AUSTRALIA IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3039, 28 March 1917, Page 6

AUSTRALIA IN WAR TIME

.» . ■ INTERNAL BICKERING A GENERAL SURVEY OP THE POSITION (From a Correspondent.) Sydney, March 22. While the destinies of nations rock in the balance on Europe's bloody battlefields, Australia is in the throes of aii election campaign. An Imperial War Council sits in London, but Australia is unrepresented, because her politicians cannot suspend their party quarrels for a few _ weeks or months. Australian divisions are assisting the armies of the Empire to deliver hammer blows upon the shaking German lines in France, but they dwindle in strength because their country is failing to send the. promised reinforcements. What is the matter'with Australia?

Put that question to an Australian, and in nine cases out of ten he will answer, without any appearance of resenting tho inquiry, "the politicians." Generally lie prefixes an adjective or two descriptive of the politicians. The answer is obvious and tempting, though its incompleteness must be recognised. During the last week or two your correspondent has had several opportunities of examining samples of tho Australian politician at close quarters. One of the-' specimens was a Stato Minister, who spoke at length and in detail of parties and persons, election prospects and Parliamentary skirmishings. Once he paused to point, from tho window of a railway car, to a camp whero a few thousand clean-limbed Australians prepared for the Big Adventure. But quito obviously that camp meant less to him than a State Convention of his own political party. Hβ anticipated that the HughesCook Government would secure a majority in the Federal House of Representatives, but would be in a minority in the Senate. What then? '■"'Well,'l suppose we/will mark time—in a way. No, thero cannot bo any conscription. . . • AVo have had a pretty active recruiting campaign lately, but now, of course, our tnne is taken up mainly with the election." Another of Australia's politicians was speaking to a largo crowd from the balcony of an hotel. He was an official Labour candidate —"selected, endorsed, anti-conscription"—and his immediate text was the charge levelled against him by an opponent of being a "disloyalist." He objected to "personalities" of this nature. ■ He protested that ho was as loyal as the noxtman; his loyalty to' Australia made , it impossible for him to force any free-born Australian into the blood-stained arena of Europe. The task of the Australian democracy, he proclaimed, was to defeat the "traitors" who had "disrupted tho party" and "betrayed their own cause." . If any consciousness of the reality of the war Jay in the back of his mind, ho did not allow it to intrude in the serious business of electioneering. Even his peroration was political, not patriotic. He wanted Australia to vote, hot to fight.

In Martin Place, Sydney, a few hours later, some 10,000 people attended a non-political meeting. , A slim Australian woman, in mourning for her dead man, appealed in ringing; tones for recruits for the Australian Expeditionary Force. A young officer, with the scars of Gallipoli upon him, asked for men who would follow him to Prance. Then Sir Ernest Shackleton sounded a call of his own. "You have heen told that you must fight: to save Australia, and that is true," he said. "But there is another reason why you must take your part in this war. You must fight to save your own soul, for if you , flinch you will know yourself, in your own heart, to be forever shamed. This oall to service means more than duty, more than sacrifice, .more than glory, niore even than patriotism; it.is the supreme opportunity to vindicate your own manhood, to show that you can stand four-square to the winds of Heaven, master of your fate and captain of your soul." Seven men came forward from among the listening thousands. What, then, is the matter with. Australia? A casual visitor may well hesitate to answer that question. But llie utterances of Australians themselves are the evidence that all is not well politically in the big southern land whose volunteer soldiers have helped to form the very spear-head of the Empire's armies on the Somme. The public men who ought't* he giving the Commonwealth a sure and .cour.ageous lead at a most momentous stage in its history are bickering among themselves about issues that matter to the country less than the sigh of a single weary Anzao in France. The allocation of blame in just proportions among men and parties is not a task that interests an outsider particularly. The essential fact is,that the internal squabble is proceeding, and unfortunately all the indications suggest that it will continue when the general election has been completed.