A COMING GENERAL ELECTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 82, 8 April 1910, Page 6

A COMING GENERAL ELECTION.

The General Election which is to be held in the Commonwealth on Wednesday next is one of exceptional interest and importance. In one vital respect it is indeed uniquo in the experience of the Commonwealth. There havo been I three previous General Elections, and i every one of them has suffered from the curse of the three-party system, which has prevented the electors from achieving any decisive or stable result. The first election, held in March, 1901, returned Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Barton to power, with Mr. Georgo Reid, as he then wit*, Leader of the Opposition ; but Labour had already a formidable nucleus of eight seats out of 36 in the Senate, and 16 seats out of 75 in the Hous=o of Representatives. The tecond General Election, which took place in December, 1903, wa3 distinguished by tho remarkable succesu of the Labour Party, '''hey secured nearly a third of the seals in the House, and more than a third of those in the Semite, the numbers being: — In tho Senate: 8 Ministerialists (Deakinites), 14 Liberals (Rcidites), and 14 Labour members ; in the House, 26 Ministerialists, 26 Liberals, and 23 Labour men. The result of this even division of parties was that none of them could form a Government which could survive a- single week in Parliament without the co-opera-tion, or at least the acquiescence, of one of the other two. Accordingly in the 1903-6 Parliament each of the three parties had an innings, and one of them--; tho followers of Mr. Deakin— had two. Tho main features of the General Election in December, 1206, were tho »eduction of Mr. Reid's followers from 26 to 16, the increase of Labour from 23 to 26, and the division of Mr. Deakin's enlarged following of 33 into those who favoured his alliance with Labour, and those who strongly relented it. That alliance nevertheless held good for nearly two sessions of the thiid Parliament, but tho withdrawal of the Labour Party's Hiipport compelled Mr. Dcakin to resign in November, 1908, and a Laboi.. Ministry was formed under Mr Andrew Fisher. That Ministry was able to retain office for cix months, which were almost entirely taken up by the -ecess. But during the recess the engineer were at work, and a coalition was formed between Mr. Dcakin and Mr. Joseph Cook, who had succeeded Mr. Reid in tlio .leadership of tho old Opposition Party. That coalition and the total alienation of Mr. Deakin from his former allies in the Labour Party supply the key to the great change which, a* we have said, distinguishes the present election from its predecessors. It was as the leader of an anti-Labou* •.coalition that Mr. Deakin brought about the defeat of the Fither Ministry and again took office himself, and it is in tho same capacity* that he faces the country now. The best hope for Commonwealth politics during the second Parliament seemed to us to lie in a DeaKin- Watson or Liberal-Labour combination, und after Mr. Watson's lamented disappearance from the Parliamentary arena we hoped to see a similar combination effected by his worthy successor, Mr. Fisher. But these hopes have been dis appointed, and "tho falling out of faithful friends' has resulted, us it so otten has before, in an estrangement of wbich the bitterness is proportionate to the previous intimacy. We deplore the result which has temoved Mr. Dcakin from what appeared to be his destined rol* of leader of the united democracies of Australia, but n6w that the chances and the exigencies of party politics ha%*e taken him elsewhere, there is at ler.st matter for hearty congratulation in the fad that the coalition which ho row lends is so solid, being indeed, as it is commonly (ailed, it fusion rather tlr-tn a coalition, Ilia I the olci'tors nre ■it In - 1 fred from the cmbjrr.i.sMnenl and the (utility of the three-party syptem, Thtro aic, of couue, a fow In-

ber is probably less than at an ordinary general election in New Zealand, and standing, as they mostly do, for the "Red Flag" Socialism which finds the Labour programme hopelessly nambypamby and "bourgeois," they are less representative of any pradical political force than the Independents to whom we are accustomed hece. The general is»ue for the Commonwealth electors is for the first time just a3 clear as it is, for instance, at any ordinary election in New Zealand or Great Britain. There is a Government which seeks io retain the confidence of tho country ; there i-s a rival party which professes to Have a better policy, and better men to carry it out. Owing to the multiplicity and the tanglo of the issues involved the choice is, of course, not so simple a matter as that between "Yes" and "No" under a referendum on a single question. But confusion of that kind is an #inevitable incident of any form of representative government that ha» ye* been invented, and it is infinitely less baffling and wasteful than that which is presented by tho choice between three parties, every ono of which is certain to fall short of the majority necessary to give effect to its convictions. The comparative simplicity of a choice between Mr. Deakin and the Fusion Government on the one side and Mr. Fisher and a Labour Government on 'tho other, is a luxury for which a large majority of the Commonwealth electors are doubtless profoundly grateful. The Labour Party is in opposition with no other rival in that capacity ; yet nobody thinks of calling it the Opposition Party. That name is too closely associated in Australia, as in. New Zealand, with the Conservative and the negative to be deemed appropriate. So far from being open to either of these reproaches, tne Australian Labour Party is noi only tho jjo-ahead party in Commonwealth politics, but it is tho only ono that na.s a really definite and constructive creed. "La,bour" and ."AntiLabour" arc much more rational labels for the partiea than Government and Opposition. If the creed of Labour fair exceeds in many points the limfts of the immediately practicable, jt has, at any rate, a solid basis in principle, and is not a mere thing of shreds and patches, of accommodation and opportunism. Under tho guidance of such men as Watson and Fisher, and it he sobering responsibilities of office, it has managed to get into closer touch with reality than when it was crying in tho wilderness for the millennium. It has still the old high aims, but it already knows (the difference between what can be passed next session and what can bo put through a Trades Congress with unanimity and enthusiasm. Of the working of the new leaven, and of its meaning for the Labour Party and Australian politics, we hhall have something to suy in a future artido.