Manawatu Daily Times Australia Needs a Leader

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6541, 4 May 1931, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times Australia Needs a Leader

(1) Politicians follow public opinion instead of leading it; (2), all parties alike reflect general public extravagance; (3), the Australian Federal Government (Labour) hesitates to cure extravagance of which the Labour party was not the sole cause; (4), the Nationalist Opposition is “more intent on scoring against the weakness of the Labour Government” than in constructive criticism; (5), the Theodore proposals are ‘ no more amenable to the change of ‘inflation’ than is the indiscriminate floating of Treasury Bills to meet current deficits in revenue”; (6), one evidence of the failure of politicians (all parties) is that the cost of Australian Federal departments has risen from £6,100,000 in 1907-08 to £34,897,000 in 1929-30, apart from all interest, Bruce helped to build it and Scullin hesitates to cut it down. The above six points have been drawn up in an attempt to epitomise an analysis of the Australian disease by Mr. Benjamin J. Hoare, a veteran Australian journalist, in the Melbourne Herald. A New Zealand reader may at once note the point that whether the Forbes “cut” is right or wrong, whether its method is wrong or right, or whether one agrees or not with the Forbes programme, yet it is indisputable that Mr. Forbes by his actions has freed New Zealand from indictments No. 1 and No. 2. He has dared to stand against public extravagance; he has dared to attempt to lead public opinion; and be has dared, in doing so, to invite unpopularity,

A party manager, looking at such a manoeuvre by a democratic Government may say: “It is magnificent, but it is not party politics.” But if democracy cannot stand the test of a Government that dares to be unpopular, what is the use of democracy? Nine-tenths of Mr. Hoare’s article is a reproach of Australian political parties for not attempting to do what Mr. Forbes has dared to attempt to do. The difference between a Government that dares be unpopular, and a Government that dares not be unpopular, is the main difference to-day between Australia and New Zealand. And it is a tremendous difference, being mainly moral.

Of course there are material differences, such as the difference between the cost of seven Governments and the cost of one. And this difference means millions, yet it has less significance than the willingness or unwillingness of Governments to dare unpopularity in a crisis. “lam afraid,” laments the dissector of the Australian disease, “that the time is past when our Parliaments are willing to brave unpopularity through a sense of duty.”

Mr. Hoare, as indicated above, is not caught by the cry that the whole guilt is Labour guilt, nor by the cry “hands off the Public Service.” He writes: “The Public Service is a sheltered body, exempt from the sacrifice which everyone is sustaining. Its cost is improvidently wasteful beyond all denial, v v :v, > The Bruce Government splashed on the expenditure

in hundreds of thousands and millions, and now we have successors refusing to meet the times by any reductions.” All the reductions in State expenditure and other economies that should have followed Australian Federation thirty years ago have been lost because politicians have “succumbed to the general spirit of wholesale profusion,” and have been “too true a reflex of the people.”

Without attempting to minimise the Mungana scandal, Mr. Hoare does not consider it a reason for refusing to consider the Theodore financial scheme on the scheme’s merits. Those merits are not affected by the circutostanee that, owing to “the weakness of the Prime Minister,” the man who is Federal Treasurer is a man under a cloud.

In principle, Mr. Hoare does not see why a fiduciary iss.ue in a crisis should be condemned without examination by. people who accept the war policy of the British Government that met a crisis by issuing £260,000,000 additional notes against her gold reserve. Further, Mr. Hoare cannot see that the remedy for Lang repudiation policies is to tear to pieces the Theodore scheme; or that mutual recriminations between the Labour pot and the Nationalist kettle will remedy the blackness of the. oufr

Tho District Nursing Guild will meet at tho City Council Chambors, Palmerston North, this afternoon at 2.30. The Palmerston North Garrison Band visited the public hospital yesterday and contributed a delightful programme, which was thoroughly appreciated by the patients and visitors. Tho selections were splendidly rendered* and met with hearty applause. During the week-end the Palmerston North Eire Brigade received two calls, one shortly after eight on Saturday evening and the other in tire early hours of Sunday morning. On both occasions the lire-lighters were called out to false alarms. Another indication of the value of flying for busy business men was given over the week-end when Captain Mercer, of tho Canterbury Aero Club, arrived in Palmerston North, fie is under commission to pick up an Auckland business man from the Limited this morning and land him in Christchurch at mid-day. This will cost the Aucklander about £3Ol The famous expedition ship Discovery, after sheltering on Friday off Durville Island, came into the stream at Wellington at 3 p.m. on Saturday and berthed with tho Diomede, Laburnum and Veronica at Clyde Quay wdiarf. The vessel is under the command of Captain K. N. MaeKenzie and takes coal and provisions before sailing on Tuesday perhaps for London via the Horn and Monte Video. Several hundred people greeted the ship at tho wharf, great interest being taken in her. “ There is no question that the cost of living is going down in New Zealand,” said Mr. W. Machin in an address to the Canterbury Students' Society (reports the Christchurch Times). “The inhabitants of the Dominion are the most favoured in the world where the purchase of meat, butter and wool is concerned. Butter now costs 1/3 a pound, which is the same price as in 1912. Meat is cheaper than it was in that year, and wool is the same price. Our wool cheque in 1912 was £6,000,000, and, to our sorrow, it will be the same this year.”