Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1934. TASMANIAN ELECTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 170, 19 June 1934, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1934. TASMANIAN ELECTION.

Tire general election in Tasmania, which will be followed later by the Eederal and New South Wales elections, has given a verdict in favour of the Labour Party. Voting is conducted under the proportional representation system, and the final calculations have left the Nationalist Government, led by Sir Walter Lee, with 13 seats against Labour’s 14, the other three in the Assembly being won by a Eederal Labour candidate, a Douglas Credit supporter, and an Independent. With the support of the two former assured for Labour, the Ministry’s defeat was encompassed, but the new Government to be formed by Mr Ogilvie is in the precarious position of being required to face the House with a majority only of two. Labour in the election scored four seats at the expense of the Nationalists, the other two going to the Federal Labour and the Douglas Credit candidates, and their promise to support Mr- Ogilvie was the material factor in their success. It would not be surprising if politics in the State fail to become stabilised in the next three years. Like Ministries in other parts of the Empire, Sir Walter Lee’s had to do most unpopular acts to keep the State’s finances stable. Their slightly improved position and hopes of obtaining a larger grant from the Commonwealth led the Premier to indicate in his policy speech that reductions in the salaries of Civil Servants made in 1931 would be partially restored, and concessions granted in land and other taxation. Tasmanians grant from the Eederal .Treasury is a matter of considerable moment to her, and the financial relations between the State and the Commonwealth were obtruded into the election campaign. Sir Walter Lee, like many other Tasmanians, holds the view that Tasmania’s difficulties are largely due to Federation, and its financial problems are the result of an unbalanced relationship between the Commonwealth and the States. The continuance of the system of temporary grants he has declared to be unsatisfactory, and he indicts as intolerable the constant preparation of cases and the necessity of going cap in hand every two or three years to the Commonwealth. Accordingly, when making application for a grant of a little more than one million pounds recently, he urged that it should be fixed for ten years. An authority of the Federal Treasury, in evidence before the Grants Commission at Canberra, expressed views contrary to Sir Walter Lee’s, and the latter promptly told the electors that if the .Commonwealth would make it appear that Tasmania was not entitled to assistance, that she had not suffered under the Federation, that the _ Federal Navigation and Arbitration Acts had made no difference to her prosperity, and that in general her difficulties had been due merely to the world economic depression, then the Government would have to consider whether it should not give effect to its proposals, irrespective of the size of the grant, and place upon the Commonwealth the responsibility of meeting the consequent deficit. Labour seized the opportunity to profit from the conflict of views and its. leader twitted Sir'Walter Lee and his colleagues, according

to report, with being too frightened to put up a real case for an adequate grant. Mr Ogilvie inherits the difficulties of the Nationalist Government in this very difficult matter of the financial relations between the Commonwealth and its States, with, however, the substantial difference that the report s of the Grants Commission most likely will make the burden upon the smaller States lighter, while it has been stated that the Commonwealth Government will treat them handsomely in the next Budget. In such event the new Tasmanian Government will be more fortunate than its predecessor.