PARTY STRENGTHS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21907, 17 September 1934, Page 9

PARTY STRENGTHS

GOVERNMENT'S LEAD a NEGLIGIBLE REDUCTION MR. LYONS PLEASED RENEWAL OF MANDATE / WILL CONTINUE TASK By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received September 17, 12.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 16 As the result of the Federal general election yesterday the Lyons Government, ,with. its former large majority reduced to a negligible extent, received an unequivocal mandate to carry on. Based on the latest returns the state of parties in the new House of Representatives (74 seats', as against 75 previously), appeared to be as follows, the strengths of the parties in the former 'House being shown for comparison : —* _ This Last ( election House United Australia . . 36 38 United Country 12 18 Federal Labour . • 15 14 State Labour .¥ *. 8 _5 Independents . * . 0 2 Doubtful . < t. 3 —■ 74 75 All the Ministers, with the possible exception of Mr. J. A. Guy, AssistantMinister of Customs, will be returned. People's Expression of Confidence The Prime Minister is having an easy victory in Wilmot, Tasmania. It was his" 55th birthday yesterday, and he said:—"l certainly am experiencing many happy returns. My party still is J overwhelmingly the largest ill the House of Representatives. "The Government has received a magnificent expression of confidence. We shall go forward with our task of placing Australia completely on her feet. It is quite apparent that the people are not prepared to trust themselves to adventurers in the uncharted and tempestuous seas of financial experiment." The campaign directors of the United Australia Party go to the length pf predicting that the Prime Minister probably will have a personal following of 37 in the new House, and that he will have lost only one spat when the final returns are in hand. The campaign directors' analysis is as follows :

The United Australia Party already has definitely lost' the Lang seat in New South Wales and the Maribyrnong and Batman seats in -Victoria, but wjll gain Corangamite, Victoria, and Werriwa, New South Wales, from the Country Party. Thus it will have 37 seats, they say, or half the total membership of the new House.

Country Party Holds Balance o! Power Any seats lost by the Government and the Cotintry Party will be due entirely to the fact that these seats, juabour strongholds, were won. daring the 1931 landslide and are now reverting to Labour, as the Prime Minister, Mr. J« A. Lyons, had anticipated. The jGovernment hitherto had .an absolute majority over all the other parties, with the result that, it was not necessary officially to coalesce with the Country Party. Now, however, the latter party holds the balance of power, and interesting political developments are regarded as inevitable. Unofficially it was stated last night/ that the Government could count on the support of the Country Party. Owing to the smallness of the returns and the large number of candidates in the field for the Senate, it will not be possible to indicate the outcome of the' election for J*hat House for several days, although here again the Government forces are making a Strong showing. A notable victory for the United Australia Party in New South Wales relates to Mr. T. D. Mutch, formerly State Minister of Education in the Lang .regime. He defeated a strong opponent, Mr. H. P. Lazzarini, who was the Lang, or State, Labour nominee for Pepiwa, which at the last election wn* hy the Country Party.