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Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1927, Page 6

THE COST OF CAUCUS RULE. There is little doubt but that the disastrous results, of Labour administration are beginning to be realised in the State of New South Wales and in the city ot* .Sydney, In the capital, net only has there been the opportunity for observing at first hand the extraordinary vagaries of a Socialist Ministry, but the affairs of the city have also been administered by a council in which Labour holds a majority. In both Cabinet and City Counei'l the real power has lain, not in members elected by the citizens, but in a mysterious entity which is summarised in the word “caucus.” That its power is very real has been often manifested, the culminating point being reached when the Labour Premier (Mr. Lang), in order to do its bidding, had to go back on hie pledged word. The average citizen is now being rudely awakened to what all this pampering of the proletariat and class legislation is going to cost the taxpayer. In State finance the position has already becm.oe so acute that Mr. Lang has, according to his own explanation, been forced to put a tax upon newspapers and to rob the reading funds of the country districts in order to square the accounts of the State. In civic matters the writing is also upon the wall, and the new Lord Mayor, himself a "caucus” nominee, with the remembrance, no doubt, that an election must follow his year of office, has gravely informed the permanent heads of the council’s staff that “economy was the keynote of his policy.” Seeing that the policy of the Labour majority upon the council has been to reduce the authority of the heads of the various undertakings it controls by demanding that all applications for employment shall be made through members of the council, by reducing the working week by four hours, and by accepting various tenders against the advice of the council’s experts, the latter must have listened with some amazement to their new instructions. The results of all the profligate administration Of civic affairs is becoming only too apparent. With a progress more rapid than in any other Australian capital, and therefore an ever-increasing revenue, the Sydney City Council is finding itself financially embarrassed, and the day of reckoning within sight. Hence the "economy” policy of the new Lord Mayor. It remains to ’be seen whether the new slogan will commend itself to the party the Lord Mayor is presumed to lead, and whether it will be maintained if militant Labour once more approaches the council for higher wages, shorter hours, or any other concession at the expense of the ratepayers.