AUSTRALIAN "GANDHI."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 259, 1 November 1932, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN "GANDHI."

COUNTRY PARTY LEADER. SECTIONAL INTERESTS. OTTAWA "A SLAP IN THE FACE." (From Our Own jorrespondent.j SYDNEY, October 27. Not long ago Mr. Gordon;* Bennett, president of the New South Wales Chamber of Manufacturers, had occasion to discuss Dr. Earle Page's attitude toward the tariff, and he referred- to the Leader of the Country party as "the-irrespon-sible, irreconcilable Gandhi of Australian politics." The title is aptly applied, for Dr. Earle Page is, in regard to certain important public questions, -a narrow, obstinate and impracticable doctrinaire. He is convinced, above all other things, that the interests of the primary producer sliould be of paramount importance in the State, and therefore that the Country party, which directly represents "the man on the land," should dominate our political world, and that its policy must prevail, to, the exclusion of all other interests and considerations. Demand For Free Trade. • This might "not ■ .matter so. much if. Dr. Page did. not succeed in imbuing his followers with his own exaggerated conception of the importance of his party and its views, and this tendency, of course, manifests itself in local as well as in" Federal politics. Thus we find Dr. Earle Page, in the Federal House, denouncing the Ottawa Agreement as "a slap in the face," a studied insult to the Country party, because, in his opinion, the party had a right to.expect a general scaling down of the protective duties. It is rather amusing to find Dr.. Page and his followers denouncing protection in one breath, and in the next demanding the maintenance of duties on tobacco and lemons and bananas, and subsidies for wheat and wool—all in direct conflict with the U.C.P. free trade principles. It is this strange inconsistency that has induced, .critics with a turn for literary humour to describe "the Sage of Graf ton" as . Dr. Earle Hyde or Dr. Jekyll Page, according to circumstances. ■ , . ,

' Wish to Dominate Cabinet. Dr. Page's views on fiscal policy are perhaps less important than hie arrogant conception of the ■ influence and authority that the Country party—and he, as their leader —ought to exerciee'in public affairs. • Last week Mr., Lyons, with his Cabinet weakened by the resignation of Mr. Hawker and Mr.- Fenton, made an attempt to bring the Country party into ' line with the 'United Australia party, and for that purpose he offered Dr. Page three seats in a Coalition Ministry. the Country party leader declined'to accept any offer that would subordinate the policy of the Country party to the claims' of any political ally, and he also declined to acknowledge the right of \the Prime Minister to nominate his colleagues in a Coalition Cabinet. These preposterous estimates of the Country party's .political value, are evidently shared by his followers, for during the past week, Senator Hardy has been inveighing against the' Federal • Government's Coalition scheme as another "slap in the face"-—Dr. Page's identical words about Ottawa!—for the Country party and its adherents. . -<... Unfortunately for New South Wales Dr. Page and Senator Hardy are not only our most fervent free traders, but the most enthusiastic advocates of the subdivision of New South Wales, to secure the emancipation of the "rural districts from the of the city," arid as the Country party here'has made Dr. Page's policy entirely its own, his attitude has reacted most injuriously upon political conditions in Sydney and in the State Parliament.