COMPROMISE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 162, 11 July 1934, Page 15

COMPROMISE.

ANTI-LABOUR PACT.

LYONS-PAGE BATTLEFRONT,

WILL UNITY BE LASTING ? I (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 5. -After prolonged and vehement dis- i •putes, in which the leaders of both parties occasionally had recourse to genteel vituperation to point their arguments, the United Australia party and the United Country party have come to au understanding that will enable them to go to the country together, and to co-operate at least to the extent of join- j ing hands against Labour. As a very natural consequence the Prime Ministci has announced that Parliament is to be dissolved and that ail election will be | held early in September, the electorates j to follow the lines already laid down in accordance with the movement of population, as set forth iu the last census returns. This was certainly a desirable consummation, but it has been so long delayed that most people had begun- to regard the situation with a feeling closely akin to despair. The ill-timed and inexplicable visit of Dr. Page to Tasmania last month almost destroyed our hopes. For there is strong opposition to the Prime Minister in Tasmania. •'We would support a Chinaman to put Lyons out," said one ardent Langite, and the advent of Dr. Page, breathing forth bitter hostility for Mr. Lyons and charging him and his colleagues with breaking faith with the United Country party, could only make the position of the United Australian party and its leader even more precarious than before. It is true that this unwarrantable intervention aroused strong adverse comment in Tasmania. Old-time Cricketer's Scorn. Mr. J. Darling, M.L.C., better, known to the world as Joe Darling, one of the greatest cricketers and Test captains that Australia ever produced, is vice-1 president of the Tasmanian StocK-1 owners' Association, but he has said | publicly, with characteristic frankness, that Dr. Page and his party "do not. cut much ice" in Tasmania. Mr. Darling lias been urged to stand for the Senate in the United Country party interest; but "I will have nothong to do with it," he says, "so long as Dr. Page is the leader." So that it is possible that Dr. Page rather miscalculated the effect of his sudden appearance as an uninvited guest in the island. However, many forces were at work striving to effect a and the ''United Australia Review," in a strongly worded article, appealed to the U.C.P° to drop the "separate identity" policy on which Dr. Pago lays so much stress—a plan of action by which the party "in attempting to justify its own existence threatens the existence of sound government." The "S.M. Herald" has never ceased to emphasise co-operation at all costs to face "the clear and important issues" raised by the highly Socialistic Labour programmes now before the country. In the "Herald's" opinion, the people of Australia should thank Mr. Lang for thus providing them with "a rallying point for the vast mass of public opinion wedded to the maintenance of constitutional rights," and it urged Dr. Page to do nothing more to "cloud the issue." Vote-splitting Avoided. After Dr. Page and Mr. Lyons, on returning from Tasmania, found their way to Canberra with the opening of Parliament opportunities for negotiations were again available, and friends on both sides utilised them. At first Dr. Page was bitterly obdurate. He would not hear of amalgamation or of accepting a place in a Cabinet in which lie and his friends must be content with the portfolios handed to them; and he was still most resentful and obstinate on the tariff question. However, personal interviews were arranged, and gradually the atmosphere cleared. Edging away from the tariff problem, the U.C.P. and U.A.P. leaders considered various other aspects of their policies, and in the end it was announced that a compromise bad been effected which would at least prevent vote-split-ting, and would allow the two parties to stand side by side at the polls. So far the exact terms of this "modus vivendi" have not been made public. We arc told that negotiations were nayrowed down to discussions on specific points of election policy, and that "there will he no attempt to arrange any comprehensive agreement now." So that the compromise arrived at is a sort of "ad hoc" plan for carrying the elections and little more. Moreover it seems that, to induce Dr. Page to shelve the tariff issue for the time, Mr. Lyons and his Cabinet had to promise many things. Part of the Price. The relief of landowners, by reducing mortgages and lowering interest, and by "rural rehabilitation" generally, is said to have been part of the price that the United Australia Party has offered to pay. Some of Mr. Lyons' followers are complaining about this "hard bargain," arid one irate newspaper declares that "Lyons has been bamboozled," and that Page has "pulled the wool over his eyes." But the general feeling in the United Australia party camp seems to be that there will be plenty of time to talk about those things when the elections are over. The "Sydney Morning Herald,' in an editorial, "At the Eleventh Hour," reminds us that "the tariff is not a law of the Modes and Persians" for cither partv, and that "the supreme question for each is to win the election." Outside the immediate following of Dr. Pfl"-e this view seems to be generally held, and Mr. Lyons, having chosen a moment when his own political record o-ives proof of solid achievement, has taken advantage of the division in Labour's ranks, and the promise of assistance from the Country party, to appeal to the people, with every prospect of success.