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various reasons, in particular, the strong opposition of her the Board of Trade in Great Britain, its enactment was long delayed, and some of its sections have not yet come into operation. At the request of the British Government, the Act was suspended during the war period, and its most important provisions, those contained in Part VI which affect the Australian coastal trade, only came into effect on July 1, 1921. Of the 425 sections contained in the Act all except 46 are now operative, and those yet unproclaimed deal mainly with pilots and pilotage. (One, by the way, bestows on the Minister controlling the Act the power of dismissing the cook on board any Australian vessel presumably to 'protect' the crew, and perhaps travelling politicians, against the pangs of indigestion.) In the main, the measure was framed on the admirable model provided by British legislation dealing with the mercantile marine, and so far it invites no criticism. But Part VI, which deals with the Australian coasting trade in conformity with the terms of a most unfortunate resolution adopted at the Imperial Conference held in London in 1907, most certainly, when judged by the results of its operation, cannot claim the same immunity.

One of the most extraordinary features of the portion of the Act now exclusively dealt with is the wide latitude allowed to the Minister of Trade and Customs who is charged with its administration. By section 288 it is provided that (1) no ship shall engage in the coasting trade unless licensed so to do. Penalty, 5007. (2) Licences shall be for such period, not exceeding three years, as is prescribed, and may be granted as prescribed. Provision is merely made for the payment of the Australian rate of wages as determined by an award of the Arbitration Court, and the other conditions are left to the discretion of the Minister, advised by a singular body known as the Marine Council, to lay down in the form of regulations. The Minister, acting under advice, is allowed also to determine whether or not temporary licences to engage in the Australian coasting trade shall be granted to oversea steamers, and the period for which any licence shall extend. The Act merely requires that, before such a privilege be conceded, the functionary just mentioned must be satisfied

(a) That no licensed ship is available for the service:

or

(b) That the service as carried out by a licensed ship or ships is inadequate to the needs of such port

or ports.

Finally, it is added, if duly satisfied on these points, the Minister may grant permits to unlicensed British ships to trade between Australian ports, either unconditionally or subject to conditions laid down by himself after consulting his official advisers. It will be seen from the facts just stated that the machinery of the Act is bureaucratic in the extreme. Parliament has endowed the Minister of the day with a degree of authority which enables him, if he thinks proper, absolutely to exclude all British and foreign shipowners from any share in the Australian coasting trade.

Though nominally within certain necessary limits almost an autocrat, the Minister finds it expedient for strong reasons to act in accordance with the wishes of his official advisers, the members of the Marine Council. The personnel of this influential body, therefore, demands notice. One might have supposed that, inasmuch as Australian merchants, manufacturers, primary producers, and the public generally are somewhat interested in the maintenance of adequate shipping services and the transport of passengers and cargo at reasonable rates, they would enjoy at least some representation in the Council. As a matter of fact they have none at all. The official advisers of the Minister consist of one representative of the certificated navigation officers, one of the marine engineers, one of the seamen, two of the shipowners, one of the underwriters, and the Commonwealth Director of Navigation, who acts as Chairman. Thus, of the entire seven members of the Council, five, a substantial majority, are directly interested in preserving a strict monopoly of the Australian coasting trade for Australian shipowners and their employés, and in obstructing outside competition. The Council, in fact, is a perfect instrument of what is now vulgarly called 'job control.' The position as regards the control of the Australian maritime communications is indeed very similar to what it would be in respect of that of land communications in Great Britain were all the British

sar railways controlled by a single Minister assisted by an advisory council chiefly composed of representatives of sed the railway companies, stationmasters, engine-drivers, chy and porters. Probably under such conditions complaints from travellers and consignors of merchandise would be as numerous and loud as those now being made by all classes interested in sea transport in Australian waters. Only in the Commonwealth the position is in a measure er worse, inasmuch as traders and travellers are compelled to use ships for long coastal journeys, whereas motor transport is available on land.

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It has before been mentioned that the Act permits the issue of licences to British vessels to engage in the Australian coastal trade on conditions (other than those it relating to wages and hours of work which are determined by the Arbitration Court) prescribed by the Minister advised by the Council. The wide and illdefined powers thus given have been ingeniously utilised by the latter to protect the monopoly of the Australian shipowners and seamen. Owners of oversea vessels trading with Australia might from time to time think it worth their while temporarily to conform to the exacting requirements of Australian conditions as regards wages, etc., in order to secure the right of carrying passengers and cargo between Australian ports. To check such nefarious practices, countenanced, possibly, by a Minister endowed with inconveniently strong Imperial sympathies, the Council has devised effective safeguards. It has inspired regulations of a kind that effectually warn off unwelcome trespassers. Vessels privileged to engage in the Australian coastal trade must be provided with metal bunks of a certain pattern; they must be equipped with spacious mess-rooms situated in a specified portion of the ship for the use of the crew, and sufficient room must be provided to enable all members of the latter to sit down to a meal at once. Each man, it is carefully stipulated, must be allowed exactly 270 square inches of table space to brandish his knife and fork, and at least 18 inches measured along the edge of the table to protect him from assaults by his neighbour's elbows. (The Act itself, by the way, requires the provision of 140 cubic feet of space per man in the sleeping quarters, as against 122 cubic feet

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required by the British Act of 1906.) Deck space is allotted on an equally liberal scale. It is evident that, to comply with these and other conditions, extensive structural alterations would be needed in the case of all save a very few British steamers; and as it certainly would not be to the interest of their owners to carry them out merely in the expectation of obtaining permission to engage intermittently in the Australian coastal trade, the local shipowner and his employés are very effectually protected. Rarely, indeed, by an act of gracious indulgence, the stringent conditions are waived in the case of a British steamer for a single short voyage. An Orient liner was permitted, early in November 1924, to carry passengers on one trip from Sydney to Melbourne so as to reach the latter city on the eve of the 'Cup' day. Since the festival just mentioned is as popular in proletarian as in plutocratic circles in Australia, and the inter-State steamers during the great racing week of the year are always overcrowded, even the Marine Council thought it prudent to make a slight concession to the convenience of the public. But, unfortunately, while in a very small degree the official junta recognises the claims of pleasure, it almost invariably turns a deaf ear to those of business.

The result of the careful precautions just referred to, though no doubt satisfactory to those for whose exclusive benefit they were designed, can hardly be said to be equally so for the Australian people. The latter have to pay a very high price for the special advantages bestowed on a relatively small privileged class. Since Part VI of the Act came into operation fares and freight charges have risen with miraculous speed, and are now more than double what they were just before the outbreak of the war. According to evidence given by Mr Oakley, the Chairman of the Tariff Board, to the Royal Commission on the Navigation Act on June 3, 1924, the freight on oats sent from Melbourne to Fremantle, a distance of 1800 miles, is now 17. 15s. a ton; while the same quantity can be brought to the former city from New York for 1l. 7s. 1d. It costs 3s. 9d. to send a case of apples as ordinary cargo from Tasmania to Sydney, whereas the charge for carrying fruit to London in refrigerated chambers is only 9d. per case more. Timber

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is now actually brought to Melbourne from Scandinavia nt at less than one half the rate charged for carrying it across Bass Strait. Steel rails cost only 40s. a ton for e of conveyance from Great Britain to West Australia; while the inter-State companies charge 2s. more for taking it from Newcastle in New South Wales to Fremantle. Another remarkable case given by Mr Oakley was that of sugar, which is conveyed from Java to New Zealand for 22s. 6d. per ton, while to bring it from North Queensland to Melbourne costs no less than 37s. Many similar examples of the strangling effects of the Navigation Act on the Australian coastal trade were given by Mr Oakley and other authoritative witnesses in illustration of the enormous increase in freight charges within the last few C years. Sir Henry Jones, the founder and head of the largest fruit-preserving company in the Commonwealth, recently informed the Minister of Customs that it now costs 1038. per ton to send jam from Hobart to West Australia, an amount actually 28s. per ton higher than the freight to British ports; whereas, in 1920, before the clauses of the Act affecting the coastal trade came into operation, the rate was from 20s. to 30s. per ton. In these circumstances high import duties charged in the interests of the manufacturers become a mere mockery. Federal politicians have throughout shown a remarkable aptitude for bestowing unfair advantages on various sections of the community in such a way that while they mutually annul one another they cumulatively produce most disastrous effects to the public. These effects were correctly summed up in a report issued by the Tariff Board in June 1923, in which it was stated that 'much of the benefit conceded by the tariff is lost through the additional cost in freight on Australian goods,' and that our primary producers and manufacturers will not be able to obtain the full share of the markets they are entitled to until some other methods can be adopted to provide a service that will not place our shippers at a disadvantage.'

In several cases, also, the onerous conditions imposed by the Act have deprived the inhabitants of certain districts of the Commonwealth of shipping facilities they formerly enjoyed. Up to within a quite recent time, for instance, small passenger and cargo steamers traded