POLITICAL SQUABBLES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 221, 16 August 1927, Page 10

POLITICAL SQUABBLES.

NEW SOUTH WALES PARTIES. WARRING FACTIONS. SYDNEY, Aug. 4. Last week was a hectic one in Labour politics. Never previously in its history in New South Wales has the 1 Labour Party been in the sorry mess it is to-day, although it will probably be found on polling clay, despite the warring factions within its ranks today, that its supporters will rally to the ballot-boxes as one man, in order to put a nail in the coffin of tho common enemy. Whether they vote lor tho accredited Labour candidate of one faction or the other will not he very material, from tlicir point of view, as long as the movement gets back to power. The famous unity conference engf —-to forcibly tlie spectaclo of the lion lving clown with the lamb —with the lamb inside. It witnessed, as was generally anticipated, the overwhelming triumph of the supporters of the Premier (Mr Lang), the vindication of his dictatorship, and the complete debacle of tho group opposed to the Lang faction, and led bv the ex-Minister for Education (Mr Mutch), who is now regarded as standing a fair chance of being defeated in a stronghold which, ordinarily, was his political gift for life.

The group which is now victorious will no doubt- leave no stone unturned to cast into political oblivion those who dramaticallv broke away from Mr Lang. They, or some of them, have promised loyally to abide by tho decision of the unity conference, but, as the lambs lying down with the lions, they will be politically swallowed, if the opening occurs. Those in the- Mutch group recognise that they will be “slaughtered”' at the selection ballots, and that they will either have to retire from politics or contest the coming election as independents. The position to-day means practically the defeat of the moderate element in the Labour movement in New South Wales. The Nationalists vainly hope that the outcome of the- unity conference will be ’a clear-cut figlrt at the election between all the moderate elemonts in the community, on one'hand, and the uncompromising extremists on the other, but it is hardly likely that even moderate Labour will, at tho polls, throw in its weight with the Nationalists. If Labour wins at the election if will inevitably do the bidding of tho Trades Hall industrialists.

■ The political squabble is not confined bv anv means to the Labour partv. The Nationalists are fighting like Kilkenny cats over the selection ballots, because of the ruthless rejection as accredited candidates at the coming election of sitting members Not a few of the Nationalists who have been rejected by the machine propose, in open defiance of it, to contest the election, and to leaye the issue to the arbitrament of the electors themselves. On the Labour side there will be a clash between those who have deserted him., and, in the Nationalist camps, there will ho the fight between those who have been selected by the machine and those who have been rejected by it. The Nationah'sts, as a body, are weak; hut they will probably have the hulk of tho unattached voters ranged behind them, as a result of the happenings in' the Labour movement, on the broad princinle that it is better to be allied with the devil ono knows than with the devil ono knows not.