It is a noteworthy fact that the four Provinces, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, which decided in favour of popular election of the delegates to the new Federal Convention and the subsequent approval or rejection of the Draft Constitution by a direct popular vote, are those in which the Ministry advocate a plebiscite for the settlement of disputes between the two Houses of Parliament. The acceptance of the Federation Enabling Bill by the Legislative Councils of these Provinces must weaken the moral force of their opposition to the plebiscite, as it may reasonably be argued that, if the people can be trusted to give an intelligent vote upon the most important of all Australian problems, they can still more be trusted to deal with any question of current politics. In Tasmania Ministers are confronted with a Legislative Council which continually amends, as well as rejects, their financial proposals, justifying its attitude upon the wording of the Constitution Act of 1854. The section in question states that "all Bills for appropriating any part of the revenue or for imposing any tax, rate, duty, or impost shall originate in the House of Assembly, and it shall not be lawful for the House of Assembly to originate or pass any vote, resolution, or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the revenue, or of any tax, rate, duty, or impost for any purpose which shall not have been first recommended by the Governor to the House of Assembly during the session in which such vote, resolution, or Bill shall be passed." As the right of amendment is not specifically withheld, as in the Victorian Constitution, the Legislative Council assumes its possession. The case for the plebiscite was put by the Premier and the Treasurer upon the second reading of the Bill. Sir Edward Braddon stated that the financial privileges of the Assembly had continually been infringed by the Council, and that, on one occasion, in reference to the Drawbacks Bill, they had almost assumed the power of initiating a money vote. Curiously enough, the principal question mentioned by him as suitable for the application of the plebiscite was that of Female Suffrage, which, introduced as a private measure, had been rejected by the Council after he had failed to secure its defeat in the Assembly. In the preceding session, he said, the Assembly had vainly asked the Council to agree to a joint dissolution of both Houses when a Bill had twice been rejected and a General Election had intervened. A similar measure, passed in South Australia in 1881, had operated most successfully, its mere presence on the Statute Book having put an end to the deadlocks which had previously been of constant occurrence. It is probable, however, that the comparative absence of disputes has mainly been due to the democratisation of the Council, which has brought it into close touch with the feeling of the Assembly; and that, in Tasmania, where the electors for the Council are only one in five of those for the Assembly, a joint dissolution would produce little change in the personnel of the former body. The Treasurer, Sir Philip Fysh, treating the subject historically, pointed out that the Council had thrown out year after year votes, first passed in 1863, for the expenditure of £103,000 upon the construction of roads and bridges, and had several times rejected the Launceston and Western, Hobart and Launceston, and Mersey and Deloraine Railway Bills. They had three times refused to accept a Bill for the re-assessment of the land of the Province with a view to the imposition of a tax on unimproved values. As regards its opposition to the proposed expenditure of borrowed money upon the construction of railways, roads and bridges, it would appear that the Council in most cases acted wisely, and that the Province would have been benefited if it had persisted in its opposition. The total public debt at the end of June, 1896, was nearly £8,150,000, exclusive of £215,000 in temporary Treasury Bills and £250,000 in Local Inscribed Stock, and entailed an annual liability for interest of £313,000. Towards this amount, the works which should be directly reproductive, such as the railways and the postal and telegraphic services, returned a net revenue, after payment of working expenses, of only £26,000. It may be contended, of course, that the country could not have been developed in the absence of a large expenditure; but, as the liability forms a heavy burden upon so small a population—a burden, indeed, which might have become almost unbearable but for the valuable discoveries of minerals—the Council seems to have had abundant justification for its efforts to check the extravagant tendencies of the Assembly. The Ministry, after passing the second reading of the Bill in the Assembly by a small majority, withdrew it, as there was no possibility of getting it through the Council; its introduction appears to have been due to the desire that it should be discussed at the pending General Elections. The principal clause provided that "any Bill which shall be passed by the House of Assembly in two consecutive sessions of Parliament, and which shall be rejected by the Legislative Council in each of two such consecutive sessions, may be submitted for the approval of the people of Tasmania by means of a general poll of, or referendum to, the electors for the House of Assembly." An interval of not less than six weeks was to elapse between the two sessions, and where a Bill had been amended by the Council, the Assembly was to be vested with the final decision whether the amendments effected such substantial alterations as to be tantamount to a rejection, and might present an address to the Governor requesting that a Bill which had been rejected twice or substantially altered might be submitted to a general vote of the electors. A bare majority of the votes so recorded was to be sufficient to secure the enactment of the measure subject to the constitutional rights of the Governor.
The placid progress of the Session was impaired by the introduction of a private railway Bill, which led to many nights of contentious debate and much hostility among the various sections in the Assembly. All the railways are owned by the State with the exception of a few short lines in the Northern and Western portions of the Province which have been constructed by Mining Companies without any concessions from the Government. During recent years the Western district has become an important mining centre, and should, in the opinion of most Tasmanians, be connected by railway with either Launceston or Hobart. But the condition of the finances is such, as has already been seen, that the Government cannot venture to undertake the construction of further public works unless it can be shown that they will immediately give an adequate return upon the outlay. The small surplus of the last two years was obtained at the cost of rigid retrenchment and high direct taxation, an income tax of eightpence in the pound upon incomes derived from personal exertion, and a shilling upon those derived from property, and a land-tax of a halfpenny in the pound upon the capital value of land. It, therefore, became necessary, if the construction of the line or lines were not to be postponed indefinitely, that the aid of private enterprise should be invoked and that concessions should be offered which would be sufficient to attract private capitalists.
In 1895 a Bill was passed which authorised the Van Diemen's Land Company to construct a railway of about forty miles in length, which would place the West Coast in communication with Emu Bay in the North. At a distance of eighteen miles from the latter place is Ulverstone, which is directly connected with Launceston, and the Government have a balance from loan funds which may be devoted to the construction of a railway across the intervening space. The inducement offered to the Company was the right to mark off, within certain areas, twelve blocks of 320 acres of mineral land, which would be granted to them upon the completion of the railway. They were limited in the charges which they might make for the carriage of passengers and the conveyance of merchandise, were to pay a royalty of 2-½ per cent. upon the gross value of all minerals obtained by them in addition to the statutory income tax of one shilling in the pound, and were to be liable, after the expiration of twenty-one years, to the resumption of the railway and all its appurtenances by the Government at the price of 20 per cent. above the actual cost of construction. At the end of 1896 the Company had not taken the initial steps towards the commencement of the undertaking.
The proposal made by a Victorian Syndicate and submitted to Parliament during the session of 1896, aimed at the connection by railway of the West Coast with some point on the State lines in the South. In return for the construction of the railway, which would be about a hundred miles in length, the promoters asked for a concession of large areas of land along its proposed route and for considerable rights to make use of the rivers in its vicinity, which are running to waste in the greatest abundance, as sources of electrical energy. As the railway would, admittedly, be worked at a loss for many years, they based their hopes of a profit upon the probability of the discovery of minerals and upon the generation of electricity, which they would either use themselves or dispose of to companies mining on land belonging to the State. The district in question, it may be stated, is believed to be of little agricultural value, but to be likely to carry minerals, though it has not adequately been prospected. After its second reading the Bill was referred to a select committee, which made reductions in the concessions, and these were further reduced, after prolonged debate, upon its reconsideration in the Assembly. I have mentioned these details in order to show that, while the State was not in a financial position to undertake the direct construction of railways deemed to be necessary for the development of the resources of the country, the Assembly was not unmindful of the interests of posterity, and sought to reduce the inevitable concessions to the lowest possible point.
VIII
FEMALE SUFFRAGE
I do not propose, in the present chapter, to discuss the hackneyed arguments for and against female suffrage, but to indicate the progress of the movement in the several Provinces of Australasia, and to note some of the results of the adoption of adult suffrage in South Australia and New Zealand.
As regards the other Provinces, we are bound to consider the existing franchise for the election of members of the Assembly in order to realise what would be the effect of extending it to women upon similar terms. In Victoria manhood suffrage would be superseded by adult suffrage; in New South Wales and Western Australia, where residence of three and six months, respectively, forms a qualification, the vast majority of women would obtain a place on the rolls; but in Tasmania and Queensland the right to exercise the franchise would be confined, practically, to widows and women of independent means.