MR THEODORE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18073, 15 May 1924, Page 11

MR THEODORE.

SEEKS FEDERAL SEAT.

(ncx on* owir coßMsrowrairr.) SYDNEY, May 8. The announcement that Mr Theodore, Premier of Queensland, who has just completed the negotiations in London for the conversion, of huge loan moneys and the overcoming/of the resentment in financial circles of the notorious Repudiation Act, has arranged by cable to abandon the SUte sphere and contest the North Queensland constituency of Herbert has caused an immense star in federal Labour circles. ->i r iheodore is without question the Htroneest figure in Australian Labour to-day. He combines with many une qualities great strength of purpose, antl although the present Federal Labour leader, Mr M. Charlton, in commenting on the announcement* remarked that Mr Theodore would be "in the same position as any other man who is helping Labour," .it is inconceivable that » man of his calibre and dominating personality would long remain separated from the leadership. Labour, moreover, has great hopes for the next election. Afl the writer has pointed out previously, Australian politics on vne Nationalist or Liberal side have been absolutely honeycombed by the Country Party breakaway; divided authority having resulted in sapping even <"»« appearance of strength from the quasicoalitions which have been patched up. The publio intolerance of stlch situations has been strikingly demonstrated in South and West Australia, and Labour has great hopes that in the Federal sphere in New South Wales, where efforts to compose similar differences have failed, they will be equally successful. If these hopes are realised, and Mr Theodore wins Herbert, it would probably not be long before a position of preat influence, if not the greatest, would fall to him. The Herbert seat is held by Mr Bamford, a Labour man who turned Nationalist after the 1916 conscription split. At the lost election Mr Bamford only held the seat by a nnrtow majority, and it is generally believed that Mr Theodore will have little difficulty in canturihe it.