The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1929. A HEAVY PRICE

Southland Times, Issue 20941, 26 November 1929, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1929. A HEAVY PRICE

It looks as if Australia is going to have an interesting, if expensive, time while Mr Theodore is given opportunities to crash round with his political stunts. Queensland would have been lesson enough for most men. Evidently Mr Theodore has blamed everyone but himself and his party for that disastrous expedition in State trading, and declines to suspect that there might be something unsound in the ideas which launched them, because it looks as if he is going to set Australia off on a similar flight. If Mr Theodore has learnt no lessons, Queensland has. There the Labour Party is discredited as a result of the Theodore experiments. There, too, Mr Theodore is justly valued. His decision to leave the State and step into Commonwealth politics may have deceived a few people at the time, but when the full effect of his disastrous policy was revealed the real reason for the removal of the Theodoric bulk was seen. Remembering what he has done for Queensland, it is not surprising to find that the Queenslanders are “done” with him. They, more than any other Australians, must be anxious about the future. In the words of that philosopher, Uncle Remus: “They’s done had ’sperence.” Mr Anstey, who launched an explanation of Mr Theodore's banking proposals, is, if we mistake not, the author of a book published many years ago, which was evidently inspired by an admiration of the Bolsheviks, and which attracted more attention than it deserved when it was unnecessarily banned. He is happy when he is “whanging” the Capitalists, but at times his enthusiasms lead him into extraordinary statements. He often mistakes sound for soundness. In that banned book he declared solemnly that “the economic factor is master of human destiny and shapes its end.” Then, of course, this doctrine, quite sound, had an anti-Master-Class slant, and it was rolled out with magnificence. But now Mr Anstey is glorifying Mr Theodore’s scheme to dabble in banking, and suggesting that the Scullin Government is going to shape economic factors. The bold statements that the banks must serve industry and that they must be dragooned into service will be read by Mr Philip Snowden with an ironic chuckle. Only a little while ago Mr Snowden met this complaint among the extremists of the Labour Party in Britain, and squelched it by an elaborate explanation of the manner in which the banks worked. Evidently Mr Anstey has much to learn yet. His citation of the United States as the excuse for Mr Theodore’s policy is rather amusing. The Americans may have a progressive financial organism, but it has adopted much from the British system, and certainly it has not yet a State bank of deposit and issue. The Federal Reserve is not a bank in the ordinary sense, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia cannot be compared with it—the two have nothing in common. It has to be remembered, too, that the financial organism of the United States is not subjected to the attentions of tinkering politicians. Of course, the misgivings of those Australians who think seriously will not be allayed by Mr Anstey's rhetoric. They will be more impressed by the mild, but cold warning of the Financial News, which, after remarking that it awaited details of the banking proposal, went on

the’disturbing element lies in the course from which they proceed .... Mr Theodore has admitted Australia’s credit is somewhat impaired, and his statement has not given grounds for thinking he is on the right road to restore it. Mr Theodore was in the Queensland Government which repudiated the land leases, and fell foul of the financial institutions, and now that he has started dabbling in Australia’s credit it is natural for the London observers to be wary. And all the time, Australians will brood over the fact that this is the result of Mr Bruce’s illadvised attack on the Federal Arbitration Court. Australia defeated Mr Bruce on that issue, but part of the teri-ible price it had to pay was the installation, of Mr Theodore at the Federal Treasury.