FEDERAL POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 13

FEDERAL POLITICS.

.- —. ..": — MR. MASSY GREENE. RE-ENTRY INTO PARLIAMENT [from oub own correspondent.] SYDNEY, Oct. 24. The election of the Nationalist, Mr. W. Massy Greene, by the joint State Houses to fill the vacancy in New South Wales representation in the Federal Senate caused by the death of Senator Milieu, ■was attended with much of the party rancour and bitterness characteristic of an ordinary election. Mr. Greene, who has won hie spurs in the Federal arena in a remarkably short time, _ both as Minister for Customs and as Minister for Defence, and who might have been Prime Minister to-day, but for his defeat at the last elections by a Country Party candidate, was opposed by Labour and Progressive candidates. He was elected by an absolute majority on '•. the first count. Objection had been taken to Mr. Massy Greene by the Progressives on the ground that he stands for high protection, but the effective retort was made that the time for such protest was when ho was piloting through the Federal Parliament the tariff : schedule now in force, and when he could have been removed from office with the rest of the Hughes Ministry. The Federal legislature will be the richer for Mr. Massy Greene's reentry into it, and into a chamber which is deplorably weak in the qualities of statesmanship. Even those with no sympathy for 'his fiscal views recognise his outstanding qualities.