AUSTRALIA OF TO-DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 4

AUSTRALIA OF TO-DAY.

Sir John Forrest, who was for many years the most conspicuous figure in the politics of West Australia, and is now the Federal Treasurer in Mr. Deakin's Ministry, has recently undertaken a visit to England in the interests of the Commonwealth, and his stay in London has, of course, exposed him to the designs of the enterprising journalists of the Old Country, who are now as eager for colonial "copy" as they were indifferent fifteen or twenty years ago. Of the editors of the monthlies, Mr. Stead secured an interview from him on Australian ifnmigration aud kindred topics for the April number of the Review of Reviews, and Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke has laid him under contribution for an article on "Australia of To-day " in the- Empire Review for May; while those who dssire to see the massive proportions of the Treasurer of the Commonwealth dwarfing thoso of the small Egyptian donkey that stands beneath and far from shamed by the forms of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, Which gaze ir modest retirement from the background, will find what they want in the frontispiece to the current number of the Australian edition of Mr Stead's monthly. But it is with the two articles, and especially with that in tho Empire Review, that we are concerned at present. Sii John Forrest's principal object in visiting the Old Country was to see to the consolidation of the various State debts of Australia, and to the establishment of one uniform Commonwealth stock in x)lacc of them, and he has a good deal to say on this subject among others in both articles. In the Budget which he inbroduced last August this project of consolidation was strongly urged by Sir John Forrest. He puts the aggregate of the State debts at! £235,000,000, of which about £45,000,000 is owned in Australia ; and the effect of the Commonwealth taking them over, as provided by the Constitution, will be to give to the bondholders "the collective 6ecurioy of Australia/ in .addition to that of the individual States which they hold at present "I believe," he says, "that if the CommonwealtOi takes over these debts, the establishment of an Australian stock upon the Londor market wilJ be greatly to the advantage of ; Australia., and will be more appreciated by the investor and command a betteT price, and in time, I hope and believe too, the Australian Consols will be a popular stock, in the same way as British Con- I cols are, on the London market." It should afford sOme relief to the scared British investor to know thai) despite the thoroughly democratic character of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, j "during the five years that the Parliamentj 1 has been in existence tihey have never borrowed one single penny." "The Commonwealth Parliament," says tho Treasurer, "is opposed to borrowing unless for the conversion of the existing public debt or for some great pressing public work of national importance." But to tftiis happy immunity from debt has to be added an immunity of a much less desirable nature. The Commonwealth is immune from tho ordinary difficulties of a land policy because it has not got any land. For the Commonwealth politician, therefore, the land problem is Teduced to terms of unsurpassable simplicity, but other problems aTO proportionately com- j plicated for him, 1 and the Federation is unable to discharge what in a young country is one of the most elementary and imperative duties of a State' After moro than a century, of settlement, the J great continent of Australia has a population of little moro than one to the square mile, and during recent years the tide of immigration has flowed less strongly, while Canada and the United States have been filling up with gieat rapidity. The diversion of some of this stream to their own shores is recognised by tho Cpmmonwealth Ministry us one of tho most pressing of ita necessities, but how is an immigration policy to be worked without a land policy to back it up? Cheap passages, cheap land, and the assistance of a Government Land Bank are stated by Sir j John Forrest as the three elements in the problem. "We have offered the States," he says, "to 6ekct suitable j immigrants and convey them to the States, free of all cost to the States, and to land them where they require them in Australia. . . . The reasdn the Commonwealth Government cannot do more is because we have no legal title to do more, having no lands of our ow^n. The Constitution does not provide for the Commonwealth entering upon land settlement ; the land, railways, and mines all belong to the States ; and although we are wishing to do our very utmost in any way within our constitutional powers, I very much question whether those constitutional powers go so far as to give us the right to do moro than land the immigrants in Australia." So hampering are the bonds of a Federal Constitution ! For the rest, Sir John Forrest's article is mainly statistical and somewhat thin, the traces of hurry in the composition being obvious; but there is a, combination of buoyancy and soundness - about ite tone which is just the right specific for British opinion with regard to Australia and her finances just now. There has been abundant croaking about the future of Australia, but notwithstanding the flow of immigration becoming stagnant, and the terrible calamity of a prolonged drought, her external trade has increased 80 per cent, during the last ten years, its only unpleasant feature from the Imperial point of view being the steady increase of foreign imports at the expense of those of British origin. If Mr. Deakin is successful with his immigration policy, and in realising his views on Imperial preference, the next ten years of Australian history should accomplish great thingß both for the Commonwealth and the Empire.