QUEENSLAND’S REVULSION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XV, Issue 202, 25 November 1925, Page 4

QUEENSLAND’S REVULSION.

Queensland is superlatively the Labour State of the Australian Commonwealth. Although fouf out of the five other States have just now Labour Administrations, in none of them has Labour held anything like so long political sway as in Queensland, where it has now been in office for over ten unbroken years. It is therefore most significant that the early Federal election figures published in Sydney papers just to hand indicate that the turnover of votes from Labour to antiLabour candidates has, on a percentage basis, been heavier there than in any of the other States. No doubt this has been the immediate outcome of the more recent evidences that there, even more perhaps than anywhere else, the Government has virtually been surrendering control of the State’s affairs into the hands of irresponsible and militant leaders of trade union organisations. There is no need to recall the numerous recent instances of this which are no doubt fresh in the minds of our readers, as they most certainly have been in those of Queensland electors to bring about the result already mentioned.

Beyond this, of course, has been the slipping out of office, in search of better things, and at no long interval, of two successive Labour Premiers who have been to a great extent answerable for the chaotic conditions that have developed. The later of these, Mr. Gillies, first created a new Government billet worth £2,000 a year and then forthwith stepped straight into it himself, made comfortable for life, as he no doubt hoped, and possibly still hopes. His predecessor, Mr. Ryan, resigned ostensibly to satisfy ambitions for a wider field in which to exercise his-undoubted political talents. But much more probably it was because he saw that he had allowed things to get entirely out of hand, and that it was prudent to “go while the going was good” and leave someone else to reap the whirlwind from the wind he had helped to sow. Doubtless he. too, had visions of a better-paid job as Labour Prime Minister of the Commonwealth. But in this it would seem as if he were to be doubly disappointed. Not only has Labour as a whole suffered a disastrous defeat in the contest which its open and definite challenge to constitutional government brought about, but the chances at present are that he himself may fail to find a seat in the Federal Parliament. This is all the more noteworthy in that he was seeking the suffrages of a Queensland electorate, where he was presumably well known and where, no doubt, his return was regarded as almost a matter of course. Even should he scrape in on the count of “second preferences,” it will be with a prestige that is sadly dimmed and that will take a good deal of refurbishing to bring it to its former lustre. At the best it looks as if, for some good long while at any rate, he will have to be content with the ’ modest status and emolument of a private member, which make a poor exchange for the prominence and honorarium of a State Premier. Evidently the much less brilliant Mr? Gillies has chosen much the safer course. It is no wonder, having regard to all this, that the present Premier, Mr. McCormick, begins to bethink him that it will be well to develop some little stronger policy and, before the next State election, give his Government at least the appearance of governing.