FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 October 1929, Page 7

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

THE STORM CENTRES. NORTH SYDNEY SEAT. MR, HUGHES WILL GET LABOUR \ OTE. SYDNEY, September 26. Sydney’s leading morning newspaper put in a bit-of piquant and probably very effective propaganda for the Prime Minister, Mr Bruce, during the week. If the Nationalists are not lacking in enterprise, they will make use of it m every household in the electorate, North Sydney, in which Mr Hughes is now engaged 111 a battle royal with the selected Nationalist, Dr. Nott. This propaganda-'-a clever bit of work that told i;s own story without any comment—took the form of a large picture of Mr Bruce, with the story of his war record underneath it. Actually—and most off the public saw the point of it unless they were naturally stupid—it was the newspaper’s sly tilt at Mr Hughes and those of his hero-worship-pers who acclaim him as “ The Little Digger,” and the only politician, in their mind, who has any claims to war association, and to the support of the returned men. Mr Hughes, although he is the petted darling of many of the Diggers, is not, as is well known, a returned soldier. As Prime Minister, he certainly did things for the diggers. Other soldier-politicians, however, including Mr Bruce, have also been tireless in their advocacy of the returned men’s claims.

The newspaper’s propaganda was just a reminder to the public, since the man himself never refers to it, that Mr Bruce has not merely done his bit for the returned men, hut that he heroically played his part when he landed wit!) the famous 29th Division under devastating machine-gun fire at Gallipoli, was twice wounded, and, alter having spent 18 months in hospital, was discharged as unfit for further active service.

MR, HUGHES V. DR, NOTT

The storm centres of the election in New South Wales are, of course, North Sydney and Wentworth, the retiring Nationalist representatives of which, Mr Hughes and Mr Walter Marks respectively, were the central figures in the downfall-of the Government which they were returned to support. Excluded from selection, both are running against Nationalists carrying the .n arty’s ticket. The fact that Labour is not contesting these two seats is not a bit surprising in all the circumstances. It is unfortunate, at the same time, ifor Dr. Nott, as far as North Sydney is concerned, for Mr Hughes will now inevitably get the Labour as well as the independent Nationalist support in the electorate. Dr. Nott, if he runs true to his old Queensland form, notably on the occasion when he sent Mr Theodore into the political wilderness, is likely to give Mr Hughes the contest of the latter’s life, but he can hardly hope to win, with Labour making a gift toEMr Hughes of all its votes in North Sydney. Dr. Nott, by the way, is giving his interjectors a very rough passage. If the Nationalist Party can unseat Mr Hughes by any process save dynamiting or other similar un-Parliamentary means, it will do so. If it can achieve that end, and still be defeated as a Party at the polls, it will be unspeakably happy. It is off the same frame of mind with regard to Mr Marks, whose prospect of being returned is not, at the moment, quite as bright as that of Mr Hughes. EX-PREMIER TAKES PLATFORM.

A stronghold of Nationalism, North Sydney is, or always has been, one of the Party’s “blue-ribbon” seats. The question now is whether Air Hughes, in view of his attitude towards the Government, has any rightful claim to a seat which up to the present, at all events, has been true-blue Nationalist by a solid two-thirds majority. Nothing is more strongly indicative of the Party’s attempt to relegate Air Hughes to obscurity than the fact that Mr AV. A. Holman, K.C., ex-Premier, and one of the most brilliant and forceful of Australia’s platform speakers, has taken the stage with Air Bruce and others in the campaign. Air Holman lias been frankly and openly critical of the Nationalist Party on several occasions in the past. But he does not approve of Air Hughes’s tactics politically, even if there is still to-day perhaps something of the old traditional friendship for him in a purely personal way, since they were'both pioneers of the Labour movement hack in the old days. Air Holman’s entry on the election stage is one of the circumstances indicating that the Party’s battle against Mr Hughes is war to the last flitch. Political tinsters are already busy. It is conceded by both sides that the election will be won or lost in New South Wales, where several seats are regarded as doubtful, either from the Labour or the Ministerial standpoint. Some, Nationalists among them, with their oars to the political ground, believe that the Government will lost' two or three seats in New South Wales. Others, taking the position by and large, reckon that the Government will go hack with a mere working majority. To sum up now, however, is premature.