NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 25, 24 October 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Australian politics to-day have as their chief characteristic a permanent condition of instability. Mr. Hughes, in the 1 Federal Parliament, has won a nocOnfidcnce motion by one vote. In Queensland, Mr. Theodore's Labour Government is also carrying on by one vote. The Victorian State Government, after a recent crisis, secured a dissolution only to find the party position almost exactly tho same after the election as before. In New South Woles the Labour Government in office has the slenderest of (majorities also. About twenty years back, when the new Commonwealth Parliament was in. the throes of its numerous early crises, it was freely predicted that the instability was merely a passing phase that would disappear as tho Liberal and Conservative forces were obliged to amalgamate to fight Labour with success. Amalgamations and coalitions of all kinds have been formed in Federal and State politics since those days, and have broken down as freely. Politicians hanging to office by a thread aro apt to lie more anxious to preserve themselves than concerned to take long views of the real requirements of .the country, and the situation is a bad one and prolific of Wasteful expenditure for vote-catching purposes. Of recent years the most noticeable feature in public life in Australia has been the increasing weakness of the Labour parties. To-day Labour rules in two States instead of six it. once held, and in one of those two it depends for itq continued existence on one vote.

Mr. de Valera’s intervention in the exchange of messages between King George and Pope Benedict shows him as irreconcilable as ever on the issue of independence. In the invitation to Sinn Fein to the present meeting in London Mr. Lloyd George said clearly that the Government "cannot enter upon a conference on the basis of this correspondence,” that is, on the basis of Irish independence as claimed by Mr. de Valera in his letters. If Sinn Fein is really determined not to yield on this point, a continuation of the conference is obviously futile. Sinn Fein, in face of the emphatic and repeated declarations of the British Prime Minister, has shown the strongest desire to continue negotiations. At tho eamo time it continues to quarrel unceasingly over words. It seems incredible that any group of loaders, instead of concentrating on. the solid realities of the Government’s offer, should be ready to risk everything by an impetuous objection to the exact form of words used in an exchange of civilities between the King and the Pope. With refusal of the elected Sinn Fein members to sit in its Parliament Southern Ireland has lapsed into Crown colony rule. If ultimate independence is its aim Sinn Fein, from its own point of view, would surely find Dominion Home Rule a much better jiinyping-off place for it. What is this British Commonwealth which it refuses to recognise except as an alien Power? Look through the pages of the history of its colonies and dominions and they are filled from end to end with the names of men of Irish blood. But there seems to bo no pleasing the Irish leaders. * * *

It is a fact with a material bearing on the ex-Emperor Karl’s renewed bid for tho Hungarian throne that Hungary was unable to secure admission to the League of Nations at the ipeeting of tho Second Assembly last month. Hungary, it will be remembered,, withdrew her application for admission, because thirty States which had promised to support it declined to dd so on account of her attitude in reference to Burgenland. As a consequence the members of the Little Entente— Czccho-Slovakia. Rumania, end other new or enlarged States bordering on Hungary—arc as free now as they were when Karl entered that couutiy some time ago to defeat any attempt to restore the Hungarian monarchy. These States, not without reason, regard the monarchist intrigue in Hungary as involving a threat to their own independence, and when Karl mado his last bid for restoration they presented an ultimatum to the Budapest Government threatening immediate military action if he were not got out of Hungary. No doubt they will take a similar course on the present occasion. They could not have done so had Hungary become a member of the League of Nations. It was on that account that they protested successfully against her admission when the Assembly met last month. Hungary’s attitude with reference to Burgenland did not. relate only tf> a matter of disputed territory. As long ago as the beginning of September it was reported that there wore incipient signs of a Karlist movement in Burgenland.

In their opposition to plans of oversea settlement, British Labour officials are taking an exceedingly short-sighted view, and those of them who were quoted in one of Saturday’s cablegrams are badly astray in their facts. Ono of them cannot seo that emigration will bo a remedy (for troubles of industrial depression) "because things are as bad elsewhere as here." The truth, of course, is that conditions of depression are very far from being as bad in Ihe Dominions as they aro in tho Mother Country, and that the Dominions are likely lo experience a quicker recovery. It is more important, however, that the movement of British popuhitiqn into the overseas Empire is not advocated merely us a remedy for troubles of depression and ui.en’ployment, but as a means of establishing its individual members permanently in better conditions than they at ‘ present enjoy. Another Labour official is credited with the statement that it is the best

of the British people who emigrate, "leaving East End degenerates on our hands.” Though it contains an element of truth, this contention is rather overstrained. It may be true that . the Mother Country can ill spare some of those who are most inclined to emigrate, but on the other hand a moro effective distribution of population as between tho Mother Country and other parts of the Empire is ono very effective means of amending the conditions in which East End degenerates” are. produced.