The Dominion THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1926. A POLITICAL COCK-PIT

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 313, 30 September 1926, Page 10

The Dominion THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1926. A POLITICAL COCK-PIT

The New South Wales State. Assemble might very well be described as the cock-pit of Australian politics. One lately, if ever, hears of a “scene” in the Victorian Parliament, or in South Australia, or Western Australia. Even in Queensland, to judge merely from the surface of things, incidents worthy ol a Press ' sensation are few and far between. In the New South Wales Parliament the course of legislation rarely runs smoothly. The latest incident, reported to-day, is not very edifying. In explicit terms, the State Premier (Mr. Lang) has accused the managing-editor of a Sydney paper of offering to buy the vote of a member of the Labour Party to oust him from the leadership of the party. In terms quite as. explicit, the journalist accused has impugned the Premier’s veracity. It has been left tor a Select Committee of Parliament to decide the merits ot the case. Fo” some time past a section of the Labour Party has been endeavouring to get rid of the extremist Mr. Lang, and tiansfei the leadership to the more moderate Mr. Loughlin. lheie is no apparent connection ■ between this political intrigue and the btibeiy charge, but it is quite conceivable that if there were, and evidence in support were available, the opposition to Mr. Lang would have made good use of it. The Labour caucus, however, is reported to have unanimously voted confidence in his leadership. this does not necessarily" imply that Mr. Lang has been rehabilitated. It may mean, simply, that the caucus has decided, as a matter of expediency, to make a gesture of unitv to the interested spectators of the intrigue. The Syd/icy Morning Herald stated recently that Air. Lang “now holds office without the confidence of nearly three-fourths of the members of the House.” Such a gesture from the Labour Party would, therefore, be politic. ■ There is evidence to show that the Labour Pary in New South Wales has been steadily receding ii the public's estimation, and even alienating the sympathies of its own supporters. As recently ago as September 21 it was stated by the Sydney Morning Herald, in a news article, that if a special conference of the Australian Labour Party were held to consider the allegations that certain members of the Parliamentary Party were susceptible to bribery, the circumstances of Mr. Lang's re-election to the leadership would be reviewed. Again, Mr. Lang's supporters and the extremist section have lately joined forces, an event which is regarded with considerable anxiety by the Australian Workers’ Union. As one official of that body expressed it:— “If a special conference of the Labour movement should decide that the destinies of the Australian workers are in future to be controlled by representatives of the Moscow Third International, it is certain that on next election dav the members of Parliament responsible for the alliance will carry the heavy handicap of disastrous foreign doctrines. ’ The question of holding a special conference has been frequently mentioned, not with the particular intention of discussing what is known in political Labour circles as “the bribery plot"-—though that would not be excluded—-but of settling certain matters upon which sections .of the party are at variance. One Sydney paper asserts that “Labour members themselves admit that were there to be an election to-morrow a considerable number of them would not retain their scats.”

The caucus meeting which voted “unanimous” confidence in Mr. Lang was a protracted affair. Quite possibly it included the discussion of nieasures for putting the party “on side" with its supporters, even to the extent of restraining the extremist proclivities of its leader. This, of course, is more or less speculation, but (he surface indications arc in that direction.