GOVERNMENT: NATIONAL MNORITY?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 93, 21 April 1939, Page 8

GOVERNMENT: NATIONAL MNORITY?

Foay the first time for many years,! if ifoe cabled anticipations are realised, Australia will have a miiitority Government. So long as the./ United Australia Party and the Ccv'untry Party held a clear majority in, the House of and "w^ere both represented in a coalition Cabinet, the position of this Cabinet |/{the Lyons-Page Gabinet) in the [Mouse was practically unchallengeable. If (as is now anticipated) the death of Mr. Lyons, and the election of Mr. R. G. Menzies as Leader of the United Australia Party, mean an end to the coalition Cabinet, or an end to it as long as Mr. Menzies is (Prime Minister, then it is quite clear that a Menzjes U.A. Government, &«aiigwfibj»e*fewer^supporters in the

House of Representatives than Labour has, will be dependent for a majority on such members of the Country Party as may be willing to lend support in House divisions. That degree of Governmental dependence is weakening in a time of national danger, though that danger in itself may make the help of individuals of the Country Party more certain. Nevertheless, the prospect of a minority Government, however reliable its extra-party support may be, is not encouraging. Halting in California on his journey to Britain via America, Mr. Bruce watches the Ministerial crisis carefully. Events are moving rapidly, and people wonder when the time will be ripe for the non-party Government that Mr. Bruce would be willing to lead.

It is to be feared that Sir Earle Page will not win the impending war by casting reflections on Mr. Menzies's non-participation in the war/? of twenty years ago. Is it not tinvc to ring down the curtain on thesfe echoes of a war gone by, and concentrate on the very different war that lies ahead? If war-echoes ! are to be used as a political weapon, | that weapon can hurt people in more parties than one; and if they ar|e to be used as a personal weapom, it would seem that the moment'for/such personalities is very ill chbseva. It may be necessary to pity Sir 'Earle Page more than Mr. Menzif/fc, for the former's attack will transfer a good deal of sympathy/ from assailant to victim, and vnust be classed as a political /blunder. Forward-looking Australians who have regarded Sir Earle /Page and Mr. Menzies each as a,' potential leader will fail to see^ that the former's dive into the past achieves any national purpose. 'The partypolitical fight, in comsk of years,; sours some men; other /men it leaves still full of human charity. We prefer to remember toda/y's Australian cablegrams not for thk attack on the personal war-record <oi Mr. Menzies, but for a small overdraft-guarantee (£6O) which Mr. Lyons, on the eve of his death, gave tto a struggling Victorian farmer who had approached him as Prime Minister. These are the things that swe/bten party-political j life. It needs sw/eetening.