MR. BAVIN'S BURDEN

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 12

MR. BAVIN'S BURDEN

STRAIN OF OFFICE

new south wales ministry

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 25th April.

It was as a sick-looking, ' irritable, nervous man, burdened with the cares of office, and broken in physique on the grinding wheel of politics, that the New South Wales Premier (Mr. Bavin) left for London last week, in the search for renewed health. That men will cheerfully suffer the slings and arrows of public criticism and sacrifice the comparative quiet and more substantial rewards of private professional or commercial life for the strenuous rough-and-tumble of politics, is amazing. The position is accentuated when, as in the ease of Mr. Bavin, they take their political jobs seriously. Without social leanings, although his wife and family move in Sydney's smartest and most exclusive circles, Mr. Bavin has practically no interests outside of politics, if one excepts fishing, and ho rarely finds time nowadays to indulge that sport. To find him glued to his office chair on public holidays is not at all uncommon. If Ihs goes to tho races it is only to meet the social demands of his office. He has unquestionably sacrificed his health on the altar of public life. And, rara avis among politicians, he is paying for his trip abroad out of his own pocket. It is only an exemplification of the man's high motives, for the average politician can invariably find some excuse for a jaunt abroad at the expense of the country. More effective in opposition than as Premier in the latter post ho largely lias lost ground because of the Government's taxation measures—Mr. Bavin will probably, find himself off the Treasury benches at the next election, but he will have the satisfaction of knowing that, according to his lights, he did the best ho could. Mrr. Bavin has never courted cheap popularity, and that, so far as self-interest is concerned, does not pay in political life. A NEW MINISTER. One of Mr. Bavin's last acts before packing up his troubles and leaving for London was to fill a vacancy in his ] team in a general reshuffle of portfolios. The jiew Minister, Mr. Weaver, a tall young man of massive physical proportions, and with a voice as loud as that of Stentor when ho is in a fighting mood in the House, will fill the comparatively unimportant post of Minister of Mine's and Forests, but he will be an acquisition to tho team. As a speaker and debater Mr. Weaver is at his best in the atmosphere of a first-class political crisis. With tho .somewhat rare political attribute of sturdy independence as a party man, Mr. Weaver has been as ready to thunder a philippic against tho very men with whom ho now sits in Cabinet as against tho Opposition. He is one of the few men in cither of the State Houses ever worth listening to. His defonce of Mr. Bavin in the House recently on a notable occasion when quite a lot of political mud was being thrown about and his sweeping indictment of tho Labour Party constituted one of the finest examples of Parliamentary oratory in the history of .the State. Even if he finds his ardour somewhat restrained by the responsibilities of office, Mr. Weaver will be a source of strength to'what for the most part is a mediocre team. Tho promotion of the Assistant Treasurer, Mr. Stevens, to the full rank of Treasurer, is yet another step in the meteoric rise of that comparatively young man, for it is only a little more than a. year ago that ho retired from the Public Service, as one of the high Treasury officials, and entered Parliament as a political fledgling. To-day, in addition to holding one of the most responsible posts in the Cabinet, he is vested with the political control of the State railways and tramways.