PRESS COMMENT IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27213, 3 December 1953, Page 11

PRESS COMMENT IN BRITAIN

(Rec. 12.15 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 2. Australians are wondering whether the New South Wales Government will retreat from its “press gag” legislation, or drag itself and the Federal Labour Party into depths of unpopularity which will ruin Labour’s pros-* pects at the Federal elections next year, says the Australian correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian” in an 800-word message featured prominently today. In fact, says the correspondent, the issues go even deeper. He says Labour spokesmen who have sought to defend the bill by attacking the irresponsibility of sections of the Australian press nave impressed more by their venom than by their logic. In Sydney, the correspondent says, attacks on the City Council and State Government are being maintained by newspapers with a studied determination and defiance which have challenged the Premier (Mr J. J. Cahill) to exercise the full rigour of the powers he has assumed. "It becomes daily more difficult for the Government to decline this challenge, without losing face as catastrophically as it is losing popularity. “Yet it is an open secret that Mr Cahill himself would like to ‘backpedal,’ and would be grateful if he could hand over the whole business to a Royal Commission. "Mr Cahill’s dilemma is in part that of the whole Australian Labour movement, which has temporarily lost its ability to march forward with any sense of direction and, has thereby developed ’in-growing Tammany toenails.’ "It has achieved most of its objectives, and has paused to await new momentum. In this indeterminate stage, the hard-headed idealists have wanted to move farther to the left, but others are busy not merely consolidating their advances but also seeking spoils in graft and privilege.”