THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16127, 16 July 1914, Page 6

THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

The full report of the speech in which Mr Andrew Fisher, leader of the Labour party in the Commonwealth, expounded tlio policy of "the caucus" for the forthcoming elections, does not suggest that u was a very impressive or stimulating deliverance. Mr Fisher does not usually, however, make a very effective appearance on the platform. He is the least showy of the orators in the front rank of the Labour party and is far from the equal of Mr W. M. Hughes in point of ability, but ho is more capable than any of his colleagues is of attracting the support of persons who are not politically prejudiced one way or the other and are consequently open to conviction. Air

Fisher focussed the attention of his audience at Bundaberg upon three points which he described as the vital problems that confront the people of Australia today. These are the industrial unrest, the increased cost of living, and the operations of trusts and combines. They are no doubt, as Mr Fisher said, interactionary in their relationship and their ettect. In one of the rhetorical flights which he permitted himself, he charged the Liberals, or the Fusionists- as he called them, with not only permitting but even encouraging industrial rest. The charge is a foolish, one. It is based apparently on the simple fact that the Federal Government did not recommend the GovernorGeneral, as the Labour majority in the Senate desired, to submit once moTo to a referendum at the elections the proposal for an amendment of the Constitution in the direction of increasing the powers of the Federal Parliament. Because of this, he alleges that " the real assassins are Mr Cook and his Fusion following: it is they who are permitting trusts, combines, and monopolies to run a noose round the necks of the Australian people." Further, he claims that the labour party is the only political party which can deal effectively with the problems presented by the increase in the cost of living,—problems which, he admits, are calling for attention throughout the whole civilised world. Mr Fisher specially instances the presence in Australia of agents of the American Beef Trust, and he j stresses the necessity for dealing with that trust and with all other combinations acting, or likely to act, detrimentally to the interests of the people. The State Parliaments, he argues, probably with good reason, are unable to do anything effective to grapple with the operations of trusts, and he complains that the Commonwealth Parliament is so shackled with the Constitution that any action it takes must prove abortive. The nature of the remedy which, the Labour party would apply, ii the powers of the Federal Parliament were extended, is indicated by Mr Fisher when he suggests that agencies should be brought into existence "which will carry the product of farm, of station, of the mine, and of the orchard to the markets of the Commonwealth, and to the markets of the world, with the least possible delay and expense, and with absolute security of full reward to the producers for their products. Concurrently with that," he says,

" must go the establishment of agencies in the markets of the world, and employment of the State credit to advance to the producers a substantial percentage ot the value of the products at the lowest rate of interest, and full settlement with them of the prices realised immediately after the sale." It is an ambitious programme, but its practicability, especially if the fulfilment is entrusted to a party which, like that led by Mr Fisher, professes to regard a national debt as a thing to be avoided as much as possible, is at least questionable.