LABOUR GOVERNMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 20959, 25 November 1931, Page 14

LABOUR GOVERNMENTS.

' TO TBM BDITOR Sir, —“Anti-Socialist’s” inquiry why the electors of Queensland turned out a Labour Government in 1929, and his remark that its present National Government can boast of a much lower percentage of unemployed tradesmen than New South Wales, should not, I think, be allowed to pass unnoticed ; it might possibly lead one or two gullible people to cast their vote the wrong way. As a resident, before and after the time ho mentions, of Queensland, I think I am in a position to let him know one or two things about which he has only a very slight knowledge. New South Wales has, in Sydney alone, a (population much greater than the entire population of Queensland, and quite a few of its largest towns art not very far short of the population of Dunedin. His comparison is certainly puerile. The Queensland Labour Government was thrown out mainly by the efforts of the railwayman, who were not at all pleased with Mr M‘Cormack’s decision not to allow them to tak# complete charge of the railway system, and, owing to the delusive promises made to them by its present premier, Mr Moorp. The National Government there succeeded in obtaining a majority by the use of the same hypocritical catch phrases that our present Coalition Government is using 'on its present campaign—smashed and broken promises, and the usual political twaddle that has always been the platform cry of our Reform Party, and which has now been adopted by the strangled United Party. Should “AntiSocialist ” care to visit Brisbane or a town of any size in Queensland ho will be horrified to see the poverty and 1 distress which are everywhere evident. This, I might inform him, was not nearly so bad when the Labour/Government was in power. It can be traced directly to the political humbugging of the present Moore Government. Also, I should like him, providing he is able, to inform me why Queensland was able, under Labour’s rule, to export to Victoria, the lowest taxed State in Australia, beef and mutton and a host of manufactured goods, and dispose of them at a profit in competition with Victorian goods—this at a time when Queenslanders were far and away the highest paid workers in the Commonwealth, furthermore, I am afraid he has only a Nationalist newspaper acquaintance with the New South Wales Premier, and has not the slightest knowledge or that gentleman’s capabilities-for good or evil in relation to the masses. Let me advise “ AntiSocialist ’ ’ to confine bis remarks to Sew Zealand, and not allow his mind to wander to a country that has been, until 1929, under a Labour Government for fourteen years, a workers’ and incidentally an employers’ paradise. Finally, I should like him to know that although the present depression cannot wholly be laid to the count of the present Government, that Government has shown _ itself absolutely incapable of producing one single idea which might tend to alleviate the terrible misery pnd distress, which it will, if returned to office, only accentuate. —I am. etc., Moxowai. November 24.