PRICE OF LABOUR GOVERNMENTS AS REASON FOR FALL

Chronicle (Levin), 13 December 1949, Page 5

PRICE OF LABOUR GOVERNMENTS AS REASON FOR FALL

Received Tuesday, 10.10 a.m. NEW YORK, Dec. 12. Many newspapers throughout the United States and Canada today carried leading articles on the cause and effects of the New Zealand and Australian elections. Several of them suggested that the defeat of the Labour Governmen'iS was not so^ much a condemnation of their socialistic objectives as a rejection of the price of them. The Baltimore Sun saic* that true Conservatives in the United States should save their cheers over the Australian and New Zealand elections if they merely meant that there, as in America, many people wanted the soft benefits of socialism without paying the necessary price. "If the southern Dominions still seek a welfare state while rejecting^ even timid socialis't discipline, without which welfare services are impossible, then the result has not been good." The paper said: "Such a result would indicate that the Australian and New Zealand majorities had not yet learned the ultimate lesson of socialism — that for every guarantee made to the people by the State the State takes back a reciprocal something from the people." Noting that there was a notable unwillingness among the prudent commentators to climb out on any limbs in discussing the Dominion elections, the Sun added: "If it is unsafe to liken Britain to the southern Dominions, it is equally unsafe to conclude that New Zealand and Australia have now plumped unreservedly . for "laissez faire and free market."