MR. LANG SCORES ANOTHER POINT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 173, 15 March 1932, Page 4

MR. LANG SCORES ANOTHER POINT

In these days, when the average politician is at best a dull dog, dividing his time between the mouthing of empty words, the making of impossible promises and the devising of means to avoid the consequences of public indignation, while, like Micawber, he waits for something to turn up, it is impossible to suppress a feeling of envy toward New South Wales in the possession of her inimitable Jack Lang. Here is no rail-sitter, no spineless jellyfish, forever trying to forecast the winds in order that he may be found travelling in the same direction. He may not be always right; indeed, making a generous allowance for party bias in the news stories originating in the Sydney Press about him and his works, he seems very seldom to be anything but very wrong, but wrong or right he is almost invariably picturesque, daring, original, and for these virtues it is easy to forgive him mnch — especially from beyond the ambit of his sphere of action. He suffers, it is true, from the politician's typical weakness, a fatal facility for the making and breaking of promises. But unlike his class, whose breaches are so commonly negative ; the result of mere inaction ; when Mr. Lang decides to break a pledge he does the job with gusto and what he breaks he smashes. This, of course, is constantly landing him in trouble, but he seems to thrive on diffieulties. The harder the fight, the happier he appears to be. Take, for 'instance, his practical application of the Sydney Trades Hall philosophy that the s'anctity of the contract consists in its binding only the* other fellow. There are, no doubt, countless minor instances of which the world has not been told, but when at last the time came, as it was bound to do, that he could not meet the interest due>on his State's oversea loans, he not only unhesitatingly defaulted, bnt actually makes a virtue of so doing, emphasising that his duty is first to his own people, who must be fed cluring the enforced idleness his own actions, so his enemies say, have largely contributed to inflict upon them — though he naturally does not mention this fact. Of course, the Commonwealth has backecl his bills and will pay if he doesn't, so why worry. Then follows a new game, the making and breaking of agreements with his fellow Premiers sitting as an Australian financial council, each time, amazingly to his own profit. But the best of good thingsmust end. His friends at Canberra, sucked equally dry of resoUrces and patience, refuse to play any longer and so his little group of minions in the Federal Parliament help the Opposition to throw them out. Unfortunately for him, the country is unldnder still and returns the Opposition to office. But even this does not worry him unduly and the next time an interest payment falls due in Londoh he blandly invites the new Government to pay up, because he cannof and will not. Then commences a game of bluff, but Mr. Lang holds the winning hand and the Commonwealth pays. This time, however, there is no talk of being a good boy in future and no sealing of the bargain with a little tip of a million or so. No. Those days have gone and the new Prime Minister and his colleagues bring down a measure which will place the revenues of his State hopelessly beyond his reach until such time at least as the defaulted debts are paid. Here, surely, is a problem to daunt the stoutest heart. But not lVlr Lang's — not yet. The drastic Act, which is in effect a receivership, is passed by both Houses .of the Federal Parliament, and on the same day, before it can be proclaimed and brought into operation, an amazed. world learns that, just before the banks closed, the New South Wales Government withdrew from its Sydney bankers the tidy sum of £1,000,000 in cash. It is ohly necessary now, to cap the joke properly, to learn that the sum, or part of it, was obtained from the bankers on overdraft.