AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 23689, 24 September 1940, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS.

Although finality has not been reached in counting the votes which will decide the composition of the new Australian. Federal Parliament, the general expectation is that the Government, made up from a coalition of United Australia Party and Country members, will eventually find itself back in power by a smaii majority. A popular Press appeal in the Commonwealth during the electioneering campaign has been that the public should show its recognition of the vital significance of those times by placing men before party measures. There were candidates on the hustings

—candidates from all the main parties —big enough in every way to do justice to tho urgent needs of the times, and, although the voting shows that for the most part the electors have recorded u “same again ” verdict, no reason exists why, from the material offering, a strong National Cabinet cannot be selected. One of the greatest mistakes made by Oflicial Labour, with Mr Curtin as its head, was the refusal to accept the previous offer of the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, for the establishment of a national team, and the fact that Mr Curtin is now in danger of losing his seat proves that his constituency in Western Australia has taken just measure of his action. Mr Menzies, on the contrary, has had the cheering experience of finding that his electorate thinks more highly than ever of the manner in which he is trying to conduct tho affairs of the country. Had it not been for the complicated situation in New South Wales, where*, in the words of the Prime Minister, local issues and influences swing against the Government, the reigning Coalition would unquestionably have received a strong mandate to carry on.

At this early stage, before the vote counting has been completed, Mr Menzies has naturally refrained from commenting on the prospects of forming a National Government or of reconstructing the Ministry, but when the probable state of the parties is considered it appears certain that extension of the principle of coalition, will have to be given serious thought. Next time the matter is broached Labour may not feel constrained to raise the same objections, namely, that the wide emergency powers granted to the Government made a strong Opposition party in Parliament necessary to prevent misuse of those powers, and that a minority Labour group in the Cabinet would have to shave responsibility for everything done by the Government without being able to prevent it. It is surely obvious by now to politicians of all shades of opinion that the central need in the governing of any British country at the present time is the organisation of a united war-winning effort. Any issue with party opinion as its basis should be relegated to the background for a period the length of which can be determined by the duration of the war and the unsettled days that may ensue. Democracy as a principle is being savagely assailed in Europe, and it can best be defended by an appropriate unanimity in the governing of all units of tho Empire. With the example of the Churchill War Cabinet in Great Britain ever before them, the elected members of the new Australian Federal Government should not find it difficult to settle dowm to an amicable arrangement ensuring that the commendable contribution the country is making towards attainment of victory will bo hindered in not the slightest degree by untimely manifestations of rigid adherence to sectional interests and shallow self-seeking.