DANGER SIGNS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 11

DANGER SIGNS.

POLITICAL CRISIS.

RELIEF WORK OR DOLE?

! N.S.W. POLICY CHALLENGED. ! (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 21. • Since I disc v >Y earlier in the week ! the Acting-Premier's proposals for the j abolition of relief work and the relega- ■ tion of some 50.000 men to the dole, j some startling changes have taken place ! in our political world. , The special meeting at which IS j r.A.r. members voted unanimously in I favour of deferring Mr. Bruxner's plan j for three months made it quite clear j that a very strong section of the L'.A.P. iis opposed to the abolition of relief j work at the present time, and detests ! the idea of reverting on a large scale I to the dole. j Mr. Bruxner and his supporters made j some attempt to convince the general j public that the men put back upon the dole —there are already 5000 "back on the old stand" in Sydney and Newcastle alone —might not have to wait long for I the promised "full time work at full award rates," • and the acting-Premier produced opportunely enough the [ schedule of public works which the Government now proposes to enter upon. The total expenditure is put down at about £2,300.000, with additional works to the same amount now being negotiated. The "Sydney Morning Herald," which wants to see all "relief" abolished at once —"as a form of State Socialism inimical to private enterprise"—made as much as possible out of this list. But the "Daily Telegraph," which has developed bitter hostility against the Government on this question, made a strong attack upon the scheme. These "brave new works," it declared, are really "a mere list of old decisions." It insists that "the scheme is paltry, that it is a mere recapitulation of decisions reacliei months ago; that in the main the works will not begin before Christmas." Opposition Intensified. This stringent criticism certainly helped to intensify the strong public opposition already manifested toward anv proposal for the abolition of relief works, with the dole as the sole remaining alternative, before adequate provision can be made for employment under decent conditions at fair .wages. Bv this time it was manifest that the U.A.P. members of the Nationalist party were thoroughly alarmed at Mr. Bruxner's plan, and they were looking about anxiously for some means of escape from their awkward position when Providence —if one may say so without disrespect for Mr. Bruxner — intervened on their behalf.

Mr. E. J. Munro, who is general secretary of the Country party, issued through the "Sydney Morning Herald" and other newspapers a long statement applauding Mr. Bruxner's determination to abolish relief works, rebuking his U.A.P. critics for disloyalty and votehunting, and explaining at length that all members of the U.A.P. should support the proposed discontinuance of "relief" because, by throwing additional hands on the labour market, it would benefit landholders and primary producers generally. The step taken by Mr. Munro apparently did not command the wholehearted approval of the U.A.P. as a body. But it had most definitely the efi>ct of setting the country and its supposed interests in diametrical-oppo-sition to the towns. Curiously enough, Mr. Munro's statement —tactless and inept as it was—received the commendation of the "Sydney Morning Herald," which, with singular fatuity, proceeded to enlarge upon the U.C.P. without ever appearing to realise points made by the secretary of the the disastrous political consequences that the strange developments might involve. Reaction Prompt And Emphatic. But the reaction of the U.A.P. members to this U.C.P. challenge was prompt and emphatic. Mr. Weaver, Mr. Ross and other leading members repudiated most indignantly tlie insinuations of Mr. Munro and the "Sydney Morning Herald" that they are either time servers or disloyalists and it became evident that Mr. Munro's ill-timed attempt to set the two sections of the Nationalist forces in direct antagonism to each other had produced a remarkable result.

So far Mr. Spooner had supported. Mr. Bruxner's proposals for the abolition of relief works—in fact it was generally understood that the chiet motive behind the plan was Mr. Spooner's insatiable demands for economy in the hope of balancing his Budget. But Mr. Spooner is not only actingTreasurer but also acting-leader of the U.A.P., and he has had quite sufficient political experience to realise the approach of danger. Also he had'good reason to resent the foolish blunder of Mr. Munro, which at this critical moment has set the U.A.P. against the U.C.P.; and it "now became evident that Mr. Spooner would review his position. A meeting of the Cabinet had been called for to-day to consider the request from the U.A.P. members to postpone the operation of the Bruxner plan, and by Thursday (yesterday) it was a matter of common knowledge that Mr. Spooner was prepared to lead the U.A.P. malcontents in demanding that Mr. Bruxner shoiild comply with their request and hold off the substitution of the dole for relief work for the next three months.

I Political Crisis Probable. This fateful Cabinet meeting was not ! concluded when the evening paper went jto press, and its result is naturally I awaited with great "nterest. But whatever may be the outcome of the discussion, there can be no doubt of this —that Mr. Munro's faux pas, by inducing the U.C.P. to identify itself j with the demand for the abolishing of j relief works, has enabled Mr. Spooenr I and the U.A.P: to find a way out of I their dangerous dilemma, to to throw I upon Mr. Bruxner and the U.C.P. all the , odium inseparable from their attempt |to force upon the country a scheme ! which has been in advanc" widely and I strongly condemned. As the "Daily Telegraph"—which has • done much to defeat -Mi'. Bruxner's designs—remarked in an editorial yesterday, with quite pardonable cynicism "It is probably unique in politics for one party to take up the discarded policy of another, and to enter into a defence of a policy which another party has found to be a Llunder, and opposed to the social conscience of the people." It is surely, as the "Daily Telegraph" has said," "not only unique but incredibly naive" for the Country party to take such an extraordinary step; and the close of the week will possibly find the State in the throes of a political crisis.quite unparalleled sinco.Lang fell i from power four years ago.