THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1931. THE ISSUES IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20841, 7 April 1931, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1931. THE ISSUES IN AUSTRALIA.

In the course of the last few days the position in Australian politics has come appreciably nearer to definition. Events at the Easter conference of the State Labour Party of New South Wales have helped toward this, chiefly through the use made of the conference by Mr. Lang as a medium for the expounding of his proposals. There has been need for this clearing of the air. Mr. Scullin makes reference to new uprisings in all parts of Australia and their purpose of stirring the imagination of the people. He is obviously thinking of movements opposed to Labour, such as the All for Australia League and the campaigns for altering tho constitutional composition of the Commonwealth in one way or another, and contrasts with their novelty and variety the alleged advantages of Labour in having neither to search for a new name nor to blend any new ingredients of policy. But these advantages are fictitious, Labour itself has become in Australia, as it tends to become elsewhere, a name covering diverse ' policies, most notably in public finance, and the old and the new, the accepted and the challenging, the reasoning and the reckless, jostle each other in its multiple mind. Mr. Scullin's wish is father to his thought, yet even he. much as he would like to believe Labour a unity, has to note the presence in Australia of a multitude of "financial saviours"—and provokes the comment that rival purveyors of different brands of financial salvation label their nostrums "Labour." While he has been moving the Melbourne conference to applause, Mr. Lang has been propounding a hostile plan in Sydney and getting a temporary majority vote for it, and the latter conference has thrust out of its Labour fold Mr. Scullin's Federal Treasurer and threatened other New South Wales members of the Federal Labour Party with virtual expulsion if they do not accept the State party's insistence on local autonomy. Labour's house is as plainly divided as Mr. Scullin declares the rest of political Australia to be.

Even in the Sydney conference there has been evidence of this cleavage, for Mr. Lang's scheme, at first adopted against the votes of a considerable minority, has eventually been rejected by almost a two-to-one decision. This division of opinion cannot be argued away. Mr. Lang would set New South Wales Labour in serried array against the Federal following of Mr. Scullin and Mr. Theodore, yet it is apparent that in the New South Wales ranks 'is a considerable number inclined to run away to the enemy. "This State is miles ahead of any other committee of the Australian Labour Army," Mr. Lang proudly boasts. Tf he means, as he probably does, that the militant measures he advocates are being more zealously and efficiently given shape in his State, then so much the better for the rest of Australia; yet "miles ahead" fits ill with the change of front in the Sydney conference. The considerable majority may well continue to hesitate in their allegiance to him. His precious scheme is stark Communism of the Moscow type. It is to proceed on a "three years' plan of social transition," but there can be no doubt that he would impose his scheme on Australia, or at least on New South Wales, with ruthless suddenness if he could. There can be no doubting this; some of the fiery speeches in support of him at the conference are those of potential cut-throats and he has himself swaggeringly assumed the pirate role. What is pleasantly styled "socialisation" is neither more nor less than robbery with violence. Accomplished in three years or overnight, it is the same thing. The lied flag means precisely what the Jolly Roger meant on the high seas. To vest "in a people's Government" the ownership and control of all property, all industrial and commercial activities, is a euphemism for vesting them in revolutionary Labour. Ownership would pass to it by the persuasion of the bludgeon, and control be exercised by the Lewis guns to be bought, according to one delegate, with the money -aised by levy, at first, on the Labour Army. Tt is well that the conference, on second thoughts, has •evoked its approval of the scheme is one likely to plunge the country n civil war. Tt is better still that ho country should understand at >nce the brutal nature of the | j nenace. i

In Mr. Theodore's summary of the effects of Mr. Lang's scheme this implication of it is rightly mentioned. It is not to be expected that any community would submit without a desperate struggle to such a piratical assault. The whole purpose aim spirit of the scheme is utterly lawless, and refusal of payment of taxes would be the least, desperate of the repellent measures taken by an outraged people. But, as the Federal Treasurer Ilia ultimate effects of Mr. Land's policy, if imposed, would be to make the snatched booty of little worth: confidence in Government contracts would be destroyed, breaches in private contracts would lie encouraged, money would (low away from "any State so commercially immoral, credit within it would be disas-

trously curtailed, and its bad name would hamstring all hope of help from the foreign money market for public works. So far as the Lang policy is concerned, the issue has been made perfectly clear. On the other hand, the Federal Government's Fiduciary Bill is seen to be almost as plainly dangerous. Mr. Lang would repeat in New South Wales the brainless brutality of Soviet Russia, repudiating debts, seizing property, enslaving human mind and muscle, and dragooning the community. Mr. Scullin and Mr. Theodore would juggle with the Commonwealth currency in a way bound to react disastrously on the whole of Australia and" play havoc with private industiy and commerce and public finance. The issues are clearing. Mr. Scullin's expectation that the Senate will reject the Fiduciary Bill is associated with his determination, if so, to appeal to the people. This would take time, but in the breathing space thus provided it should be possible for a majority in Australia to come to sane conclusions and prepare to express them.