"THE STATE IS MYSELF"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 35, 10 February 1926, Page 9

"THE STATE IS MYSELF"

MR. LANG AS DICTATOR

LABOUR'S POLICY.

(From Our Own CorrMpendmt.) SYDNEY, 4th February.

The coming short State Parliamentary session, in which the Premier will endeavour to force all Labour memb-'s of the Legislative Council tp vote for the abolition of that Chamber, in accordance with .their pledges, will be watched with' extraordinary iniferest. Mr. Lang is probably the most-talked-of man in Australian politics today. A big man physically, square of jaw, who is eschewing strictly the social side of his office for the sterner business of it, there is' nothing irresolute or weak about him, and when, with something of Napoleonic splendour, he says that the obnoxious Legislative Council must go, no matter' what happens in the process of bringing about its oblivion, the community knows that he means it. "The State is myself," said Louis XIV., oa an historic occasion. In that ebullition of despotism, the community is inclined to see Mr. Lang as the modern Louis. Precisely what his next move will be it does not know. In Parliament, in his atitude to the Opposition, Mr. Lang is often enigmatical, and out of it, he is sometimes obscure. For instance, a day or two ago, his only comment to pressmen on the political situation was that State politics were "at present dead." It is an illustration of the obscurity with which Mr. Lang sometimes hedges his words.:

Politics, in truth, have never been livelier in the history of New South Wales than at present, but possibly Mr. Lang means that State politics are dead from the standpoint of the somewhat noxious odour whteh they tire emitting. All that the community is wondering is what will be the move if Mr. Lang gets to his lips the cup of unlimited power for which he is no v reaching out. In the calmer perspective of events, sympathy is now geneally felt with the Governor) in the position into which the Labour Gover jment forced him, in the swamping of the Upper House, where at first there was a strong and general inclination, outside the Labour movement, of course, adversely to criticise him. - It. is now considered highly probable that should Mr. Lang ask His Excellency for still more appointments to the Upper. House, in order to effect his party's ends, the Governor will refuse, but that he will agree to a dissolution, in order that an appeal might be made to the electors on the question. This, it is safe to say, is one of the la-it things desired by the Government -et the present time.

While the moderate! in the Labour movement lost no opportunity during the Federal election campaign to repudiate the extremists and all thair works, the "Reds" are standing solidly behind the' Labour Government in the fight for the abolition of the Upp House, for they envisage, as a result of this reform, and of the determination of the Premier (Mr. Lang) to «p ahead, if possible, with other planks of Labour 'a platform. :