Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/10

 to our great homeland, Australia. We are living here to-day under the freest constitutional conditions that any social system can give. We have one adult one vote, and majority rule. No revolution here, no smashing of our social system, will give us greater freedom. To-day any citizen has only to convince a majority of his or her fellow-citizens that what he or she advocates is right and good, and it can be made the law of the land. If conditions exist to-day that are wrong or unfair, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We are free to alter our conditions at any time, so long as the majority wishes to do so. Our charter of liberty is the widest in the world. It is based on adult suffrage and majority rule, the only possible basis upon which democracy can rest. Whoever preaches a class rebellion in Australia, whoever urges physical force to secure reform, is a traitor to our constitution, a plotter against our liberty, and an advocate of tyranny. Here in Australia our forefathers have laid for us the very corner stone of liberty. It is for all Australians, regardless of social position, to safeguard that liberty and to 'use it so that on the principles of right and justice we may build a national life that will place Australia's name in peace as high in the temple of fame as our soldier sons have placed it in time of war. Most of us here to-night have been permitted to live our lives under conditions of peace and order. Unless we bestir ourselves, our children may be deprived of that privilege, simply through our own supineness. Those who are too tired to fight for liberty do not deserve to possess it.

In making this appeal for the preservation of our existing constitutional rights I do not mean that our Federal or State Constitutions should not be altered. As a free people we must retain our existing right to alter our constitutions in any way the majority wishes, and we may be sure that if we do our duty no alteration will receive majority approval that is not based on right, justice, and liberty for all equally, with privileges for none.

Let us turn now to the existing conditions of our Australian life and see whether they accord with these principles, remembering that if they do not we all share the blame. Let us remember, too, that the great war will have been fought in vain if it has not made us kindlier one to another, and if it has not left us determined to make the world in general and Australia in particular a better place to live in. Australia has been proud of her trade and commerce.