LANG LABOUR PARTY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20562, 2 June 1932, Page 11

LANG LABOUR PARTY.

STATE ELECTIONS. SEVERE DEFEAT PREDICTED. (Received June Ist, 9.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 1. Mr M. Bruxner, Deputy-Premier and Leader of the Country Party, has completed a tour of the country. He declares that Labour "will definitely lose 13 of the 18 country seats, while the anti-Labour parties have a sporting cliancc of winning the remaining five. "It will not be a landslide against Mr Lang," Mr Bruxner said; "it will be an earthquake. Never have I seen the country so roused." KEEN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. ELECTIONS IN TWO STATES. NEW ZEALANDERS PROMINENT. OaOM OCR OTS cobbespohdsxt.) SYDNEY, May 25. The smoke of political battle is hanging heavily over New South Wales and the big neighbouring State of Queensland. Each is proving a bitter State election campaign, but the bitterness of the contest in the Mother State —New South Wales—is accentuated by the tactics of Labour's propagandists, or, rather, of that wing of Labour which is behind the late Government.

New Zealanders are conspicuous in the fight on both State political fronts for the country's rehabilitation along sane, orderly lines. One never looks for anything approaching Chesterfieldian politeness or the exemplary conduct and chivalry of the knightly Bayard in an Australian political fight. One can, however, expect a tolerably fair and square contest, but in the New South Wales campaign the Lang Planners have gone to extremes. This applies particularly to the Labour daily newspaper which is practically owned and controlled by Mr Lang. This organ, since the Governor has fallen foul of the State Labour Party because of his peremptory dismissal of the Lang Government, has featured in cartoons hideous pictures of his Excellency. It has also gone to the extreme of printing in, quotation marks the names of the offices occupied by the emergency Cabinet, as, for example, "The Premier," Mr Stevens.

The Basic Wage. The worst phase of its attack, however—and in this it is supported by the Lang Planners generally —is its desperate effort to mako the workers believe that the Parties behind the emergency Cabinet seek to reduce the basic wage to £2 Us 6d. In pictures of the Premier, Mr Stevens, which it frequently reproduces, it has imprinted on his brow tho slogan, "Basic wage, £2 lis 6d." This, in spite of Mr Stevens's challange to the Trades Hall to produce one scrap of evidence to prove its allegation; his unequivocal denial of any such intention; and his statement that the fixation of rates of wages must remain a function of the Arbitration Courts. ».

The plan put forward by the economic committee of experts at the latest Premiers' Conference is being quoted as propaganda against Mr Stevens's forces, in spite of the fact, which is well known, that these recommendations were not adopted by that conference, and that, therefore, Mr Stevens and those behind him cannot be accused of endorsing a decision that does not exist. Then there came the dramatically sudden resignation of the Lang Government's appointee to the chairmanship of the industrial bench (Mr Justice Piddington), and his remarkable letter to the Governor, which, whether the Judge so intended it or not, has been generally construed ,by the community as a contribution to the Lang propaganda. ' As for the basic wage, the boasted 'living standard" for which the Lang Planners profess to stand, has been, during the regime of the late Government, actually a "dole" standard for a vast army of unemployed. The Lang Party find themselves in this extraordinary position to-day: That they have been placed, through the Governor's dismissal of the Government, in precisely the situation which the mora moderate wing of the movement—-the Scullin Government in the Federal arena—was forced to occupy, when it was defeated through . the Lang group in the Federal Legislature joining forces with the then Opposition, led by Mr Lyons. The old story of Nemesis has a habit of repeating itself.

la the Spotlight. It looks as though New Zealanders have been specially called to try to put Australia's house in order. The Premier of Queensland (Mr A. E. Moore), who, in the Queensland election, is standing solidly behind the joint scheme of rehabilitation, is a New Zealander by birth; he first saw the light at Napier. Mr Percy Coleman, the studious, aggressive young man whom the Federal Labour Party has selected as its David to try to slay the giant of Langism— Mr Lang himself—in the latter's own stronghold, Auburn, lived with his sister and brother-in-law in New Zealand when he went across there as an orphan at the age~of five years. Mr Bavin, now temporarily out of the picture, is also a New Zealander. The Trades Hall's anxiety about the fate of many Lang Labour seats extends definitely to its Leader's electorate. The frantic efforts to avoid Mr Lang's defeat say not a little for the impression that Mr Coleman is making, personally and as a political fighter who gives no quarter. Strange though it may appear, the issue- at Auburn — the fate of Mr Lang or of Mr Coleman— may actually be decided by the votes of the inmates of two State institutions in the electorate for old men and old women, who probably know no more about the real | issues than the man in the moon.

Tho comparatively youthful Mr Coleman has had a romantic career. If he had not fallen ill after he had secured a job on the barque Constance Craig in New Zealand in 1906, and the vessel, never to be heard of again, had not Bailed without him, he would not to-day be waging the biggest fight of the election, against Mr Lang. - Later, he worked his passage to Sydney; became secretary of the Clerks' Union; enlisted in the war, and on his return sat for nine years as the representative of a Federal electorate in the Commonwealth Parliament, which embraces the State electorate Auburn. Mr Coleman's first job in life was with a photographer in Auckland. It was this young man, incidentally, who caused such a flutter in, the official dovecotes at Australia House, London, when, at tho request of the Scnllin Government, he combed it as with a fine tootheonib for economies and other reforms.