A BY-ELECTION WARNING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 118, 20 May 1937, Page 8

A BY-ELECTION WARNING

The Lyons-Page (Commonwealth) Government received a severe blow at the by-election at' Gwydir (New South Wales) on May 8, and its candid friends show no disposition to disguise the fact. Mr. Lyons was absent at the time on his Coronation mission, and in his absence the Acting Prime Minister, Dr. Earle Page, who is leader of the Country Party, took the platform in an effort to retain for the Country Party the .Gwydir seat against the attack of Mr. Scully, the Labour candidate, who was backed by both Mr. Lang (State Labour) and Mr. Curtin, Leader of the Federal Labour Opposition. The loss of this Country Party seat to -Mr. Scully is thus primarily a defeat for the Country Party, but as that party is a partner not only in. the Federal Government (Lyons-Page) but also in the New South Wales Government (StevensBruxner) the defeat at Gwyrlir is a moral blow for both the Federal Government (which faces a General Election this year) and the New South Wales Government, which faces the electors next year or earlier. The United Australia PartyCountry Party banner, which has ruled Australia and also "the key State" of New South Wales for years, is confronted now with a Labour enemy not yet united, but heartened by the Gwydir success. How fully Gwydir was accepted as a test of State aid Federal feeling is shown by the "Sydney Morning Herald's" reference to the .Government's defeat:

In general it will be agreed that, just as no Administration retains popular favour for ever, so Gwydir has now declared that the. present Lyons Ministry is on the . decline. Apart from the inevitable lot of any political administration, however good it may have been, the Ministry has unquestionably made mistakes resented by many electors. The Freer

case has lived in people's memory; the Government survived the adverse feeling at the time through diversion of public attention to a much more compelling incident. The brief tariff war with Japan and the Japanese boycotting of Australian wool antagonised many pastoralists, and those in Gwydir probably took the chance to let the Government know it in the only effective fashion. .. .

There can be no hiding the fact that Gwydir is a warning to ' the Lyons Cabinet to put its house in order.. Windows-dressing for the General Elections will not suffice.

In the "Herald's" opinion there has been too much "departmental independence" in administration, and the Government's reputation has not been improved thereby... It is true that the Country Party' was represented at Gwydir by three candidates instead of one; yet that disadvantage is not regarded as accounting for, the defeat. "Marketing" trends, so far as they benefit the man on the land, represent the Country Party's price for its co-operation with the United Australia Party; and it was assumed that Australia endorsed this "marketing" assistance to the. exporter. Yet Australia said No .loudly to the "marketing" proposal at the constitutional referendum; and now Gwydir has deserted the : Country Party. A factor which involved the U.A. as well as the Country Party is popular discontent with Ministerial explanations as to "the steps which led up to the introduction of American designs for Air Force machines." This may have been merely a matter of good salesmanship, but it seems to have counted among the doubts of electors. If any somnolence existed among the o-overnfng parties as to the seriousness o£ the election fight ahead of them, Gwydir has blown it away. The battle is now to the strongest.