"Labour Split Gave Menzies Majority”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28754, 27 November 1958, Page 15

"Labour Split Gave Menzies Majority”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9.30 p.m.) MANCHESTER, November 26. The “Manchester Guardian” said today that if the split between the Australian Labour Party factions was allowed to continue, Mr Menzies and his friends could expect to go on forming the Government almost indefinitely.

In a leading article the newspaper said: “The cold fact is that only a minority gave Mr Menzies and his friends their first preferences and only a split between the Labour tactions gave them a majority of seats. “Dr. Evatt, the Australian Labour Party leader, is in the late autumn of his political career, and however spry he may feel mentally, he will be ill-advised to go on fighting the same old hopeless battle against religious and often unfair opposition and so condemn the whole Labour movement to frustration.

"Surely he should somehow devote his remaining strength and enthusiasm to trying to heal the breach.

**The biggest stumbling-block seems at a distance to be the extraordinarily malignant and unfair accusations made against not only Dr. Evatt but also the party he leads by persons who allow their loathing of communism to blind them to evidence and common sense,” the "Manchester Guardian” said.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne (the Most Rev. Dr. Mannix) in announcing that every

Communist and every Communist sympathiser wanted a victory for the Evatt party and that this should be a warning for any Catholic and every decent Australian, used "the language of the hustings. not of a great guide of the national conscience.

“If Dr. Evatt and his chici Roman Catholic lieutenant, Mr Calwell. the deputy leader of the Australian Labour Party, can find a way to bring the factions not only of the party but of the Roman Catholic Church together they can retire from public life in the knowledge that they have served their country well.” the "Manchester Guardian” said.