FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 100, 18 December 1931, Page 5

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

(Press. Assn.—

FINAL SURVEY BOTH SIDES CONFIDENT OF WINNING VICTORY AT TO-MORROW'S POLL PARTY LEADER'S EFFORTS

-By Telegraph — Copyright).

Rec. Dec. 17, midnight. SYDNEY, Thursday. The principals of the parties in one of the most strenuous election campaigns are now counting the hours to polling day on Saturday, when the voters throughout Australia will take a hand to decide the fate of the Scul-lin-Theodore Labour Ministry, the Prime Minister, Mr. J. H. Scullin, and the leader of the Opposition, Mr. J. A. Lyons, joining issue. Australia is a vast country. Epecially is this noticeable during a hurricane campaign, when possibly a dozen meetings must he addressed hundreds of miles apart in one day. Mr. Lyons has availed himself of aeroplanes, but Mr. Scullin has preferred trains and motor cars. The leaders of the two great parties have f ound^ it impossible to visit Western Australia, and little is heard in Eastern Australia as to how the campaign is proceedig there. Actually the storm centre is in New South Wales. Mr. Lyons says the rest of Australia is looking to New South Wales to repair on Saturday the State's last politicai debaele. The Federal Treasurer, Mr. E. G. Theodore, has been unable to risk leaving his electorate, where politicai fireworks nightly are drawing big excited crowds. The only time Mr. Theodore gets an uninterrupted hearing is when he is speaking over the air, which is fairly often. The points he is stressing are likely to turri the election in his favour. He is telling the electors that U central reserve bank as, contemplated by him will release the frozen assets of the community and will mobilise credit for use for business and trade, while a judieious extension of credit will provide work for the unemployed. He is fighting against terrific odds in a hot-bed of Lang-planners, but he is confident of victory. The Leaders of the anti-Labour

parties expects a comfortable working majority as the outcome of the poll, because they claim that there are grave fears in the public mind in regard to politicai meddling with banking. There is keen resentment in rural areas over the Government's high tariff policy and its failure to deal firmly with Communism. Mr. Scullin, on the other hand, says that he scents victory and remarks that his oppolients are not so coeksure of victory as they were at the outset. He is relying on the Government's achievement in placing Australia on the high road to recovery, its tariff policy, which has increased employment and its banking proposals, to win the day on Saturday.