Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1935. THE CONSUMER PAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 117, 13 November 1935, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1935.

THE CONSUMER PAYS

THE PROSPECT OF CONFUSION ♦ Except for a few triangular contests the 1931 General Election presented a clear-cut issue between the Coalition Government and the Labour Party. There is no such two-party fight this year. The multiplicity of candidates and issues suggests rather a general melee. For 76 European seats there are 246 candidates, comprising (on an analysis which is subject to later correction): National Government 71, Labour 71, Democrat 50, other smaller parties 24, and Independents 30. For 61 seats there are three or more candidates. It is quite evident, from these facts, that the Government erred in refusing to introduce a system of preferential voting. This would have permitted electors to vote for the candidate and policy they favoured without running the risk of thereby helping a candidate or cause to which they were strongly opposed. The Prime Minister's recent excuse for the failure to bring about a most necessary electoral reform is no better than his earlier plea of good sportsmanship. Mr. Forbes suggested, in effect, that first-past-the-posUwas necessary to keep the party system in working order and prevent the formation and growth of innumerable confusing small parties. Even with first-past-'the-post it is clear that a considerable section of the people will not be persuaded into accepting the two-party system as final, with no other choice. They want another choice, and in the attempt to obtain it without preferential voting they may produce an inextricably confused result. It is futile to blame the unattached candidates and their nominators or the small parties and their supporters. Some of them have little hope of succeeding, but this is a free country with universal franchise, and any elector with two nominators and a deposit can take a chance. The older and more strongly established parties have neither legal nor moral claim to the whole of the field. It is worse than futile to suggest that a party which can obtain sufficient support to place fifty candidates in the field is a trespasser without right upon private preserves. The parties and candidates have all a perfect right to enter the contest, and electors have full freedom to support whom they choose. It would have been better, nevertheless, if the confusion of the contest could have been lessened. It has not been, either by a preferential voting system or by party reconstruction which would have met the desires of a wider section of the people. It is desirable now, therefore, that the electors themselves should exercise their right to make a free choice with such judgment and discretion that the worst confusion in results may be avoided. They may not be- able to obtain all they desire, but they can prevent something they do not desire being thrust upon them. How are they to do this? We have criticised many acts of the Coalition Government in the past and we arc still of opinion that the Coalition made a rod for its own back by allowing its policy to become sectional. But we believe, nevertheless, that the Coalition, while it made serious mistakes, achieved a great deal by its very stability. Stability is still essential and it is attainable with greater certainty through a National Government. Electors, therefore, will be well advised to so vote that they will strengthen and reform, rather than destroy, the National Government. But we do not contend that electors who accept this line of reasoning are bound in every case to accept the officially-nominated candidates of the National Government. The National Government requires reconstruction, a better balance, and a check, which should come from within the party, upon the concentration of power and responsibility in a few hands. Some of the new candidates are strong! persons of capacity and experience who will help to bring about these necessary changes. In other cases, reform will be more certain if a candidate is supported who lias reserved a measure of independence. The final test must, we believe, be the personal qualifications of the candidate. Is the candidate possessed of' experience and capacity and, most important of all, of such judgment that lie or she can be trusted to face fi difficult and confused issue fairly and honestly to assure stable government? We cannot foresee what will be the position of parlies when Parliament reassembles. We cannot, therefore, exact from candidates pledges that will cover every possible problem. In the long run not pledges (which may tic hands when they should be free), but the integrity and judgment of the elected member must be relied upon. In voting for character and judgment, and for opinions as far as they can be found acceptable, the electors will provide, the material from which a strong' National Government may be formed. The general aim, we believe, should be that compressed by Mr. Downie Stewart into the phrase: "Mend not end," and the method an honest attempt to put aside private prejudices and resentments and to judge how far the candidates can contribute to the attainment of this goal.

Bounty-fed production now appears to have become a fixed principle in Australia, but its latest phase is causing the Sydney Chamber of Commerce grave concern. Legislation is to be introduced fixing a homeconsumption price for Australian wheat for human consumption, a price independent of any movements, up or down, in the export market for such produce. The Sydney Chamber, however, is concerned with the question of such legislation being constitutional or otherwise. The object of the proposed legislation is to .ensure the producer a payable price for wheat, and 4s 9d per bushel has been suggested. Already .the producer is receiving a bounty from the imposition on all consumers of a flour tax; In other words, the Australian consumer has to pay a tax to the wheat grower on every article made-from wheat flour that he and his family consume, and the proceeds of that tax are given to the wheat grower. It does not matter if the export price of wheat, or flour from Australia to Japan, China, Egypt, or elsewhere to which shipments of them are made are governed by world prices for such commodities, the tax makes an Australian product dearer for Australians than for other people. The same principle is applied to butter and cheese, and dried fruits and other articles. Bounties are taken from the public purse and give to exporters of Australian wines overseas. Millions of pounds are extracted year by year directly and indirectly from Australian consumers for the benefit oi Australian producers. When the flour tax was imposed as an emergency measure wheat was below a generally payable price; when it rose to 3s lOd per bushel, which with exchange brought it in range of the desired "dollar wheat," there was no reduction in the flour tax or talk of it. Instead 4s 9d per bushel free on rail to the seaboard is now proposed, and no one can say that the price wil stay at that. The home-comsump-tion price principle is not only unfair to the home consumer, but it may recoil on primary producers in the form of clumping duties placed by countries to which they export their products. Nor 'is that all. What is considered to be a payable local-consumption price today may be unpayable six months or twelve months hence. Where, then, is such a price to stop?