WHO IS INCORRECT?

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 10

WHO IS INCORRECT?

fro the Editor.)

Sir, —In your issue of April 4, referring to Australia, you assert that the "Governmental sanity that fought'the depression, carried on the Premiers* Plan, and paved the way for economic recovery has the electors' support in 1937-38 just as in the^pit of the depression and in the intervening yjears."

This assertion, of course, is absolutely incorrect. . The Governments that : adopted,the Premiers' Plan and-cut wages and engaged in wholesale and unnecessary retrenchment are the ones that have been defeated—Sculliri-Theo-dore ih the Federal Parliament, a Queensland .Government, the Victorian, Government, the West Australian Government, the South Australian Government; the Tasmanian Government, and in New South Wales where the Labour Government were the unwilling instruments of the Plan, they were, nevertheless, like all other • Governments, the Victims- , It is well to realjse that the parties the people have refused to vote for since the fall of the Scullin-Theodore Government were those which engaged in wage-cutting, pension reduction, and wholesale sacking. A moment's examination, of the facts will demonstrate that this is so. In Queensland, wagecutting and wholesale retrenchment were carried out'by the Moore, Government and the present generation have not forgotten nor are they, likely to forget. Hence, the overwhelming Arictory for Forgan Smith, who reversed the retrenchment policy.—l am, etc., JOHN A. LEE, I Parliamentary Under-Secretary.

April 5,

[It will be noted at once th^t Mr. Lee changes the verb in his third sentence. The "Evening Post" says "carried on the Premiers' Plan"; Mr. Lee introduces the verb "adopted," and uses it in the. sense of originated. This will not bear analysis. What are the facts? According to the latest Commonwealth Official Year Book to hand, both the present Commonwealth Gov-

ernment (Lyons-Page) and the present New South Wales Government (Stevens-Bruxner) were first formed in the depression year 1932, the Commonwealth Lyons Government as early as January 6, 1932 (over six years ago) and the New South Wales Stevens Government on May 16, 1932 (nearly six years ago). They did not originate but they "carried on" the Premiers' Plaa, and they bore the brunt of the political side of Australia's economic recovery, after, the Lang Labour debacle. The quoted sentence therefore is absolutely correct. The correspondent also states that "the parties the people have refused to vote for since the fall of the Scullin-Theodore Government were those which engaged in wage-cutting, pension reduction, and wholesale sacking." Mr. Lee's words "refused to vote for" are ambiguous, but if they mean "refused to vote sufficiently for" they convict the Federal Labour Party (defeated at elections in 1931, 1934, and 1937) and New South Wales Lang Labour (defeated in 1932, 1935, and 1938). Another fact, referred to in the criticised editorial, is that the Labour Government in Queensland (ForganSmith) has, like those at Canberra and Sydney, been long-lived; in fact, the editorial made a point of the success of one kind of Labour in? Queensland and the failure of; another kind just across the border. Another Labour critic, not Mr. Lee, may as well be' answered at the same, time, j The "Evening Post's" comments on I the "state of polling", iri Australia in recent months were directed to the I question of the, costliness of elections in Federations (where, every citizen elects two Parliament) and to the question of life of Parliament (three, four, or five years). It.does not "imply that a Government should be the judge of when it should hold a General Election." -That twist has been supplied by a commentator in the vain hope of making the editorial appear to be an attack? on democracy .—Ed.}

"Disturbed Sleeper" writes that noises from motor-cycles and motorhorns are bad enough, but are not to be compared with the noise from some parties in private houses when people run up and down and shout in the streets. Parties dance halls have to stop at midnight on Saturday, so why not in private houses also?