The Press Thursday, November 26, 1925. The Position in Australia.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18549, 26 November 1925, Page 8

The Press Thursday, November 26, 1925. The Position in Australia.

The arrival yesterday ol' an Australian mail enables us to new the election result through the eyes of the Australians themselves. Though there were count-; still to be made when this mail was posted, it was plain enough that Labour was irretrievably defeated, and owed its defeat to its contempt for British traditions. But it was not qaite plain then, and is not beyond doubt yet, that the lessons of the election were understood as welt by the victors as by their opponents. It ■was quite right to say, as the cables did, and as we find now the newspapers went on doing for some days, that the Government had had " a smashing " victory," or had " received an em- " phatic mandate" from the people, or had been responsible for "a Labour " debacle." Labour was unmistakably beaten, and during the life of the new Parliament "will be weaker than it was even after the war rout of 1917. But Labour is by no means annihilated. It has paid, heavily and deservedly, for its association with movements repellent to Australian sentiment, for listening to direct actionists and jobcontrollers, rind for refusing to repudiate men who arc warring against the Empire. But it is still so strong j in the electorates that if Mr Bruce j makes a blundering use of his victory j he will find himself in the position in j a few years that Mr Charlton is in j now. There is an enormously stronger sentiment for Labour in the Commonwealth than there is in the Dominion. Even in its hour of defeat the Labour Party sees quite clearly -why it was defeated, and we should like to bo sure that the Nationalists see as clearly why they have won. It is not encouraging that a paper of the standing of the " Argus" should have found one explanation of the victory in the fact that "Mr Bruce stands revealed as " the foremost man of his time." MiBruce has come through the campaign with much credit, and with a greatly enhanced reputation. But to say or suggest that the country' owes its escape from the IJcds to his dominating personality is exceedingly dangerous, j and the fact that it has been said makes a distinctly unpleasant impression 0:1 those of us who have been ■watching this great struggle from afar/ would like to see the victory used for the confusion of extremists of every type. There have, of course been many secondary influences at work throughout the campaign, to some of which we shall refer again. But it is interesting to find Mr Bruce himself calling the phief feature of the election the failure of compulsory voting to 1 be "the /determining factor his "opponents considered it would be." Compulsory voting, is a little more absurd than compulsory enrolling, but instead of helping the Labour Party it would in this country at T any rate help those opposed to Labour if it helped any Party at all. In the Commonwealth, however, it seems to have been regarded by all Parties as a clever dodgie by the extremists" to gain assistance from the law, and the fact that it has not ■worked in that way has been as big a surprise to the Prime Minister as to his opponents, and has excited comment in all the newspapers.

The Totalisator.

The Government of, "Victoria is proposing to introduce legislation to legalise the totalisator, and its proposal is being bitterly opposed, amidst the sympathetic cheers of tiie bookmakers, by •well-meaning bigots like those "who in New Zealand are regarded by the bookmakers as their best friends. A deputation organised by the Council of Churches waited upon the Premier last week to protest pgainat the proposed legislation, and it used arguments which to New Zealanders arc as familiar as they are absurd. They described the totalisator ps " a grave national peril," a method of producing "revenue at the cost of " character" as the " legalisation of "vice." The Salvation Army's representative presented as typical the case of " a young engaged couple" who had saved up £SOO-for their home and lost it all in Gup Week. Another member of the deputation declared thnt " neglected children and deserted " wives " were " chiefly the result of "gambling." All this kind of stuff can be excused in men who know little about the facts, and Avho mistake for virtue their absence of any desire to bet half-a-crown on a horse-race. It is less easy, however, to excuse them for saying, as their principal speaker said, that the totalisator would " out"rage the conscience of the Christian " community." In New Zealand one will find on the racecourse plenty of men and woiien who are as good Christians as any opponent of the totalisator, and this is just as true of Australia, so that the opinion we have just quoted amounts to a declaration that the Christian community consists of that self-righteous minority who I think that betting is " immoral" and " sinful." If the opponents <jf the totalisator in New Zealand and Australia were men who could, in the privacy of their thoughts, assure themselves that they were kind, charitable, truthful, and self-sacrificing—as crowds of "gamblers" are—they could take that high tone without misgiving. But we all know that a man may be an opponent of gambling and an opponent of drinking and of dancing and of Sunday games and of the theatre and yet be a thoroughly bad fellow. The Government was confronted, of course, with the argument that to legalise the totalisator would be to force unwilling Christians into the position of shareholders in an evil institution. The remedy for these people is very simple. Each of them has but to refund the tainted revenue by sending the Government his share of the State expenditure for which that revenue makes provision. We wonder that (he Prohibi-

tionists in this country have not adopted this simple and natural method of ( avoiding any participation in the revenue derived from the duties on liquor. The opposition to the totalisator in Victoria is specially foolish in view of the fact that in that State the bookmakers arc licensed. The totalisator has not got rid of the bookmaker in New Zealand, but that is because the police authorities are not energetic in attacking the professional gamblers and also because the public cannot be got to regard gambling as a sin or even a crime. Yet the totalisator has certainly reduced by a great deal the harm which bookmakers can do, and it can have this result in Victoria.