EXTREMISTS AND LAW IN AUSTRALIA

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 46, 18 November 1925, Page 8

EXTREMISTS AND LAW IN AUSTRALIA

It is now obvious that the Australian Federal Government has won a more decisive victory at the polls than the early i eturns indicated. The latest figures show that the already considerable majority the Government possessed in the House of Representatives of the late Parliament has been substantially increased, and it is now hardly in doubt that there will be ample Government majority also in the reconstituted Senate. , The considerable transfer of support from the Labour-Socialists to the Government that is disclosed is of the utmost importance. It means that the electors have emphatically endorsed the policy on which Mr. Bruce and his supporters went to the country, and the central feature of this policy was an uncompromising declaration of war on the extremists who have usurped control of the Australian Labour movement and are at once subverting democracy and seeking to paralyse the economic life of the Commonwealth. In opening his campaign, and on many subsequent occasions, Mr. Bruce declared that there was no way in. which the people could repudiate these extremists and their actions except at the ballot-box. At the same time, he outlined the measures he proposed to institute on receiving such a mandate as has now been given. Observing that the great bodies of organised workers have tended to become increasingly undemocratic in their form of self-government,, and. that the very success of trade unionism has tended to make the individual worker the servant of his paid official, he added: — The Government proposes to legislate sq as to restore to the trade unionist the control over his union, its officials, funds, and acts which he once had but to-day has largely lost. By means of the secret ballot; the democratic control of trade unionism will be restored to the workers of this country. It is also proposed to strengthen the powers of the Arbitration Court, providing for a judicial appointment for lije, vesting the Court with judicial power to enforct its awards and better to control the parties under its jurisdiction. The development of this policy will be followed with keen interest in New Zealand and in other Empire countries. The present election result suggests that the institution of the secret ballot may help in some measure to restore industrial peace to Australia, but there is need also of specific measures against men who capture and dominate trade unions only in order that they may use them as bases from which to wage.unscrupulous and destructive war on the community’ at large. It is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of law. and justice that these criminals, for they are nothing, else than criminals of a particularly dangerous type, should be granted such immunity as they have lately enjoyed in Australia. It is correspondingly important and of interest that the electors of the Commonwealth have emphatically endorsed the strong measures foreshadowed by their Prime Minister during the election campaign.