THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1903. THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12282, 28 May 1903, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1903. THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENT.

The third and last session of the first Federal Parliament has been opened at Melbourne, which city would seem to be appropriating the position and privileges of Commonwealth capital, while ambitious aspirants to that envied post exhaust themselves in mutual rivalry. The Governor-General's —otherwise the formal manifesto of the Barton Administration —deals with a mass of public business that will tax the energies of the Federal legislators if they attempt to clear it away before the nearing elections. For much of it is highly debatable. The Judiciary Bill, providing for a High Court of appeals, is one which will not pass easily' through House and Senate wherein the legal talent of Australia is so strongly represented. But, in spite of Mr. Reid's criticisms, it appears at this distance to be a measure urgently required, particularly as, under the Constitution, the* Privy Council has no jurisdiction in Australia excepting in cases of admittedly Imperial, concern. The establishment of a Federal Court of Conciliation and Arbitration is another proposal sure to excite a long and bitter discussion, for the New South Wales Act, ushered into that State with such flourish of trumpets as an up-to-date improvement of our New Zealand law, -has failed to satisfy either employers or employed. The questions which have cropped up in connection with the substitution of white for coloured labour in the sugar industry are not to be easily disposed of, yet must be dealt with ; so must the defence question and the ratification o f the naval agreement. Provision for a High Commissioner in London, for the acceptance of New Guinea as a Commonwealth territory, for the naturalisation of aliens, for the survey of a Transcontinental Railway to West Australia, may pass with little demur, but they will all occupy time. So that the inevitable slaughter of the innocents must necessarily embrace not merely the bulk of private members' Bills, but several of the measures to which Sir E. Barton professes to attach pressing importance. Under the circumstances, therefore, the announcement that the question of preferential trade within the Empire will be allowed to stand

over until the next Parliament is the wisest course that could have been adopted. The Barton Government has expressed itself as fully in sympathy with Mr. Chamberlain's policy, which, we may remark in passing, is authoritatively declared, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the British Board of Trade, to have been previously discussed with and approved by Mr. Balfour and to foreshadow legislative proposals by the Cabinet in the British Parliament. During the debate on the Federal Address-in-Reply, an even more important supporter of reciprocity than Sir E. Barton declared himself. We refer, of course, to Mr. Reid, who, as Leader of the Opposition, is not bound by Imperial Conference arrangements which might be supposed to have weight with the Australian Premier, who is politically interested in piercing the weak spots in his opponent's armour and who is the great Australian exponent and champion of Free Trade. Mr. Beid agreed that the question should be decided after the elections when, " if the country decided in favour of Protection, the door might be opened a little more to the Mother Country than to foreign countries. He thoroughly believed that if they were going to shut their doors against British trade they should shut them closer against foreigD trade." It is true that Mr. Reitl's support to Imperial reciprocity is a provisional one. He will attempt once again to rally the Australian electors under the Free Trade banner which so long waved over New South Wales. But if he fails—and none know better the probabilities of the next Federal elections than Mr. Reid—-he will make the best he can of established fiscal conditions and follow Mr. Chamberlain's lead. Such an attitude, which we may be very certain has not been lightly assumed by a most astute politician, is a remarkable index of the undercurrent of Australian feeling and will be regarded by many as a guarantee that the Commonwealth will swing easily into any reasonable Imperial. reciprocity arrangements that 'shape themselves out of the present stage of nebulous discussion.

Among other Federal matters referred to which have a bearing upon our New Zealand interests we must not overlook the definite statement that while the Pacific cable cannot be expected to immediately re/turn a profit it has had the effect oi' securing a reduction of rates. In spite of all the explanations which have been made as to the Federal concessions to the Eastern Extension Company we cannot but feel very strongly that our neighbours have not acted up to the spirit of our cable copartnership, however much they may have observed the letter. The Pacific cable would now be much nearer self-maintenance, if it had not already reached that desirable mark, had the interested Australian Governments given it their hearty support and refused the Eastern Extension permission to open offices, to have the right to build connecting land lines and to entrench itself behind a new ten- years' agreement. It is all very well for Sir E. Barton to say that the Pacific cable loss is being compensated for by the reduction in rates. If Australia alone were at loss we should have no ground for hostile criticism, although we might comment upon the dubious character of such maladministration. But it is our loss as well as the Commonwealth's ; and we cannot profess to be comforted for entirely unnecessary loss by a reduction in rates which was brought about by the work of the Pacfic Cable Board and which the Eastern Extension could not possibly have prevented. Another matter which somewhat affects us, though in a different way altogether, is the determination of the Barton Administration to enforce in its mail contracts the prohibition of the employment of coloured labour. The Colonial Secretary has informed the Commonwealth that the Indian Mutiny Act prevents the Imperial Government from agreeing to such prohibition, but the said Act does not, of course, compel any British colony to pay mail-subsi-dies otherwise than as it pleases. Without Commonwealth co-opera-tion with the British Post Office the present Suez service can hardly be maintained at its present speed, the inadequacy of which, for New Zealand mails, we have repeatedly pointed out. This is an additional reason for perfecting the 'Frisco connection, so that we may be altogether independent of, and superior to, the slow and unsatisfactory Suez route. In this connection it is instructive to note that Mr. Chamberlain, the arch-Imperialist, advocates a trans-Siberian route as i'i,e best and speediest to Australia. All sensible people send their letters by the swiftest messenger and the shortest road, whether that be Russian, French, or Italian, or AngloAmerican. Siberian route or no Siberian route, New Zealand's shortest and swiftest road Home is via San Francisco.