In a recent issue appears an article on the
| above subject by J. Curtin wherein he starts off
| by making a somewhat pithy quotation by
| "Rousseau," which reads
|
| was the real founder of our society. What crimes,
| misery and horror would have been spared mankind
| if someone had pulled up the fences and filled in
| the ditches, crying out to his fellows,
|
|
Quite true, the evil is here, in
| all its magnitude, but Mr Curtin does not in any
| way attempt to solve the problem, or produce a
| cure, but proceeds to abuse all Governments
| (Liberal and Labor), including the Federal Labor
| Government, and suggests that
|
| The question is, what can they do? Their sphere
| of operations is confined to two or three
| different channels; beyond that they cannot go.
| Defence is one of their main avenues of
| expenditure, and surely they are spending enough
| on defence. Post, telegraph and telephone is a
| department that cannot be very much enlarged on.
| Railways and land settlement with the exception
| of the Northern Territory is outside their
| province; likewise irrigation and road
| construction. Manufactories, except for
| Government departments, is also disallowed by our
| Constitution, so why howl out, "Do
| something."
The fact is, our Federal Parliament is very
| little more than an administrative body owing to
| our hide-bound Constitution, and when you talk of
| smashing it, it is taking on big business. Let
| them trespass one foot on to State rights and you
| will find tons of money forthcoming from the
| "States-righters" to plunge the Commonwealth into
| a state of litigation. When the Land Tax was
| enacted the constitutional question was raised
| and court proceedings was the result. The fact is
| the people expect more from our Federal
| Parliament than they (the people) are willing to
| give Parliament the power to enact, and because
| they don’t make laws and do things, then they are
| disappointed. It is time the people woke up to
| their circumstances and realised the absurdity of
| their laws and delegated them into the hands of
| the supreme Parliament. An example of absurdity
| is found in the very much debated wheat question.
| The Federal Government prohibit the export of
| wheat; they also repealed the import duty on that
| commodity. The State Governments appoint boards
| to deal with the question of fixing prices. These
| boards are a variance, one with the other, as is
| evidenced by the Victorian and New South Wales
| boards. The former abolishes prices and allows
| the exploiters to have a free hand, the latter
| (although New South Wales has more wheat than is
| necessary for local consumption) seizes the wheat
| and prevents any leaving that State. This is a
| matter affecting Australia, and surely it is a
| question that should be settled by the Australian
| Parliament. But as the old song says,
|
and the only way to
| settle it is by law. The same laws apply to the
| butter industry. Export of butter is under the
| Commonwealth control, while butter for local
| consumption is under the State. Land settlement,
| which embraces several other governmental
| activities, is the chief factor towards national
| developments, and the Federal Government did the
| only thing within their power in that respect,
| that is, to place on the large landowners a tax
| on the unimproved value. But to revert back to
| the question of the ownership of land, I would
| like Mr Curtin to devise some scheme to overcome
| the difficulty or anomaly.