Government as tho people of Queensland—who aro such fools and scoundfels that they elect the Government tfiat. pleases them, without asking the permission of the precipitato Mr. Poison. Wo ■ seek to abolish tho Upper House (of which I am a member) because it is a nominee House, mostly nppointed by people long dead or discredited. With a • two-to-ono majority in-the"elective House, the Government is represented in the Upper House by a minority of IS to 31. Tho 34 are'not responsible, to anybody .and represent the ' Wreckage-of the old parties defeated by Labour at the polls; yet they tinker and niter arid side'-trnck (ill tho measures which tho electors have twico ratified. Thero have been State sugar mills in ;.Queenslnhd for 20 years, but the C.S.B. could always prevent State' (refineries, and our cano prices legislation is the only relief the cano farmer has from his old job of, being crushed.by the C.S.B. at the same mill.as his own cane.- Wo established ono State hotel in a prohibited area to wipe out 30 sly grogshops, and ws succeeded in that object and also make a profit of ,£3OOO a year, with tho perfection of decent service; The Government established Stato enttlo stations to supply State meat at shops which have cut the price of meat in half,,so that meat at the Stato shops is 50 per cent, of tho cost of meat at shops in Sydney or Melbourne. Hero are tho comparisons ;r- . • BEEF.

fi "go ■ ■ ll ' 5 a S • i- s " O 7i 1 h<D© * Sr 3-r a , 5 ft ft.S u ftij N.S: - • V. W.S.A. d. d. . d. d. d. Sirloin .'....' "G$ '8 8 8 10 Prime rib 41 65 9 8 10 Chuck ■ rib 31 5 8 7 9 Steak, fillet ...£ 8 10 10 11 - Steak, rump ...... 7\ 9 14 13 15 Steak, beer 51 7 9 7 10 Topside 5 7 9 9 10 Corned round ... 51 ' 7 — 8 9 Corned brisket 31 4.1 6 6 7 Gravy beef SJ: 6" '— '" — — Sausages 5 ... G — — — Mince 4 • 5 — — — Shin beef 4 4J G G 7 Ox cheeks 3 4 — — — Suet 6 8 6.6 7 Ox kidneys 5 G — — — Ox' tails 10 10 — — — ... . MUTTON. Legs 7 7J 7} 71 9 Shoulders 41 5J 7 ; G — Hindquarters 6J GJ- — — — I'orequarters ... 4 - • 5 •' 5 5 — Loins 7 7 8 71 9 Breasts. 31 4 — . —■ — Chops, loin 7 81 9 9 , 10 Cutlets 6 8 — — — Stewing chops... 5J — — — — The\present 28 shops supply, on the basis or service to 15,000 customers daily, a population of 80,000. These shops are 'being''extended as" rapidly as'. possible. Total''sales for 1917 amounted to and-total profits sinoe : opening the' first r.slio'p i 059,570. State stations had to be. acquired to supply the 6hops 'and check the • profiteer;'' The Stato stations hold 126,467 .cattle and 3208 horses,, and putting the cattle at .£4 13s. lOd. per head, which is much below value, the Auditor-General shows a net profit-on stations at .£113,2.39. Owing to the intervention of the Stato stations' tho'private butcher gets a reduction at tho stock sales tnat workß out at .£3. Gs. 9d. on a 7001b. bullock. The stock owners liavo tried to rig prices, but every, time tho Government dropped the prices to something approaching normal figures by putting State cattle into..the sales. We aro extending the better service of the State 6hops to til the State, which means that tlfc Government is committed to buy more, cattle and' now 6heep stations to tho figure of ,£2,000,000: If. this bo a drift, to Bolshevism tho meat consumers of Sydney and Melbourne, are. eager to get into the current. 1 , The only "State ore mines' we are .working. are .pyrites mines to produco ■aTsenie for sheep dips and prickly pear destruction. This.' commodity the Victorian monopoly had profiteered from the pre-war price of ,£l7 a ton to the war figure of .£IOO a ton. We have established State coal mines to supply Stare services, and are establishing iron and steel works because we aro threatened with an iron famine, and private enterprise would rather loaf on . tho job and buy lrom India and Japan.Unconsciously,.Mr. Poison tells a nailtruth as to land titles. "Leaseholds, particularly those where improvements are not absolutely necessary, are very popular." Our Government introduced ,th? principle of perpetual lease to all future alienation of Crown lands. The popularity thereof has naturally mado inflated freehold land values lower. And freholrt is only a sentimentality based ; on the fact, now happily non-existent in' Australia, that the freeholder had a higher status as a .citizen .than the leaseholder or the landless. And the popularity of perpotual leasehold moans that th? producer has discovered that his greatest handicap was interest, either as rout or otherwise. We did not attempt to extend the franchise to children. All soldiers abroad have votes, and the minimum aze for enlistment is eighteen, no had tn give votes to all soldiers—even boys of sixteen who said they were eighteon; and as merely being a.soldier does not constitute a speciol training in politics, we proposed in the interests of uniformity''to give. I he vote to all'of that age. Hut Mr. Poison does not stale fact; but only from 10 to 10 per cent. ( of it, as he nleafes. ' Mr. l'olson says that the Australian Workers' Union delegato. is "often an I.W.W. agitator in disguise." This is more invention.' The A.W.U. is lighting tho I.W.W. to a finish; and the A.W.U. is all Australian, while the I.W.W. is almost all immigrants. As lo difouedience of industrial awards not ten per cent of awards made are thrown down; even temporarily. Mr. Poison's remarks about cane-cut-tors aro' as unreliable as any others of his. There has never been less industrial - trouble • in tho fields., and never a better class of labour. The States cano

prices legislation fixes the price of field and mill labour; tho price per ton of cano payable by tho mill to the farmer; the price for raw sugar payable to the miller by the refiner, and the price per to'i of refined sugar to be paid by the consumer. There, for the first time in the history of a commodity, is the compioled cycle of prices. There is more acreage under cane than in the days of black labour, and the only pcoplo in the game who don't like us are the incurable Tories, who wail for inferior conditions of the old days; and the C.S.B. Co., which a few years ago found .t'3,250,000 of profits as secret reserves to capitalise.' Mr. Poison's misrepresentations of the Huglienden joke may bo. passed over. Any old woman could have made a similar exploration of Queensland, and returned with a similar story. "Bolshevism," says Mr. Poison; and thou talks of a beer .strike, and in shocked tones of "a Minister of the Crown" presiding over a beer strike meeting. Why, the protest was not against beer prices as beer prices, but against the profiteering which gives the tendency to Bolshevism a kick ahead. "As the result of that meeting," says Mr. Poison—unreliable and ill-informed to the bitter end—"tho State bars reduced tho price, and compelled .the rest to return to threepence a pint." Quito correct is Mr. Poison, excepting that the "State bars" (one State hotel in the Far North, and the Stato railway refreshment room bars) did not reduce tho price, because they had not increased it. and.."the rest" (meaning private hotelkeepers) were not "compelled to return" anywhere, because they stayed ot fourpence. ' Mr. Poison is further shocked that the Government should take over- beef I at 3d. a pound, while tho Imperial Government is supplied at 4|d. The Queensland Government governs; its action has been dwlared legal by tho High Court of Australia, and, to balance the shock to Mr._ Poison, about two millions of Australians are shocked that the best of Australian beef can be landed in London at Gd. a pound, while tho Australian pays up to Is, 6d. for it in tho country of its origin. v Then, says Mr. Poison: "Ono gathered that not. oven the -judicial bench is free from Government influence." Why.! U is notorious that tho Supreme Court Bench of Queensland is so anti-Govern-ment that it finds against the Government whenever possible, only to be blown out on appeal to tho High Court ot Australia or tho Privy Council. As witness tlio Eastern case; the Insurant.' Act case, the Upper House Abolition Referendum case; and 1 the Mooinberrio Cattle case—in which last the Government commandeered cattle at the legal price, as it had a right to do. * "Thero is no patriotism in tho State," says Mr. Poison _ rapidly approaching hysterics. ' Patriotism is love of country, isn't it?—love of your'own country, not. the other fellow's; and we -love the country well enough • to govern it wisely for the lnajority, which recognises the fact. The only alternative to that conclusion is that two-thirds of the people of Queensland are traitors to the State, merely becauso they don't suit Poison. And finally, Queensland, the chaotic, Bolshevik, unpatriotic State, unbeloved by Poison, is of all countries in the world doing tlio most, and tho most ■ honest, enthusiastic, and sound work-in .the repatriation _ of the returned soldier. The proof of it is that, moro than' to any other State, the returned soldiers go to Queensland, out of all proportion to the number thero enlisted. Leas than any other State or country is Queensland permitting tho soldier to bccomo .in part that which in 6ome places ho seems to bo becoming wholly—tho toy of.politics, to be used before an election and forgotten after it.

All white men in the Pacifio have to get closer together for the confederation that is coming, and to that end wo must all understand each other moreNew Zealand and Australia. To the oxfont, that Mr. Poison may obstruct that dosirablo objective by his wild and whirling political partisanship, the publicity given him is to be cfeplored for both Jvew Zealand and Australia. For it is no good tying the Poison can to the tail of Queensland alone. The imaginary lino i between N.S.W. and tho Northern Stato docs not alter the people— they're all Australians and Mr. Poison traduces all.—l am, etc., RANDOLPH BEDFORD. ' Parliament House. Brisbane.