THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 221, 18 September 1929, Page 6

THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

The Federal Prime Minister has announced that the general election will be held on October 12, and Australia is already seething with excitement., With less than four weeks to run before the eventful day, the party leaders aniorganisers will certainly have their hands fulL Naturally the principal Conservative papers are just now denouncing Mr. Hughes as a renegade and a "wrecker," but there'is plenty of evidence to show that the Nationalists and their policy have incurred widespread unpopularity and are largely out of touch with the electors. Mr. Brace's supercilious aloofness, his extremely unpopular proposals, and the extravagance of the Federal Treasurer, Dr. Earle Page, have helped to precipitate this crisis. The Nationalists know that as a'partythey have alienated themselves - from many of-their political supporters, and the "Bulletin's" recent suggestion, that it was high time for them .to change their name again, seems already to have borne fruit. For a new "People's Party" is now being formed, which, according -to Sydney ; advices, is "avowedly Nationalist in sentiment," and under this alias the Nationalists will attempt to recover the ground lost:by Mr. Bruce and.his colleagues during the last two or three yea*s. But it will need 'all the rhetorical powers that the Anti-Labour Party have at their command;to secure a majority for the Nationalists so long as they uphold Mr. Bruce's proposalsifor.the abolition of the Federal Arbitration Court and the taxation of beer, spirits and "the movies," which Mr. Bruce terms "luxuries,' but which Australians generally regard as among the necessaries of life.