THE New Zealand Herald AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1929. THE FEDERAL CONTEST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1929. THE FEDERAL CONTEST.

As the session of the Commonwealth Parliament, brought to an abrupt end by the fall of the Bruce-Page Government, finished in turmoil, so the election campaign, which has already opened, promises to be sharp and hotly contested. The Prime Minister has already proved that he will stand steadfastly by the point on which he was defeated in the House. So far as he can achieve it, the issue will be paramountly whether the Federal Arbitration Court is to be abolished or not. He made that question decisive in Parliament. Asked whether it could not bo submitted to a referendum without a dissolution, Mr. Bruco said that if the country rejected the proposal his Government would refuse to carry on, and there must eventually be a dissolution. It was better, therefore, to go to the country immediately. He was taunted, during the debate, with lacking a mandate from the people for the industrial legislation ho had promoted. If he returns to power again ho will not lack one. He haß already made it not merely the outstanding, but, from his standpoint, the only issue of the election. Mr. Hughes, who, more than any man, must bo counted as having precipitated this election, hnis not been behindhand in accepting it as the true challenge. It is

difficult to see how, from the plat

form, anything much that is fresh could be developed in argument. Little has happened since the last general election. It is true the fresh taxes proposed by the Federal Treasurer have been ill received by those to be affected, but they are most likely to be material for propaganda outside the limits of ordinary electoral methods. On the face of the situation, the one question will be pressed to the limit at least by the rival • personalities in the contest.

The first speeches of Mr. Bruce and Mr. Hughes were counted as tho opening of the campaign. This is symptomatic of the situation created in Parliament last week. The Labour Party is the official Opposition. Its leader is Mr. Scullin, his first lieutenant is Mr. E. G. Theodore. At the last election and for some time afterwards Mr. Hughes was counted a member of the Nationalist Party, presumably a pledged follower of Mr. Bruce. It was Mr. Hughes who moved the hostile amendment. It was Mr. Hughes who won away from Mr. Bruce the members, some of pre-

viously unsuspected allegiance, some already noted for quasi-indo-pendence, whose votes turned the scale. The Labour Party certainly acquiesced in the attack on the industrial legislation, joined vigorously in it, and helped to precipitate the crisis. Australian comment at the moment of the defeat, necessarily tinged by the feeling the situation aroused, put it thus: "As for the Labour Party, it must stand before the electors merely as an accessory to the displacement of the Government. It did not move the amendment, and the political Labour Party thus preserved in the political arena the aloof but destructive attitude which it revealed in tho industrial arena toward the degradation of the Arbitration Court itself by the unions." If, then, the to abolish the Federal Arbitration Court- were, as Mr. Hughes has alleged, merely introductory to. an attempt to remove all regulation of wages and conditions, he adroitly stepped in as the chief defender of something the Labour Party declares to be the corner-stone of its policy. He has, in a word, stolen the thunder of the Labour Party. In the circumstances it is natural that, apart from tho places where Mr. Bruce and Dr. Page may speak, the chief centre of interest in this election will be North Sydney, the seat from which Mr. Hughes must be dislodged if vengeance is to follow his action.

Though the Labour Party has

thus, in a measure, been relegated to the background in the dramatic events leading up to the opening of the campaign, its spokesmen have said it can win the election. In one way, its chances are favoured by what has happened among its opponents. The main body of the Labour vote in Australia, as elsewhere, is compact, well organised, and well disciplined. It has not proved strong enough to put its party into power since the disruption of 1915-16, in which, incidentally, Mr. Hughes was a leading figure. Its opportunity seemed to be coming nearer in 1922 when an accession of strength to the Country Party, which had made unflinching opposition to Mr. Hughes a leading issue, reduced the Nationalists so much that they lacked a majority. Once Mr. Hughes was ousted from tho leadership tho Country Party joined forces with the Nationalists, and became, for all practical purposes, a part of their strength. The breach in the ranks of the anti-Labour forces was closed, and the party's chance of profiting from dissensions on the other side disappeared. Now, however, there are prospects of a division of forces which may have an effect in a situation where the strengths have become progressively more delicately balanced. So far as Mr. Hughes and Mr. Mapn, the two chief insur-

gents, are concerned, they have been refused nomination as official Nationalist candidates, but since Labour will not oppose either of them, the chance of winning either of these two seats because of the disturbed situation t haa been renounced. What will happen over Messrs. Maxwell and McWilliams, who also voted for the amendment, ia hot yet clear." Meantime, the appearance of the new People's Party introduces a fresh, at present an incalculable, element into ;tlie con-* test,. '