FEDERAL POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 24

FEDERAL POLITICS.

ELECTION IN FULL SWING. HUGHES BEARS THE LABOUR BRAND AGAIN. THE ARBITRATION ISSUE. (From Our Special Correspondent.) , } SYDNEY, September 20. Here's politics for you! Hughes, forJ merly Labour's idol, then its bete noir— - expelled from the movement, Prime • Minister and all as he was, his person lit by the lurid anathemas of his enemies— ■ once again extolled as Labour's champion and accorded the fullest support of the | Labour forces! This volte face on the part of Labour is because Hughes moved the amendment to Prime Minister Bruce's Maritime 1 Industries Bill which put the Bruce-Page Government out of power. Labour's hate for Hughes, conceived at the time of his strenuous advocacy of conscription, is forgotten in the greater hate of Bruce. Time and circumstances have changed the face of politics, and if Hughes is not exactly reclining in the warm embrace of Labour, he has at least Labour's hearty backing, for the A.L.P. is not running a candidate against him for North Sydney, and there is no official Labour candidate to oppose Mr. Marks, the member for the great suburban constituency of Wentwortli, for Marks is the- man whose vote turned the scale in favour of Hughes' amendment. Thus these two "Nationalists," their nominations refused by the executive of their party, become really Labour" candidates, with the Labour Press backing them with full space. Hughes Cheered. That the Nationalist party is wrath with these two men is to put it mildly, and it is sparing no effort to oust tlidm from their seats. But Hughes is firmly established in North Sydney; he had a thunderous welcome there this week when he opened his campaign, and every diatribe against the Bruce Government was cheered to the echo. The more bitter his criticism, the more he was applauded. Which does not seem too promising for the Nationalists, despite the attitude of their executive, and it will doubtless be shown that the executive is by no means the party—no more than the Government-is the people in so many eases. As for Marks, he is a solicitor of a very well-known and greatly respected family, and he gave his money and personal services freely in the war, putting his yachting experience to good use by enlisting the famous Dover Patrol. He will have a huge personal vote, apart from the political issue, and the bulk of the Labour voters will mark Marks No. 1 on their ballot papers. The bitterness of Nationalist feeling against Marks was shown this morning when hundreds of his election posters were found to have been defaced with "The Rat," in large black lettering. Nationalist headquarters gravely repudiate any knowledge of the outrage, of course—but smiles inwardly with great glee.

"Jimmy" Scullin, Labour Leader. ' J. H. Scullin, leader of the Federal . Labour party, spoke last night in Mel- ■ bourne—at Kichmond, that unchallengei able Labour stronghold which was formerly the seat of ■ the popular Frank Tudor, for a long while Labour Minister of Customs. Tudor now rests where . politics disturb liiin not. Scullin attacked the Government on two points— its proposals to abolish arbitration and to impose the amusement tax. Scullin's. first political speech was made in Ballarat in 1907, when he opposed the "silver-tongued orator," Alfred Deakin, then Prime Minister, for the Ballarat seat. Scullin was scoffed at — what chance had this "whippersnapper" against the great Deakin. The "whippersnapper" showed them. Deakin drew a great crowd in the Alfred Hall, but the crowd that spread right across Sturt Street—the widest street in the Commonwealth —to hear Scullin speak from the verandah of a hotel was twice as great. And Scullin showed that he, too, was an orator with power to sway the people. He was quite as fluent as Deakin, and if his tongue was not as mellow, it uttered a good deal more logic than that of Deakin—and he gave the "Genial Alfred" the fight of his life. Scullin was beaten only because he was a comparatively unknown man fighting the prestige of a Prime Minister, but later he was returned as representative for the Federal constituency of Corangamite—a Labour man for a farmers' electorate! The first victory of its kind in Australia, and at a time when the Press was unscrupulously unkind—and unfair —to Labour candidates. Will Ex-grocer be P.M.? ' Scullin was a grocer's assistant in early life—he is a diminutive little fellow, but is big-brained, and one of the best-read men in Australia, He cultivated his oratorical powers as a member of the St. Patrick's Debating Society, Ballarat. In later years he became associated with journalism, and was managing editor of Ballarat's Labour journal—the "Echo," an evening paper which in my Ballarat days was sold at a half-penny—l think the , only halfpenny daily ever printed in Australia, if I except the Melbourne "Evening Standard," which came down in price from a penny to a half-penny in the last few weeks of a hopeless fight against the "Herald." But that was 35 years ago. Scullin has been a-quarter of a century in the Labour movement, and he is a consummate strategist.

A Hot Fight. Meanwhile, the fight wages hot and strong, with the North Sydney seat the centre of interest, and the Wentworth seat next. I think that the Wentworth result will indicate the situation, for if the Nationalists lose it, it will show completely that the Government is unpopular even in non-Labour centres.

• This morning's pa purs illustrate to the full the strategical incapacity of Mr. Bruce. His Government was defeated on the arbitration issue—and only now appears the report of the Federal Commission's report on the Constitution, which states: "We do not think it would be good for the people of Australia that the Commonwealth Parliament should be occupied with industrial questions, or that the Federal elections should turn on industrial issues. The arbitration power should not be exercised by two authorities, and it should be in the hands of the States, and not the Commonwealth." If Mr. Bruce had tabled that report in the House (it was ready) a fortnight ago, would his Government have' been defeated? It.is highly improbable, for what greater backing could he have had for his bill'to abolish Federal arbitration? But now he is out of power— and there is more than a likelihood that lie will stay out.