Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WED., NOV. 21, 1928. THE COMMONWEALTH ELECTIONS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16807, 21 November 1928, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WED., NOV. 21, 1928. THE COMMONWEALTH ELECTIONS

The people of Australia have given a further lease of office to the political combination known as the National and Country parties. For twelve years these two parties liavo been in control of the Commonwealth and their record has been one of sustained progress in national achievement. Finances have been adjusted, population increased, and the primary and secondary industries of the country substantially advanced. At the elections held on Saturday last the issues wore simple. The electors had to choose hjptween the policies of two political groups, one affirming the necessity and the responsibility of maintaining constitutional government in a country where frequent attempts have been made during a succession of industrial disturbances to overthrow the existing order, and the other frankly socialistic and having in its ranks men openly professing the tenets of communism. The firm stand taken by .the Federal Government in maintaining order during those periods of disturbance had led to great bitterness, and the Labor Party, with very complete organisation, endeavored, by a campaign of personal bellitlement to work up public resentment and turn tho Ministry from office. Fortunately for Australia, the attempt failed and the Bruce-Page administration has been returned with a small but still a good working majority. The Labor vote in the new Parliament has strengthened, but not sufficiently so to cause the Government any serious concern, and so long as the present coalition holds •together—there being no present prospect of its dissolution—the administration of the country will remain in safe and sound hands. “We stand for the maintenance and supremacy of the law of the land and the independence of Parliament,” said Mr, Bruce, the Prime Minister, in one of his election speeches. “There can be no compromise on that. Yon cannot have anything freer in the world than those institutions. We fought for those institutions, and mean to maintain .them. The progress of the country depend on work and the efforts of individual citizens, with the resultant augmentation of the national wealth.” During the last 15 years, Mr. Bruce argued, the workers’ wages had been increasing. But he was not greatly better off than he used to be, because the cost of goods had increased with his wages. If wages were kept at the one level, and the cost of production was reduced, then a man’s wages were really increased, because his purchasing power was increased. The idea of efficiency had to be got into the heads of employers as well as into the heads of employees. “You cannot obtain decent conditions of living by Acts of. Parliament,” proceeded Mr. Bruce. “Yo\i 'can have decent and improved conditions only when your efficiency is greater than that of other people. That is where our policy differs from that of the Labor Party. We say: ‘ You cannot get these things by raising tariff barriers or passing Acts of Parliament.’ We can only get them by our own effort, and if wc make that eff’ort our resources aro so amazing and our standard of intelligence is so high that we-could show a lead to the rest of the world.” There is a deal of truth in this utterance. It applies equally to New Zealand as to Australia. “Do not imagine,” said Mr. Bruce, “that you are entitled to higher wages, shorter hours, and better conditions, simply because you are Australians. The only justification is that you are going to show you are more efficient than other nations. You cannot obtain decent conditions of living by Acts of Parliament. You can only have decent and improved conditions when your efficiency is greater than that of other people.” The lesson is one for employers as well as workers. In New Zealand there are many people who seem to think that a change of Government can be made to produce the effect of national prosperity. They fondly imagine that a now Parliament will be able to pass Acts to make fiveryono comfortable and happy, whereas the truth is, as Mr. Bruce so plainly told Australia,, that “nothing but work” can bring that beneficial result. New Zealand, for all her produce, is facing the keenest competition from other nations. Those engaged in industry, whether proprietors, executive, or labor, must put their shoulder to the wheel ami seek now methods of increasing efficiency, qualify afid output. On the subject of borrowed money, which is cogent in New Zealand at the present time, Mr. Bruce in his speech* at the Sydney Town Hall had something relevant to I say. Dealing with the use of loan I

moneys he said that the Commonwealth Government closely examined every developmental scheme submitted by the States. Every wild scheme put up by the politicians was examined by practical men. If that had been done twenty years ago Australia would have been saved millions of pounds. They must have greater efficiency in the development of .their national assets —with that, they would have greater prosperity than Australia had ever known. Politicians were very useful in their proper places, but no one looked to them to solve Australia’s present vital economic proolertis. What was wanted was a policy to allow : the people to work out their owg destiny, in peace and content, without, interference from politicians. How true that is of our own conditions in this Dominion. A great deal of the resentment expressed against the Reform Government at tho recent polls, .y'as due to a feeling on the part of many electors that there had been too much interference in business, and yet, such interference, in almost every case, had come in response to the public demand. The fact seems to be that only through hard experience are the people able to learn the working of economic laws. The Labor Party ill Australia, like that in New Zealand, aims at the adoption of a policy of socialisation of production, distribution and exchange. Sociabsation must automatically lead to ritate control and tho development of Government monopolies, which necessitate a considerable increase in the number of Government officials, and involve a prodigious increase in expenditure, creating insuperable difficulties iu balancing the budget and in the preservation- and maintenance of the finances of the country, Against any further experiments in this direction the people of Australia and New Zealand have clearly revolted, and in our own Dominion it remains for the representatives elected to Parliament to so readjust their forces iu the Legislature that they may present a combined front to the party with the extreme Socialistic objective. Had the National and Country parties of the Commonwealth not coalesced and stood together to oppose the wave of socialism, the strong, probability is that Australia to-day would have been in the control of revolutionaries with even more disastrous results than have been manifest recently iu the affairs of New' South Wales and Queensland.

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT’S DEFEAT

The Hogan Ministry in Victoria, which has held office merely on sufferance through the failure of the two opposing parties to come together, has at last been defeated, and it seems probable that, without recourse to an appeal to the electors it will be supplanted by a. Coalition Cabinet, The crisis was consequent on the failure, of the Labor administration to guarding action in regard to the strike disturbances and the administration of the police force. It was urged by Sir W. McPherson, in moving for its deposition, that since the Government took office the administration of the police force had not been satisfactory, and that the stoppage of recruiting as a means of economy and really out of sympathy for the strikers who had been dismissed from tho force, had led to the failure to detect erimo and to the strength of the force not being adequate to suppress disorder and riot. It was,strongly urged that if recruiting had not. been suspended there would have been sufficient police to have prevented the recent troubles, which have given the port of Melbourne such a bud name. The attitude of the Government towards the strike and its accompanying disturbances was seriously challenged. The intervention of the Premier in an effort to settle the strike and restore harmony did more harm than good. It is regarded as having assisted rather than encouraged the men to resort to violence. Mr. Hogan’s frequent public declarations of hopefulness that the strike would bo settled were an admission of weakness and inactivity and were in distinct contrast with tho firm action taken by the Premier of Australia in enrolling and arming special police. Mr. Bruce, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, declared emphatically that the State Government had been recreant in its duty in not seeing that the men who had volunteered to maintain the industries of the State were properly protected. The control of peace and order in the State was the province of the State, and it would have made a great effect if the Premier of Victoria had made a definite statement that his Government was there to ensure order and to prevent the intimidation of the men engaged in industry. To have done this would have produced u tremendous moral,effect, but Sir. Hogan failed to rise to the occasion, and w r eek after week passed with successive bomb outrages and increasing disorder, until at last the Federal Government had to intervene and declare that the vital services of the country would be maintained and that the men who volunteered to keep them going would be jnbtected against the brutal assaults to which they had been subjected. For its sin of omission and callous disregard of the true interests of the country tho Hogan administration has suffered an .adverse vote in Parliament, and will be compelled to hand over the reins of office to a combined party that will steadfastly maintain order.