Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1923. FEDERAL POLITICS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIII, Issue 9793, 8 February 1923, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1923. FEDERAL POLITICS.

The exit of Mr William Morris Hughes from the Premiership of the Commonwealth of Australia was unaccompanied by any dramatic incidents such, as were anticipated by many people who compare him and his force and personality to Mr Lloyd George. No one who knew Mr Hughes thought for a moment that he would go out of-political office without a struggle, especially as the recent elections, although it destroyed his majority, left him leader of the largest of the three parties into which the Federal House is divided. His tenacity in most things has been one of his characteristics in a long and interesting career. Following Mr Hughes as leader of the National Party comes a man who lias risen rapidly in Federal politics. Mr S. M. Bruce was first elected to the Federal Parliament less than five years ago, but his election to leadership has not caused a great deal of surprise. As a student, an athlete, and a soldier, he had won distinction before turning to politics. After lengthy negotiations with, the Country Party, the Nationalists rejected as unreasonable the basic', demand that a change in leadership should be a condition precedent to any arrangement for carrying on the government of the '' country. There were debates over the composition of Cabinet, compromises upon policy and details incidental to joining forces and no one seemed able to predict the upshot. Then Mr Hughes resigned. So far as his successor is concerned, the speed < with which Mr Bruce attained Cabinet rank was used as an argument to indicate bis exceptional. ab liity and gifts of leadership. The differences in policy between the National and 'Country parties have been to some extent clouded by the question of leadership. Although they are considerable they are not regarded as insurmountable to a working arrangement in the House. In his election campaign Dr. Earle j*age, the leader of the Country Party, emphasised two points, his desire to end the personal and autocratic rule associated, he alleged, with the Hughes' regime and opposition to the platform and objectives of the Labour Party. Mr Hughes has been eliminated, therefore Dr. Page has succeeded in one of his endeavours. But to oppose Labour there must be some arrangement between the other two groups in the House. Mr Bruce has rejected the scheme of forming a Cabinet from the National Party and endeavouring to carry on with no more than an assurance of support from the followers of Dr. Earle Page in the event of a censure motion, and it is anticipated that he will form a Cabinet in which the Country Party will be allotted portfolios according to its strength in the House. Thus neither party will lose its identity. There will be a compromise on policy and a united front to the forces of Labour.

I Mr Hughes first became a Commonwealth Minister in April, 1904, holding the position of Minister for External Affairs in the short-lived Watson Administration. That was Labour's first taste of power in Federal politics. It lasted only four months, and after a four years' interval, Mr Hughes was Attor-ney-General under Mr Fisher in a Labour Administration whicl lasted nine months. He was I

again in the same office from April, 1910, to June, 1913. Tlien came a 15 months' period in opposition, but in September, 1914, he was back in his old place under Mr Fisher, who, however, was shelved after a year's leadership, and accepted the High Oommissionership, leaving the way clear for his subordinate. It was on October 27, 1915, that Mr Hughes took over the reins, and he held them until last week. A year after becoming Prime Minister he reconstituted his Cabinet, but it remained a Labour Administration until February, 1917, when Sir Joseph Cook joined forces with him to form the National War Government, and it was indirectly in consequence of this fusion that Mr Hughes broke with the Official Labour Party an association dating back to 1894, when he first entered politics as a member of the Lower House in the New South Wales Parliament. Labour regards him as a renegade who has climbed to office on its back, and then ultimately opposed and repressed it with might and main.