N.S.W. AFFAIRS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 142, 18 May 1932, Page 7

N.S.W. AFFAIRS

THE NEW REGIME

PENSIONS AND FAMILY ENDOW-

MENT PAYMENTS,

PREMIER’S POLICY SPEECH NEXT WEEK.

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received May 18, 10.5 a.m. SYDNEY, May 18.

The State Ministry will investigate without delay tho Lang appointments to the Transport Services Board. Sixty thousand family endowment cheques, representing a sum of £70,000, have been sent out by the new Government. These represent the payments which fell duo on April 26. The payments which fell due on April 26. The payments which wore duo on May 10 and those which fell due on May 14 will ho posted by Friday, representing a total of £140,000. ' Cheques which were sent out in April and. which had not been met by the banks are now being cashed.

Tho Minister of Education announced to-day that deferred payments of widows’ pensions and child welfare allowances, totalling £IOO,OOO would bo available immediately.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

TO BEGIN IMMEDIATELY.

SYDNEY, May 17. Tlie Premier, Mr B. S. Stevens, will deliver the new Government’s policy in a speech early next week. Tho new Ministers have agreed to forgo ministerial salaries. Ilie election campaign will begin immediately. Tho fact that United Australia Party supporters have undertaken not to contest scats hitherto held by Country Party members, also that an amicabie working agreement lias been reached, has caused the utmost satisfaction in anti-Labour circles. Eleven seats must lie won from Labour in order to give the Stevens Government a bare working majority. At least ten seats are expected to he won from Labour in country electorates and probably five in the metropolitan area. The first acts of members of the new Cabinet to-day included the removal of tho Lang Government’s restrictions on trade, industry and transport. Compulsory unionism was also vetoed. The Minister of Labour will visit Canberra in order to try to induce the Federal Government to allocate to New South Wales a full share of the unemployment vote of £1,200,000. MR LANG’S CRITICISM. SYDNEY, May 17. The ex-Premier, Mr J. T. Lang, broke his silence when he addressed the Labour Caucus to-day. He reviewed tho .evonts leading to his dismissal from office, and criticised tlie Governor, Sir Philip Game. He declared that if His Excellency had acted constitutionally in dismissing him ho would he acting unconstitutionally if he granted supply after the end of May without Parliamentary approval. MR LANG’S DEFAULT. IRISH COMMENT. Received May 18, 10.25 a.m. LONDON, May 17. Tlie Irish Times, in a leader, states: “Mr Lang’s default was a blot not only to the population of New South Wales, but also on the Commonwealth. Decent opinion in Australia has decided that it cannot bo suffered to pass unnoticed.”