BIG UNITED VOTE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1934, Page 7

BIG UNITED VOTE

ELECTIONS IN AUSTRALIA

NO CHANGE SINCE WEEK-END

POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

“LABOUR IN THE DISCARD”

VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 11.45 p.m. Sydney, Sept. 17.

fresh election figures did not appreciably alter the party strength as outlined yesterday. Of the 2,966,143 votes so far counted the parties polled as follows:—

United Australia 1,154,762 United Country 296,683 Federal Labour 796,412 State Labour 466,472 Douglas Credit 144,736 Communists 41,498 The remainder of the votes are for Socialists and independents. The Senate figures indicate that the Government parties will win in all States except Queensland. The loss of the Werriwa seat by the United Australia Party candidate, Mr. T. D. Mutch, to the State Labour candidate, Mr. H. P. Lazzarini, seems beyond doubt. This seat last election was won from State Labour for the Country Party by Mr. W. McNichol, who stood down on this occasion. Hence Mr. Lazzarini recovers the seat he originally held with the aid of the new electoral boundaries.

Similar influences are operating in the Barton electorate, where Mr. A. Lane (United Australia) seems likely to lose the seat to the original party, State Labour, whose nominee, Mr. J. C. Eldridge, is now overhauling" Mr. Lane. Other definitely doubtful seats from a party point of view are Maranoa and Moreton in Queensland, Denison in Tasmania and Fremantle in Western Australia. The outcome of these will probably not be known until the end of the week, when the preferences will be checked and 132,000 absentee postal votes will be handled. Meanwhile the party position, based on the latest figures, remains substantially as it was when cabled yesterday. The Sydney Morning Herald gives the state of the parties as follows: United Australia 31, United Country 11, Federal Labour 15, State Labour 7, Doubtful 10. The Labour Daily says that the State Labour Party has a certain ten seats and possibly 12. “As the Labour Party has discarded its old ideals so workers everywhere are discarding the Labour Party,” says the Sydney Morning Herald in a leader. “It no longer represents them; it belies the name it bore when they gave it their allegiance. There is in this State, at all events, no longer a Labour Party. “What arrogates that title to itself is a coterie grasping at power for the aggrandisement of one section of the workers as against all other sections and in a mistaken sense of loyalty to the name of labour men with naturally nothing but goodwill in their hearts allow themselves to be dragooned into what in a country where no privilege is recognised must always be a hopeless class war.

“Interpreted in its right meaning this election was not a defeat of Labour. It was a victory, a victory for the majority of the people, which is the same thing in this country as the majority of the workers.”

The Labour Daily, in a leader, says: “The results of the voting afford every reason .for the Labour Party in New South Wales to look forward to the immediate future with the greatest of optimism. Labour demonstrated on Saturday that it has consolidated its front during the past 18 months, so that to-day it has a unified movement prepared to accept an undiluted Labour policy.”

PERSONALITY OF LEADERS

MR. LYONS AND DR. PAGE

The Prime Minister, Mr. Joseph Aloysius Lyons, is a man of strong personality. His abilities would command respect anywhere, while his character’ inspires confidence and the personal attachment of men. He is a very fine speaker and has a rapier thrust in debate. He is one of the most kindly men, however, and, while firmly defending tlndf principles in which he believes, is never personal. Mr. Lyons was bom in Tasmania in 1879. The economic conditions during his early days were such as to force him to earn something, and at the age of nine he embarked on the duties of an errand boy. Subsequently he displayed a natural bent for teaching, and was engaged with the State Education Department in Tasmania for some years.

In 1909 he resigned from his position as a teacher and became a candidate for the Wilmot seat in the Tasmanian House of Assembly. He was successful and it was not long before his ability as a speaker and a leader came to be recognised. He was Treasurer in the Earle Government from 1914 to 1916, and, following Labour’s defeat at the election held that year, he was elected leader of his party until the turn of the wheel in 1923, when he became Premier of Tasmania.

When he found his way to Canberra after Labour’s sweeping victory in 1929 his State record secured him a portfolio in a team in which nobody had had previous Federal Ministerial experience, and only one man beside himself, Mr. E. G. Theodore, had'been a State Premier. In Mr. Scullin’s Ministry he was appointed Postmaster-General and Minister of Works and Railways. Upon Mr. Scullin’s departure to Great Britain to attend the Imperial Conference in 1930, Mr. Lyons became Acting Treasurer. After Mr. Scullin’s return Mr. Lyons resigned from the Labour Ministry as a protest against the reinstatement of Mr. Theodore as Treasurer. Soon afterwards he took a leading part in the formation of the United Australia Party, and when the Nationalist members of the Federal Parliament decided to join this party their leader, Mr. Latham, resigned the leadership of the Opposition in favour of Mr. Lyons.

Dr. Earle Grafton Page, leader of the Country Party, was born at Grafton, New South Wales, in 1880. He was elected to the Federal Parliament for the Cowper division in 1919. He has been leader of the Country Party since 1921. He served in the war from 1914 to 1918. When Mr. Bruce as Prime Minister was away from Australia Dr. Page acted as Prime Minister.

He is a good “country” man from every point of view. He ha always been a farmer and represents a class of men with “a stake in the country.” His attitude of friendly hostility has reduced more than one Labour opponent to desperation.