THE COMMONWEALTH.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 278, 17 August 1908, Page 7

THE COMMONWEALTH.

COMING SESSION.' (at telegram—press association—copyright.) Melbourne, August 15. The Federal Premier, Mr. Deakin, states that tho Federal capital sito will bo practically the first question to be dealt with during the coming session of the Federal Parliament. The next business will bo tho Government's defence scheme. A Bill will also bo ihtroduced to establish a Bureau of Agri-1 culture. ■ AGRICULTURAL BUREAU: A STATE VIEW. As everything the Federal Government proposes has to be examined under the microscope of State rights, it is worth while listening to the opinion of Mr. Swinburne, Victorian Minister of Agriculture, on the Federal scheme for an Agricultural Bureau. Hu thinks that the Federal scheme iii its details is ideal rather than practical, and that a modification is necessary, if on tho ground of cost alone. "No doubt," says Mr. Swinburne, "it is necessary for the Commonwealth to have certain expert officers in connection with tho Commerce Act, bonus regulations,, and one or two other measures, but this need be a very small department. If they are going to launch out in order tg test the merits of demerits of climatic conditions and soils, it wduld be the most expensive way possible to undertake it. The work could be vory much better left to the States. I am quite sure that, if as I advocated at the Premiefs' Conference, the Federal Government were to call the various State Ministers of Agriculture together, and by talking the matter over get the benefit of State experience, the proposals would be considerably modified. If the Commonwealth committed itself to a programme, such as has been indicated, it might lead to undesirable :results. That had been the experience in connection with the United States Federal Buroau to such an extent that tho Federal authority thero is giving largo votes to the Stato Governments to carry out work hitherto done by tho Bureau. The policy in the United States is in a great many ways to decentralise work, and control rather than to centralis© it in an almost unworkable head bureau."