Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1909.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1909, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1909.

FEDERAL PREMIER'S TASK. * Thro programme untolded by Mr. Fisher on behalf of the Commonwealth ■Government, in his speech at Gympie, was remarkable in more ways than one. It was, in the first place, remarkable that, having taken office after successfully movbag a hostile vote against the preceding administration, he should remain in office nearly five months — -'the actual period was from 10th November to 50lh March — without letting the country know what his policy was. Tt was equally remarkable in the second place thai after all this delay ho should ultimately have evolved a policy closely resembling in several of its mam features, and in a notably large proportion of those which are immediately practicable, the policy of the Government which his own party had been» instrumental in ejecting. That this resemblance should apply to the all-important question of defence is indeed a .matter for rejoicing. , Not merely Australia, but the whole Empire, has occasion to rejoice that this vital business is being placed above party, and especially that the only part of the Empire where Labour is strong enough to form a Ministry of its own bids fair to take the lead in establishing a system of universal military training. It becomes clearer every day that for us all the alternatives are to establish a scheme of this kind or to trust to that chapter of accidents wnich has proved so invaluable a friend to us hitherto. The supposed discord between Labour and Empire will have been triumphantly refuted if the only Labour Government in the Empire succeeds m pioneering it along the path of safety by the enactment of the scheme which Mr. Fisher has placed in the forefront of his programme. Of course neither this great scheme nor the important naval programme, in which also Mr. Deakin's lead is being closely followed, can be run without money, and Mr. Fisher has other reforms in hand to which the same remarjc necessarily applies. Where is the money to come from? Even as matters stand at present,' his estimate, based mainly .on the prospect of a reduced Customs Revenue, is that on the 30th of next month he will be £100,000 Short. To meet this deficiency and the demands of his Legislative programme for tho coming year, the Commonwealth .Premier proposes a graduated land Lax on large properties, and a Commonwealth note issue. The land tax is to start at a penny in the pound on an unimproved value of £5001, and is to increase io as much as fourpence in the pound, when the value exceeds £50,000. The principle of this proposal has long been in operation in New Zealand, but Mr. Fisher's application of the principle will be a good deal more drastic than our own, and would make in itself, as the Bulletin says, "a fairly efficient stock intrade for a democratic Ministry." As a "bursting-up" and land settlement measure, this proposal should be of even greater value than as a direct producer of revenue in a country wheie vast practically vacant areas held by a. single owner are a far gi eater danger to the State than they have ever been in New Zealand. But in proportion as it promoted land, settlement it would fail to provide revenue, and Mr. Fisher himpelf spoke of the proposal in terms that implied that he idid not expect to get it through, and went far to justify the criticism lhat it is "only a bit of kiteflying." On the second and more dubious of nis financial proposals, Mr. Fisher was very brief in his speech at Gympie. He instanced the successful juperatiatt of the £tfrto Note Apt,, .which sfce-bad^aiaißted

Sir Hugh Nelson to pass, as a member of the Queensland Parliament, in 1893. " Nobody is afraid of the legal tender of those bits of paper," he said, and he • considered that it would be better still if the Commonwealth followed the same course. Ihe saving of exchange between one State and another would be one advantage, and another would be that the Commonwealth would make about £100,000 a year out of the transaction. This is practically all that he said on the subject at Gympie, but a cablegram that reached us from Melbourne yesterday fills in some of the missing details, including the important question as to the amount of gold to be held by the Commonwealth ti protect its notes. He proposes that the Common-wealth shall issue notes to the value of £4,000,000, which is, we believe, rather more than the aggregate of the bank notes now in circulation. Twenty-five per cent, of this amount ■would, he says, be retained by the Treasury as a balance against the demand for cash, and the rest he proposes to invest at 3 or 3£ per cent., and so to get tho required amount of £100,000. It is further reported that "Mr. Fisher is considering whether, as an additional reserve against notes in case of panic, there should not be Treasury Bills which might be issued up to 50 per' cent, of the total for securing cash in case of necessity." We are bound to say that it seems to us that it will be a safer course still to leave the whole of this dangerous business alone. At the best, the revenue produced will not be very large ; at the worst the risk is very serious. Just in proportion as there is a gold reserve, the venture will be unproductive; and in proportion as such a reserve is dispensed with, it will be risky. Mr. Fisher himself we believe to be a prudent and cautious man, and just for ttoat reasou we are surprised that he should fall in with a proposal which so ill accords with his reputation for level-headed commonsense. In the hands of a iess conscientious successor the dangerous possibilities of such a scheme are infinite. To quote again from the Bulletin observer "it may not be wild-cat to st «rfc uith, but there ,s always a Unv that it may develop into wil^ cat Utw on." Labour had better ]^ ye such possibilities alone