TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1927, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY

A game of hide-and-seek is being played in the Australian Parliamentary Labour Party, in and out through the mazes of the State machine and also the Federal machine. The game, in which the competitors are Reds and Pinks, started a long time ago, but a uew, chapter was opened when three seceders from the New South Wales (Labour) Government's following attributed their defection tfo the alleged domination of the Premier (Mr. Lang) by Red advisers, including Messrs. Willis and Garden. The top note among the seceders was hit by Mr. Goodin, who told his electors that .he was sounding "a clarion call" to democracy to v oust the elements of subversion; but within a week or two Mr. Goodin and one of his fellow crusaders wer.e again under the Labour Government's orders, his clarion call having subsided to a dpmand for ejection of the undesirable influences. Mr. Willis, who is a member of Mr. Lang's Government as President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Upper House, meanwhile carried on. business as usual, and the fight appeared to be over until the Australian Labour Party a day or two ago issued a new anti-Red manifesto condemning Communistic plotting. Now the Premier finds himself in the unique position of having to formally deny in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly that his colleague of the Upper Chamber is "engaged in any Communistic plot." Mr. Willis is the former leader of the coal-miners, Peter Bowling's successor. Mr. Garden announced his resignation from the Communist Party before-the new heresy hunt started, which fact suggests that his political intelligence department is highly efficient.

Prom individualistic America (through Mr. Cbeeseborough) comes advice to New Zealand to go slow in Governmental interference in business. Early after the War 1 the United States reverted from Governmentalism to private enterprise; and though the big Statesubsidised marketing and price-fixing scheme that the rural bloc has jockeyed through Congress looks like a reversal of form, independent authority supports Mr. Cheeseborough in his general statement. If the United States Government can possibly avoid complying with this startling Congressional decision, it can be relied on to do so, and to keep the country well on the track of private enterprise and initiative. The visitor comes down to hard facts when he says that the test is whether individualism plus private profit gives to the community better service .than does Governmentalism plus waste. For instance, regulation of transport, carried out for the purpose of preventing competition that is wasteful and permitting competition that is of service, is plausible in idea, but is purely tentative in application. All such Governmoutalism should be regularly checked up in a cold commercial way to test whether the goods are being delivered, or whether a temporarily expensive competition has been replaced by a permanently wasteful inefficiency. Governnientalism generally .spells shelter for' someone. A shelter policy can be pleaded very attractively, but it is out of storm and stress that strong institutions emerge.

"What is wrong with howling? Overprepared wickets, or over-largo balls, or decay of the physical devil that stamps an aggressive bowler? . Mr. "Warwick Armstrong does not appear to have dealt with these questions, but he has emphasised the weakness of the attack both in England and in Australia, and the consequent lack of standard of measurement for the assessing of batsmen's qualities. To a degree never experienced in the days of Spofforth, Turner, and Trumble, 'bowling is often thrown on the defensive. The terror of the village green becomes the poor slogged slave of the billiard table wicket, and the knees of the bowler tremble almost as much as those cf the batsman. This reversal of roles has increased the scores but not the excitement. Mr. Armstrong's recollections oi! great bowlers—Richardson, Lockwood, Vogler—are as interesting for the names omitted as those given. No mention of Foster and PeeJ. Not a fraction of a bouquet for the two over-worked Australian slew bowlers, Mailoy and Grimmett.

As the O'Loughlin-Goodin-Gillies break-away from the Now South Wales Labour Party was partly a sign of rural discontent with urban communism, more than usual interest attaches to

the latest movement of the Lang Government in tho direction 'of estatebreaking legislation. Mr. Lang, Premier, is considering tho rural members of his following to the extent that they have been appointed to confer with the new Minister of Lands, whose portfolio was formerly held by the seceding Mr. O'Loughlin. Whether they will succeed in producing a Bill that will avoid the sacrifice of needed voting support in the rural electorate, and which at the same time will have "pep" enough to please the left wing of the party, is another question. ■ The cabled fbrecast suggests that the Bill will cousin the two weapons so often talked.of and so seldom seen in action —(1) compulsory subdivision^ and (2) graduated taxation above £10,000. The compulsory subdivision sections "will apply only to land suitable for agricultural purposes." On paper, it is easy to apply compulsion to a sheep man sitting on cow land or on cropping land, but in practice these things never seem to work out, - not even in the hands of Labour Governments, of which Australia.has had plenty. Mr. Massey in his later years preached "the gospel of best use" in connection with rural land. Not many ■ people know that he put on the Statute Book a clause providing a penal addition of sj) per cent, to the land tax in cases of conspicuous failure to properly use rural land. And perhaps still fewer people know that this penal tax has in cases been ;evied and collected.