KEEN INTEREST.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18507, 8 October 1925, Page 9

KEEN INTEREST.

EYES UPON AUSTRALIA. COMMENT BY "THE TIMES." ■ _. ■ (bt cablb—rsiss assocutios—eopißicnr.'i (AUSTRALIAN AND JJ.z. CABLE ASSOCIATION^ (Received October 7th, 9.1-5 p.m.) LONDON, October 6. "Mr Unite has acted wisely and courageously."' says ''Tho Times" in an editorial. "He has appealed to the country tt> choose, between tho Parliamentary democratic system and the tendencies of control of which*the Communists are tho thief exponents. It is the first time such an issue has been so sharply and conspicuously raised in any part of the Empire and the progress of tho electoral campaign will bo watched here and in the Dominions with sorno wonder that Australia should be the scene of such an experiment, and with unusual concern. "Australia, prosperous, thinly-popu-lated, and remote from the stormy Old World, was, so dreamers might have argued, tho last place on earth to have been exposed to so modern and strenuous a controversy. Perhaps Australia has been too readily disposed to linger among sunlit dreams and to tolerate many things that seem to be too absurd to be real or clangorous. This attitude has given the enemies of authority their opening." Tho editorial proceeds: "A review of Mr Brace's speech at Dandenong affirms that a big programme for promoting tho prosperity of White Australia is waiting accomplishment and can only be carried out if tho country i& determined to free itself once and for all from the stranglehold of the extremists, who, by manoeuvres now transparent, have gained control of the trade union machinery." ' The editorial commends as fair, moderate, and thoroughly democratic, Mr Urate's proposal to restore democracy within trade unions by means of the secret ballot, and concludes: "It is a critical moment in the history of Australia, a moment in which the imperilled cause of constitutional government must make the strongest possible appeal."