'I pass to another subject which must be dealt with, not by legislation, but by mutual good feeling and by common sense. Wherever business is carried on upon a large scale, difficulties must in the nature of things be anticipated in the relations between labour and capital. Each of these elements in the operations of industry may be helpless without the other, but when we pass from the stage of production to the appropriation of profits the conflict of interests is inevitable. Strengthened by the experience in the old country, I would earnestly recommend for all your larger trades voluntary courts of arbitration and conciliation. If we go back to that dark time in England which followed the close of the long struggle with Napoleon, the hostility of classes was seen in all employments, and in none was it more conspicuous than in the collieries. A happy change has passed over the spirit of the scene. Nowhere has the method of arbitration been more successful than in Durham and Northumberland. A scale of wages for miners has been agreed upon, varying with the price of coal, and arbitrators have been found to apply the scale to the conditions of the time, in whose justice employers and employed have implicit confidence. Among these valuable men Mr. David Dale is an eminent example. He and other men of his high stamp and quality—men such as Rupert Kettle, Mundella, and Frederic Harrison—occupy a truly noble position in relation to labour questions. They have won the confidence of the masses, not by truckling to prejudices, not by disavowing the sound and well-tried rules of political economy, but by listening and by explaining with unwearied patience, by showing a sincere sympathy with the working classes, and by taking a deep interest in their welfare. The mention of these distinguished names leads me to the adjustment of difficulties by Courts of Conciliation. They may be described as committees consisting of equal numbers of employers and workmen, appointed to meet at frequent intervals, and to discuss in a friendly open way, and on terms of perfect equality, all the questions in which there is a possibility of conflict. The practicability of the plan has been proved by experience. It is impossible to exaggerate its good effects. By frequent and friendly meetings knowledge is acquired on both sides which could be gained in no other way, and suspicion is changed to sympathy. I hope that no bad influences of false pride on one side, or of unmerited distrust on the other, will deter the employers and the employed of South Australia from rapidly bringing into operation the excellent method of averting disputes, which Courts of Conciliation both in England and on the Continent of Europe have never failed to provide.

'Free trade and Protection are topics which wide-spread depression has thrust into prominence of late. The present Government in England, in deference to the demands of Protectionists, appointed a Royal Commission. Its members were the representatives of conflicting views, and after an exhaustive inquiry they separated without changing the opinions with which they entered upon their labours. We may draw the inference that the subject is not quite so simple as the most earnest partisans in the controversy would wish us to believe. For the United Kingdom I am a convinced Freetrader. I admit that the old country, where half the population subsists on imported food, which must be paid for in exported goods, is not on all fours with a colony capable of producing in abundance all the necessaries of life for a population infinitely more numerous than at present exists within its borders. But while the conditions are different the fact remains that under a protective system customers are precluded from buying in the cheapest market, agriculture is heavily charged for the benefit of a less important interest, and labour artificially diverted from those spheres of industry in which it might be employed to the greatest advantage. Certain it is that cycles of commercial depression would not be averted, but rather prolonged and aggravated, by a policy of protection. Impressed with the weight of evidence on this point, the recent Royal Commission of Trade declined to recommend Protection as a panacea for commercial depression in the United Kingdom, and I hesitate to recommend it to the Chamber of Commerce in Adelaide. While, however, I would deprecate the imposition of burdensome import duties for the purposes of Protection, I fully recognise that moderate import duties are necessary as a means of raising revenue. The first duty of every Finance Minister is to obtain an income for the State by the methods which are the least irksome to the taxpayers. In new countries, not exporters of manufactured goods, import duties are universally found to be the least irksome form of taxation. If under a moderate tariff industries are established earlier than would be possible without some Protection, the incidental advantage is secured of varied employment for the people. Where all depend on the same pursuit or the same industry, an unfavourable season or a fall in price may cause a general depression. There is less risk of universal melancholy and decline when the public wealth is derived from various and independent sources. My conclusion is against import duties on a high scale, levied, as in the United States, for the purpose of exclusion. I recognise the necessity in certain circumstances for the imposition of import duties on a moderate scale for the purposes of revenue.

'I have one more remark to offer in connection with the labour question. Among the many gratifying things which I have seen in your colony, nothing has exceeded your system of education. I congratulate your people, and I honour your Government for their efforts in the cause. It may not, however, be superfluous to refer to that tendency to look disparagingly on manual labour, which is so frequent and fatal a result of the very perfection of educational work. Education may become a curse rather than a boon if it relaxes that physical energy which in all communities, and especially in a new country, is the indispensable condition of progress. It has been truly said by the poet Browning:—

The honest earnest man must stand and work,
The woman also—otherwise she drops
At once below the dignity of man,
Accepting serfdom.
I count that Heaven itself is only work
To a surer issue.

Society must take to itself the responsibility for the preference given to clerical over mechanical employments. We have not done our duty in giving to our skilled workmen that social recognition which is their due. But I am happy to say that in the old country we are decidedly in the way of amendment. The return of working men in greater numbers to the House of Commons has been productive of much good in a social point of view.

'In conclusion, it may not be inappropriate to the occasion to dwell for a few moments on the influences of honest trade in raising the standard of civilisation and elevating the character of men. The prosperity of commerce depends on intelligence, on industry, but above all on character. Cleverness may sometimes win a stroke. There have been financiers in the City of London whose career might have been painted in the language applied by Earl Russell to Mirabeau—"His mind raised him to the skies; his moral character chained him to the earth." I can quote no instance in which men of this stamp have achieved an enduring success. It is not the men whose craft and cunning people fear, but the men in whom they trust and whom they love who in the end succeed. It is the office of commerce to give to the world perpetual illustrations of the homely but ennobling truth that honesty is the best policy. Commerce puts before those engaged in it many temptations. The good man of business must rise superior to them all, and thus it is that in his life and work he can do so much to communicate advantages, to advance material welfare, and to raise the tone of morals. Such, and not less, is the mission of the merchant and the trader. For myself, I am proud to know that I am the son of a contractor for public works, whose good reputation was the best part of the heritage which descended to his sons.'

Melbourne, June 25th, 1887.

A complimentary dinner was tendered to Lord Brassey, K.C.B., the hon. treasurer of the Imperial Federation League, by the members of the Victorian branch of the League, at the Town Hall on Saturday evening. The banquet was laid in the council chamber, and about eighty gentlemen sat down to the tables. The chair was occupied by Mr. G.D. Carter, M.L.A., president of the Victorian branch. On his right were the guest of the evening, the Premier (Mr. Duncan Gillies), and the Postmaster-General of Queensland (Mr. M'Donald Paterson), and on his left the Mayor of Melbourne (Councillor Cain), the President of the Legislative Council (Sir James MacBain), Mr. Justice Webb, and Mr. Nicholas Fitzgerald, M.L.C. The company included a large number of other prominent citizens, many of them not being members of the League. In giving the toast of 'The Queen,' the Chairman said that they could not better have given expression to their loyalty to Her Majesty than by meeting to advocate the unity of the empire over which she reigned. The assemblage of representative citizens for such a purpose formed a most appropriate conclusion to those rejoicings in which we had so happily shared during the week of Jubilee.

The toast was received with enthusiasm, and a verse of the National Anthem was sung.