AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 24

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

| MELBOURNE, February 14. An amalgamation of the Ministerialisfl and theThhd party in the State Parliament 1 has been arranged. The leaders on botll sides have drafted a common policy, - which Mr Bent wil) announce on Saturday. ! February 17. The Premier (Mr Bent) delivered 4 policy speech yesterday. He said Parlia* ment would be dissolved about Pebruarj; 21 and the elections would be held on March 15. Rarely had it been the good! fortune of a Premier to tell such a golderu story as he had to tell. After dealing with? the buoyancy and increase of the general and railway revenue, he announced that a surplus of over half a million was assured for the current financial year. The* position of the railways had been changed! from a deficit of £365,000 per year to a. surplus of £199,000 in three years. The Government intended to stand to its programme, which included a liberal policy of railway and irrigation works and land development. The Government proposed to amend the land tax by classifying land according to its producing capabilities. The old-age pensions would be increased to lCs weekly, and bills would be introduced) providing for a referendum on the question of Bible-teaching in State schools and to secure preferential voting, so as to euro the evil of minority representation ; also providing for the utilisation of prison labour on road construction and other reproductive works. Woman's suffrage would be left an open question for th«| Cabinet. Personally he was against it.