STATE ELECTIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 7

STATE ELECTIONS

NEW SOUTH WALES POLLS PLACID CAMPAIGN ENDED STEVENS’ WIN EXPECTED GOOD WORKING MAJORITY By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 10 p.m. Sydney, May 10. After an election campaign notable throughout for its placidity New South Wales political issues will go to the vote to-morrow. Although its most optimistic supporters predict that the Government may even improve on its present unprecedented majority of 42 in a Legislative Assembly of 90 members, others feel it may be too much to expect to retain the existing strength. . The consensus of opinion seems to be that Mr. B. S. B. Stevens, the Premier, will return with a good working majority. Mr. J. T. Lang, the Labour leader, however, professes that Labour is never more confident of victory as a result of an intensive campaign in city and country, assuring workers of higher wages and the abolition of dole conditions.

Labour organisers declare that only a 10 per cent, swing in the voting is required to reinstate Mr. Lang with 50 or 52 seats. At the 1932 election the Government parties received 701,847 votes, compared with 598,000 for State and Federal Labour. The Lang Party hopes at least to retrieve the nine metropolitan and nine country seats which it narrowly lost last time.

The Country Party organisers expect little or no change in the State of the parties, declaring there is no sign of a swing away from the Government as far as the country is concerned, but rather that a dread of Langism is now more evident in all parts of the State, following the marked recovery of business since Mr. Lang’s departure from office. ASSAULT ON CITY SEATS QUEENSLAND’S CAMPAIGN LEADER OF OPPOSITION Rec. 9 p.m. Brisbane, May 10. A feature of the Queensland election campaign, which also culminates in polling to-morrow, has been an assault by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. E. A. Moore, on the city seats now held by Labour. Mr. Moore has evolved a childhood en-. dowment scheme under which he proposes a reduction of 5s a week in the wages of employees with no dependent children and a bonus of 5s a week for workers with ffiree children and of 10s for those with four or more children. The Premier, Mr. Forgan Smith, has been taking every opportunity of attempting to prove that the scheme is actuarily unsound and unworkable. The present state of the parties Is: Labour 33, Country and National 28, Independent 1.