THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1922. AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18089, 13 May 1922, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1922. AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

The fall of the Labour Government iti Now Smith Wales as the result of the recent election appears to herald the commencement of a new cycle in Australian polities. For many years the political Labour organisation has played a very important part in shaping the destinies of Australia. When it met shipwreck on the fundamental question of conscription for military service it had had a fair opportunity of leaving its impress on Federal administration, and outside Victoria, the most conservative of the States, it had co7itrolled every provineial division of the great continent. In Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland in particular, it appeared at one time to bo impregnably entrenched, but it has lost one stronghold aftier another, till/ it now commands only Queensland. Here its footing is extremely precarious. A single by-election unfavourable to the Government would precipitate an appeal to the people, and it is scarcely conceivahle that the result would he to confirm Labour in office. It is in its last stronghold that the administrative record of Labour is least excusable. State trade enterprises have been started with the utmost recklessness, conducted with the grossest incompetence, and abandoned with the cornpletest indifference. The development of what is potentially the greatest of all the Australian States has been checked by the veiled antagonism of Labour to systematic immigration and by the quarrel which it picked with London capitalists., and taxation has reached a level which even in these abnormal times is arresting - . It would be a gross travesty of the facts to say that Labour has ruined Queensland, since no Government, however bad, could do more than retard the progress of a Stat© with such a wide range of climate, soil, and resources, but it is cold truth to say that the present Government is the greatest handicap the State suffers. In Queensland, as in New South Wales, the passing of Labour will produce a general sense of relief which can scarcely be appreciated by New Zealanders who have not learned by personal experience how seriously Labour rule in Australia has undermined public confidence and how far it has restricted private enterprise. It would be unsafe to speculate on j the political future beyond saying that for the next few years the administration of most parts of Australia will be in the hands of men of moderate political views- Labour may recover its hold upon the constituencies in course of time, but it will be a purged and reinvigorated party. Already a process of precipitation is taking place, the constitutional elements are casting out or are being cast out by the revolutionary, and it is probable the right and left wings of the party will sooner or later part company. But whatever course this development may take it is certain that in all the States, as well aB in the Federal field, office will for a few years at least be held by the antiLabour organisations which are now generally banded together under the name of the National Party. The reason for this lies on the surface. Political Labour in Australia set out to defy economic law. It sought to maintain, and even raise, wages on a falling market. It aimed continuously at a higher standard of living and greater leisure, while neglecting to secure the greater production which alone would make these eminently desirable ideals realisable. In other words, Labour has encouraged Australians to consume more than they produce, with the result that an impossible situation has been created, which Labour has neither the capacity to control nor the, ability to remedy. It is natural that under such circumstances the electors should turn to men who appreciate elementary economic law and who have the experience in affairs requisite for an overhaul of State finance and a reorganisation of the administrative departments. The problems with which New Zealand has been wrestling for a year, such as the adjustment of wages to the cost of living and the reduction of public expenditure, have in several States of Australia scarcely yet been considered, and this is the first and most pressing task confronting the several Governments. But if the various national parties are true to their name their record must be judged by more than an economic test. There is a place in Australian politics for a real and vital nationalism. There is, indeed, a superficial nationalism which is picturesque and may prove the source of a deeper stream of national life. It expresses itself in creditable schools of literature and art and in a lavish display of the Australian flag and the Australian map, even on advertisements in the newspapers and teacups in the restaurants. Yet there is this phenomenon, that in politics this nascent nationalism is', always swamped by the currents of I provincialism. In politics the States loom closer than the Commonwealth, I there is an irritating and wasteful j overlapping of functions, and one of the forms provincialism is now taking is a demand for an increase in the number of States by subdivision. This provincialism may be the symptom of a healthy local life—in NewZealand municipal progress owes j much to so-called " parochialism," though fortunately we have never gone to such grotesque lengths as

! building a bush capital in order to , reconcile the jealousies of rival cities —but at the present time it undoubtedly obscures, and weakens national policy. it is not for outsiders to speculate whether this is because 22 years are too short a period for a real federation or because Australia is tot) vast and diversified a country for central government. Hut it is no injustice to a sister Dominion to say that the creation of a, national outlook remains one of the cardinal tests of i Australian statesmanship. j