"IN THE MELTING POT.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4535, 5 March 1923, Page 1

"IN THE MELTING POT.”

COLONIAL POLICIES. THE RECENT ELECTIONS. “ The war and peace have thrown policies intp the melting pot; it is personal, rather than political following that now matters in Australia and New Zealand.” In these terms the conflict of parties in Australia and New Zealand are summed up in a review of the recen.. election by the “ Manchester Guardian.” The farthest countries of the British Commonwealth have, it said, weathered post-war conditions without change of Government for longer than Britain, but the general elections that hare just taken place in Australia and New Zealand reproduce pretty accurately the state of affairs which in this country has been typified oy the fall of the Lloyd George Ministry. The leaders who have stood for their respective countries in the war, both in the organisation of national effort -and in framing the peace treaties, have Lost at last their Parliamentary majorities, and now that they are overthrown, it is found more difficult than in England to replace them. “ NO ALLEGIANCE TO A' CAUSE'.” “Mr Hughes and Mr Massey have not been personally defeated. Both have places in the new Parliaments, but both have too few personal adherents to form a secure Government, and in both Australia and New Zealand it is personal rather than political following that now matters. The days when the average" vetpr could pin his faith and allegiance to a recognizable cause are for the moment passed. The war and the peace have thrown policies into the melting pot. They will emerge again, and Australia’s chief hope of a programme suited to the country’s needs and acceptable to the bulk of its people lies with the new Country Party, who may be broadly likened in their outlook to progressive Liberals in England. They number, as we write, only twelve in the new Parliament, for they arc a young organisation and have not been able to put forward many candidates. But their group is large enough to determine.the fate of any Ministry that may be formed, whether Nationalist of Labour. They command the respect both of those who dislike the benefits which the Hughes adminstration has conferred on the wool, meat, and other interests, ana of those who see no hope in the extremist tendencies into which the remainder of the old Labour Party has drifted since Mr Hughes left it in the war. Whatever combination is formed to carry on the government of Australia it cannot he one in which 'Mr Hughes plays the dominant part.” RE-SHAPING GOVERNMENTS'. “ In New Zealand Mr Massey, after ten years of office, finds himself in a somewhat similar case. His fifty followers have dwindled to thirty-eight. Liberal strength has increased from twenty-one to twenty-five and that of Labour from nine to seventeen. By compromise with the Liberals, Mr Massey may survive as Prime Minister. But in’ both countries the regime evolved to meet war conditions has very tardily broken up. The way is free for fresh thought, for fresh action freed from the trammels of Administrations that have lived too long. The new freedom may be difficult to make good use of. Though i(r Hughes has long outlived, his present political usefulness he leaves an awkward gap. But only good can come to the twp Dominions from; having to think out their problems afresh and reshape their Governments accordingly.”

“ TIMES” TRIBUTE TO MR MASSEY , “ Ever, his political opponents must pay tribute to the Single-minded devotion with which Mr Massey served the Dominion and the Empire during the critical z years which fell within his term of administration,” fsays the London Times, “The smoke of the election campaign has clewed to reveal a somewhat uncertain situation. In the last Parliament Mr Massey’s Reform Party had fifty followers ; the Liberals, who had broken their allegiance with Mr Massey in 1919,, iiumbered twenty-one, and there was a small Labour Party of nine. The .result of the elections has brought the Reform Party down to thirty-eight' J the Liberals and Independent Liber-? als number twenty,-five, and Labour’s substantial gains, which have been won mainly as a result of vote-split-ting between their common enemies, have brought the party’s strength up to seventeen. Thus Mr Massey is in a nominal minority of four in the new House. A LiberaJ-Labour coalition, however, would be the most unnatural of alliances. “ FRATRICIDAL QUARREL.” “ The difference between the Reform Party and the Liberals' is P er_ sonal rather than political, and our correspondent hints at the possibility that some of the Liberals may transfer their allegiance to Mr Massey’s banner as an alternative to a second election. The Labour Party, which, like the Labour Party in Australia, is well organised both within and without Parliament, has seized on the utmost fiatricidal quarrel between its opponents as a golden opportunity. Before the election it was t-Jiought that the mischievour, strikes engineered by the unions at Nfew Zealand ports would act as a b&d advertisement for the party and be responsible for a corresponding loss off support at the polls. This anticipation has not been realised, and Labor will be a strong force in the new parliament.”