FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Wairarapa Daily Times, 18 September 1934, Page 5

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

STATE OF PARTIES NOT APPRECIABLY ALTERED. Press Association Electric Telegraph—Copyright SYDNEY, Monday. _ To-day’s fresh election figures did not appreciably alter the party strength as outlined yesterday. The loss of the Werriwa seat by the United Australia Party candidate, Mr T. Mutch, to the State Labourite, Mr H. Lazzarini, seems beyond doubt. This seat at the last election was won from State Labour by the Country Party candidate, Mr W. McNieholl, 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 the United Australia candidate, Mr A. Lane, seems likely to lose the seat to the State Labour Party, whose nominee, Mr J. C. Eldridge, is now overhauling Mr Lane.

Other definitely doubtful seats from the United Australia Party point of view are Maranoa and Moreton, in Queensland, Denison in Tasmania, and Fremantle in Perth. The outcome of the voting in these probably will* not be known until the end of the week, when the preferences are checked and 132,000 absentee and postal votes have been handled.

Tho "Labour Daily” says that State Labour has a certain ten seats and possibly twelve. The whole of the Ministers, with the possible exception of Mr J. A. Guy, Assistant Minister of Customs, will be returned. Mr Guy’s position is usually in doubt until the last minute owing to the fact that preferences invariably have to decide the issue. So far primary votes alone have been counted in the various States, and the position of doubtful seats will not be known in some instances until the end of next week.

The "Sydney Morning Herald,” in a leader, says: "As the Labour Party has discarded its old ideals, so the workers everywhere are discarding the Labour Party. It no longer represents them; it belies tlie name it bore when they gave it their allegiance.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 allowed 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 a majority of the workers.” The‘"Labour Daily,” in a leader, says that 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 optimism. Labour demonstrated on Saturday that it had consolidated its front during the past eighteen months, so that to-day it has a united movement prepared to accept an undiluted Labour policy.

, SENATE RETURNS,

SYDNEY, Monday

The Senate figures indicate that the Government parties will win all States except Queensland.