9
time, and, owing to a misunderstanding, I failed to see him later, but I met Mr. Barlow, the Acting Premier, Mr. Bell, the Minister of Lands, who was interested in a Lands Act to which I will refer later, and the various officials who are connected with immigration work. Queensland is an enormous country, and my time was now running short if I was to see anything of New Zealand, so I did not attempt to travel further north, but contented myself with visiting Toowoomba (where I spent the hottest Christmas that I ever experienced) and Warwick, on the Darling Downs. On 2nd January, 1906, I arrived again in Sydney, and left next day for New Zealand, and I arrived at Auckland on 7th January, where I was met by Mr. Kensington, the Under-Secretary for Lands, who travelled with me through Here I saw the North Island via Roturua and the Wanganui to Wellington.
Mr. Seddon, and various officials and others, including Mr. Tregcar, the head of the Labour Department. After staying some days with friends at Nelson, I went on to Christchurch, whence Mr. Kensington returned to Wellington, and then to Oamara, where I stayed with my uncle, Sir Henry Miller, who has been farming in the Colony for about forty years, and is chairman of a large coal company; then travelled via Dunedin and the Bluff to Hobart, Tasmania, where I arrived 8th February. At Hobart I was only able to stay two days, but I saw the Premier, Mr. Evans, and the officials connected with immigration. I was also able, through the kindness of the Governor, Sir Gerald Strickland, to meet a number of prominent unofficial gentlemen. I then travelled across Tasmania to Launceston, and crossed to Melbourne, where I embarked on the Orient liner "Ortona on 13th February for England. The amount of my travelling expenses was £228 14s. 10d. against an estimate of £250.
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It was not possible while travelling so fast, even with the advantages which official introductions give, to gain much more than hasty and general impressions, and it is with this qualification that any of my expressions of opinion must be received. The most permanently useful result of the journey will probably be that the office will now be in personal touch with the various officials who are connected with immigration on the other side of the world. In this connexion I should like to refer to the uniform kindness of the receptions with which I met everywhere, and this is true both of officials and of private persons, who often seemed to think that the mere fact that one came from the old country constituted a sufficient claim on their kindness and hospitality. I was accompanied by Mrs. Lambert, and her experience among the ladies was quite the same.
In travelling I also made the acquaintance of a certain number of private persons who have filled up, and I have no doubt will in the future be ready to fill up, our forms of enquiry. did not make any effort to secure a paid correspondent in Australia, and, indeed, I see considerable objections to such an appointment. Interest in immigration has, it is true, revived, but party feeling in Australia often runs pretty high. The office will, I think, obtain better information from official channels, supplemented as usual by the press and by an increased number of private correspondents, than it would by relying mainly on one individual, whose views might quite possibly be in direct opposition to those of the Governments, while the opportunities of the latter for ascertaining the facts must unquestionably be greater. Besides obtaining a good deal of printed matter, which Mr. Paton had asked for or which appeared to me to be likely to be useful, I arranged for improved maps in several handbooks. I may here observe that our handbooks generally appeared to me to give a fair and accurate statement of the facts which an emigrant requires
to know...
The principal event, from the point of view of emigration, which occurred during my stay in Australia was the amendment of the Immigration Act.
The Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act, 1901, it will be remembered, prohibited the landing of certain classes, most of whom were undesirable on moral grounds or grounds of colour, but it proceeded to prohibit the landing of
"any persons under a contract or agreement to perform manual labour within the Commonwealth Provided that this paragraph shall not apply to workinen exempted by the Minister for special skill required in Australia or to persons under contract or agreement to serve as part of the crew of å vessel engaged in the coasting trade in Australian waters if the rates of wages specified therein are not tower than the rates ruling in the Commonwealth."
The first Mr. Deakin, in November, introduced two Bills to amend this Act. dealt with the undesirables, and, as he claimed, marks no change in the existing policy. The second was entitled a Bill for an Act relating to immigrants under contract to perform manual labour in the Commonwealth. In introducing this second Bill Mr. Deakin, while claiming that no free man of the British race had ever been prevented under the Inmigration Restriction Act from entering Australia, said that many misapprehensions had clustered round the application of the contract labour sections of the Act, and it was the purpose of the Bill to remove them. The Bill, as introduced, defined contract immigrant as an immigrant under a contract or agreement to perform manual labour in Australia, and permitted the contract immigrant to land if his contract were approved by the Minister. The principal conditions on which the Minister's approval was to be given were as follows:-
if in his opinion-
(a) the contract is not made in contemplation of or with a view of affecting an
industrial dispute; and
(b) there is difficulty in the employer's obtaining within the Commonwealth a worker
of at least equal skill and ability; and
(r) the remuneration and other terms and conditions of employment are as advantageous to the contract immigrant as those current for workers of the same class at the place where the contract is to be performed.
The amendment, Mr. Deakin claimed--
will have the effect of removing misapprehensions which have existed in the past, and will make provision for the coming of many more desirable people when they learn from their friends who settle here what this country offers them. It provides means by which immigrants can be introduced into Australia readily and without difficulty if the contracts are open and above board, and it also provides for careful control if there is reason to suppose that labour is intended to be introduced with an undesirable object.
It is questionable whether the Bill, had it been passed in the form in which it was introduced, would have had the effect hoped for by Mr. Deakin, but during the passage of the Bill through Parliament, an important amendment was made by the addition of the following words after the paragraph headed (b), regarding difficulty of obtaining workers of equal skill, “but this paragraph does not apply where the contract immigrant is a British subject, either born in the United King- dom or descended from a British subject born there." It is therefore open to any Englishman to contract to go out to work in Australia, provided that he does not go out as a "blackleg," and that he receives the current rate of wages. The contract must be submitted to the Minister before the emigrant's arrival. The number of workmen going out under contract will probably never be large, while it is possible that the existence of the law itself, whatever its provisions, may still act as a deterrent to immigration, but the new legislation certainly tends to facilitate immigration.
The subject of immigration is, as indicated above, one entrusted to the Common- wealth. It must, however, always be remembered that the working of any scheme of immigration must practically be in the hands of the States who control the land, and this division of authority stands in the way of any uniform system of immi- gration. Mr. Deakin has, indeed, recently proposed such a system, the Common - wealth to grant assisted passages, but its adoption depends entirely on the willing- ness of the States to co-operate.
The arrangements for dealing with emigrants on arrival in the various States I found to be as follows :-
In Western Australia there were complaints in the press that immigrants were I drew disgusted by being bandied about froni one Department to another. Mr. Chaplin's attention to this, and he replied that, whatever may have been the He has himself care of the arrangements case in the past, this was not so now. and money at his disposal (none had apparently been available) and a representative of the Agricultural Department meets the steamers at Fremantle. Selectors who take up Government land are allowed the use of a truck on the Government railway to convey their goods at reduced rates.
In South Australia no special machinery exists to deal with immigrants. There
is a Labour Bureau, where, however, no one can be registered who has not resided
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