END IN SIGHT?

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 109, 11 May 1939, Page 15

END IN SIGHT?

MR. LANG'S CAREER. ATTITUDE OF PARTY. SVEX DIE-HARDS WAVERIHG. (From Oar Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 5. There are signs that Mr. Lang'e record career as leader of the Labour party in New South Wales for 14 years may be drawing to a close. Xo political leader has ever been more staunchly supported through thick and thin than he hae. but even hie die-hard followers have become convinced by the loss of two general elections and the recent lose of two city by-elections (Waverley and Huretville) that Mr. Lang will have to go, because as long as he remains leader they cannot hope to eee their party victorious. It is now seven years since Mr. Lang was dismissed by the then Governor of New South Wales (Sir Philip Game), who is now Chief Commissioner of the London Police, for unconstitutional action. Mr. Lang had ordered the State Departments to pay receipts into the Treasury instead of into the bank so that t'he Federal Government could not seize the money to pay interest on overseas loans in which Mr. Lang had defaulted. Mr. Lang, of course, was unfortunate in being in power during the depression which put practically every Government out of office, but some other reason must be found to account for the fact that he and his party are still out of power in 193!). The reason is the bitter feud which has been waged within the Labour party in Xew South Wales for 12 years. The first attempt at rebellion was made 12 years ago by Mr. Lang's Minister of Kducation, Mr. Mutch, who lost his seat as the result of his revolt, but recently fought his way back into Parliament as I".A.P. member for Coogee. Since then the feud has been smouldering on, but has always been kept within the Labour caucus until recently the rival HefTron Labour party (the Industrial Wing) came out into the open a« a separate organisation. After bitter fighting and much litigation, the Heffron party wrested from Mr. Lang, first his control of the "Labour Daily" (nowknown as the '"Daily Xews , '), and next his control of the Labour broadcasting station 2KY. These victories they have followed up by winning two byelections against the combined opposition of the Lang party and the U.A.P. Terms of Unity Conference. Faced with this position, the Triennial Inter-State A.L.1 , . Conference at Canberra thin week, after a two-day debate, and after hearing representatives of both the Lang and Heffron parties, decided by 2S votes to 8 to call an all-in conference to achieve Labour unity in Xew South Wales. The conference will be held on the following terms:— All Labour organisations affiliated with either the Lang or Heffron parties will be represented; the conference will have power to rescind or alter any rules, including those governing the election of the Parliamentary Labour Leader, and to elect all executive officers; the Federal Executive of the A.L.P. will be in charge of the conference and will supervise the credentials of delegates. The most important of these conditions is the one which gives the proposed conference power to alter the

rule governing the election of the Parliamentary Labour Leader. It was the conferring on Mr. Lang of dictatorial powers by an Inner Group that caused the split in his party. And the most significant thing about the conference is that on a motion supporting it at the Lang caucus last week, Mr. Lang was beaten for the first time in his career by 15 votes to 11. There were immediate demands for his resignation as leader, but in a broadcast a few days later he refused them and said it would be a fight to the death, in the open. He recalled hi& achievements for Labour, such as the compulsory reduction of interest, Fair Rents Court, moratorium, widows' pensions, child endowment, rural awards, and eo forth. These achievements cannot be denied, and it is a fact that every nation followed Mr. Lang in more or less compulsory scaling down of interest on loans, mostly by the more respectable way of conversion. But past achievements can never outweigh continued present failure. Mr. Lang is no longer wanted because he can no longer lead Labour to victory.