508 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



to direct their application into channels where they may find 

 profitahle employment to the benefit of all, — an organisation 

 which should aid, either permanently or for a time, those who 

 cannot find employments suited to their capabilities within 

 the circle of industry where civilisation cannot provide for 

 further numbers, and which should remove the idle and the 

 depraved from the most developed centres of civihsation to 

 which they now gravitate from all parts of everj'^ country or 

 continent to live or prey upon its strength, and compel them, 

 whilst means of employment are wanting, to support them- 

 selves in a circle of co-operative industry, — an organisation 

 which will recognise the necessity of the restriction which 

 the United States Republic is now forced, in self preservation, 

 to impose upon undesirable immigrants. One of the objects 

 of government in every large country under present condi- 

 tions should, and must ultimately be such organisation, to 

 secure the du'ection and restraint contended for, and provide 

 the minimum of capital to admit of the formation of new 

 circles of industry where the unfortunate, instead of becoming 

 the Huns and Vandals of civilisation, may become the pro- 

 moters of its progress. 



In dealing with the industrial system the public mind of 

 Australia has not yet grasped a vital question which must, I 

 consider, become the question of our time — the results and 

 the control of unrestrained and indiscriminate competition, 

 not merely from the point of view from which the unions of 

 labour regard it, but its results generally to a community, 

 more particularly as indicated on the American continent. 

 Whilst in Australia the trades unions have l»een deahng with 

 the question of unrestricted competition in the ranks of 

 labour, in America it has received the special attention of 

 capital. It has been found there that the employment of 

 large capitals and extensive machinery have been crushing 

 the small industries or compelling them to unite together. 

 Hobson states that the force of competition makes the 

 struggle for existence among the small businesses keen and 

 hopeless ; and it has been lately calculated in America that 

 95 per cent, of those who enter business fail of success. We 

 see the further operation of the system extended to the com- 

 petition of the associated capitals, the struggle between the 

 big survivors becomes more intense, and ultimately trusts 

 absorb the whole of the different industries, the businesses 

 coalesce and unite in forming one great joint stock company. 

 He states that " more than one-third of the United Slates 



