THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1926. A DEGRADATION OF POLITICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19970, 11 December 1926, Page 12

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1926. A DEGRADATION OF POLITICS.

Strenuous efforts are being made, it seems, to repair the breach in the Labour Party in the New South Wales Parliament. Federal Labour emissaries have made a special journey to Sydney to participate in the conversations. This means that they will do their best to assist in the extrication of Mr Lang from the political bog into which he has contrived to place himself. It is, of course, a grievous thing when a member of. a. Labour Government ventures to assert his individuality and to carry his self-assertion to tho point whiph the Minister of Lands has done in 11 New South Wales to the discomfiture of his chief, and Mr Loughlin and his two fellow-rebels will doubtless have to bear the brunt of a great deal of persuasive eloquence, tendered in the interests of reconciliation, A significant factor is the purpose of these desperate peace efforts, and thereby hangs an edifying tale. Mr Loughlin and his two supporters took the decisive step, it will be recalled, of repudiating allegiance to the Labour Party in order to express their protest against the establishment of a dictatorship by the “Bed” element in New South Wales with* Mr Lang as its instrument. The Labour Party Conference did not foresee that in placing Mr Lang on the pinnacle of a dictator it was hastening the hour of inevitable fall. The defection of the Minister of Lands and those who supported him in Parliament had the effect that, should they vote against the Government, it was robbed of its majority. Mr Loughlin and his two colleagues did not carry their revolt quite to the point to which they might have carried it. They did not support a motion of censure which was before the House of Assembly last month. Had they done so the Government would have been defeated there and then. What happened was that they accepted a promise on Mr Lang’s part that, given -a brief respite, he would certainly go to the country. The Premier’s undertaking on that point was very definite. As reported in Hansard, Mr Lang said: “In view of the unsatisfactory situation which has arisen in this House, I recognise, with the Leader of the Oppositoin, that an appeal to the country is most desirable. When this motion is disposed of 1 shall ask the House to give me four months’ supply, and I shall then take the necessary steps for the purpose of obtaining a dissolution of Parliament.” In consequence of this declaration the division on the motion of censure resulted in a majority of two votes in the Government’s favour. The House adjourned for a few days, and on its resumption the Government secured its four mouths’ supply on the understanding that there would be a general election. Apparently, however, Mr Lang and those who engineered his dictatorship have now come to the conclusion that there is no adequate reason why the solemn undertaking given by the Premier in Parliament should be carried into actual effect. They are doing their best to come to an arrangement with the three recalcitrant members which will permit of Mr Lang’s promise of an appeal to the country being disregarded. The whole story furnishes a very striking illustration of the depths of political degradation to which New South Wales has sunk.