Queensland

Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]

Legislative Assembly

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 1887

Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy

1512 Supply. [ASSEMBLY.] Questions.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY.

Friday, 11 Nomnber, 1887.

Questions.-)Iotionfor Adjournment-The rr Gaynnclah.'' -Formal::Uotions.-:Jlar_\ borough and 1Jrangan Rail­way Act Amendment Bill-committee.-Adjourn­ment.

The SPEAKER took the chair at half-past 3 o'clock.

QUESTIONS. Mr. BLACK asked the Premier-1. What is the cause of the continued delay of the Gayundah" at Brisbane, where she [has been lying

idle since July?

.Motion for Arljournmeni. rn NovEMBER.] Motion for Adjou1•nment. 1513

2. Is she likely to be utilised for one of the purposes for which she was purchased-namely, for training the Kaval.l!,orce in Brisbane and the ~orthern ports ?-if so. \V hen?

The PREMIER (Hon. Sir S. W. Griffith) replied-

1. Tl1e delay has been occasioned by investigations into the accounts of the Senior Naval Officer, and the nece.;:sal'Y action consequent upon them.

2. Yes; at an early date. I may mention that I am reported to have said yesterday that " instructions had been given for the immediate departure of the 'Gayundah.'" I said" instructions will be given." ·

Mr. BLACK 8aid: Mr. Speaker,-·I did not clearly understand the Premier's reply to my last question-" if so, when?"

The PREMIER: I said "at an early date." Mr. NORTON asked the Minister for

Works-At about wbat time is it probable that contractors

will be invited to tender for the construction of the first section of the Gladstone-Bundaberg railway?

The MINISTER FOR WORKS (Hon. C. B. Dutton replied-

It is not possible to state at 1n·esent even the probable time when tenders will be invited for the construction of the first section of this line.

MOTION J!'OR AD.JOURNMENT. THE "GAYUXDAH."

Mr. BLACK Baid: Mr. Speaker,-I intend to conclude my remarks with a motion for adjourn­ment. In reference to the employment of the "Gayundah," I think the House is entitled to some further explanation than the Premier has given us. I do not suppose in any of the colonies a more anomalous state of affairs has ever existed in connection with their naval defence forces than in the colony of Queensland, under the manage­ment of the present Premier. \Ve have here a ship which cost many thousands of pounds, and which was imported for a special purpose, lying absolutely idle since last July, so far as I under­stand. Information upon the subject has been solicited from the Premier upon several occasions, but we have not receh·ed any. \Ve have seen certain information in the newspapers, and we were led some time ago by the Premier to believe that some solution of the difficulty that exists between the commander of the " Gayundah " and the Government was likely to be given at a comparatively early date. But so far as we can understand, the position of affairs is just the 'oame now as it was then. I think, sir, that the matter does not reflect any credit upon the Government. Surely the Premier can bring some power to bear to have this vessel utilised for the purposes for which she was imported. I shall probably move for a return showing the expense which has been incur~ed in connection with that ship during the time she has been laid up. I believe it will run into some £3,000 at the very least. I know the annual expense is ~omething like £30,000. During the time she has been laid up-and I do not know, and the House does not know, how long she is going to remain laid up-she must have cost about £3,000, and it is very likely that amount will be exceeded. That money will be totally lost to the country. The question is, not only what is to be done with the '' Gayundah" in the im­mediate future, but what is to prevent a recur­rence of the difficulty that has arisen? It appears that owing to the injudicious action of the Gov­ernment at the time, in allowing thewhiteensign to be carried, there is a difference of opinion between the Premier and the commander of the "Gay­undah," as to whether he is not properly under the control of the Admiral in Sydney. I believe, at all events, he is sheltering himself

behind that condition, and therefore does not accept the dictum of the Premier as being the dictum under which he is to be controlled. Now, the Premier gave us to understand that there was a very short way of bringing this gentleman to reason, and that was by withholding his pay and sending the ship away without him. The answer the Premier has given to my question is about as short and as evasive as it is possible for a member of any Government to give who knows that they are in a very difficult position, and who does not wish the House and the country to know the difficulty they are really in. I know the " Gayundah " is likely to be used some day for the purpose for which she was intended; but when I asked the question the Premier simply said "Yes." I knew that without asking the question.

The PREMIER: Then why ask the question? Mr. BLACK : I want a little more informa·

tion, and as the Chief Secretary refuses to give it, as he might have done in reply to my ques­tion, I shall therefore move the arljournment to see if any other hon. member is of the same way of thinking as I am. \V e ought to have the control of our own propertv in our own waters. In regard to the other question, as to when she is likely to be ntilised, the hon. gentle­man says "at an early date." 'fhat is prac­tically what he said when the Estimates were going through. Does he mean in another six months? I think that this important matter is one deserving far more consideration than the Chief Secretary thinks it worthy of, and to elicit the opinion of hon. members I bring the matter forward now, and beg to move the adjournment of the House.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL said: Mr. Speaker,-I think the House is entitled to a little more information on the subject. Our curiosity was stirred up some time ago by serious charges, which almost amounted to embezzle­ment, coming from the Premier in this House. Then certain correspondence was published in the newspapers, in which the senior naval officer accounted for the expenditure of several items which had been challenged in his accounts. The way in which he accounted for them might or might not have been satisfactory-at all events it appeared pretty reasonable on the face of it ; and the whole amount in dispute-in running an expensive busineoo of that kind-was very paltry. I believe it was £189 over a period of two or three years.

The PRKMIEE : Oh, no ! Mr. LUMLEY HILL: That is what I saw

in the newspaper; I have not seen any parlia­mentary papers on the subject, and I do not believe much that I see in the newspapers. I am not aware that the senior naval officer has, as the hon. member for Mackay appears to think, sheltered himself under the white ensign. I belieYe he asked for an inquiry, which I believe has been refused. If he does choose to take shelter under the white ensign, I do not see very well what the Chief Secretr~ry is going to do.

The PREMIER: Pull it away. Mr. L UMLEY HILL : I was absent from

the colonv when another naval officer, Lieutenant Hesketh; went wrong, but I believe they had to wait till two or three post-captains came from Sydney to try him. l do not know whether these officers can be dealt with summarily or not. I should certainly like to see the Admiral's report on the condition of the "Gayundah" ; and I think this matter, which affects the whole future life of this man, who has been brought out from home, and who left the Imperial service on account of getting an appointment under the Queensland Government--

The PREMIER: No.

1514 Motion fo?' AdJou1'nJJze,~t. [ASSEMBLY.] Motion f01' AC(jour'mnent.

Mr. L UMLEY HILL : Well, he arranged with the Admiralty to go on half-pay for two years, and his half-pay was to be paid to certain ac?otmts, hut the Admiralty neglected to do th1" and he was made bankrupt. That has caused !urn to lose hi., positicm in the Imperial Navy at all event,;.

The PRE:\IIER: No. Mr. L Ul\ILEY HILL : Yes-and being

absent for two years. I think the Chief Secre­tary will find that is the case.

The PREMIEH: Captain Wright did not say so to me.

Mr. L UMLEY HILL : I am not sure that he could ~etai_n his position in the British navy after becommg msolvent; I do not believe he could. It appears to me, on the face of it that he is meeting with pretty harsh treatme~t and is allowed no investigation at all; in fadt, he has hardly been heard in his own defence. I think the Prerni.er, acting on his own judgment, and never havmg had much opportunity of studying naval matters, has condemned him right off the reel, and is not allowing him a hearing at all. I trust the Premier will give us some further information. He seems to know m<~re about Captain \V right than I do-more than has ap­peared in the Press, which is a common subject of discussion about town.

The PREMIER said: Mr. Speaker,--I wish to correct some errors into which the hon. mem­ber who last spoke has fallen. I made no charges in this House of anything like embezzlement against Captain \V right; it is only Captain \V right's friends who have made those charges, setting them up like ninepin~ to knock them down again ; I have not made them. I said he made certain payments which were not autho­rised, some amounts being drawn Ly himself, and I called upon him to refund them. He made an explanation, but did not refund the money. The correspondence, to a certain extent, has been published in the Press. Since then other corres pondence has been going on which I hoped to be able to lay on the table to-day. I quite expected to be able to do so, but have not been able. I shall do so next week certainly; I hope on 'fuesday but it may possibly be a day or two later. As t~ the question of the white flag·, that has nothin~ to do with it whatever, any more than th~ colour of the paint the ship is painted with. Captain \V right is an oificer in the Queensland service holding office during the pleasure of the Government, and can be dealt with just as any other Civil servant. The question now under the consideration of the Government io what, under the circumstances, is the proper course to adopt with regccrd to him, because an officer holding a responsible position such as he holds is not to he disposed of without gtvmg him a full opportunity of ;,aying all he has to say on his own behalf. There has been a considerable amount of delay in the matter, but it is owing to the wish of the Govern­ment ~o give him every opportunity of saying all he desues to say. I expected to have received all he can say on the subject this morning, but in consequence of a reply I received from him this morning, I thought it desirable to write him one more letter, still giving him an opportunity to say something further. The a,nswer to that I have not yet received, but I do not propose that the matter shall remain any longer undecided. On receipt of his reply to the letter I sent this morning, it is the intention of the Government to dispose of the matter one way or the other; and when the correspondence is laid on the table, hon. members will see that the Government have dealt with Captain Wright in the same way they ought to do with any other responsihre Civil servant. They have dealt fairly with him, giving

him every opportunity to urge anything he has to say in justification of what he conceiveo. to be his position, and the Government also have not failed to take up the position they are bound to bke up as custodians of the public purse, and as being the proper authority to decide what allow­ances shall be nmde to n.ny officer in the public service. I hope to give fuller informatiou, as I said before, on Tuesday next.

Mr. NOR TON said: Mr. Speaker,-I am very glad to hear the Premier stty that the matter is likely to be settled at last. I do not know how long it is since I put a question to the hon. gentlema,n in this House in consequence of certain correspondence which appeared in one of the news­papers ; but it is some time ago, and the hon. gentleman seemed quite surprised then that the letters had been published. I thought the whole thing was settled when I saw that correspon­dence, and I afterwards understood from the Premier that it would be se~tled at once. That certainly was the impression his remarks left on my mind, and also, I think, on the minds of other members of the House. The affair has been going on now for a considerable time, and it naturally occurs to people who do not know what has led to the delay, that the delay is too long. I am disposed to think with other gentlemen who have spoken on this subject that the protracted nature of the inquiry or business really is disacl vantageom to Captain \V right, because it leads people to infer that the case against him is a very bad one, and probably a great deal worse than it is. The hon. gentleman spoke of the Government being the custodians of the public purse. I think the custodians of the public purse should not put into the hands of any officer such power as Captain \V right appe'1rs to have had. That gentleman seems not to have known exactly what his authority was, so far as we yet know. A gentleman brought up in the Imperial service cannot be expected to look at such matters in quite the same light as we do, because officers have greater latitude allowed them in the Imperial service.

The PREMIER : There is nothing so strict as the Imperial service.

Mr. NOHTOX: In some respects the Imperial service may be strict, but it is very different in other respects, as in the matter of employing· men to attend upon the officers. \Ve do not want to see officers here with half-a-dozen men looking after them; but I believe. that is not an unusual thing in the Imperial service, both in the army and navy. \Vhen that is allowed in the Imperial service, one naturally sup­poses that an officer co!lling here woultl take it for granted that he woulcl be allowed the same thing in the colony, unless he received instruc­tions to the contrary. That, if we are not misin­formed, is one of the difficulties into which Captain 11~ right fell. I am, however, very glad to hear that the matter is likely to be wound up; I believe it ,-m be wound up this time, and I hope that when we meet next week the hon. gentleman will be able to put all the papers on the table of the House. It is only fair to Captain \Vright, whatever he may have done, or what­ever fault he may have been guilty of, that the whole affair should be settled with the least possible delay.

Mr. P ALMER said : Mr. Speaker,-The late Colonial 'freasurer led us to believe that there was something very ominous in this white flag arrangement, and took shelter under it on several occasions. He led us to understand that there was something really important in flying the white ensign. Now, we have the present Colonial Treasurer and Premier looking down upon it, and regarding it with contempt; he would haul it down, no matter what colour it is.

Motion .fiw AdJou1·nment. [li NOVEMBER.] Maryborougk Railway Bill. 1515

The PREMIER: I did not say I would haul it down.

Mr. P ALJV~ER : If w!l find the money for the honour of flym~ the wh1te ensiiTn we should be :na,ters of tl!e situation. \Ve h~v~ now territory 111 New Gtunea over which we are going to assunte crmtrol, and unless there is smnethinO" in the 'rerritorial Waters Jurisdiction Act which compels Que~nsland war-veesels to keep within three m1les ol the coast of this colony I do not see why the "Gayundah" should not be rele­gated up there to protect the New Guinea trade and prevent the murderous as,;aults by savages which take place occasionally. It would have been far better had the vessel been employed in .that way instead of lying idle for four months m the Brisbane River. I do not see why we should accept the naval discipline at home as a criterion to go by in this colony. It is awful to read the disclosures that have been made with regard to the naval force within the last few months in Great Britain, if we are to credit the statements which are reported to have been made by Lord Churchill, who left the Government on ~hat acco:m~. . There is something quite ominous m the d1sc1plme and control of the Imperial navy, so th>tt there is not much in the state­ment of the Premier that "nothing is so strict as the Imperial service" in reiTard to money matters. I think they are very loose in that respect, and that an enormous amount is wasted. The administration indeed seems to be completely rotten. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are annually spent with very little result. I do not see why we should set them up as an example and look upon the flying of the white ensign as ~ remarkable honour for this colony I would like to know from the Premier as so~n as he has an opportunity of giving the information what is to be clone with regard to the arrana~ments made at the Imperial Conference with re~pect to the na':al .defences of the colony, and if the matter IS hkely to be brought before Parliament this session in a definite form.

J\!lr. J?LACK, i:1 reply, said: :Mr. Speaker,­In movmg the adJournment of the House on this matter, I did not wish or intend to refer to or criticise the conduct of the senior naval officer Capta!n \Vrig.ht. I know nothing about it ; Id,; not WISh to d1scusq the matter in any wav until the papers are laid on the table of the liouse which the Premier has promised will be don~ n,ext week. JVI:y: contention is this ; that the Cx9vernment, havmg found that a difiicnlty has ansen between them and the senior naval officer should not have unnecessarily kept the "Gayun: dab" lying in the Garden Reach all this thne. The vessel s~ould have been sent away to per­form her duties, and the Government should have appointed someone else temporarily in connmtnd until the difficulty was settled. The veoselhai, been lying in the river, to judge from the annual cost 'of the ship, at an expense of at least £3 000 which has been unnecessarily lost to thecom~try: If the vessel could have performed her duties under some officer until the difiiculty between the present Commander and the Government had been adjusted, that money would have been saved. That is what I desire to point ont and it was not my intention in any way to ref~r to the dispute between the Premier and Captain Wright.

The PREMIER: There is no dispute. Mr. BLACK : \V ell, a difficulty then.

Whether it is a dispute or a difficulty; there is something wrong, which has caused the nnneces­aary delay of the vessel in the river and a wo,ste of public money. I think that the hon. gentle­man, "hen talking of the Government being the custodians of the public purse, should have taken that view into consideration. £3,000, which I

estimate as the cost of the vessel during; the time she has been lying in the river, is a matter of very great considemtion to the colony at the present time. \Vith the con6ent of the House I beg to withdraw the motion for adjournment.

l\Iotion, by leave, withdrawn.

Ji'OR::\IAL MOTIOJ:\S. The following formal motions were agreed to:­By Mr. l\IELLOR-That there be laid upon the table of this House all

correspondence in the matter of I-IenrrHntchins's claim against the Commissioner for Raihva-,:s for land resumed for railway purposes at Dic1mbTaU1,·Kilkivan Raihvay.

By l\Ir. ,FOXTON-1. That the Too hey Estate Enabling Bill be referred

for the consideration and report of a select committtco 2. That such committee have power to send for

persons and papers, and lea Ye to sit during any adjourn­ment of the House; and that it consist of the follow­ing members :-l\Ir. ~Inrphy, :\Ir. Palmer, ::\Ir. \Vakefield, 1\fr. Hamilton, and the mover.

MARYBOROUGH AND URANGAN RAIL­WAY ACTAMEND:.\IENT BILL.

CmrMITTEF., On the motion of ::VIr . .FOXTO::"f, the Speaker

left the chair, and the Hou<le resolved itself into a Committee of the \V hole to consider this Bill,

Preamble postponed, On clause 1, as follows :-'"l'his Act may be cited as the 3Iarybororgh and

liraugan Raihvay Amendment Act, and shall be read and construed with and as an amendment of the ::uarv­borough and Urangan ltailway Act, hereinafter callCd the principal Act.''

Mr. FOXTON moved that after the word "Railway," on the 2nd line of the clause the word " Act " be inserted.

Amendment agreed to. The HoN. J. M. l\IACROSSAN said that

yesterday when the Bill was under discussion the Minister for \Vorks, who seemed to have become an advocate for the extension of time, stated that if contractors were bound to time in connection with the finishing of work it would be very hard upon them. It did not occur to him that the three years given by the House in the Bill passed three years ago v,ras a very long time in which to construct a railway and to find men who had money; and did the hon. gentleman not see now that where the same peor,le now undertook to do the work in one year they had been allowed an extreme length of time previously? Yet the h(m .. gentlernan adduced tha~ as an argun1ent why there should be still fnrther extension ! Then the hon. gentleman said if they were adventurers now they were adventurers then; but they were not known to be so at that time, and were supposed to be men who were going to construct the railway right away. Had the hon. gentleman read the evidence g·i ven before the committee ? Had he seen the bright prospects held out by the only person the committee examined on behalf of the promoters? It was said that the money and men were ready, and the work would be commenced forthwith; and how could the com­mittee disbelieve that gentleman when he made such statements? They could do nothing else but believe him. 'I'hey were led away by statements that turned out to be altogether wrong. That gentleman was ilimply acting on behalf of a syndi­cate who wanted a concession given by the Govern­ment, which was given, to allow them to go some­where else and get people to help them to make the railway. He was simply an agent, and that could be seen by the agreement that had been signed by himself and Lord Denbigh. Mr. Rawlins was a well-paid agent; he had an interest in the business, and in fact would get more for his trouble than the Minister for

1516 Maryborouglt and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bitl.

Works had been paid during his whole four years' service as a :Minister of the Crown. It was worth the while of such gentlemen to come to Brisbane and influence men outside that House who had influence with members inside the House to get those things done. It paid them well to do it. The original committee recommended the concession chiefly upon the statements made by 1Y1r. Rawlins, and nobody cot!ld believe then that the promoters were ad ven­turers by the statements he had made. In answer to question 16, in the evidence taken by the original committee, Mr. Rawlins said:-

" ::\Iany of the people that I an1 connected with in ::\fclbourne are connected with a very large establish­ment, 'rrhe Victorian Pyrites VYorks.' and they have been carrying on operations on minerals-refractory ores from Queensland-for some time, but the high price of coal in )lelbourne, togethet· with the disadvantage of very dear freights from Queensland, militated against their getting the ore that was required in order to carry on business successfully; and the suggestion that I made to the syndicate was, that, provided \Ve could get a railway line to deep water, we would provide steamers to take coal up the coast and down the coast, in order to carry coal to the different ports, and to bring back cargoes of ore for treatment with the cheap eJal."

That was the suggested idea, to take ore from the Northern ports for treatment in the JYbry­borough district with cheap coal. At the same time, that syndicate did not possess a single inch of land containing coal ; in fact, they had no land at all. That gentleman said, in answer to another question, that he did not know where the coal-mine was to be got, unless they got land of their own-that was the land they were to get from the Government. As to the value of the land, some hon. members seemed to think that it was of no value, because it had been open to selection for some time long ago at 5s. an acre. Surely hon. members did not think that because land was worth only 10s. or £1 an acre in Bris­bane at one time, it was only worth that now. The land then worth 5s. an acre in the Mary­borough district could not be bought now for £5 an acre. Mr. Rawlins found that a certain value was placed on the land, for, in answer to question 23, he said :-

"I found that some of this land had been purchased by people who held it in large block:s, and to several of them I applied to know if I could treat with them. rrhe first gentleman I went to owns block Xo. 1. He said he would sell it to me for £-W,OJO."

The hon. member for Oxley, Mr. Grimes, asked him what was the area of that block, and the answer was :-

"Six hundred and forty acres. I then went and saw the owners of t'vo blocl(s of 1,000 acres each, and asked them hmv much theY would take? One wanted £4,000, and the other wanted £20,000."

Surely after that hon. members could not think the land was worth only iis. an acre. Then, as to the amonnt of money the syndicate was going· to spend, they had the following evidence:-

"What is the estimated cost of the line? £115,500, line and wharves.

"I mean the line per 1nile. VYhat will that come to? About £2,100.

"-without the wharves? Yes, without the wharves.

"And without the plant? vYithont the plant; of comse, that makes between £80,000 and £90,000, 'fhe balance, about £45,000, is for wharves. At Urangan, £22,000 for one and a quarter of a mile long."

He was also asked what wa8 the proposed capital of the company, and the reply "as, "£250,000 with power to increase." lt was those state­ments by which the committee were led astray in the first instance-he would not say led astray, but led to recommend the concessions subs"e. quently given by the House. Statements of that kind were more or less mingled throug-hout the evidence given by Mr. Raw lins. So that it was nothing for the Minister fo \Vorks to say that

if they were adventurers now, they were adven­turers then. That man had proved himself to be the agent of adventurers now, but he had not done so at that time. That was the diffe­rence between the two periods. The ~1elbourne men backed out of the affair altogether; a meet­ing was held hy them, and it was proposed, seconded, and carried that the company shonld be dissolved, and each member had to pay his share of the preliminary expenses. Then several men were brought into it-men whom everybody knew in Brisbane, and whose names he need not mention ; and when they went out of it, Mr. Rawlins himself gave it up, and went elsewhere to look after Lis business in some other part of the world. Then gradually there was again a hop€ of a company being started to carry out that work, or to save the money which had been deposited. Before he went any further he would like to know whetheF the money was really deposited?

Mr. P ALMER : Yes. I have the Minister's word for it.

Mr. Al'\NEAR: I asked a question on that point this se,sion and got a similar answer to it.

The HoN. J. M. MAOROSSAK said that was all right then, but he thought it was advisable to ask the question. Then an attempt was made to get other gentlemen to take the matter up. lYfr. Rawlins went home, and, naturally enough, dropped across the old transcontinental syndicate, who were, of course, ready for anything of that kind that might turn up. He evidently made an agreement with them, but there was no money yet ; there was only to be money conditionally. Really, after all, he thought the people of Mary­borough were very foolish, through their repre­sentatives, to be carried away by that syndicate scheme. They surely recollected the time, some years ago, when a somewhat similar agreement was made for the making of a rail way to the Burrum. The Government at that time were glad to be saved the expense of making the rail­way, and they supported the scheme. It was opposed by several members in the House, some of them on the Government side, and the scheme was defeated, the Government having to make the railway. The railway had been m11de for years now, and was running. So it would be in the present case. If the railway was worth while making, the Government would have to make it, and must make it. He thought that was the best thing they could do. He should like to hear from the hon. member in charge of the Bill why it was that, in asking for a com­mittee to consider the proposed extension of time, he had not called upon the old committee to act. All the members of the old com­mittee were still members of the House, but the hon. member appeared to have very care­fully left those memberR out. \Vas it because they were not soft-heads, and would not be easily had ag-ain? He thought that was very strange indeed, and he thought so at the time the committee was asked for. It would have looked very much more like carrying on a straightforward business if the hon. member had asked the members of the old committee whether they would serve on the new one or not. The hon. member had not done that, but had taken another course and selected two new men-men who had little experience in that kind of work, he believed. He thought that the best thing that could happen, not to the Bill, but to the country and to Maryborough, was that that measure should not pass. He hoped it would not pass, though it was, perhaps, hoping against hope seeing that the Government were so strongly in fa~·our of it. He believed it would be ultimately far better for the country if the measure was not a.Jlowed to pass. In case, however, that

MarlJborou_qh and Urangan [11 NOVEMBER.] Railwal/ Bill. 1517

the Bill should pass, he asked the gentleman at the head of the Government, in connection with it, whether he was willing to allow the same syndicate who made that agreement to make a railway from Rockhampton to Port Alma. They were willing to make that line. Were the Government willing to allow them to make it? There must be some special reason why they should be allowed to make the one line and not the other. He did not know whether they had made any offer lately with regard to the Port Alma line, but they were very willing some years ag-o to make it.

The PREMIER : And several other lines too. The Hox. J. M. MACROSSAN said they

would no doubt construct the line from Nor­manton to Croydon very willingly, even more willing~y than the one now. und<;r consideration. Supposmg the Cro:y don hne d1d not pass the House, would the hon. gentleman be willing to allow them or some other syndicate to make that line? He would "ait until he heard what the hon. gentleman said in answer to that ques­tion.

The PREMIER said he believed the syndi­cate in question were quite willing to construct a line from N ormanton tn the Etheridge or to Croydon ; in fact, some of the members of it had told him so. Indeed they would be willing to make a railway almost anywhere. They were very anxious to make a rail way in Queensland somewhere. But he did not see how that materially affected the present question. The question seemed to be-was it desirable that the privilege given to the Vernon Coal and Railway Comp~ny should be continued for another year? Of course the members of that company were liable to change, and they had, as a matter of fact, changed, and the members of it were now members of the Transcontinental Railway Syndicate, but that was no reason why the extension should not be granted. He did not, however, think it was desirable to allow them to make a railway from Norman ton to the Etheridge or to Croydon, or a rail way to Port Alma. Those were lines which should be in the possession of the Government. The Port Alma line would be a line over which all the traffic of a Govern­ment line would pass, and would be the key to the Central Railway. A line from Kormanton to the Etheridge or to Croydon would be a great national line. The line under discussion he did not think would be the key to any Government line. He regarded it entirely as a branch coal line, not differing in essence from the Cooneana line, which was authorised by the House the other day. He did not believe in allowing main lines, or extensions of main lines, to be given to private companies. He did not regard the present line as such, but if it did turn out to be an extension of a main line, provision was made in the Bill for its acquisition by the Government. The fact that the indivi­duals who were about to become the members of that company were persons who were formerly concerned in a proposition which did not meet with favour in the House was not a sufficient reason for refusing the concession asked for.

Mr. FOXTON said the hon. member for Townsville had referred to what he termed the "soft-heads" of the committee. He (Mr. Fox ton) did not remember who were the mem­bers of the first select committee on the question when he asked for the appointment of the second.

The HoN. J. M. MACRO SS AN :You should have looked up their names.

Mr. FOXTON said it never entered into his head to do anything of the kind, because that committee had done its work, and had nothing

whatever to do with the second committee. He did not know whether the hon. member for Townsville was on that committee, but he believed the hon. member for Burke and the hon. member for Rockhampton, Mr. Fergnson, were on it. Still, the functions of that committee ceased when they reported on the first Bill, which afterwards became law. It was with no inten· tion to slight that committee or show it the slightest disrespect that he did not invite them all to act on the second committee, and if any members of the first committee acted on the second it was purely accidental. He asked several hon. members, who told him that business engagements prevented them from acting, and ultimately he was able to get together five mem­bers, but without any thought as to whether they had acted on the first committee or not. The arguments urged against the Bill, both on the second reading and that afternoon, seemed to him to have very little in them. If it was good three years ago to allow the line to be constructed by a private company, the same reasons held good at present. They were certainly no nearer to the con~truc!ion . of the line by the Government. Certamly 1t m1ght be said they were three years nearer in poi_nt of time, but the queRtion as to when that rarlway would be constructed by the Government was as indefinite now as it was three years ago. The original company had some excellent names, so far as he could judge, amongst the shareholders, and it was apparently a r;owerful company.

Mr. NORTON: \Vith very little subscribed capital.

Mr. FOXTON said that might be so, but they were very good names. \Vith regard to the first Bill, the company objected to the period of five years being fixed at the end of which the Gov· ernment might purchase the line. That was looked upon by the company as so essential a matter, and was urged with such force to the select committee, that they altered it to ten years. ·It was subsequently, in committee of the whole House, changed back to five years; and that was the exact reason why what might be called the Melbourne syndicate, who were mem­bers of the Vernon Coal and Railway Com­pany, withdrew from the undertaking. It might be fairly taken for granted th"t the line would have been constructed by the present time had it not been that the House, wisely or unwisely, altered the time from ten years, as proposed, back to five years. He did not propose to follow the history of the company, as narrated by Mr. Rawlins, but he would point out that the name of the Transcontinental Railway Syndicate seemed to be a sort of bogey to some members of the Com­mittee. There was nothing to fear from those gentlemen any more than from any other set of capitalists. It was a question as to the undertaking they were connected with. Let them propose to construct a transcontinental railway on the terms originally proposed, and see how it would be received by the House and the country! Undertakings of that kind were naturally watched with a jealous eye; but in the present case that syndicate came before them just like any other persons having the command of capital, and they could do no more good or harm to the colony than any other company of capitalists. They undertook to bring capital into the colony for a reasonable purpose, and the Government had the power to take over the line from them at a reasonable figure five years hence. Surely an undertaking of that kind could not be regarded as anything· but a distinct gain to the colony. If the matter had been brought under the notice of those capitalists two years ago probably they would have purchased the whole of the shares they now proposed to purchase in the company,

1518 Mar;yborougk and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bill.

and c?uld actually have gone on with the con­structwn of the line and completed it by the present time without asking permission of that House or anybody else to bring their capital into the colony. He did not know whether those hon. members who regarded those gentlemen as--

Mr. BAILEY: Exploiters.

Mr. FOXTON: As exploiters were of opinion that o~ing to their not having bought all the shares m the company two years ago, the colony had e;;caped a great clanger. If the colony had g_ot ncl of a great danger in that wcty, it was Simply because the matter was not brought under their notice earlier than it had been. If they had come in earlier thev would have been ahle t'o buil<'l the railwa_v without coming to the House at all with that Bill, as they said they were able to construct it within twelve months. The hon. member for Townsville had said that the Mel­bourne syndicate had an interest in the treat­ment of refractory ores, but that matter had not formed a special feature of the undertaking since those gentlemen had retired from it.

The Ho~. J. M. MACROSSAN : It was then.

Mr. FOXTON said he had pointed out that those gentlemen had withdrawn from the com­pany owing entirely to the action of the House in not adopting the recommendation of the select committee to make the period ten years.

Mr. NORTON : That is three years since so that they would have still seven years to complete the work.

Mr. FOXTON said not to complete the work. The hon. gentleman evidently did not under­stand the question at all. That ten vears was not for the completion of the work at a:il. That was the period at the end of which the Govern­ment would be at liberty' to purchase the line. The company wanted the nse of it for ten years ; the House granted only five, so that the Gov­ernment could compel them to give it up at the :nd o.f five years, at what he thought was a fan· prwe-!5 per cent. per annum added '!.'he advantage of that was apparent. The first few years after a railway was constructed was ~hen it paid ~east. At the end of five years it would be m thorough workino- order the traffic would have been made fo~ it, ar:d it would have become absolutely payable. It was far m?rP likely to pay at the end of five years than it would be immediately upon the com­pletion of the line. With regard to the value of the coal land selected-he did not know when the rest of the Burrum reserve was withdrawn from selection, but, if he was not mistaken it was within a short time after the passing' of the first Act. It was open to selection at 30s. an acre under the Mineral Lands Act but nobody thought ~t worth while to take it up, No further workmgs had taken place upon it ~o far as they were aware, showing that the increase m value had arisen purely throuo-h thfl action of that company in coming forward to develop the resources of the district. As had been pointed out, the company were unable to get coal pro­perty that was in private hands at anything like a r:asonable figure. Men who had acqniredlands at DS. and 10s. an acre now asked a hundred times as m_u?h for them: Of course. that price was prohibJtr~ry, and. it seemed a perfectly fair and eqmtable thmg that they should o-ive a company that was going to exp.end such : large amount of mon~y as that company proposed to do an opportumty of taking up 1, 000 acres of that land at the same rate at which it had been open for years, and at which nobody thought it worth while to select it,

Mr. NOR TON said he had forgotten, when ha referred to the ten years, that it applied to the time when the Government might purchase the line, and not the period within which the line was to be formed. The Premier had told them that he regarded the Bill in the same light as til­Cooneana Railway Bill; but the Cooneana Rahe way Bill was to connect a coal-mine with the present railwaY communication with the port, whilst the Bill before the Committee was to connect a coalfield with a port. That was the difference.

The PREMIER : So does the Cooneana. JYir. NORTON said it did not. '!.'he PRE:MIER : It connects several coal

mines with it, at any rate. .Mr. NORTON said the proposed line was to

connect the whole of tlw. Burrum coal district with the port. They knew what the Burrum district was, from the reports of the Rev. Tenison­vV oods and others, who could be regarded as reliable authorities, and the line was simply one to connect that coalfield, not a coal-mine, with the port. There was another peculiar circum­stance connected with the Bill. When Bills were brought in asking for concesc;ions of that kind, it was incumbPnt on those who wished to see the Bill passed, to put down the deposit before the Bill was introduced. But there was nothing nf the kind done in the present case. The company said, "Pass our Act and we will ]-lay the deposit." vVas it not ridiculous that the House should be asked to enter into negotiations with a company who said "Give us our Act and we will pay the deposit down afterwards" ? That was the long and short of it. Supposing they did not pay, would not that House look very foolish after pa~sing the Act? And there was nothing to compel them to pay so far as he knew. It reminded him very much of what were called fishing tenders sometimes put into contracts. He remembered a tender put in for Government rolling-stock a few years ago. A tender was put in in the name of a companv that was actually not formed at the time, for a number of carriages or waggons or son1ething of the kind, and the tender was actually accepted before that company had a legal existence. It seemed almost incredible that that could be done, but it was done by the present Government. After they got the contract the company was formed, and they started work at Nundah. He believed they were sorry for it since; he understood the workshops were closed now. The present proposal was something of the same sort of thing. Parliament was simply made a catspaw of by people who would carry out the speculation if it suited them, and other­wit;e would let it drop. It was a sloppy wav of doing business that Parliament ought not to agree to. So far as the names associated with the proposal being the same as those aSJw­ciated with the transcontinental scheme was concerned, he did not think they need be afraid of the names. They could insist on those periwns carrying out the conditions as well as anybody else. vVhat he did complain of was that, having passed an Act giving those persons power to compel the Government to agree to terms they asked for, the Government were not in a position to compel them to agree to the terms the Govern­ment aoked for.

Mr. SHERIDAN said some doubt had been eKpressed as to whether the people of Mary­borough were in favour of that line m· not. vVeil, he was in pretty frequent communication with the people there, and he believed they were entirely in favour of it. They looked upon it as the only hope they had of getting a railway there. They would have preferred to see the Govern.

Mar;yboroug'h and Urangan [11 N OVEll:BER.] Railwa;y Bill. 1519

ment make the railway, but there being no im­mediate prospect of that, the people generally were very anxious that that line should he carried out. They looked upon it as a means of opening up a very valuable production, and finding a market for it elsewhere. So far as the people who com­posed the syndicate were concerned, so long as the railwav was built, it did not matter who built it. They had the same control over those people as over anybody ehe, ancl their object was to get the line built as soon as possible. The opening of a railway there would be a great ad vantage, because if they got into a posi­tion to export coal, and that eo~! was founcl in remunerative quantities, it must benefit the whole country. A rumour hac! gone round amongst some hon. members that the railway was a bud-grant railway, but he harl endea­voured to explain that it was not. If it were he would not support it. The only concession the company was getting was 1,000 acres of land at a very excellent price-30s. an acre. He cloubted very much whether the land would fetch that price at auction to-morrow. He hoped that, for the benefit of the \Vide Bay district and Maryborough in particular, and of the colony generally, the Bill would pass.

Mr. NOR TON said hon. members had a very convenient way of rejecting what dirl not suit them and accepting only what did. Evidence had been given by three proprietors of coal lands down there; two of them valued their land at £40,000 and the third at £20,000.

Mr. FOX TO~: They are developed collieries. l\Ir. l'\ORTON: \Vhat difficulty would there

be in developing land along,ide? The land in the neighbm,rhood of a colliery was worth buying on the chance.

Mr. FOXTON: It does not at all follow. Mr. NORTON said he thonght J'.Tr. Tenison­

Woods was a sufficiently reliable authority, and all his evidence went to prove that the land adjacent to the coal-mines was coal-bearing. He (Mr. Norton) would like to ask the hon. member in charge of the Bill if he had seen the list of shareholders of the company. He had heard that a number of persons hac! promoters' shares. He would like to know if that was the case?

Mr. FOXTON said he did not know if it was so ; at all events such shares must represent a very small proportion, because out of 50,000 no less than 47,000, according to the agreement nn the table, were to be given to the English syncli­cate at a price.

Mr. NORTON: What price? Mr. FOXTON said the agreement spoke for

itself; he knew no more than the hon. member did.

The HoN. J. M. MAOROSSAN : The shares have to go for making the railway.

Mr. FOXTON said they were £/'i shares, and it would be very easy to find how much per share would have to he paid up in order to construct the railway. They knew that 47,000 shares at £5 came to so much, and the railway was to cost so much; the balance would be the amount uncalled on the shares. Accord­ing to the agreement there were some claims to the amount of £15,000, but how they were made up he did not know. They might be promoters' shares for aught he knew. Included in that was some money which was paid to Mr. Rawlins, which he apparently had taken out in shares. He received 3,000 shares, and with them he was to wipe out all claims against the company existing prior to the date of that agreement. He had liquidated all claims whether those of creditors or shareholders.

'l'hose 3,000 shares were to satisfy the whole of those claims, and he understood that arrangement had been carried out. That was all he knew about it.

Mr. NORTO~ said that the hon. member had m'erlooked one part of his question. He (:Mr. Norton) was informed at the time the present Act was passed that shares had been given to a number of persons, for some object he presumed, and of course the value of those shares would depenrl upon the work being carried out. As there was no prospect of the orir;inal company being able to carry out the wo~k, of course the holders of any paid-up shares would be glad to dispose of them_for pretty ;vel! anything they could get. An,vthmg they mi>rht receive would be profit; even 1f they parted With them for next to nothing, it would be so much to the good. He did not care to attach too much value to what was said outside ; but he asked the question because it was currently reported three years ago that many people would bene~t in that way-that was, they would benefit If the work were not carriecl out. They were to have a certam number of shares, for which they paid nothing. Of course he presumed there would be an advantage gained by giving away those shares-that the recipients would use their influence in order to get the Bill pa%ed. He mentioned that matter because it was possible that the hon. member might have heard S<>mething of the kind. At any rate, he considerecl it would be as well to ask if the hon. member had seen the list of shareholders, and whether there were any persons mentionecl in it as holders of fully paid-up shares.

Mr. :FOXTON said he had not seen the list of shareholders. The only persons he ~<;new· at present holding shares were .Mr. Rawlms and Dr. Little. The late Dr. Power did hold shares, but he did not know what became of them.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL said the more the question was ventilated the less he liked it. The hon. member for Maryborough, Mr. Sheridan, had just said that the people of lYiarybornugh wonld be very much benefited, and would like it ven· much. · He remembered the verdict the coui1try passed at the last general election in regard' to land-gr,tnt railways, and in regard to the very company which was so intimately concerned in the Bill before them. No one accepted that verdict more greerlily than the Minister for \Vorks himself dirl. He (Mr. Hill) v:as not at all sure that the railway woulrl not affect the trade of Maryborough very considerably, if it turner] out as great a success as the promoters hoped it would. Urangan would be very nearly as good as a harbour if they ran out a jetty there, and if it were the terminus of the railway it woulcl be a \'ery important shipping port as well as a coal rlep6t, and also a watering-place and sea-side resort for the peopl" of Mary­horough, which they would like very much; and no doubt. it would be a very good thing for them. He certainly thought a line of that kind ought to be built by the Government, and be purely the property of the country, or else n~t be built at all. According to the agreement, It would be a very good thing for Mr. _Rawlins if the Bill went through. He was to receive £2,000, and 3,000 of those £5 shares. He would rec,eive £2 000 to wipe out the old obligations and debt~ of th~ company. But beyond that, what he (Mr. Hill) objected to emphatk<tlly was the admission for one moment of the principle of land-grant railway• and syndicates of that nature. He had no objection to see foreign capital introduced in a perfectly legitimate way into the colony, but he would not like to see a system which, if once intro­duced, would grow, as it had in America, into an enormous power, controlling the State itself.

1520 MarlJborougk and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Rail11.'alJ Bill.

Those railway rings had absolute control over the States and very detrimentally affected the government of the whole country. He did not wish to see the slightest approach in that direc­tion. He looked upon that principle with the utmost horror and dislike; and, as he pointed out on the second reading of the Bill, those people were not going to plank down money-they did not possess it; they merely wished to sell the concessions they would receive by the Bill. They proposed to sell the shares in the London market to any confiding people at home they might find ready to speculate in th<;m. No con­tentions measure of that sort should have been brought in, even as a private member's Bill, at that stage of the Parliament, and th~y ought not to pass it. It was admitting a principle in direct opposition to that upon which the Parliament was returned-namely, that the Government should construct its own lines. Yet by a side­wind, at the end of a Parliament, they were asked to sanction a Bill in dir~ct opposition to that principle, and he trusted it would not get through.

Mr. SHERIDAN said he wished to state that if he for one moment thought that it was a land­grant railway he should vote against it. It did not matter to them who built the railway so long as it was built. It was merely an exten­sion of time that was asked, and a question of dropping a certain number of names and replacing them by those of other persons who would build the line. He omitted to say, when he was speaking before, that about £5,000 deposit was to be paid, and until he was perfectly satisfied that that amount was deposited in the Treasury, he should hesitate very much as to what support he shonld give the Bill. He must be assured that that money was bon(i .fide placed in the Treasury, or was in such a position that there would be no doubt of its reaching there, other­wise the rail way would not receive his support even at that eleventh hour. As to what his hon. frie.nd, Mr. Hill, had stated about there being a new pQrt discovered at deep water near Mary­borou~h, all he could say was that if there were such it would be of very great value to the country, and the sooner it was developed the better. Maryborongh could afford to compete with it. The people there were not so narrow­minded as to be in the least degree jealous of it. It would be a benefit not only to the district, but to the country generally. As to the shares that had been given to certain persons, and called promoters' shares, he might say that although intimately acquainted with persons on the original list of shareholders, he never heard of any except Mr. Rawlins receiving a single share. That gentleman had to go to England in connec­tion with the matter, and the shares were allotted to him in order that he might be paid for his expenses and also for his time.

Mr. vV. BROOKES said he was of opinion that the Bill ought not to pass ; and the more he examined it the stronger was his opinion that it was a very dangerous and deceitful Bill. That it was a private speculation he had no manner of doubt. From whatever quarter the examination of the Bill was approached, it would be found to present aspects of very great suspicion. He had every reason to believe that there was a great deal of force in the statement oft he hon. member for Townsville, that if some of the members who formed the select committee in 1884 had been on the committee which dealt with the matter during the present session a very different report would have been brought up, because some of the members who sat on the committee in 1884 were decidedly of opinion that their conclusions had been arrived at when the whole truth was not presented to them.

l\1r, FOXTON: Name !

Mr. W. BROOKES said he was not going to give any names. When the Bill was before the Upper House there were some speeches made, to which he invited the attention of hon. members now. He knew he should be tedious, but he could not help that. He wished to prevent the incoming of what would speedily grow, just like a cancer. They had fought against it success­fnlly so far, and he was desirous of preventing it so far as lay in his power. On the 18th Novem­ber, 1884, the Hon. A. C. Gregory said :-

n I am fully impressed with the fact that if this rail~ way is constrnctecl, so far as the simple question of a railway is concerned, it will be of considerable benefit to the district, and may lJossihly assist in develOIJing the very important industry of the coal trade from the Bnrrnm coalfields. But, while generally admitting that it is desirable that the railway should be e"tablished, we ha ye further to consider the question whether it is desirable to carry it ont by private enterprise. That, I think-when duly guarded by proper precautions against unreasonable monopoly, and the undertakings being taken in hand by those 'vho arc unable to carry them out, and thereby bring discredit on the colony-is a very desirable way of proceeding in regard to the con­stnlction of on1· t•ailways; but 'vhen I look through this Bill I find that the chief promoter of the scheme says that he bases his estimate of the value of the Burrum Coal Field on a lecture delivered by the Rev. Tenison~ Woods. That. I admit, was a veryadmirably-writtendocu­ment of the kind; but it was simply a lecture got up for the purpose of showing the people of Maryborough what valuable and extensive coal deposits exist in other parts of the world, and what they might possibly have on the Burrnm. But, although the reverend lecturer may have passed through B-nrrum, he nevm~ inspected any of the coal-pits, or examined the out­crops, n.nd could not have taken the trouble to read the public documents with regard to the coal deposits known to exist there. If the company is based on a foundation like that. I do not think that they a1·e build­ing upon a very sound basis. However, I chance to know something from personal examination of the Burrum Coal Field, and I can say that it is a very important and valuable one. There are no less than four seams of a workable character one beneath the other, and each of those seams will, I believe, produce somewhere about from 2,000 to 3,000 tons of coal per acre. That is about the quantity of available coal that can be got out per acre. bnt putting it down at only 2.000 tons, the vield from the four seams will be abotlt 8,000 tons per itcre. Then the company want to buy 1,000 acres of land at 30s. an ac1·e. The average value of lands which contain coal, as between private parties, is a royalty ot ls. per ton. Under these circumstances, I think the l'easonable value for the Burrnm coal lands-that is, for land known to contain coal, and allowing that you will have several years to collect the royalty-may be fairly put down at £200 an acre; and the company offer 30s. ! Even if it were worth £200 an acre, if we got the rall­way possibly we should not lose, so far as the public are conce-rned. But we have to look a little fnrthm·, and on referring to the 1st clause of the Bill we find-

'' 'The expression " undertaking" means the several lines of railway and branches, and all stations, wharves, buildings, erections, and works constructed by or neces­sary for the purposes of the company.

"'The exp1·ession "main line of1·ailway" means the line of railway from the junction with the }'[aryborough and Bu1•rum Railway.' "And so on. If we turn to clause 57, we find it provides:-

" 'At any time after the expiration of five years frmn the final completion of the railway the Governor in Council may purchase from the company the railway with the rolling-stock and all appurtenances thel'eof at a sum equal to the cost price of the sa-id railway with five pounds per annum calculated from the date of such final completion for every one hundred pounds of the said cost price added thereto, together with a sun1 equal to the then value of the said rolling-stock and appurtenances.'"

Now, he wished to draw particular attention to what the Hon. Mr. Gregory went on to say:-

"Power is given to purchase the railway; not the wharves." An attempt had been made to show that there was some resemblance between the Urangan and the Cooneana railway; but one ran to deep water and the other did not. He particularly pointed

Maryborough and Urangan [11 NovEMBER.] Railway Bill. 1521

that out, because it seemed to him that it would greatly assist in closing up immediately and summarily any further consideration o£ the Urangan railwn,y, The power of sale did not include a power to the Government to buy the wharves, and that was, in his opinion, very im­portant. :Mr. Gregory went on :-

H In the evidence we find that the railway is estimated to cost some\Yhere about £l20,0UO, and~ the \Vharves about £±5,00.J; bnt there is no provision \vlmteyer in the Bill gidng power to the Government to purcha-;e back the wharves. I understand that there is only a small narrow spacf', rrt the place in qur;;;tion, where ve,'3els can possibly come in; and the result lYill be that the company ·will secure absolute control of the position. If the railway is carried from l\Iaryborough to it, the place will, no doubt, 1Jecome the sea.pott of JUaryborough.''

That was a new term, but it was one he would recommend the members for JVIaryborongh to chew over. Mr. Gregory continued-" Steamers running up north will only call there in place of going up to :nary borough, and the company 'vill -pr~tetically have secured the seaport of ::Hary­borough, and will be able to impose any conditions they may think fit; and although it may be possible to resume the land by -;;pecial Act of Parlimncnt, as we can resume any other piece of ground that may be re<1nired for public purposes, still we should have to pay a tre­mendous big price for it, because the value of the property wonld De sho,vn to be something enormous. I therefore think it would be very unwise to throw a very important St>lport like that into the hands of a private comvany or syndicate."

He would not re\td any more from that gentle­man's speech, but would now read a little from what was said by the Hon. A. H. \Vilson, who followed closely on the lines of Mr. Gregory. In the course of his remarks Mr. \Vilson went a little further than Mr. Gregory, and spoke of the very smail portion of land at the end of the rail­way at the sea. He said:-

u I say again that we ought to be very careful how we deal with this matter. ''fit.h regard to the deep water frontages which have been referred to, there is, so far as I kno\v, only one, and that is at Lrangan, and I do not belicv.; the ~ength of it is l1alf-a-mile. Thr approaches to that frontage are in the hands of one person~a ]Jr. Corser. He holds the land, and there h:. nothing in tlle llill providing that the Government .shall ha Ye power to buy it at what it.cost. If the company make the wharf, as they intend, the Gov"'rmncni., may get the raihvay, bnt it will be of very little use to them, as they will not be ahle to purr.hasc the wharf. I think it should be provided in the Bill that the power to purchase shall extend to the wharf and water frontage. I do not wish to say anything furl her on the Bill; but I should like to set the 'vhole matter inquired into more thoroughly, because, in my opinion, it has not been sufficiently investigated. 'fhe only eYidence that has been taken is the evidence of interested per­sons. I think we ought to have had some evidence from disinterested persons."

When he read that he felt justified in opposing the Bill in all the proper ways known to him ; he decidedly thought it was a mce1sure which should not pass. The select committee had only examined one person, and he w:<s the very gen­tleman of whom Mr. A. H. \Vilson had spoken as not being a disinterested witness--namely, Mr. Rawlins. That gentleman had not got a very good record; he (Mr: Brookes) did not wish to say he had a bad record ; at all events, he had not a record good enough to warrant the Com­mittee in sanctioning the Bill on his evidence. Something had been said about promoters. They might just as well call things by their proper names, especially when they could do so without being abusive or using improper terms, and the hon, member for Cook, l'v1r. Lmnley Hill, was no doubt perfectly right when he said that ::\Ir. Raw­lins was from beginning to end merely a promoter. Another very significant circumstance was that the Maryborough people had backed out of the affair, and Mr. Rawlins had now applied to the London market. \V ere not some hon, members

1887-5A

pleased and some disgusted, according to the view they took of the matter, when they heard what the Premier had telegraphed to London caution­in~ investors there against bogus gold -mines? Now they found, strange to say, that when the Premier was in London somebody got hold of him and found him in a ~racions mood, as all colonials were when enjoying the hospitalities and blandishments of London, and the hem. gentleman said, "Yes, if you show your good faith in the matter, and give us reason to believe that you really intend to make this railway, I will support it." He (Mr. Brookes) could not understand that ; he did n<lt see that there was any difference between a '' wild- cat" gold-mine and a "wild-cat" coal-mine, except that in the former people soon found out their mistake, while in a coal-mine they might be kept hanging on in suspense, and pay­ing money for a very long time, not knowing whether the mine would eventually pay or not. He had, he thought, said something to show that he and other hon. members who opposed that measure had something to say for themselves, and quite enough to justify any divisions that might be called for. He trusted he would not have to bore the Committee, but his apology was one which was sufficient to stand for all time. The record would stand in favour of those who opposed the Bill, and would show that they were the only people who saw that the thin end of the wedge was being driven in, and that they did what they could' to avert the multitudinous and innnmera ble calamities which would come from allowing the gentlemen whose names were men­tioned in that report, and who were, as the ex­Colonial Treasurer had properly described them on the previous evening, " old foes with a new face," to acquire the privileges proposed to be conferred upon them by that Bill.

Mr. P AL::YIER said he could not see the con­nection between land-grant rail ways and the line proposed to be constructed ; he did not see why the question should be dmg·ged in in connec­tion with the Bill. The only connection there appeared to Le was that the names of the syndicate were the same as those of another syndicate which had made a certain proposal. He himself was in favour of land-grant railways, and the day would come when they would be very glad to get railways built on the land-grant prin­ciple, always provided that they were under proper conditions and control. The names of the syndi­cate seemed to frighten some hon. members, but all the harm they could do would be to the Maryborough folk, and the Maryborough folk themselves were satisfied. If there were such suspicious circumstances connected with the rail way, it was verv strange that they had not arisen before when the principal Act was going through the House. In that case the com­mittee brought up their report on the Bill, and if any blame was to attach to anyone it must be to the committee. The only matter which should be in dispute was the amount of the deposit. Any amount might be agreed upon, and that would be in addition to the amount already held in hand by the Government, and which they would confiscate if the thing fell through. The com­mittee had the principal Act before them and were simply asked to sanction, or advise, or recom­mend an extension of time for the cmrying out of the line under proper conditions and guaran­tees. They agreed to the original Bill in the first instance, and he failed to see that any suspicious circumstances had since arisen. They did not come out in the evidence at any rate, and the only point that could be objected to was that referring to the deposit not being made until the Bill had passed. That certainly came out plainly in the evidence, in question 41, but he thought that such conditions might be attached

1522 Maryborough and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Rail2vay Bill.

to the Bill as would make it inoperative until the deposit was actually in hand. There was this much to be s:tid in favour of an extension of time : that there was not the least probability of the Government building the line within the next twelve months, so that there was no pressing danger in granting an extension of time. Now, if the Government would not carry out the line, surely the company might be allowed the opportunity of doing so, and if they failed then the Govern­ment had the two deposits to fall back upon, because, in all probahility, no fnrther extension of time would be asked for. He saw no danger attaching to the passing of the Bill, so long as it contained the necessarY conditions to enforce the fulfilment of the bargain.

Mr. ANNEAR said he quite agreed with the hon. member who hac] just sat down that the pro­posed rail way could not be considered in any way a lrmd-grant railway. In the Transcontinental Railway Bill the proposal was to grant alternative ?locks of land, the company paying nothing for 1t. But the present was a very different proposal. It had also been stated that gre:1t delay had taken place, but he thought that conld easily be accounted for by the fact that a prime mover in the company-the, late Dr. Power-ha<l died. The hon. member for Townsville had referred to the fancy prices which were asked for land where a milway was about to be constructed. Of course they all knew that people did ask fancy prices when they knew of anything of the kind coming on. He \Vas aware o'f one person who wanted £20,000 for a block of land near the proposed rail way, but he believed that after­wards he came down to £6,000 for the same block. Another person he knew of had spent £20,000 on his land, and Mr .• J. Robinson had spent, he believed, £10,000onhis. Now, there was no great principle involved in the measure, so f:>Lr as he could see. He was of opinion that they could greatly improve upon the working of the State railways, and if they got a private company to carry out such aline. theywoulclsee the difference in manngemel't between the Government lines and private lines. He believed the construction of that line would be the means of letting peo];le know whether there was really any difference. There was another matter which should be pointed out. It was this : that the line would be in no sense a main line. It was not in the same position as the line from Maryborough to Howard, which it was at first proposed should be constructed by a private company, but permission for which the House very properly refused. It was a line that would lead to what might be called the Brighton of the Wide Bay district ; and not only the people of Maryhorough, bnt the people of Gympie used Pialba as their watering-place. He had heard h<m, mem­bers say that they considered 5 per cent. or 25 per cent. for the five years too much to pay on the money required to construct the line. Now, the whole of the land on both sides of the proposed line was, at the present time, Govern­ment land, and he believed he was right in say­ing that if the line was constructed the whole of that land would be enhanced in value by at least 20 per cent. The hon. member for Enoggera, the other day, in introducing the proposal to con­struct a railway in his electorate, used that argument, and said that the Government land through which the railway wonld pass would be considerably enhanced in value. He would point out that by clause 3, as amended by the committee, it was provided-

" That the company shall, before the completion of the railway or entering into poss:eR:3ion of the lands to be S'Jlectcd under the third section of the principal Act, and \Vithin fonr months from t.he passing of this Act, deposit in the Colonial Treasury a further sum of three thousand J;>Olmds, which said sum,

together with the moneys so previously deposited as aforesaid, shall be detained by the Treasurer as security for the dne com}lletion of the main line of railway, and upon such c.ompletion shall. together with the moneys so previously deposited as aforesaid, be returned to the company."

'Where would the loss of time be by giving that extended time to the company? The present Parliament was about to dissolve, and he sup­posed from thb present time it would be fully eight months before the new Parliament would assemble; and that being the cnse t.he company would have four months during which they could be at work on the line, if the Bill }:assed. If the Bill did not pass and hon. members considered that the Government should cnn­struct the line, it would be fnlly eighteen months before any commencement could be made with it. So th"t it would be seen that the passing of the Bill would not delay the construction of the line. The hon. member for North Brisbane said he looked upon the affair as a mere private specula­tion, but the time would no doubt come when they would consider it necessary to carry on many railways by private enterprise. He believed the whole of the railways in Great Britain were in the hamls of prh ate companies and not of the Government. The hon. member, speaking of the Burrum Coal Field, referred to "wild cats." A " wild cat," so far as he knew, was the floating of a company or mine on the market that did not turn out wha,t it was represented to be. 'fhere was no "wild cat " about the Burrum Coal Field. There was one company there which at the present time, and for the last two years, turned out on the average and sent to market 2,000 tons of coal per week, and another, the Torbanlea Company, turned out 1,200 tons per week. The report written on the field many years ago hy the Rev. Tenison­\Voods had turned ont to be correct in every particular. He agreed with the hon. member for Port Curtis that the whole of that land was coal land, and did not need prospecting.

Mr. NOR TON: I thought it had all been prospected.

Mr. ANNEAR said it was not prospected on the land referred to in the Bill, hut the land adjoining it had been prospected and two seams were got, one 4 feet 6 inches thick, and the other 4 feet 11 inches. He thought the company were fully entitled to the conces9ion asked for. They made the line without asking the Government for any money, and without any grant of land, but asked for the land stated on paying 30s. an acre for it. He hoped other hon. members would take the same view of the matter as he did. He did not think for a moment that he had anything like the experience of the hon. member for Townsville, and he was willing to be guided by those who knew more about the matter than he did himself. He might be one of the" soft heads," but he thought he had sufficient sense to follow the opinions and ideas of others and give way to men who knew more about a matter than he did. He believed the members of the committee, and notably Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Pal mer, were able to weigh the evidence carefully, and that they had done so ; and they evidently were satisfied with the bona .tides of the company; and he believed the promoters would carry out the bargain they would make with the country to the letter.

Mr. FOXTON said it must be borne in mind, in connection with what had fallen from hon. members as to the date when the deposit was to be paid, that the deposit was not the proposal of the present company, and by the Bill as prepared by their draftsman they only asked for the extension of time. The proposal for the deposit came from the select committee,

Maryborouga and Urangan [11 NovEMBER.] Railway Bill. 1523

Mr. 1'\0RTON: We want to know where the deposit was.

Mr. FOXTON said that other hon. members as well as he himself attached groat weight to what was said by Mr. Hart, who stated that the money was there all right. Mr. Rawlins had said that the syndicate were not prepared to deposit any­thing_in anticipation of the Bill being passed, but were quite willing to agree to anything, provided it did not cripple the affair. The com­mittee thought that 5 per cent. of the amount to be expended was a fair rleposit. The hon. mem­ber for Port Curtis had asked alJOut promoters' shares, and he was glad to hf1.ve the opportunity of answering that question, having since ob­tained the information. So far as he could learn there were no promoter~' shares. The 3,000 shares at £5 each were distributed in this way : They were distributed at their par value in pay.ment of debts due by the com­pany to prevrous members and others. That was to s>~y, the exact amount that had been paid into the company in cash by any member had been regarded as a claim on the company, and whatever sum a member of the company had paid in that way he took it back in shares at their full value. He could give the names of those who had such claims, and the amounts of their claims. They were as folio" :-Mr. Bnrrell, as trustee for one of the \Vilson Bros., £G2i5; ::\[r. Newton, also as a trustee, £1,250; .IYir. Benjamin £1,2,)0; Dr. Little, £GOO; Mr. Rawlins, £1,02.~; and the representatives of Dr. Power, £500. Those amounts, he was assured, were the sums which had actually been paid into the company in cash by those gentleman, or by those whose .representatives they were. That made somethmg over £5,000. There was also a sum of £7,500, which it appeared had to be paid to some brokers in England, and which they also took out in shares, making the total value of the share;; to be distributed among>'t those persons £12,500. He presumed that the balance from the £15,000 would remain to Mr. R>twlins, as he had undertaken ~he responsibility of getting rirl of all those clanns for the sum mentioned. The hon. member for North Brisbane appeared to state as one of his chief objecti<>ns to the Bill or to the concession asked for being granted, tl{>tt power was not given under the original Act to purchase the wharvrs. He unrlerstood, however, from the hon. member for Maryborough, J\Ir. Sheridan, who ought to know something about that locality, that there was ample Government land there, having a frontage to plenty of deep water, the Hon. A. C. Gregory's statei11ent to the contrary notwithstanding. That was contrary, certainly, to the evidence of .IYir. Gregory, as read by the hon. member for 1'\ orth )3risbane; but surely they coulclasnertain evidence m that Committee for themselves without h>tving to refer to speeches made in the Upper House. They had members in that Committee, such as the hon. member for Maryborough, Mr. Shericlan, who had a full knowledge of the place and could gi':e evidence which they must consider quite as rehable as any speechesmaf!e in the Upper House. \Vhy should the hon. member have gone to such a source for his information? If, instead of looking up .IYir. Gregory's S[;eech, and assuming from that that there was no power to purchase the wharves, because .IYir. Gregory said so-if, instead of that, he had turned to the 57th section of the prin­cipal Act, he would have found these words:-

"At any time after the expiration of five years from the final completion of the railwa~v and raihYa.\· wharf, the Governor in Council may purchase from the com­pany the railway aud railwiy wharf, with the rolling­stock an<l all other appurtenances thcrcon." That was a complete answer to the hon. member. The same hon. member made another remark, which, in his (Mr. Foxton's) opinion, was un-

worthy of him. The hon. member endeavoured to cast some stigma upon Mr. Rawlins, and wisherl the Concmittee to think that there was something wrong about that gentleman. That was an unfair way of attacking a man. Mr. Rawlins was a promoter. Somebody must promote a measure of that sort, and a promoter of a Bill vvas a recogni~::ed tenn in parliamentary practicP. Somebody must take it in hand and advocate it. If the capitalists connected with it were in Eng­land, they must be represented here by some­body, tend that somebody must unquestionably be paid for his snr vices in some way or other. To sneer at Mr. Rawlim, and say that he had not a goorl record, was not a fair way of attack­ing the Bill. He was perfectly preparerl to meet fair argument". Everything about the affair was, he was confident, perfectly fair and above­board. 'J'here was not a single figure or word in any correspondence, as far as he had been able to ascertain, which either Mr. Rawlins, or his principals, or anyone else, wished to keep back. The undertaking appeared to him (Mr. Foxton) a perfectly legitimate one ; the proposition came from men who were apparently well able to carry it out ; and it should be met with argument in an equally fair and reasonable manner.

Mr. NORTON said the hrm. member for Carnarvon had not met his objection as to the extra deposit which was requirei!. The select committee suggested that an additional deposit should he made, and the mere fact of their having done so ought to confirm hon. members in their determination t.hat it should be made before the Bill becnme law. If the company wished to show their bona fides in the matter-if they were anxious, as the Premier said they were, to get a job of making any railway in Queonsland-they should be very ready to make the extra deposit before the Bill went any further. They could be communic,ated with by cable­grari1, and no time would be lost. That was the proper position to take up-a position which the Committee, in regard to its own dignity, ought to take up. Why should they he befooled-if it were possible they should be befooled-by any­one after the passing of the Act? He used the word "befooled" advisedly. He used it before, in connection with the original Bill, and the hon. member for .IYfaryborough, :Mr. Annear, used the same word the other day in connec­tion with the present Bill. That hon. member had not told them why he had changed his opinion on the subject. Nothing had tran­spirei! before the select committee to induce him (Mr. Norton) to cha,nge his opinion. It was certainly not the evidence laid before the House that would lead him to do so. That hon. meml1er spoke very strongly in connection with the Bill the other clay. He said he expected that every member of the select committee would do his duty, and that he, as one of them, would try to do his. He (Mr. Norton) inferred from the hon. member's language and manner that he would consider it to be his duty to elicit everv particle of evidence which might throw doubt as b the bona fides of the transaction. But what evidence had they got? Forty-six questions and answers, and one witness examined, who, whatever his character might be-he was was not going to impute any improper motives­was simply a promoter whose business it was to get the Bill through by every means in his power, p<lEsihly even by "lobbying" hon. member.'<. He had been told that that harl been done, and he dii! not attach any blame to the promoter for doing what was by no means an uncommnn thing. That was all the fresh evidence before them, and it i!id not seem enongh to have so sud­denly converted the hon. member, iVIr. Anneal', from an opponent to a strong supporter of the Bill. No one, he thought, spoke more strongly

1524 Maryborough and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway BiU.

on the subject the other evening than the hon, member. The following waR a portion of what the hon. member said on that occasion :-

HI think the remarks of the hon. member for "\Vide Bay, Mr. Bailey, 'vere to the point. It is quite nece.:;­sary that this House should be on its gna.rd in dealing with this question. I ltnitc agree with the hon. member for Port Curtis, :J.Ir. Xorton, that this House and the country have been bcfoolcd by this company up to the present time. A measure of this kind was once before the House for the construction of a railway from ~faryborongh to IIowa..rd; the House in its wisdOm did not grant the concession askecl for by that 11l'iYate com­pany, and it 1vas our of the he·~t things, sir. that was ever done by the members or the Queens1nnd Parliament. I consider thnt it won1d be a bone of contention, and a great loss to the country, if that railw-ay were at the present time in the hancls of a 11rivatc company. This is a very importH-nt raihvay we are going to dis­CUF'l, and in connection with \Vhich this company is a~;king for an extension of time. \Vhen tlw original Bill was first intl·odnced the rail", ay was to be finishml within a certain time; that time expires on the 23rd December, and 1vhat do we see~ Xo etl'ort whatever has been made 11p to the present time to do Rnythiug in the \Vay of commencing the construction of this line, or to show that the company is 7Joncl fide in their inten­tions. They have got 1,000 acres of good coal land, which belongs; to the people of this colony, locked up between J.Iaryborough and Burrum."

The hon. gentleman went on to say he did not know whether they had got the title-deeds or not. One would naturally suppose that an hon. member who, lived in that district, and had been connected with it for some ye>ers, would, in speaking of the line, and comparing it with the Burrum line, have known how far the two cases were parallel. He now spoke of it as merely a branch line, but there was no evidence given before the select committee to show that it was n, branch line. The hon. gentleman must have formed his opinion C]Uite independent of that evidence. As he (:\<fr. Norton) had said before, however credible a witness Nir. R>tYclins might be, he could not fail to regard him as one who was deeply interested in getting that Bill passed. It was n, mutter of making a considerable amount of money to him. He (2'1Ir. Norton) certainly thought they shoulcl insist upon the recommen­datinn of the select committee, that the deposit should be paid before the Bill went any further. They would then know what they were doing, at any mte. They would have some regard for their own dignity and not be passing Acts of Parliament simply to give people, who did not carry out their agreement with the conntry, a ch>ence of making an agreement somehow with the company.

Mr. SHRRIDAN said his hon. friend, Mr. Brookes, the member for North Brisbane, had quoted copiously from the speeches made in the Upper Chamber by Mr. Gregory and Mr. \Vilson in the discussion that took place when that railway was first brought forward. Mr. Gregory was reported to have said that it was a narrow channel, and that there was insufficient room for more than one wharf. Now, he (Mr. Sheridan) discovered that channel when he was harbour-master of the port ; he was well acqnainted with it for a period of fnlly twenty­five years, and all he could say was that there was abundance of room for, he should say, half-a-dozen wharves; that the channel at the opening in rtnestion was fully half-a-mile wide, and that the distance from the fairway buoy to the place where the wharf was proposed to be made was something under nine miles. That he spoke from his own personal knowledge, having seen the place >end closely examined it. It was a place where a valuable shipping port could be made, where large ships would be able to lie alongside the projected wharf, and take away their cn,rgoes of that valuable commodity, Burrum coal. He had no doubt whatever about that. The evidence of Mr. \Vilson had also been quoted as

stating that the people were not in favour of the proposed line. He might mention that he had had a convvrsation with Mr. \Vilson, when that gentleman was in town three or four weeks ago, and the rcc;ult of it, as impressed upon his mind, was that all that was necessary now was that a substantial deposit should be made to prove the bona fides of the syndicate who proposed to build that railwuy. So fhr as that substantial deposit was concerned, he was entirely of Mr. \Vilson's way of thinking. It had ulso been sbted tlmt the Government did not hold any water front>ege at the place in question. He believed they did own n, very considemble water frontage there. He was not aware whether Mr. Corser owned any water frontage near the projected site of the wh>erf, bnt he knew that he owned some hind near it. Speaking of the coal trade, if they could not find consumption for it in the colony it was of very little value ; therefore, the great object should be to finrl a foreign market, and, truly speaking, he saw no better opportunity of establishing a foreign market than by pussing th>et Bill, so as to develop the illimitable coal deposits ttt the Burrum, and to take the coal to the shipping port so that it might be taken all over the world wherever that article was relJ.uired.

Mr. ANNE AR s.tid the hon. member for Port Cnrtis was quite correct ; he had stated every word the hon. member had uttered. He did not then know who the company were. He considered at that time that the old company was not in exi,;tence, but when the select com­mittee assembled wh>et did they find? They found this :-

" ::vrr. Hart handed in a letter of instructions to his firm to a-et ~b solictors in this matter for the Australian Transcontinental Syndicate. LLetler read-4ppendix C.]

"By }Ir. Fcrgnson: \.1-rho are the members of the board? Jjord Denbigh and "~illiam Dnncan, directors. rt'he members of the Australian Transcontinent:tl Rail­way Syndicate, who will be members of the Yernon Coal and Railway Company in I.~ondon, are-the lion. :J.:fajor­Gencral Feilding-, Lord Denbigh, 1\"illiam ::\Iects, of Jar­dille, ::uathc'5on, and Co., the Dukeof:1fanchester. Henry Campbell, 'ntliam llraby, ironmaster, and \Villiam Duncan, banker. The agreement wa"' made subject to cOntiruHt! ion by the company, a meeting of which was held on the 31st oi August last, at \Vhieh it was resolved decidedly to carry out the terms of the agreement." .\n agreement was produced before that com­mittee that had been entered into between those gentlemen and Mr. Rawlins.

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN: Did you read it?

Mr. ANNJ;;AR suid he read over every word of it, n,nd he believed every member of the com­mittee read it over ; it was also read over to them by the hon. member for Carnarvon, l'IIr. J<'oxton.

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN: Do you understand it?

Mr. ANNEAR : I understand it? Most de­cidedly.

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN: I do not. Mr. )\_NNEAR said Mr. Rawlins had to do

certuin things, and that agreement was signed by Lord Denbigh and Mr. vVilliam Duncan. That Wl'LS not in existence when the hon. member for Carnarvon first introduced that Bill. No. mem­ber of the committee knew anything about it until the committee had assembled, and then th>et evidence was placed before them. They then also leurnt that Mr. Hart, of the firm of Hart and }<'lower, was in communication with those gentle­men in London, as would be seen in Appen­dixR:-" COPY CABLEGRAM FRmi :JIESSHS. IlART AND FLOWER

to THE At'<:.TRALIAN THA.NSCOXTINJt~NTAL RAILWAY SY.l\DICATE.

"17th September, 1887. "Creditors and shareholders settled with under clause

1 of agreement,

1iiaryborougl~ and Urangctn [11 N OVEM:BER.] PailiiJay Bill. 1525

"Shares issued to Ra.wlins under clause 2 but lease not assigned for want of name of nominee.

n Rawlins has complied ·with clause 3. "The Government have agreed to support an exten­

sion, but will not take the matter up themi'lclvcs. "lYe require names of nominees of syndicate as

directors of Vernon company. ''Resolutions by next vast."

The reason that was placed before the commit­tee was, that it was thought better that every­thing should be in writin(l"-by letter rather than by telegram-and Mr. Hart spoke very plainly on the matter. He told the committee that it would take fully four months before he could get the money and be in a position to comply with what they required. He (Mr. Annear) was sure he spoke the feeling of every member nf that select committee when he stated that it was from the very earnest and truthful w:~y in which Mr. Iiart placed everything before them that they thoroughly believed what that gentleman stated, an cl that if the Bill pas~ed the work would be carried out. ·what difference did it make to them who brought money to the colony? 'l'hey wanted money brought here b,- private persons. \Yhy should they refuse c.tpital coming from London, from whatever gentlemen it might come? He had had contracts under General :Feilding before. That gentleman had spent a lot of money in Queensland, o,nd why should they not allow him and other8 an opportnpity of 8pending a lot more? Tho;;e were his reasons for changing his views since the question had been introduced that session.

Mr. J'\ORTON asked what wonld be the result in the event of the Bill ]Jassing, if the company did not pay the deposit within the four months ?

The PREMIJDR: The whole thing comes to an end.

Mr. NORTON said in that case they would have to wait four months before they knew whether the railway was going to be constructed. It was absurd that l:'arliame~t should lend itself to an arrangement of that kind. The select com­mittee advised with very great justice, and on very good grounds, that a certain deposit should be made. The first compo,ny that started had to mo,ke a dAposit, but notwithstanding that, they had done nothing. A great deal of time had eiap ,ed and the compo,ny had fallen to pieces-nothing being left of it except, he believed, the promoter and one shareholder. Now, wo,s it not r~a,;onahle to adopt the recommendation of the select com­mittee, and insist upon the further deposit being rm*'de at once-making that a c·Jndition of the passing of the Bill? A telegram to Engbnd would not cost much; it could be sent home to­morr~nv and the answer received at any rate by the trmc: the House met again, and then the hon. member in charge of the Bill would be in "' posi­tion to inflJrm the Committee whether those people were as anxiou" o,s the Premier said they were, to get the construction of"' railway "omc­where in Queensland. If they were, they would readily arrange for the required clepoBit. He took that st'lnd becau"e he was one of thoue who stood out against the first handing over of the Burrmu line to a private compally. The Bill on that occasion was allowed to pass the second reading with very little objection, but by the time it got into committee hon. members had perhaps inquired into the matter more closely, and "' very decided stand was made against it. He thought no hon. member would venture to so,y now that the hon. members who set their faces against it then were not right. It wo,:; chiefly because circumstances since then had shown that they were perfectly justified in the action they took on that occasion, that he now felt bound to use his strongest efforts to induce hon. members to consider those things fully before the measure

before them went any further. If the deposit were made he did not see any reason why there should be any further delay in passing the Bill through committee, unless some other serious objection, which he did not anticipate, arose in the meantime.

tl>Ir. GRIMES said it harl been contended that that railway was not a land-grant railway in any sense of the term. Pel'!mps it did not fnllow the lines of the land-grant railwo,y as proposed by the Transcontinental Syndicate, but he held that it was a hind-grant railway if the acquire­ment of land wo,s an inducement to build the railway, whether the land was at one end or in alternate blocks along the line. It had been very plainly shown tho,t the grant of coo,] land was the inducement to the company to build the railway. If they turned to question62 of the evidence, taken before the select committee in 1884, they would find that plainly stated by Mr. Hav,lill8 :-

"Can you say \Vbether the company are prepared to carry out the scheme 'v1t.hout tlw option of purchasing the 1,000 acres of land in the Bnrrum ralhvay scheme. mentioned lu clause 3 of tlle Bill? Xo; \Ve would not be, certainly. I do not kno1v where the coal is to be got from, to begin with. I am not going to give £·.1<0,000 for a block of land~of auybo1:ly else's money."

That clearly proved that the gr.<tnt of land was the consideration, without which they would not think of going on with the rail way. Several hon. members had referred to it o,s no concession at all ; but would they say that 30s. an acre was a fair price for coal lands ? It was not a selec­tion made anywhere; they hac! time given them previous to the selection of the land to prove the land by putting down bores; o,nd they were not likely to take up those 1, 000 ::teres without there was "' good seam of coal on it. In fact, that was shown by l\lr. Raw !ins's replies to questions 74 and 75 in the evidence before the committee in 1884:-

" Then Uo Yon reserve the right of selecting or apply­ing for any rlart of that reserve? Yes; onl~· I .shall have to take it in one block of 1,000 acres, or m one of BGO acres and a second of 40 acres.

"By .Jlr. Grime:::: I suppose, after proving or testing the bronud r I do not ":ay that. But, of course, I Uo uot want to go boring the ground, or anyone else. I know where to gc., and \vhere I can get coal. I shall apply for land where I c'ln get coal. I know where coal occurs three miks a\vay from the railway-! c::m g \vithin a lllile of where I can get it. I l\now the kind of seams I :shall be able Lo work. Of course I slwulcl not like t,o declare vositively \VlJCre I am going, bnt I will show you :, ~soon as I can where it is."

. It was evident that Mr. lio,wlins was intimately acquo,inted with the nature of that ground, and he knew the exact spot to go and select that 1, 000 acres; and it would not be 1, 000 acres of unbroken ground that he would choose, but 1,000 >~cres of tested coal land. The evidence also gave them some idea of the value of a coal-seam. lVIr. Ro,wlins said in his evidence that a four-feet coal-seam would produce G,OOO tons of coal to the acre, and he also said that in the Burrum, near the same rec;ene, some seams were let at a royalty of 1s. per ton. It would be a \ ery easy matter to calculate the Yalue of lands of that nature. 'l'hirty shillings per acre was a mere bagatelle compared with the vo,lue of the hind really. It would be very plainly seen that the acqui<.ition of 1,000 acres of land was a strong inducement to build the railway. He wanted the Committee to remember that the strong inducement that led the first committee to recommend tho,t the Bill should be accepted and lJassed wo,s the understanding they h>~d with Mr. Rawlins tlmt the compo,ny would erect smelting works npon the line and deal with refractory ores raised in the district. They must also bear in mind that theywerenotnow dealing with the same com­pany. They had no guarantee whatever that they

11526 Maryborough and tlrangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bill.

would carry out that part of the scheme. It was plain from the evidence that they had before them that it was the Victorian portion of the syndicate who were prepared to engage in that kind of work. Now, they found from the evidence taken by the later committee that th<1t portion of the syndicate had withdrawn from it altogether; so that they were now treating with sim]Jly a railway syndicate which was in no way bound to carry out the proposals of the former company in reference to those smelting works. \Vlmt was the inducement to that syndicate to carry out the rail way ? It was simply to enhance the value of the land in the neigh­bourhood of the terminus, or at that water­ing-place. They knew from the evidence given them in a former inquiry that although the syndicate did not own much land in the neighbourhood, they did own some, but while they did not as a syndicate own so much, the shareholders individually held large portions of land in the neighbourhood of the terminus, and there was no doubt that the land at the other end of the line w"'s also an inducement to build the railway-so that if the projecte~t one end did not pay they would get something out of it by the enhanced value of the property at the other end. They could obtain information regarding that from Mr. Harrington's evidence on page 28:-

"By )fr. Ferguson: \Voulcl not this point of junction [indicating it on the map], a mile and a-half fron1Polson, bring the railway near enough to encourage people to build there? It would not.

''You think it would not? It'You1d be a vast improve­ment on the present state of things. I shonld like to say afew\vordson this question, since you have broached it :-'l'he line is to be made to fix a very great valne on the property of the directors which h; owned further on, to the detriment of the Government township.

"By the Chairman: What property <la you allude to, Mr. Harrington? I allude to the property 'vhich the directors, or persons interested, have purchased from a man named Hunter.

"Could you say who they are? Yes.

"1Yould you kindly tell ns? Dr. Pm.vcr, Dr. Little, ~Ir. J. R. Baxter-Bruce, and Mr. C. C. Rawlins."

Now, if they turned again to some of the evidence given before the later committee, they would find that some of those individcwls were still interested in the company. In the report there was a memo. of a meeting held, to accept what had been done by Mr. Rawlins. They found among those who attended as shareholders in the company the names of Dr. Little, C. C. Rawlins, ,J oseph Benjitmin, ltichard Newton on behalf of Robert Wilson, and R. B. Echlin. He (Mr. Grimes) wa" a member of the first committee and voted against a renewal of the time, because he felt they were sold by 1\Ir. Rawlins on the first committee. :From information he had received since, he believed that it was nothing but a scheme to enhance the value of the ]Jroperty near the proposed terminus and enable the promoters to get a large profit out of that land. He be­lieved, from information he had receiYed, that the object had been attained in some measure, and they had not gone on with the arrangement. He thought that if the Bill passed now, and they received an extension of time, and the rail way was built, it would be built under false pretences ; it would not be built with the same idea that the introducers of the Bill had in view when it was first introduced into Parliament-namely, the erection of smelting works on the line of railway, so as to get the advantages of cheaper coal. That seemed to be dropped now entirely, and it would be well, before the House granted the extension of time to allow them to get back their £2,000, to pause and consider the situation,

:Mr. L uMLEY HILL said he could not understand the arguments of those who said it was not a land-grant rail way. It was as plain as possible to him that if the conntry was going to give away land which, according to the late Surveyor-General, who was well known to be an authority on such points, might be worth £200 or £300 an (tCre, for 30s. an acre, that would be just as bad as giving to the same company thouands of acre.; of hind worth 6s. an acre for nothing. He was immensely surprised at the Minister for \Vorks, who had always advocated preserving the lands for posterity-in fact, t?e nationalise,tion of the land-supporting the rail­way ; and he hoped before it was too late the hon. member would repent and go back into the true Georgian fold. A good deal of additional light had been thrown upon the matter by the refe­rences which had been made to the evi­dence taken before the original committee; but he noticed that the recent committee performed their work in a most perfunctory manner. There was one sitting at which two witnPsses were examined and forty-six que_Jtions asked ; and on the strength of that they had brought up a report and recommended that bar"ain or job. A great deal more light might ha'~ been thrown on the matter if the committee had ascertained, among other things, why the Melbourne shareholders had backed out.

Mr. Mc1IASTER : We did. Mr. L UMLEY HILL : You had a reason

assigned, but it was not the true reason. Mr. 1\Ic:YIASTEH: It was. Mr. L UMLEY HILL: I will tell you the

true reason. Mr. P ATTISON rose to a point of order. The

discussion hnd taken the form of a personal altercation.

The CHAIRMAN snid the hon. member for Cook, Mr. Hill, must address the Chair.

Mr. LUl\ILEY HILL said it was owing to the unseemly interruptions of the hon. member for J<'ortitude V alley, Mr. Mc:Master, that the hon. member for Blackall had found nn oppor­tunity to interfere in that authoritative manner, which he acquired in perlmps a higher sphere­namely, the Gog:>ngo Divisional Board. The rear,c)n the JHelbourne. shareholders had backed out wtts because a gentleman named E. B. Corser, who had 400 or :'lOO acres at the Urangan Point, wanted £20,000 in the first place for his share of the plunder, and he could not bfl done without becctuse he hnd deep-water frontage, or was very contiguous to it. He had the key of the situation; and they thought he was g·oing in for too big a shnre of the plunder. That was the real reason why the :\lelbourne shareholders backed out. He had gained a good deal of infor· mation on the subject, and he beliered the syndicate would acquire not only the terminus of a main line-the Brisbane, l\Iaryborough, and Gym pie line-but would also acquire a seaport and watering-place all in one, to say nothing of 1,000 acres of very valuable coal lands capable nf turning out G,OOO tons of con! to the acre. They would acquire all that for an expenditure of £120,000, and he did not think that was n fair thing at all. Even the members for ::Yiaryborough might be content to wait until .Parliament was in a position to make that rail way at the expense of the country. He did not think it would be very long before that time came ; and they need not be so hungry and grasping as to risk the first principles which the country at large had enunciated to them at the last election, for the sake of accelerating the progress of a railway by one year, or perhaps two. Prosperous seasons and good times were now returning ; and the

[11 NovEMBER.] Railway Bill. 1527

Government were perfectly capable of making any railways that could be shown to be likely to pay. It was because they were not in the least likely to pay, either directly or indirectly, that he had opposed some lines that had been brought forward recently; but whenever it could be demonstrated that there was a chance uf a railway paying decent interest on its cost, he should always give it his cordial support. If U rang an turned out to be half as goocl a harbour as it was described to be by the hon. member for :Maryborough, Mr. Sheridan, it might be greatly to the detriment of the interests of the inhabi­tants of Maryborough to have that port estab­lished and opened, more especially if it were in the hands of a private company. He hoped hon. members would seriously reconsider the position they took up when they passed the <,econd reading of the Bill on the previous day by such a large majority. A great deal had come to their knowledge which was not before them hitherto, chiefly owing to the very perfunctory way in which the recent committee had done their work. He deprecated those kinds of Bills being brought up in that way by professional gentlemen who were members of that Committee. That was the worst of havin;; lawyers in Parlia­ment. He alway" objected to that; they were always on for a job; they took a· bnef--

Mr. FOXTON said he rose to a point of order. He did not wish to interrupt the hon. member, but he thought his remarks we1·e insulting. \Vhen the hon. member applied to him the words that he (Mr. J<'oxton) had taken a brief on that matter, and that he was performing a job, he thought hon. members would support him in calling the hon. member to order. He had every respect for the hon. member, but certainly thought he was justified in asking him to desist from the observations he was making.

The CHAIRMAN said he did not understand the hon. member for Cook to make any personal application of his remarks. It was very desirable that hon. members should refrain from making observations that were offensive to other mem­bers of the Committee.

Mr. LUl\ILEY HILL said he did not make any personal applic&tion of his remarks-only a professional application. He had not the slightest intention of hurting the feelings of the hon. n1en1ber for Oarnarvnn, who, of course, rnerely followed the business of his craft or profession-­the hon. member conkl not divest himself of it. Nevertheless those Bills brought up in that kind of w"y by that sort of a committee were most exceed­ing·ly objectionable, especially when the evidence was taken in a sort of c::tsual way. He would certainly oppose every clause of the Bill, and would have occasion to refer to them more at length at some future time.

Mr. ADAMS said it had not been his intention to ~"'Y anything with reference to that measure until he heard what had fallen from several hon. mem­bers on both sides of the Committee. He looked at the matter from a different point of view from that of many hon. members. If there was any fault at all with regard to the proposals for that railway, the fault was in p:>ssing the first Bill. They could not get away from the fact that it was a land-grant railway. It did nut matter whether they gaye a syndicate 1,000 or 100,000 acres, it came to the smne thing·; it was a land-grant railway to all intents and pur­poses. \Vould an outsider be allowed the oppor­tunity of taking U]J 1,000 acres of coal land any­where else like that to be selected l::y the syndicate at 30s. an acre? He did not think anyone in the colony would get the chance to purchase coal land, or any land that would be as profitable, at the price the syndicate were to give for those

coal lands on the Burrum. An Act was passed last session to amend the law relating to coal lands, and by that statute it was provided that-

" 'I' he Ycarl Y rent of land leased for the purpose of mining for e()al .::;hull, instead of being at the rate of l>ls. ver aerc a:-; ]Jrovidcd by the principal Act, be at the rate or tid. per acre, and there ~hall also be rese1·ved in the lease a royalty at the rate of 3<1. for every ton of coal raised frotn the land dnring the first ten years of ihe tel'ln of the lease, and at the rate of 6d. for every ton raised during the remainder of the term."

There was no doubt in his mind that the pro­posed line was a land-grant railway, and, as had been pointed out in the evidence taken on a previous occasion, if it were not for those coal lands the railway would never have been pro­posed by the coinpany. The Premier said the transcontinental railway was a national line, and not like that one, which was only a branch line. He (Mr. Adams) considered that the arguments which applied to that line applied to any other lines that might be constructed in the colony of Queensland. Let them look at the facts of the matter. He would be extremely sorry to vote against the m em hers for l\1aryborough, or any other hon. member, if he saw that what they were advocating was for the benefit of the colony generally. It had been stated that the construc­tion of that line would injure :Maryborough; he believed it would, but if the people of Mary­borough were satisfieil, he was perfectly satis­fied. The railway was called a branch line, but it branched off the main line some seven miles from Maryborough, and where did it go? It went to deep water ; at least, they were told so, and he did not dispute the fact. He had been on the coast there, and he knew that there was deep water at places. He also knew that when the tide was out they could walk on the beach for two or three miles at a place c'tlled l'ialba, which was only a mile and a-half from Urangan. If the railway were brought to deep water ships would unload their cargoes. At the ]ll'C'ent time large ships coming from the old country could not discharge their cargoes atl\Iary­horough.

l\Ir. ANNEAR: They can come up to l\Iary­horough. Ships drawing twenty feet of water come up.

l\Ir. AD Al\IS said if that was the case why did they want a milway to take their coals to deep water? He had seen l\1aryborough perhaps before many hrm. members in that Committee. He was in JVIaryborough in 1853. A short time after it was established there was a cry got up that they wanted to get nearer to deep water, and the consequence was that the Government of the day were induced to survey a township, which was called Bingham. There was a great noise made about that township, and allotments were bought at £100 for a quarter of an acre ; now they could buy the whole township for £100. As he had already said, if that railway were made, large ships would not lighter and take their goods up the river to l\Iaryborough, hut would load them at the Urangan wharf. If machinery and large goods were brought for Gympie, ~hey would be landed at that wharf and sent strmght away by the railway, because people would not care to have them handled two or three times. 'fherefore, he believed that the line would injure l\Iaryborough considerably. But wh~t they had to consider was, would it benefit the country? The line would terminate at deep water, so that he could not see how they could bring it in as a branch line. It was wrong to pass the first Dill, and two wrongs did not make a right. He thought they would do wrong in passing that Bill. It was said that the syndicate were prepared to put down an extra £3,000; but would they do that? \Vhat guarantee had the Committee that that would be done? He

1528 Maryhorougl~ and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bill.

had looked carefully through the evidence, but could not see that there was any guarantee. The money might or might not be paid. He thought the evidence disclosed that fact. There was a question asked by the member for Fortitude V alley :--

"You have no objection to make an additional deposit before this Bill is pas...,ed ? 'fhere is now £2,()00 deposited ~ts security i.n the 'rreasury? 'l'llere is £2,600 in the hands of the Government. What I thought of was this"-It was only a thought ; it was not £tated as a positive fact-" Say, if this Bill is passed, before we can do anything for the const::·uction of the line, we n1ust deposit a certain sum of money. I cannot get the syndicate to deposit anything in anticipation of the Bill, but I am quite quite willing to agree to anything, provided it does not cripple them." Now, the gentleman who gave that evidence distinctly stated that he could not get the syndicate to deposit the money until the Bill was passed. They wanted some guarantee, and he (Mr. Adams) thought the Committee should have some guarantee before they passed the Bill. If the money was forthcoming he did not think there would be the slightest trouble in getting the Bill through the House, and, as he had said, if there was any wrong-doing it was in agreeing to the previous Bill. He would go a little further. The same gentleman in his evidence said:-

" We do nothing until we know that we are safe-that is, until the syndicate know they are safe in investing money by getting the extension of time now sought for.H

Well, if that was so, why should the Committee do anything until it knew it was safe?

Mr. FOXTON: Whatriskdoesthe Committee run?

Mr. ADAMS said he was not present when the first Bill passed. Then, the next question was:-

"And then, probably, a cable will be sent out? And the answer to that was simply "Yes." He did not say it would be, but that it was probable, Then the evidence went on :-

" lVIr. Hart, in his statement before the committee, which is not in evidence, told us that the money will not be sent out, will not be available, until the syndi­cate know the Bill is passed? Oh ! no. The money will not be, until they know the Bill is passed :-as they would not subscribe." Well, they had not subscribed yet. The com­pany was not formed, and how did they know that the money would be subscribed if the Bill was passed? How did they know they were not throwing away the time of the country in dis­Cllssing the Bill ?

Mr. ANNEAR : Read the next one. Mr. ADAMS said he would. He was always

willing to learn, "By Mr. ~:le Master: But, within a reasonahle time, or

within two months, afterwards, the syndicate or com­pany will be vrepared to remit funds for the commen­cing of the work and for the deposit? Yes." But previous to that he told them that they would not subscribe until the Bill was passed. He thought the Committee should be in possession of more information before discussing the subject further. As he had said, he should be extremely sorry to oppose anything which would be a benefit to the Maryborough district or any other portion of the colony, but he certainly expected a little more information before he could vote for the Bill.

Mr. NOR TON said he thought the Committee was indebted to the hon. member for Oxley for having thrown a new light on the subject. He understood the hon. gentleman to say that owners of land at U rang an looked forward to the passing of the Bill, so that they might sell

their properties. He (Mr. Norton) thought that was very probable, and the gentlemen referred to were not the only men of property down there. There were others who were equally anxious to see the value oftheir land enhanced by the construction of a railway to Urangan Point. Now, unless they insisted upon the deposit being paid, the scheme suggested by the member for Oxley would be carried out, and the whole thing allowed to drop. If they did not insist upon smne guarantee, land would be subdivided, and put up to auction on the strength of the railwity which was about to be constructed. Let him warn members of the Committee of what had taken place before, and let him warn the Government against coun­tenancing an action which might have that result. Hon. members would remember that not very long ago some officers connected with the Har­bours and Rivers Department were allowed to go down the Brisbane river a few miles and take soundings at a place that was talked about as the spot where a magnificent bridge was going to be erected across the river. They had not for­gotten that those officers were allowed to go down, take bearings and soundings, and there was a grand declaration that that splendid bridge was to be erected across the river, under which the largest vessels would be able to pass. VI ell, shortly after that there were some land sales about there, and the land was sold at enormous prices. He remembered that the late member for Fortitude Valley, Mr. Beattie, spoke at that time in words of con­demnation-and, he thought, justly so-of the sales which were being made aud the high prices which were obtained in consequence of the report that a bridge was going to be erected across the river. By their action the Government unwit­tingly, perhaps, in allowing their officers to go down and take soundings and do the preliminary work, aided the people who did not intend to build the bridge, but who wanted to sell their land, in getting at the public. There was no doubt that, in consequence of the report that a bridge was going to be constructed over the Brisbane River at that point, the land attained twice the value that it ought to have had in the market at the time.

Mr. FOXTON : It has gone on increasing in valu~ ever since.

Mr. NOR TON said, at all events, it fetched a great deal more than the market value at the time, and the result was that the owners of the land were extremely successful in their sales. Hon. members should bear that case in mind, and he thought that they should panse before they passed the Bill, because if the intention of the promoters was to sell land, and not construct the rail way, the persons who bought the land would be swindled. He did not mean to say that was what was going to happen in the present case, but it was possible, and the Committee should be specially guarded in matters of that kind after the warning they had had already. The evidence submitted by the select committee in the present instance was that of only one wit­ness, and he would ask how the state­ments of that witness to the original com­mittee had been fulfilled? He did not say that man was imposing upon them, for he was simply carrying out a business trans­action, it being his business to get the concessions which the syndicate wanted. What he said was that evidence of that kind when taken, and found after experience not to be reliable, ought to be received with very great caution indeed. He especially took note of the observa­tions made by the hon. member for Oxley, because they suggested a means by which designing persons might, if they got that concession, take advantage of the general public,

Maryborougk and Urangan [11 NOVEMBER. J Railway Bill. 1529

and extract money from them by selling the land on the understanding that the line was to be constructed, when it might not be con­structed at all. J<~ven if the Bill passed, and the company, fully intending to comtruct the line, sold that land at high prices, and then failed to carry on the line through any mishap, that House would be responsible to any unfortunate people who might have purchased the land at very high prices.

The PREMIER: The remedy for that would be to shorten the time from four months to one month.

Mr. NORTON said the proper remedy for it would be to shorten the time to one week, and he was of opinion that they should insist on the deposit before the Bill was allowed to pass. That Committee would then, at least, be acting fairly to the public and to themselves.

Mr. GRIMES said he would just mention, as a strange coincidence, that the very person whose name was so prominent in connection with the bogus bridge was actually one of the members of that syndicate. At a meeting held on the 1st August he found that Mr. Richard Newton attended the meeting as trustee in the insolvent estate of Mr. Robert Wilson.

Mr. ANNEAR said the hon. member ignored the fact that the present was a new company. It mig·ht not be known to hon. members, but one of the members of the company hac\ already spent between £30,000 and £40,000 in the colony. That was General Feilding, who, he believed, had spent every shilling of £40,000 in the Wide Bay district in developing the sugar industry.

Mr. NORTON: What has that got to do with it?

Mr. ANNEAR said it showed the company was not a bogus company, and that the new names added to the company were sufficient proof of its bona fides, and that the company would do what they proposed.

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN: What do you know about it?

Mr. ANNEAR said he believed they would. If the country had to build the railway it could not be done within the next twelve months, and if they passed the .Bill, and the company did not commence the !me at all, no loss whatever could accrue to the country. He was very much surprised to hear the speech made by the hon. member for Mulgrave. HB was sur­prised to find a man who had lived for so long in Maryborough know so little about it. Twelve years ago, before there had been any dredging done, he had seen a ship called the "Highflyer," drawing eighteen feet of water, go up to :Maryborough.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL: You are a bit of a high flyer.

Mr. ANNEAR said he was like the member for Carnarvon, he respected the junior member for Cook very much, and he sug·gested that that h(m. member should adopt a new mode of deliver­ing his speeches. He had heard that the hon. member was a splendid singer, and it would be ever so much nicer if he would sing his speeches instead of delivering them in the monotonous way he did. The hon. member for Port Curtis had referred to the bridge projected down the Brisbane River, but there was no parallel between that and the. present question. There would be a large passenger traffic on the line if it was constructed, as all the country was settled, and the people of Maryborough, Gympie, and the Wide Bay district would use Pialba as a watering­place. He had not seen any place in Queens­land or in the colonies that would excel Pialba as a watering-place. He did not wish to assist in

the stonewalling, but felt it necessary to reply to some of the remarks that had been made. It had been said that the matter had been got up so that people might be induced to purchase the land which would be secured. Did they not know that large purchases of land were made along ·the route of the Cleveland line, in the hope of being able to sell it if one were built? Did they not know that the hon. member for Cook, :Mr. Hill, bought a lot of that land, and had not the hon. member gone to Normanton the other day and purchased a lot of land up there? Had the hon. member done that in the belief that railways would not be made at those places? Certainly not. The hon. member had bought that land because he was certain the rail way would be made. He would like to know how it would be possible for the company to sell the land at Pialba within the next four months. The rail­way would have to be a fact before the people would buy the land there.

The HoN. J. JVI. MACROSSAN said he was inclined to think that the members for lVIary­borough on the present question did not exactly represent their constituents. He knew that the people of Marybnrough were extremely anxious to get a rail way to Pialba; but he did not think they were so anxious to have one made to Urangan. It was useless to say that U rangan would not be a competing port with Maryborough. One of the advantages pointed out by the promoters of the syndicate was that they would get the trade that now went to Maryborough, and he could n8t understand how persons having vested interests in Mary· borough could support such a measure. That was why he said he did not believe the members for Maryborough represented their constituencies on that question. The hon. mem­ber talked about stonewalling. He hoped the hon. member did not think they were stone· walling. They were simply trying to elicit information about the Bill, and they were getting it as they went along. Scarcely an hon. member spoke who did not say something new on the subject. He had something new to say on the question now. He did not know >¥hether hon. members had read Appendix A, attached to the report of the select committee ; if they had not, he would strongly recommend them to read it. He would read one paragraph, which would, no doubt, be new to some hon. members. The document was headed, ".Main Features of the V ernon Coal and Railway Company, Limited," and it showed the advantages which would be derived by that syndicate or company from the making of the railway.

1\'Ir. FOXTON : It is a kind of prospectus. 'l'he HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN said that in

that prospectus there was a paragraph headed, "Land Purchases and Sales." They had heard a good deal about the railway being a land-grant railway, and about its not being a land-grant rail­way. He did n0t oppose it on either of those grounds. His opposition to it, as he had said, was based on his belief that they were deceived in the first instance. As the hon. member, Mr. Annear, said when the motion for the select committee was before the House, the House had been "befooled," and he (Mr. Macrossan) opposed the present Bill because he did not want the House to be befooled any longer. The paragraph to which he referred was as follows :--

,; Lancl Purchases and Sales.-This question is one of the most attractive features of the scheme. It has been found that all land near the seaboard, with a rail~ way running into it from the interior, in any of the Australian colonies, has always become immediately very valuable, as much as £250 to £300 a foot having been actually paid for land in Townsville, Rockhampton, and N ewcastlc, and it has been estimated that the

1530 Mm·yborough and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bill.

resale of the Urangan Point land will eventually pay the whole cost of the line. 'rhere is one block of 1,190 acres \Vithin a quarter of a mile of the \Yharf, \Yhicll can .be purchased at from £5 to £8 an acre, if very cautwusly ma,nagcd."

If it was not a land-grant railway, it was most certrdnly t? be " bud-sale milway. Before resummg h1s seat, he would ask the hun. member in charg-e of the Bill if he would explain clauses fi and 7 of Appendix B, which was the agreement entered intr: between 1fr. Rawlins and the syndi­cate. To hun they seemed -:ery puzzling, and if they were thoroughly explamed, hon. members would have a better idea of the relations between the old company and the new one.

Mr. FOX TON said that clause 5 especially was very puzzling; and, in fact, he had never seen a more obscure clause imported into any agreement. But he had been informed that all the parties to the agreement understood it, and as long as they understood what it meant, it was not necessary for anybody else to inquire.

The Ho~. J. lVI. MACB,OSSAN: It is very necessary.

Mr. FOXTON said the paragraph was as follows:-

" 5. The said Charles Champion Rawlins shall procure from the exi:o;ting directors and shr1reholders of the company a binding agreement with the syndicate to do tile follov1ring. things :-(a) 'ro issue forty-seven thou­sand shares 111 the company to the syndicate or its nominees.

"(b) 'ro procure the nominees of the syndicate to be forthwith appointed directors of the company in the p~ace of or in addition to any or all of the present duectors. (c) To cause all such alterations to be made in the article..;; of association of the company as the syndicate may require."

That was all plain enough, but between (a) and (b) was the following, which w~ts somewhat obscure:-

" In consideration of the syndicate agreeing, as it hereby agrees to give, its services in placing and pro­curing subscriptions for the balance of the share capital of the company, and taking the contract to construct the line authorised by the Companies Colonial Act of Parliament, such sh~~rcs, or the proceeds tllereof, to be treated as part payment and on account of the contract yrice of the said line, if undertalmn, such shares to be deemed 1ully paid, and not to involve any liability 011 the part of the syndicate.''

The question arose, what was the~ balance of the share capital? Deducting 47,000 Bhares from 50,000 left a balance of 3,000, which Mr. Hawlins and others had got between them. But he was assured that they considered the reverse was the case, and that 47,000 shares was the balance. The agreement, he understoo::l, was of ~Mr. Kimber's drawing, and as long as he and the company understood it so, it was all right. They practically took over 47,000 shares, and found the money. The obscurity aro~e from the fact of its beiHg spoken of as the balance of the share capital.

The Ho~. J. M. 1\IACROSSAK: Then the syndicate become the company by having these 47,000 shares?

Mr. FOXTON said the syndicate practically controlled the company, and really held the shares as the security for the money, and, assuming the shares to be at par value, they would be worth £235,000. The compan;r still continued, but the syndicate held an enormous majority of the shares and of the control.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL said there were one or two other paragraphs in Appendix A, on which he should like some explanation. The first

"Dutu on Imports.-The Act obtained overrides the Queensland tariff, and llermits the importation duty free, of all rolling-stock,Rnd every description of material l'Cqnired for the construction of the line."

He wanted to know if that was a true and correct interpretation of the Act? If it was, did they want another Act of the kind to override their Queensland tariff? He should like to know very much about that. They bad been told that that land was utterly worthless; that it was not worth 30s. an acre, and that the company were paying dear for it at that price; but what wtts the statement in the prospectus 01: advertisement?-

" rpfle 1,000-acr-e block.-'rhis grant, purchasable by the Company's Act from the Government at 30s. per acre, adjoins tlle Torbanlea Colliery and contains seven seams of coal which crop 011 the estate." They had been told that land was not worth 30s. an acre, and yet there were seven seams of coal in it. That statement was true or it was not. If it was true, the land was worth from £300 to £400 an acre ; if it was untrue, that Committee were lending themselves to bamboozle the British public and g-et them to invest on a thing that was a fraud-a bogus affttir altogether. \V as that likely to do any good to the colony or to Maryborough either? Heference had been made by the hon. senior member for Maryborough, J\Ir. Annear, who appeared very enthusiastic over the job, to certain land that he (Mr. Hill) possessed at Cleveland, at K ormanton, and even Brisbane itself. He admitted the soft impeachment. He had land, but the little he had-he did not believe he owned lOO acres of freehold all over the colony-he had bought at public auction or second-hand from the State. He had never acquired any of it by bringing in bogus Bills, or by taking advantage of bogus Bills when they were brought in. The more they went into the Bill the worse it seemed to him. He had certainly not the slightest intention of allowing it to go through if he could possibly help it. He thought it would be a very bad job for the colony in general if they allowed that thin end of the wedge to get in, and he. should like to hear the opinion of the Minister for 1-Vorks, after all the revelations that had been made. He had noticed that that hon. gentleman had not been so much in his seat during the di~cnssion of the Bill as usual. He had kept pretty clear of it, and as his opinions expressed on the second reading of the Bill were so directly opposed to his previous enunciations, he should like the hon. gentleman to explain how the principle of the Bill agreed with his Georgian theorie,. He would certainly like some explanation why the hon. gentleman's views had so utterly changed. The hon. gentleman could generally give expression to his opinions. Sometimes he (Mr. Hill) agreed with them ; at other times he disagreed with them very much. He did think that, on the present occttsion, the hon. g·entleman had laid himself open to a charge of inconsistency, and he should like to hear some explanation from him as to why he h:td abandoned his principles of the nationalisation of the htnd, and why he was prepared to hand over that block of 1,000 acres at 30s. per acre to a lot of promoters of a company. If that land was as ;-aluable as it was represented to be in those papers, with seven seams of coal in it, let the Government sell it by public auction and get the best price obtainable, and with the money so obtained let them build the railway. That would be a reasonable thing to do. He should like to hear from the Minister for \Vorks the reasons for his con version.

Mr. NOHTON said he would seriously advise the hon. member in charge of the Bill to move the Chairman out of the chair. The Committee was in a peculiar position. It had been left to the opponents of the Bill to probe it and find out most extraordinary cir· cnmstances connected with it that were not generally known before. It had been left to

Ma1';yborough anrl Urangan [11 NovEMBER.] Railway Bill. 1531

them to show their reasons for the suspicions they entertained with regard to it, and to show that those reasons were "ouncl. It had been left to them to warn that Committee that by passing the Bill they might be doing the public unwittingly a gross injustice, such as would have been clone probably by the bridge syndicate to whom he had referred in extracting money from the unfor­tunate people to whom they wanted to sell their land. That ~nd many other things had been shown, and not one of the arguments that had been used against the Bill had been met. The evidence which had been brought forward by the select committee was that of one witness whose evidence on the previous occasion was considered very reliable, and\\ as no doubt reli­able, but he had been mistaken. That gentle­man no doubt thought certain things were going to be done, but they were not done. He did not think that gentleman was guilty of any desire to impose upon the House. ·

Mr. FOXTON: £2,000 was deposited. Mr. NOR TON said, yes; and what was the

result? The company, finding that they were very likely to lose that £2,000, were very anxious to get it back. They put down £2,000 to in vest in the affair, with the intention of selling their privileges to other pers<ms and getting a good many £2,000 out of them. All those things tended to throw a good deal of doubt and sus­picion upon all concerned. As he had pointed out in the first instance, the absence of the deposit which the select committee required to be paid ought to be a sufficient reason for their not con­senting to the paosing of the Bill until it was paid. He did not wish to stonewall the Bill, but he wished the same sort of discussion to go on as took place when it was proposed to hand over the construction of the Burrum railway to a private company. On that occasion there was a suspicion that the gentleman in charge of the Bill had been induced by misrepresentation to bring it forward; so its opponents went on probing and inquiring, with the result that after cunsidemble discussion- straight discus­sion, no stonewalling-the thing was withdrawn. The Chairman on that occasion was moved out of the chair and did not go in agnin ; and he (Mr. Norton) thought that was the best thing that could be done on the present occnsion. If the Chairman left the chair and did not come back no one would have any great cause to g-rieve. It would be very ad vi'~"ble to go no further until they had that best of guarantees­the de!Josit of the money.

Mr. MELLOR said he really could not understand the objections that were raised to the Bill. As for the price which had been put on the land, he believed it was not worth 30s. an acre when the original Bill was brought in. He was thoroughly in favour of the con• struction of the line, not only for the sake of developing the coalfield, but also for the sake of opening up a watering-place to a large number of residents of the colony. Hon. nwmbers knew that it was almost essential that there should be an outlet for people living in largely populated towns such as Maryborough and Gym pie. \Vhen the matter was first introduced they thought it would be well to try the principle of the construction of railways by private enterprise, and he thought so still. He would like to see it tried here and there. He felt, perhaps, somewhat to blame in the matter, because he was one of the committee appointed in the first instance, and had they not passed that Bill the Government might have put the line in the loan proposals and perhaps have had it constructed by this time. But now, if they let that chance go, it might Le a good many years before a railway was constructed to that place. He would ask hon.

members, therefore, to let the measure pass. He did not see what harm it could do. He was sure hon. members did not "ish to do the district an injury, but if they persisted in not allowing the measure to pass, they would do the district a very great injury indeed.

1\Ir. \V. BHOUKES moved that the Chairman leave the chair, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

Question put, and the Committee divided:-­AYEs, 11.

)lessrs. Xorton, "\Y. Brookes, Lnmley Hill, 1Vhite, Adams, :uacrossan, Donaldson, Aland, Murphy, Grimes, and Bulcock.

No>:s, 20. SirS. \V. Griffith, )1essrs. Jordan, l\Ioret.on, Rutleclgc,

Chubb, Dutton, Foxton, Annear, Dickson, Sheridan, s. W. Brooks, 3ic~Iaster, )Iorgan, }Iellor, Wakeficld, Palmcr, Smyth, Lissncr, Buckland, and Bailey.

Question resolved in the negative. Mr. W. BROOKES said when the ex-Colonial

Treasurer spoke on the second reading, he gave as a reason for supporting the Bill that the House should not recede from the decision it cttme to in regard to the first Bill, and he thought it was somewhat dishonourable to go back upon what had been done previously. Now, that sounded very well ; but when tht1,t state­ment was examined, it would be found that there was not much substance in it. The more the Bill was examined the more clearly would every member present see there was a great deal of truth in what the hon. member for Oxley said, that the Bill came before them under a serious misunderstanding. The select committee itself scarcely had arrived at a sound conclusion. They were misled, and had thev the information then that they pos­sossed ri'ow, they would have brought up a very different report. He would again refer to Appendix A, in order to show the hon. mem­bers for the district, and i\lr. Melior in parti­cular how far they were from the truth when they imagined that the passing of the Bili would not do an injury to Maryborough. \Vhat was read by the hon. member for Townsville made it clear as daylight that the company was not consulting anybody's interests but its own, and that it was not a railway but a land syndi­cate, which expected to get so much profit ont of the land that it would pay the cost of the railway. He was speaking of the first syndicate, not of the second and very much lower class of syndicate. The first syndicate was comvosed of respectable men, which was more than could be said of the second one. 'l'he hon. member for Townsville might very well htwe read on a little further, in regard to the proposed wharf. He invited the attention of hon. mem­bers to the following paragraph:-

" Trlwr:f.-'l'he approach to thi::; is dry '\Yhcn the tide is out the rise and fall of which is about eight feet. Sauch;t'one rock crops close to the line, and the piles for 450 yard8 woulcl only reqnire to be about tv.renty feet in lcngih. The bottom then runs off suddenly into twentv-four feet of '\Vater at low ticle with a sandy bottoil1, and extending over a large area which is al\~'ays smooth, and is protected by high lands from all Winds exce))t the north, but on that side a large sandbank acts as a verfect breakwater." That was all very well, and it seemed to be the description of a very fine harbour. Let hon. members attend to the following :-

" rnw laTge steamers of the British-India Company no"7 pass our intended \vharf on their '\Yay to -white Cliffs to lighten the traffic for :Maryhorough. \'fhe_n, ho,vever. our wharf is constructed these steamers will be able tO load and unload there, nohvithstanding their great draughts, and thus save the heavy cost of lighter .. age. 'fhese steamers, moreover, will be able to coal direct from out· wharf, and to load cargo there, instead of, as at present, receiving it at Brisbane, to which vlace it is now sent, a distance of 180 miles, at a cost of 10s. per ton."

1532 JJ!lar;yborougl~ and Urangan [ASSEMBLY.] Railway Bill.

He could not understand it; but the hon. mem­ber for \Vide Bay, Mr. Melior, seemed to like it very much. He (Mr. Brookes), in his innocence, should have thought that those new wharves would mm a severe blow at the value of wharf­age property at Maryborough. That was his impression, and it he were wrom; he should be be very glad to be set right, because it appeared to him to be obviously the intention of the com­pany who drew up that paragraph to take away the trade from Maryborough to their own wharves.

Mr. ANNEAR : To make a second Sandridge or Williamstown of it.

Mr. BROOKES said he looked at it in this way: that the comparison between Mary­borough and lYielbourne was very distant, and the comparison between the new wharves and Sandridge was also very distant. They knew for a long while the wharf at Sandridge was a difficulty, and the Government had to come in. Certainly the Government made the railway between Melbourne and Sandridge.

Mr. FOXTO.N : The Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Company made it.

Mr. BROOKES srtid it had to be bought c ver by the Government, and it was at present Government property, which was sufficient for his argument. There would be the same resnlt if the present Bill passed, and that paltry company got a very valuable wharf. The rail­way would have to be bought by the Govern­ment at about three or four times the money it would have cost them to build it straight out. There was another gentleman in the Council who made a speech, and that was the Hon. J\l[r. \V alsh, who was well known as an old colonist with a great deal of experience in the 'Wide Bay district. He said :-

,, ''""e are bound to view it with grave suspicion." And further on he said :--

"It seems to me utter madnrss. And who is the line to be constructed by? and ·who for~ and what for? fJ.'he Government have been ostensibly legislating to prevent the influx of southern persons into this colony to take up land; but, this Bill is undoubtecu,~ for the benefit ofa::Uelbourne proprietnry, and not for the benefit of Queenslanders at all, except so far as it may open up trade of 'vhich they may avail themselves." ·

But it was not good enough for that Melbourne proprietary, and in their place there was an English proprietary-·that was to say, four or five persons who represented the English proprietors. "What they wanted was to obtain from Parlia­ment a concP;sion, and that concession they would instantly sell. The arrangements were all in readiness to trade upon the credulity of the English pnblic; the share' would all be sold, and those who formed the original syndicate would vanish, and there would remain a large number of persons whose confidence had been abused. And the colony would be subjected to what­ever stigma attached to proces~es of that kind. Looked at from whatever point "of view, he did not see the wisdom of supporting the Bill, but there was one point more than any other that he would insist on if the Bill were allowed to pass, and that was a distinct stipulation in the measure that the money should be deposited in the Treasury before the Bill was passed. He might tell the hon. member for Carnarvon that it would be in the interests of his clients-he had no desire to annoy the hon. member, but he agreed with the hon. member for Cook that it was only natural to speak of a pro­fessional member in that way--

Mr. FOXTON: I do not see why you should. Mr. W. BROOKES said he would withdraw

the expression. He meant those people whose interests the hon. member as a private member

of parliament was urging in that Committee. If the question as to the payment of the deposit could be adjusted they might very soon get. over the business, but he did not believe, though the Bill might pass that House-of course he did not know-that it would ever pass the other House. \Vhether it did or not, the Committee had a right to exact a stipulation tlmt a large amount of guarantee money. should be in the hands of the Colonial Treasurer before the Bill passed.

Mr. FOXTON said he must protest against the continual insinuation that he had an interest in the Bill. Hon. members appeared to use language which they apparently did not under­stand in rPference to the matter. Parliament was the highest court in the land, and they were members of that court, and to charge a member with having clients outside was simply to charge him with corruption. The hon. member for North Brisbane had explained that he did not mean that, but he should not have put himself in the position of having to apologise for making use of such an expression. It was rather diffi­cult to follow the hon. member. One moment he said an enormous sum of money was going to be made out of the railway, and he quoted the Hon. 1\Ir. \Valsh as bearing him out. He al'o in­stanced the :;\Ielbourne and Hobson's Bay Com­pany as having got a good deal from the Govern­ment of Victoria for their rail way, but in the present inshnce the Committee knew what the Government would have to pay, if they ever bought the rail way ; so that the case instanced by the hon. m em her did not apply. In another breath he told the Committee that the unfortu. nate British public were going to be swindled right and left by the syndicate-that the pro­perty, in fact, was not a valuable property. \Vhich statement, he would ask, was correct? If the hon. member had not been so impetuous and taken upon himself to move that the Chairman leave the chair, he (;yir. Foxton) was prepared to move a proposition which he thought would meet the hon. member's objection to the Bill-namely, that the time of four months be reduced to one month, or any other period which the Committee, as fair and reasonable men, were prepared to state wa., a fair time within which a cablegmm could be sent to England, and an answer received. He knew that the representatives of the company in Queensland were satisfied that the money was available at any moment they might be made aware that the Bill had become law. It must be understood, however, that they were in a difficult position, because after arrangement had been entered into in ]£ngland, J\Ir. Rawlins came out and made all arrangements in the colony, without any reference being m::tde to any deposit. It had not entered into their calculation in England, and no provision had been made for a code of telegrams in reference to such a matter. He could understand 1\fr. Hart's objection to take upon himself to explain in London by cable the nature of the objection taken to the Bill; but of course it could be done by sending a long cablegram. The suggestion as to the deposit came from the select committee, and it would take the people in England by surprise. They might pussibly anticipate it, but at all events it would take thorn in a measure by smprise. He therefore thought the Committee might very fairly reduce the period within which the deposit might be made to a month or a fortnight.

An Hoxoui<ABLE JYlEi\IDER: To a week. l\Ir. FOXTON said it was possible that the

matter could be arranged in a week, but he would point out that it would really make very little difference whether it was a we.ek or a fortnight. If the company did not deposit the money in the 'rreasnry within the stipulated

MaPyborough and Urangan [11 NovEMBER.] Railway Bill. 1533

period, whether that was a week, or a fortnight, or a month, the Act would then become a dead-letter, and £2,000 now in the hands of the Government would be absolutely forfeited. But he would rather see the railway made than the money for­feited. The Committee did not desire simply to enforce a penalty on a bond. The Mary­borough and \Vide Bay district might have suffered something through the line not being made, hut the country had suffered nothing. Unless it was the transcontinental bogey that was at the bottom of the opposition to the measure, he thought hon. members might accept the S<lggestion he had made with respect to the time within which the money should be depo­sited in the Treasury. He sc.wcely thought that the hon. member for Port Curtis was in­fluenced by that bogey, because the hon. mem­ber had directed his argument to the pay­ment down of the £3,000. He sincerely trusted that hon. members would meet the pro­moters of the Bill half-way, and allow the measure to pass. He wuuld be very sorry to see the construction of the line prevented. The introduction of that large amount of capital would be a very good thing for the district and the colony.

The Ho" . • T. M. MACROSSAN: How much? Mr. FOX TON: £250,000. The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN: Divide that

by 2.

Mr. FOXTON said the railwav and the wharf would cost mnre than half the s1im he had men­tioned, and then there was the rolling-stock to be provided.

Mr. KORTON said he understood from the hon. member that after the discussion that had taken place the hon. member felt that he might just as well come clown somewhat to meet the views of members who were opposed to the Bill in its present form. Might he suggest to the h(m, member that it would be just as easy to get the money deposited by next Thursday as to get it within a month? The only way in which communication could take place in time was by telegram, and it would not take a month to send a telegram to England. A telegram could be sent home and an answer obtained within a week. If they had to wait for a letter he could under­stand the hon. member wanting a longer time, but that was not the case, and the money could easily be obtained by next Thursday. Hon. members who were opposed to the measure wanted the money deposited before they went any further with the Bill, and it could not come on again before next Thursday. There need be no difficulty in getting the whole matter settled by that time. What struck him as an extraordinary feature in the case was that the Government, who were giving that measure their support, did not get up a!1(! say one word in support of the hon. member in charge of the Bill. It also seemed extraordinary that a Gov­ernment which advocated strongly the construc­tion of railways hy borrowed money, and opposed the making of lines by private enterprise, should support tho.t railway, which was to a certain extent a land-grant· railway. It was perfectly absurd to say it was not a land-grant railway, or that the land was worthless land. They had been told that the land adjoining was a colliery, and they had also been told by the hon. member for l\Iary borough that the land all ronnel had been prospected. They were further informed that there were se\·en beds of coal there, so that it was perfectly useless to say that the land was worthless. He did think that the a.rguments used against pasding the measure until something further was done, were sound. A strong point he had taken from the first was

that the money ought to be paid into the Treasury, proving the bona fides of the company in the matter. It did not matter whn,~ the arrange­ments were between the people here and those at home. The Committee had nothing to do with them ; all they had to do was to see that they were not undertaking work which would be wasted afterwitrds. The hon. member for Carnarvon said the country would lose nothing if the whole thing fell through. The mere sitting of the Committee that afternoon itncl evening would cost the country abont £100.

Mr. FOXTON : That is lost, whether the Bill is passed or not.

Mr. NORTON said it was lost now. But there were other matters to go on with, and if the hon. member, when the objection was raised at first, had agreed to withdraw the Bill, in order that the deposit might be paid as recommended, it would have saved the time of the Committee and that amount of money. He could not see why the matter could not be arranged in two or three days as well as in a month. All that was required was to send home an explici~ telegran;, which could be made as short as possible, but It must be explicit, and that would be chPaper than sending three or four telegrams, the one to explain the other. The money could t~en J;>e remitted by telegram, and at once deposited I!' the Treasury. That was a reasonable propmn­tion and he was sure the hon. member himself wonicl see that the money could as easily be paid by next Thursday as in a month or three months.

The PREMIER said the hon. member asked why the Government had said nothing in support of the Bill. Well, he had said all that appeared to be necessary. The Government looked upon it as a Bill to extend the time for twelve months for the completion of the line, a concession. bein!l' gi\·en to the same company although the mdivi­clual shareholders were different. That was how the matter was represented to him when .he promised on behalf of the Government to give the measure support if sufficient guarantee was offered. He had listened very carefully to the debate and he confessed, if he had seen the agree­ment between ~Ir. Rawlins and the syndicate, he should not have given that promise so readily. He did not know what the 5th paragraph meant.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL: Nor anyone else.

The PREYIIER said he had not the least idea what it meant. He did not think it meant any­thing. He did not care much what it meant; but he quite agreed that they ought to have satisfactory proof of the company's bona fides; and, under the circumstances, he did not think it was an unreasonable request to ask that the money should be paid into the Treasury before the Bill passed. That could be placed to a suspense account, and during the passage of the Bill, if the company chose to withdraw it they could, hut, if not, then it would be subject to. the condition•• of the Bill, and subject to be forfeited if the company did not make the railway. He thou"ht the hon. member for Carnar\'on had bett;r accept those conditions, because, under the circumstances, they were not unreasonable.

Mr. vV. BROOKES said there was another reason why he should like cash clown. It must he remembered that the gentlemen who asked for the concessions had presented themselves as creditors of the colonv to the extent of £16,000. Now if a demand \V'1S mad a upon them for £!5 000 they might say, "Take it out of the £1G 000, arid then you will only owe us £11,000." No{v, that might seem to be said in a spirit of jest, but it was not altogether.

1534 Mar:;borougk and Urangan [ASSElVIBLY.] Railwa:; Bill.

Mr. LUMLEY HILL said he might quote the following, aR reference had been made to the question of time in telegraphing:-

"I am instructed to request you to act on behalf of this syndicate in the matter, and to inform me by tele­graph as soon as you have satisfied yourselves that all the liabilities of the Vernon Coal ant1 RaHway Company have been liquidated and the other conditions of clauses 1. 2. and 3 complied with.

"For that purpose I have sent to you to-day by book post a copy of the 'AB 0 Code-book,' Rnd I have regis­tered. with the Eastern Telegraph Company the word fAfestonarlo' as the telegraphic alldress of this syndi­cate. and I ilave to request you to instruct the Govern-1nent telegraphic authorities at Brisbane to deliver to you any telegram sent to Brisbane to that address."

Now, as all those precn,utions had been taken, there ought to be no trouble in getting a tele­gram by Thursday next, aud in having the money deposited as reqnirecl. He would also like to ask whether the Government committed themselves to endorsing what appeared in Appendix A:-

"Dull! on Itn}JOrts.-The Act obtained overrides the Queensland tariff, and permits the importation, duty free, of all rolling-stock, and every description of material required for the construction of the line."

That was a very important matter, and he wished to know whether the Government were also pre­pared to endorse the following :-

"The 1.000-ac/~e Blnck.-This grant. pur~hased by the Company's Act f"rom the Government at 30s. per acre, ad­joins the Torbanlea Colliery, and contains seven seams of coal which crop on the estate."

Now, would the Government endorse that, be­cause he took it that they did? The Government had voted solid, hut had given the Committee no reasons for the way in which they voted. He thought the Minister for Works might give him a little information on the subject.

The MINISTER FOR WORKS said he did not know what the hon. gentleman was asking in reference to the coal laud. It was generally admitted to be coal·bearing land, but he was sure he could not tell what was below the sur­face, and he did not know of anvone who had marle an inspection of the land,- unless it was the railway company. Probably they had done it, and probably they had discovered a number of seams. That there was coal there, there could be no doubt, and he supposed the object of those men was to work the coal and carry it to deep water.

Mr. MURPHY: That is the last object they hav~ in view. ,

The MINISTER FOR WORKR said he could not jump to the same conclusions as the hon. gentleman. He took it that the main object was to work the coal.seams or transfer their right of working them to someone else. If they would work the coal.seams and carry the coal down to deep water, it would be for the benefit of the country and they would be doing good service to the country. As for the railway being a land-grant railway, that was downright nonsense. It was not a land.grant railway in any sense whatever. He would ask the hon. member for Cook if he would like to invest any of his money in buying up that land at 30s. an acre, unless there was a railway to take away the coal ?

An HoNOURABLE MEMBER : There is a rail­way.

The MINISTER JWR WORKS said it would be a mighty bad investment. Coal had to be carried up the river before it reached the railway. He should be vet·y sorry to put his money, or any portion o£ it, into coal lands up there, if he had ;>o prospect of doing anything better thansnpply­mg the local demand and the steamers that

called in there. Operations must be conducted on a much larger scale thn,n that if capitalists wished to make the business pay.

Mr. NOR TON: Robinson makes it pay. The MINISTER FOR WORKS said, yes ;

he mana~ed to supply the local demand and the requirements of the steamers, but let half.a­dozen other coal-miners go up there, and then see what profit he would make. He did not know whether the h<m. member for Port Curtis held many shares in coal·mines, but Unfortunately he did both inN ew Routh \V ales and (~ueensland, and one had to spend a great deal of money before there was <tny chance of getting any money back at all. They were about as bad as the gold­mining ventures one ~ot into when one lived in Brisbane. The hon. member talked a great deal of nonsense about the value of the land there being £200 or £300 an acre. The men who had ~ot coal land there, they were told, were asking £40 an acre for it, and hon. members aR,nmed that was the value of the land. Those men had got it for 5s. an acre, and could hold it as long as they liked. They might hold it for twenty years and get £40, £50, or £100 an acre for it. But to say people should pay £40 an acre for it now was nonsense. No man ju his senses would do it. He knew they could get equally good, or better, coal land within half­a·mile of the coast, and only two miles from a port, for £50 an acre- some of the finest coal land in New South \Vales. In fact, he was prepared to sell a lot of that land to any hon. member4 who would buy it. The hon. member dreaded a railway syndicate getting a footing here ; he would himself dread them if they got a footing here, except on such terms as they chose to give them ; but he was prepared to meet any scoundrel if he could only keep his eyes upon him and knew the sort of man he was dealing with, because he could protect himself against him. They knew the sting had been taken out of rail way syndicates, and he was satisfied the people of Queensland would never allow any contract to be entered into by any Government that would be detrimental to the future interests of the colony.

Mr. GRIMES said he disclaimed all idea of obstrnction in connection with the qnestion. In the Urangan Railway Bill they had ~iven the company very valuable concessions, and they had a right to ask them to prove their bona fides. They ~ave the company 1,000 acres of tested coal land ; the right to resume Crown land for the purposes of the railway between the Burrum Railway and Urangan; the right of introducing rollin~·stock and everything required for the line duty free; the privilege of going to Fra,zer's Island and cuttin~ all the timber required for the railway and the wharves; and a monopoly of the line, becauBe it was provided that no line should be run alongside of it. Further than that, they were to give 2i5 per cent. on the first expenditure on the line if the Government required the line. Those were very valuable concessions, and before they allowed the bargain to go further they had a right to demand that the company should put down a substantial deposit. It was not too much to ask that £3.000, in addition to the £2,000 at first deposited, should be the amount of the deposit. If that was done he would be prepared to go on with the Bill. He did not wish to obstruct the Bill, but he wished to be s"tisfiecl that that was not a bogus company. He had doubts of it at present from the action of those interested in the past.

Mr. FOXTON said he had stated before that he had no doubt that, if the syndicate had known that the additional deposit would be required, they would have made arrangement,s for it. He was prepared, however, to accept the suggestion of

Maryborou[Jk Railway Bill. [11 NovEMBER.] Adjournment. 1535

the Premier that the payment of the deposit should be insisted upon before the Bill became law. He did not see how it could be managed at present, but perhaps the Premier would point that out. He would point out that, if that was the understanding, it would be well if the Bill could be taken through the committee in some form that night.

HoNOURABLE ME;I!BERS: No, no! Mr. FOXTON said if that were so he could

only come to the conclusion that hon. members were still desirous of throwing the Bill out, not­withstanding the concession that he made. It must be apparent to anyone that unless the Bill left the House in a day or two it would pro­bably not become law at· all that session, because he took it, it was a foregone conclusion that the session was nearly at an end. He had no doubt a clause could be inserted providing that the money should be paid into the Treasury before the Bill became law, but if they were to hang up the Bill at its present stage until the money was paid into the Treasury, that meant, so far as he could see, that the Bill was shelved. That was the only construction he could put upon it.

Mr. W. BROOKES: That is what we want.

Mr. FOXTON said he did not think that was what was generally wanted. The hon. member might wish that, of course, but he had blown hot and colrl. He had "tated that his opposition to the Bill would be met if anangements were made for the deposit of the money before the Bill became law, and yet when that was acceded to the hon. member appeared only to wish to make use of that concession in order to prevent the Bill becoming law.

The PREMIER said the hon. member had said that it was desirable the Bill should go through committee that night. He did not think that was practicable, because if the money was deposited before the Bill became law, the preamble would have to be amencle•l by reciting the deposit, and the 3rd section would also have to be materially amended. The sug­gestion which had been made, he thought, could be carried out easily enough if the Bill was allowed to stand over until next pri­vate members' clay. In the meantime, if the deposit was placed in the Treasury, he would undertake to give a receipt for it, stating that it would be held in trust until the passage of the Bill, and then upon the conditions of the Bill. He had understood that the money was here and available ; but that appeared not to be so. He did not intend to withdraw on the part of the Government the support they had given the Bill up to the present time, but, as he had said j nst now, he thought the sug­g·estion made was a reasonable one, and had better be accepted. He believed the members of the House would be prepared to accept such a deposit as a sufficient guarantee of the bona fides of the company.

The Ho::;:-. J. M. MACROSSAN said there would be no difficulty about the telegraphic code mentioned bythe hon. member for Cook, Mr. Hill, as being alluded to in Appendix C. 'l'he code had already been acted upon by Messrs. Hart and Flower, the legal agents for the Australian Transcontinental Railway Syndi­cate, who had already communicated with the syndicate. They were in communication with them now, and there could be no difficulty, he thought, in getting an answer before the Bill came on again for discnssion. He was very sorry the Premier did not inquire into the matter before he committed himself and the Govern­ment to the Bill.

'J.'he PREMIER: I never saw it,

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN said that, althongh he was quite willing to take the opinion of the Committee that the Bill should become law on an additional deposit of £3,000 being lodged in the Treasury, yet he would f~r so01;er see the Bill not pass at all. He harl no mtentwn however of obstructing it. He felt-and it was what had caused his opposition to it-that, as a member of the select committee which sat three years ago, he had been ''ha~ "; and on the recom­mendation of that committee the House was "had." He thought they were simply holdi?g themselves out as a people who could be easily imposed upon by any promot~r who dangled before them the fair and plausible proposal of bringing capital into the cou?try. He d!d not object to the gentlemen composmgthe syndiCate; he believed every one of them was honou;·able enough to carry out his agreement; and he beheved the same of the :Melbourne men who formed the fint company, although they, for some reason best known to themselves, back drew very soon. But the evidence put before the sele~t com­mittee three years ago was an e':aggeratwn-he would not say a misrepresentatwn, but a pure exaggeration.

l\fr. FOXTON said he acc~pted the statement of the Premier, which he took to mean that although a week was lost there would b_: a possibility of the Bill becoming law that sesssw_n. He moved that the Chairman leave the chair, report progreb', and ask leave to sit again.

The CHAIRMAN said he would point out to the hon. member that it was not competent for a member to move a motion that had just been negatived, until some other proceeding had inter­vened.

The PREMIER said a considerable time had elapsed since that motion. was negative~, _and unle" a motion of that kmd were perm1ssible, the Chairman might never be able to leave the chair.

The OHAIRMAN said the practice was very plainly laid down in "May," page 440 :-

"A motion to report progress having been negatived, cannot be repPated cluring the pendency of the same question, being subject to the same rnle as. that obserYed in the House itself, which "\Yill not admit of a motion for the adjournment of the debate to be repeated, without some intermediate 1n·oceeding."

The HoN. J. M. MACROSSAN said he would suggest that, as they could not get the Cha.irman out of the chair in a formal way, a number of members should leave the Chamber, and then, when there was no quorum present, the Chairman would be compelled to vacate the chair and report the fact to the House. Or the motion mio-ht be varied hy moving simply that the Chair~an do leave the chair.

Mr. FOXTON moved that the Chairman do now leave the chair.

Question put and negatived. Mr. FOXTON moved that the Chairman

leave the chair, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

Question put and passed. The House resumed ; the CHAIRliiAN reported

progress, and obtained leave to sit again on Thursday next.

ADJOURNMENT. The PREMIER said: Mr. Speaker,-I under­

stand there is no desire to go on with further business this evening. I therefore beg to move that this House do now adjourn. On Tuesday the Government wish, after dealing with the amendments of the Legislative Council in the Electoral Districts Bill, to invite the attention

1536 Selections in Totvnsville District. [ASSEMBLY.] Ministerial Statement.

of the House again to theN ormanton to Croydon Railway Bill. I may say that the Government intend to ask the House to pass at once to the 2nd chtuse of the Bill, which gives the Govern­ment authority to make the line without pre­viously submitting the plans to Parliament. I believe there is a good deal of objection to that, and if it is a fatal objection let it be dispo8ed of at once and be out of the way. The other busi­ness proposed to be taken is Supply.

Question put and passed. The Honse adjourned at seventeen minutes to

10 o'clock.