The Dominion. MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1912. THE LABOUR PARTY IN AUSTRALIA.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1635, 30 December 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1912. THE LABOUR PARTY IN AUSTRALIA.

It must be, we think, as obvious to the Labour party in New Zealand as it is to everyone else that Australia is becoming heartily sick of its Labour Ministries. These Ministries have nobody but themselves to blame for the disrepute into which they have fallen, which is due entirely to the unashamed firmness with which they have placed their party interests above those of the whole nation. The New South Wales Government has won widespread conr tempt for its. disregard of the cardinal principles of Government; it long ago stood forth as a Government determined to hold _ office by any means, however injurious to the traditions of Government. The Melbourne Age, in a recent long article upon the ethics of Labour in politics, considered two sentences quite sufficient for its summary of the New South Wales Ministry. "The M'Gowen Government in Sydney," it said, "has kept itself in office for two years, by the use of public moneys in placating friends and defeating enemies. The struggle for office has been marked by more squalid features than in any previous instance." ■ But the Federal Government in its own way is not a whit better. Indeed, it has easily surpassed the M'Gowen Government in the energy withwhich i it has turned the State over to its party supporters. It has made no pretence of equitable dealing in its industrial legislation, and it has sought to load the Constitution in favour of the Trades Halls. It is only the other day that it was clearly established, in the carrying out of tho underground telephone work in Melbourne, that tho Minister for Home Affairs regards the public funds as his purse for the, rewarding of his "Christian brothers."

There is now pending a serious charge against a gentleman not long ago appointed by Mr. Kino OMalley to an important engineering post on a trans-continental railway.- It was charged in the House that this man had presented forged or false testimonials, but Mr. O'Mallby, of whom he is the protege, declared that he did not care whether they were forged or not. The attitude of Me. Fisher towards tho Brisbane tramway strike, Mr. Hughes's retention of his post as Attorney-General while he was secretary of a union which had defied the Arbitration Act—these are facts very representative of the lawless _ and predatory spirit of the- political leaders of Laoour in Australia, The culminating scandal has been the attempt of the Government to evade the redistribution of tho New South Wales electorates. Twice the scheme of redistribution submitted by the Commissioners was rejected, because on each occasion it was displeasing to the Oaucuß. The first scheme was considered likely to endanger two Labour seats, and the designed to meet the ostensible objection that the first one destroyed "community of interest" in some cases, was rejected because it extinguished two electorates held by Labour. Either of these schemes was a vast improvement'on the present distribution, which gives to Labour an .unfair advantage. In the four electorates of Parkes, North Sydney, Wentworth, and Parramatta, there are 190,438 electors, and the members are Liberals. The four Labour members for Barrier, Macquarie, Hume, and Werriwa represent between them only 103,057 electors, so that Labour here has an unfair advantage of nearly 100 per cent. The Government endeavoured at the lost to avoid the redistribution scheme altogether, but the Opposition made such a determined stand that the Government had to surrender.

But we have cited only a few examples of the manner in which the Labour Ministries have fallen short, not only of their common duties as Ministries, but also of their professions and promises, and of the expectations of those simpleminded people who fancied that the Australian Labour party was governed by unselfish idealists and not by greedy and unscrupulous spoilseekers. Tho Melbourne Age has long been the most powerful Radical organ in Australia, and has done more for Labour than any other journal. It will not be suspected of any friendliness for those whom the Radical-Socialists love to call "reactionaries." 'It has found it necessary to say that the low morality of Australian Labour politics is forcing itself on thousands of reluctant minds:—

Men do not like to part with thoir ideals; and many electors who voted for Labour in 1010, hoping 1 for a tiino of hontety in politics, oro bains; driven to

confess that the Labour party, instead of retrieving politics from dishonour, is putting an added tarnish upon public life Theso aro words not lightly spoken. So far from being tho outcome of party baas, thoy aro wrung unwillingly' from peoplo who would have been glad to boo Labour inako good its promises, and odor to tho peoplo-an escape from tho paltriness mid deceit which havo made Parliamentary lifo hateful to men of ingenuous minds. , . . Tho Labour party, lilio all'other parlies, has had constantly to chooso between uorvioo to itself anil sorvico to tho peoplo. It: must bo admitted that in almost every trial It has failed to tnlco t;ho lilffli wiiil. . . . Altogether, Labour iilaniln im much disgraced for selfishness iifi the worst of its predecessors.. It has tllmi|molnll'd Its fl'ioiids, and: given an oooiisfnii to ll.h foci to blaspheme. Its nppotlio foi' pelf, place, power is voracious, lis (U'iifo of duty i'h always subordinate to lieoiimwx for wolf-fiilerest; awl it liiw lost n pliloii opportunity to plneo political lll'o a iilelio hiiflior. Wither, Labour has tended lt> degrmlo thai lifo' still lowor by (ill'itlug It quite oponly into a gamo of IJl'ul).

Yet wo H-honUl perhaps bo doing Australia itn injustice it wo took the riiiU'iHiU(iivl lino of suggesting that tin) Australian character is lower tiiitn Hie Now Zealand character. ' It lias vet to bo shown- that there is any. vital point of difference between the Labour party in Australia and the Labour party hero. Thero arc honest enthusiasts in both partics,_ but, unhappily, in each country it is not the lioncst enthusiasts who,. control Labour'o political machinery, but tho shrewd and greedy fellows who secretly ohucklo at the ease with which thoy can gull the workingman, and who are in tho iLabour movement only for what they can make out of if.