Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1934. AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 191, 26 May 1934, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1934. AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

The difficulties and dangers inherent to the three-party system of politics are again instanced in Australia, where the two sections opposed to Labour are endeavouring to continue their separate identity while presenting no divided front against the common opponent. To this end, the Prime Minister has said, the United Australian Party will strongly endorse the proposal by Dr. Earl Page (leader of the United Country Party) that the two parties exchange preferences in the event of triangular contests at the forthcoming Federal elections. They are drawn together by allegiance to the new basis of bond conversion and financial reform in Australia, and by fear of Labour (particularly Lang Labour) as an enemy thereof; but are divided by, the tariff. The farmers demand not only twenty-five per cent, exchange but tariff reduction; they are prepared to endanger the Government that brought about the reconstruction on which their own hopes are based. Even among those who usually have lent a sympathetic ear to the complaints of Dr. Earle Page, there is at present no whole-hearted support ot his attitude. There is a tendency to review his charges in the light of the grave difficulties which faced the Lyons Ministry upon its assumption of office, to recall the time required to reorganise the finances of the whole country through the Premiers’ Conference and to point to the heavy revenue requirements of the subsidies upon primary production which the Country Party demanded. Mr Lyons claims that his Government has discharged its obligations in the matter of tariff revision, to which practically the whole of the last session was devoted. Under the British preferential tariff, he has stated, “215 items have been reduced and under the general tariff i 76 have been reduced. Primage over the whole range of the protective portion of the tariff has been reduced from ten to five per cent., while reductions in all protective British preferential duties have been made on account of the protective influence of exchange. The Labour Government’s policy, which brought Australia to the edge of the precipice, was .thought to have produced a lasting impression.* But the public memory is proverbially short. . It would be a tragedy if the results of the Government’s financial policy, which have fully restored Australia’s credit overseas, should lead to a division that would allow the, return of a party pledged to increased expenditure in all directions. It is said that the two parties would come into closer association were the leadership of the present Government party in other hands. It is common knowledge that Mr Lyons has no particular liking for high office. The Federal political problem is bound up in the three-party system. What chance there is or escape from it only the future can tell.