NEW PROTECTION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 247, 11 July 1908, Page 5

NEW PROTECTION.

: REFERENDUM. STATEMENT BY MR. DEAKIN. (by telegraph—press association—copyright.) Melbourne, July 10. : The Federal Prime Minister (Mr. Deakin)' in reply to a Labour inquiry as to whether the Government was still pledged to give offect to the new protecton, said that amongst tho means he would bo likely to adopt was that of a referendum,. with a view of giving Federation wider powers of an industrial character. . LABOUR DECISION. RE-ENACT EXCISE DUTIES. Brisbane, July 10. • The Conference of the Federal Labour party, passed 1 a resolution in favour of the ro-enactment of exciso duties as taxation measures to replace .the quashed new protection (declared unconstitutional by tho High Court).

A far-reaching" decision. The decision of tho High Court declaring the Harvester Excise Act unconstitutional will not necessarily stop at that. - This Act provides that an additional excise duty shall be charged in the cb.se of implement-making firms that are hold not to pay "fair and reasonable wages." Equally the Spirits Excise Act, 190G, provides for an additional excise duty of Is. a gallon, if any distiller does not pay his employees . a fair and reasonable rate of wages por week of 43 hours, or employs more than the duo proportion of boys to men engaged in the industry. If one is tacking extraneous matter on to a taxation Bill, why not the other Then, with regard to bounty laws, the Customs Department has fixed a scale of wages to be paid by growers using white labour, before they can claim the Govornmont bonus; and in the rural, bounties passed by the_ Federal Parliament last session there is a stipulation that the rates of wages prevailing in the localities in which articles for which bounties and claims are produced must be observed. But, as Senator Best points out, "there is a difference between an Act whose object is to regulate wages by means of , taxation and a voluntary grant, of bounties under certain conditions."

Notwithstanding tho alarm of Constitutionalists, Mr. Deakin, without committing himself, speaks of the likelihood of a referendum on tho question of altering tho Constitution so as to widen the industrial powers of tho Federation. Mr. Reid (Opposition) recently Stated: "If the decision of the High Court had been tho other way, the Federal Constitution would have been a piece of legislative indiarubber, which could bo stretched to any extent in favour of the Federal Government. Tho next idea, 1 suppose,- would have been a land tax, with a provision for variations according to the industrial conditions on each holding. When tho new Protection was first mooted I strongly favoured it, and do so still, if it is at all practicable. ■ But the Constitution confines tho Federal power relating to industrial mattors to disputes extending beyond tho limits of any ono State, thereby plainly not authorising interference in industrial disputes of any other kind." '