SEATS GAINED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 243, 14 October 1929, Page 7

SEATS GAINED.

LANDSLIDE TO LABOUR New South W ales And Victoria Vote Against Bruce. SITUATION REVIEWED. (Australian and K.Z. Press Association.) (Received 2 p.m.) SYDNEY, this day. The latest returns show that of the thirteen doubtful seat? Labour is likely (o win eight, giving them 4G scats in the new Parliament. In the Darling Downs electorate, Queensland, the former Speaker, Sir Littleton Groom, standing as an Inde-pendent-Nationalist. was defeated by the selected Nationalist, Mr. A. C. Morgan. who was expected to win. Mr. E. A. Mann, one of the breakaways who voted with Mr. Hughes against the Government on the arbitration measure, was defeated in Perth as an Independent-Nationalist. The Prime Minister, Mr. S. M. Bruce's, [return is now beyond doubt, later figures being mostly in his favour. A review of the whole position shows that both New South Wales and Victoria voted solidly against the Government, and in these States Labour will gain four or five seats. The Government is in danger of also losing scats in Tasmania and South Australia, but it may succeed in holding its position in Queensland and "Western Australia. In not one case did the National or Country parties succeed in taking a scat from Labour. The "Sydney Morning Herald" editorially says the swing to Labour was sooner or later bound to come. It is remarkable that the Australian electorate at large and traditionally fickle should have remained for so long constant to one party or to one combination of parties. It is nearly thirteen years since a Labour Ministry sat 011 the Federal Treasury benches and never before has Labour been so emphatically approved at an appeal for popular confidence. Mr. Bruce's courageous policy has been defeated, but only for the day. The country will learn in due course that he was right.