FEDERAL AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 11, 14 January 1926, Page 6

FEDERAL AFFAIRS.

"If my Government is returned to power, the first thing it proposes to do is to get rid of these wild revolutionaries, who are holding up the whole of our oversea trade. And, when we have done that, for heaven's sake let us all get on with our job of populating this country, which is the grandest on earth, and of developing its prosperity." So said Mr. Bruce in one of his election speeches. His Government has been returned by an overwhelming majority, and it met Parliament yesterday. Surrounded for the most part by Labour Governments in the States, it is in a peculiar position, but its majority is large enough to free it from all anxiety about tenure, and it has four years' allotted life in front of it. The one blot on this fine weather landscape is the adverse decision on the deportation issue. Mr Bruce promised to rid Australia of extremists, but the path that he had already taken has been barred by the law. It is important to note that it was on purely legal grounds that the High Court quashed the deportation proceedings; the mandate from the people to deal with wreckers of society remains. What will Mr. Bruce do? He proposes to legislate "to forbid the establishment of associations having for their objective forcible disturbance or the overthrow of constitutional Government," and "to prevent the dislocation of trade and commerce by interference with the transport of goods or passengers." He also has an arbitration programme. Details of these proposals will be awaited with interest. The law already has some power to deal with strike agitators, and we may expect this power to he widened considerably. There will no doubt be protests in the name of the rights of trade unionism, but we question whether the majority of Australians will be impressed. The men aimed at especially are wreckers pure and simple. Their avowed purpose is to "smash" things, and, really, the State is no more justified in permitting an agitator to break up a vital industry in the manner of Mr. Walsh or Mr. Johnson than it is in allowing men to go up and down the street breaking shop windows. No one, however, questions that the task of stopping this sort of thing is most difficult. The deportation" remedy is apparently unusable, and Mr. Bruce will have to discipline the extreme agitator in Australia itself. This, however, is only one of his tasks. As he says, there is the populating and general advancement of Australia to attend to. Federal affairs bristle with problems. "There must be a vast amount of common sense in his very viril« country, which has accomplished so much in a short time," writes one of the English Press delegates who visited Australia recently. If Mr. 3ruce, who is an able man with liberal icfoas, can enlist this common sense, he mil go far. .