604 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION F. 



(as it can be easily increased in Australia) to absorb all the 

 unemployed ; that production can be set on foot under the 

 profit-sharing system so as to give the industrious worker 

 the fullest share in the products of work ; that there are 

 established in the country prosperous industries ; that there 

 are good wages and fair profits. Is it not evident that if 

 there be an influx into this industrial circle of undesirable 

 immigrants, that is to say, of immigrants who do not increase 

 the production, but come to share in it; additional numbers of 

 such workers in excess to compete in all the industries and 

 employments with those who are here ; if also, without 

 increasing the numbers of suitable workers, there should be 

 an influx of masses of capital to compete with and destroy 

 capital in the particular industries ah'eady here, and also 

 destroy itself and so lessen the production ; if numbers of 

 workers in the work of production and in the work of services 

 should enter this circle far exceeding the demand, the wealth 

 of the country may just remain the same, and be quoted 

 proudly as before ; the production will remain the same, 

 and although this country might be the richest in the world 

 in its mineral, agricultural, and pastoral wealth, in the midst 

 of that wealth there would be bad times for the largest 

 number? There may be the finest richest country, and the 

 undue competition of numbers not employed in additional 

 production would make times bad, and in the midst of plenty, 

 which the country produced for adequate numbers, there 

 would be the destitution which prevails in the older lands. 



I am not advocatinp- for one moment the restriction of 

 suitable immigration. There is possibly room in Australia 

 for milHons where there are hundreds of thousands now ; 

 there should be room for millions more within the next few 

 years, provided they are suitable workers, and that so far as 

 there are numbers seeking employment they are accompanied 

 by capitalists to give it. And if, when there has been estab- 

 lished all the production which can be promoted in this or 

 any other land, there should be surplus numbers unable to 

 find employment, and the question is asked whether civilisa- 

 tion admits of their being provided for, the answer must be, 

 that the more advanced the civilisation the greater the extent 

 to which it does admit of provision being made for them. 

 Under present conditions they may be provided for by the 

 transfer of the surplus numbers and capital to other existing 

 circles of industry where their services may be available, or by 

 the formation of other circles ; and future progress must 



