AUSTRALIAN TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 20973, 11 December 1931, Page 12

AUSTRALIAN TOPICS

ELECTION FEUDS [From Our Coreespokdest.] SYDNEY, December 1. A fracas in Australia’s political underworld between the two tough old rival Labour feudists, Theodore and Lang, precipitated the double Federal dissolution. And the whirlwind election campaign is getting cluttered with personal acrimony as the polling day on December 19 approaches. But the general public refuses to be greatly distracted by the mutual Lang-Theodore mud-slinging. Such pique aside, the real issue is national economy and preventing the inflationist politicians getting control of the banks. Though the new Federal Parliament to bo elected this month will be Australia’s thirteenth, it may not be an unlucky one. The nonSocialisatiou groups are presenting a fairly compact front, and the hope is that a truly national—not Nationalist — Government .will really tackle the economy reconstruction job that the Scullin Labour regime has so adroitly dodged. Of course, many of the politicians in the hurly-burly will try to cloud tho essential issues with their usual catch cries, bogeys, red herrings, and pious bursts of rhetorical righteousness. But Australia is in too serious mood to be much amused by rant, cant, and fustian. Australia is politicallyminded these difficult days, even housewives,_ business girls, and school children joining in the daily arguments about this policy or that. So there is reason To hope that the Commonwealth this time will get a Parliament of mainly sober and serious legislators to lift it out of its depression bog. CURBING AMBITION. When Wolsey counselled Cromwell to fling away ambition he knew nothing of those many State Parliamentarians in Australia who periodically feel an itch to’ 1 climb into the roomier and more lucrative Commonwealth fjeld. Whenever a Federal election looms several of those State members resign their seats and have a hopeful fling at Federal honours. So much so that just a, decade ago the Commonwealth Parliament put a curb upon their aspirations." It passed a little election Act compelling any State member to resign his seat at least fourteen days before nominating for the Commonwealth Parliament. That little curb has a tactical use in the present electioneering campaign. The State Premier of New South Wales, Mr Lang, wanted to have a try for a Commonwealth seat and so get to closer grips with his feudist foes, Mx; Theodore and Mr Scullin. But by fixing nomination day within a. fortnight of the dissolution Mr Theodore and Mr Scullin have cunningly, prevented Mr Lang from becoming a Commonwealth candidate in tho current election tussle. Not that this neatlydated dodge will necessarily keep Mr Lang long out of the Commonwealth Parliament. Though he opnnot legally resign his State seat in time to nominate for Commonwealth honours, one of his Federally-elected dummies may resign immediately after the General Elections and so let down the red byelection carpet, so to speak, over which lordly Lang can swagger into the national House at Canberra. It is amusing to note how bitterly some ambitious State members oppose the Commonwealth Parliament’s curb upon their Federal aspirations. When tho Commonw’ealth Parliament, ten years ago this month, passed that curbing Bill the States retorted with a little measure of their own. The present Federal Treasurer* Mr Theodore, was then the State Premier of Queensland. And his retaliatory Bill, while admitting that State members must resign before their Federal nominations, thoughtfully prohibited any poll to fill their State vacancies until their little Federal flutters had been settled one way or the other. In other words, a State membfr resigning to contest a Federal seat had his vacated State seat kept open and warm for him in case he came * a cropper in the Federal elections. It is a wise general who thus safeguards his possible lines of hasty retreat. But though this principle was applauded by the interested parties, the general public regarded it merely ,as another little attempt to run Australia mainly for the benefit of its privileged class of professional politicians. SHEEP AND SHOES,

Australia boasts that its sheep census now numbers 115,000,000. It is figuratively upon the sheep’s back that the Commonwealth hopes to return to prosperity. It is therefore interesting to note how this continent’s famous merino wool dates back to the daft days of George 111. That King had for some time made a hobby of'breeding merinoes imported from Europe. But when his wits began to wander the Royal flocks were sold, some of the precious animals going to Thomas Henty, sheep breeder and banker of Sussex. Henty’s sons were the virtual founders of the colony of Victoria in Australia—now the State of Victoria, which is looking forward to its centenary in November, 1934, The Sussex Henty sent his pioneering sons in Australia a few of his best merino sheep, so starting there the strain ,that has since made the Commonwealth famous. Each of the sheep thus shipped by Henty pere was fitted out with a little red flannel jacket against the supposed rigours of the Victorian climate. Actually, of course, Hhe climate was wanner in the land of their adoption than in their English fold.

That Australia is not entirely a producer of primary products is shown by its latest manufacturing boast that 95 per cent of the horseshoes it uses> are made locally, from local iron, b3' locally invented machinery. One of these machines can turn out thirty horseshoes a minute. But now comes the sting in the tail of this true story. While Australia can make horseshoes by the million it has to import nearly every nail needed to fasten those shoes to its horses’_ feet. Once it did—for forty consecutive years—make its own horseshoe nails. But that home trade has been swamped by competition from low-wage countries, and the Australian Continent, famed for its horses, horsemen, and horseshoes, actually has to get the overseas to supply the nails for shoeing the animals. In these latter days of high tariffs such nails might well he made again within the borders of the Commonwealth. HOW STARS HELP. One of astronomy’s practical sides is patriotically proved by the enlistment of Observatory experts so to plot the opening in the dome of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance that a ray from the sun on the eleventh day of the eleventh month each .year will fall upon tho floor of the inner chamber exactly over the crypt. This bit of sky arithmetic recalls some of the intricate calculations of a similar sort in the pyramids-of ancient Egypt. Australia uses its astronomers to plot difficult frontier lines between counties and other territorial divisions. When, some time ago, tho map-makers were uncertain as to the exact “ fall ” of the boundary between South and Western Australia, the star students solved the problem for them with the aid of telescopes, wireless time signals, and other siderial gear.