LABOUR IN AND OUT OF POLITICS THE ELECTORAL BILL. AN INTERESTING COMPLICATION. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 64, 13 September 1911, Page 7

LABOUR IN AND OUT OF POLITICS THE ELECTORAL BILL. AN INTERESTING COMPLICATION. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

SYDNEY, 9th September. The freniier (Mr. M'Gowen) arrived on Monday to find his Government sadly j shaken, but gtill game- Thers was a time, in New York, when he thought he was no longer Premier, but later the cables told him that his Government's resignation had been withdfa-wn, Mr. Wade having ' exhausted himself in a I vain effort at Cabinet-making. Then came the half-and-half result of the two bydectione, and once more the absent Premier's stock fell, but Mr. Willis, came to the rescue, with the reeiilt that Mr. M'GoWen again leads the Houee by ! virtue of a quondam opponent's occupancy of the Speakers chair. _ His very first Week had been marked with a, no f 'confidence division, from which the Government emerged with a majority of two, half of which is accounted for by the absence from the Chamber of Mr. G. S. Briner, nominally a Democrat Oppositionist, for whom the Government refused a pair ; the other half is due to Mr. Willis, whose vote, had it been recorded for the Liberals, would ha-ve made the numbers equal. Both the no-confidence debate and th« Address-in-Reply debate were put an end to in the early hours of yesterday morning by the Government's application of the closure, and the Way is now clear next Tuesday (provided the Opposition do not block it with breach of privilege or dissent from Speaker's ruling motions), for dealing with the Electoral Bill. That measure widens the franchise by decreasing to one month the required period of residence in an electorate, and it is a pet Labour proposition designed to rope in the shearers and other nomadic Voters. It passed both Houses some time a^o, with the exception that the Legislative Council struck out a. eiaus© giving votee to asylum, inmates, and the Government, being then, comparatively unshaken, decided to stand by the afflicted and to resist th^ Upper House. Then the resignations of Measi'B. Home and Dunn fell with a dull sickening thud, whereupon the Government with great celerity threw the asylum inmates overboard, and said it 'would take the Bill just as the Council pleased, and gkd to get it. That would mean withdrawing the motion of dissent with the Upper Houees's amendment^ and substituting one of «ej*ent. What with prorogation, Speak«rship struggle, no-confidence debates, etc., no Parliamentary opportunity to do this hae yet occurred, but it should come next week. APPEAL COULD BE DEFERRED. According to the declaration of Mr. fiolman, Mr. M'Gowen's lieutenant, the main objects of the present " short, noncontentious cession," under the dictatorship of Mr. Speaker Willis, are: Electoral Bill, redistribution of electoral boundaries, and necessary finance. Mr. Holmafl describes tlie Bill as a Labour ?;ain, redistribution as a prospective jiberal r gain (as it will pr&bably increase tepresentation in supposed Liberal spheres), and finance as a national necescity. This looks printo facie a fair compromise, but it will be noted that Labour demands delivery of it® own, goode first, "If we par* the Electoral Bill," cay some of the Liberals, "it is goodbye to redistribution.'' Why? Well, for one thing the work of the Redistribution Commissioners' depends on the collection by the police of the names for the electoral roll*, a-nd if a. wider franchise is introduced it will mean beginning the collection de novo, in which c«ee the Commissioner^ would either have to hose an inconclusive IX3porfc on the obsolete collections of last year, or would _ be so delayed that th^y could not possibly report at all within the three months (expiring on^th November), to which the law limits them. Altogether, it i* A nice little complication," with quite a. number of technical traps, that there is not space io expoee here, and it is clear that, if the Government really wishes to gain time, it will be w.ell within its powor to defer ledistribtttinn till the middle of next year, if once the Electoral Bill is passed, Whal the Opposition will do to block the Bill is not clear, but if its members are impotent, they have to thank Mr. Willis for it. That explains why tho Parliaj nrentary atmosphere is one? continuous electrical discharge. Spef.kei' Willis is j the omnipotent arbiter. The fact that i his resignation tfould destroy its majority keeps the Government quiet ; if the Oppositionifite rebel, he bludgeons tli«ni into eilend« with a merciless use of the Speaker's baton, a much mightier weapon than the banished mace.l But at any moment hie position may be undermined. A determined attempt is to be mcd c by the Government, to prove irregularities that will upset the Liverpool Plains by-election (won by a Liberal by three voles), and if the kaue should be the recapture of that seat by Labour, th& Go^ornin^iit would be restored to its old majority of two— a narrow margin, but enough for a. pledge-bound and well-whipped party. In fact, the Government has never had a dependable majority of more than two~=46 to 44— in a House of 90. It would no longer be taking ita daily bl'ead from the hand of Speaker Willis', and it would bo still more strongly tempted to forget its Jiromiaee and to defer redistribution cine die. Such a narrow policy would in the loag run, however, be fatal to the prestige of Labour. Tt would inevitably bs ijTilnfled «16 the postponement of and as a.n act of moral ■cowardice. genuine intention to secure redistribution at th© earliest pcesible moment is the only plausible pkn on which the Government can perpetuate the existence of Parliament in its present state of paralysis.

It was decided by the Dominion Coi^f«renca of the Navy League to-day to publish a quarterly four-pago Now.ZeaianA^Eiilogientio^^^^ay^ / \ al