EVIL THING?

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 117, 13 November 1929, Page 11

EVIL THING?

STRANGE COINCIDENCES

LEAGUE OF NATIONS HOODOO

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 31st October. Is the League of Nations in reality the evil thing with a holy name" as it was described by its bitter American opponent, Senator Lodge? Members of the Federal Parliament are speculating whether there is a hoodoo associated with the representation of Australia at the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva. They say that it would appear to be so, at any rate, so tar as members of the Nationalist .Tarty are concerned. In support, they point to the coincidence that all the representatives sent to Geneva by the •Bruce Government, as. well as Mr Bruce himself, who represented the Hughes Government, have since "perished at the polls." L Messrs. Ley and Manning were the iqoo , ?- c their sea*s—both, at the 1928 election—while Sir Littleton ™0?; Who waa at Geneva in 1924, and Mr. Marr, who was on his way back from Geneva when his seat was wrested from him at the recent election, and Mr. Bruce suffered defeat when the last appeal to the country was made Strangely enough, this hoodoo, if such oxists, has not adversely affected Labour representatives. It seems to have worked conversely as far as they are concerned. Certainly, Mr. M. CharHon, one of the earliest to represent Australian workers at Geneva, is not" now in public life. But he was not defeated at the polls, and when ho retired owing to ill-health he was leader of the Federal Labour Party. His retirement was compulsory, and the same cannot be said of the Nationalists who have gone by the board. On the other hand, Mr. E. J. Holloway, who was one of Labour's representatives at the League, has sprung into the limelight by his spectacular defeat of the Prime Minister. Then there is Mr. Beasley, of Sydney, the youngest member of the Ministry. He, too, was chosen to represent the workers at Geneva, and now he has had a meteoric rise to the' Ministry in his second Parliament, and within 12 months of his first election.