LABOR IN AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 February 1922, Page 4

LABOR IN AUSTRALIA.

ITS FAILURE IN CONTROL. V REV. H. ELLIOTT’S IMPRESSIONS. There was a large audience at the Em- . pire Theatre, New Plymouth, last night, J when an address was given by the Rev. ▼ Howard Elliott, national lecturer for the Protestant Political Association. Mr. R. C. Hughes presided. Mr. Elliott, who was received with applause, said, in answer to the request that he should speak on Ireland, that he did not think any would say the Irish problem was solved. Offering a prophesy as to the future, Mr. Elliott thought it would be found that the part- of Ireland which had stood loyal to the Empire during the war would yet be forced, with her back to the wall, to fight against the Church of Rome. He believed Mr. Collins would be chosen to lead the Provisional Government, but that De Valera would eventually succeed to the office, and an attempt made to institute in Ireland a republic. Mr. Elliott then referred to certain aspects of affairs in Australia. In the Stated of New South Wales and Queensland he declared the leaders of the Government were undoubtedly Bolshevists; they were disciples of Lenin and Trotsky. The official Labor Party in New Zealand held exactly the same views. Mr. Elliott declared that both in Queensland and in New South Wales the whole weight of the Catholic Church was behind the extreme Labor Party at the election. They did not agree in their ideals, one representing a complete autocracy and the other urging the principles of democracy. The same thing was working in New Zealand. Both parties desired political power. A reminder was given by Mr. Elliott that this waa the year of an election, and the people’would have an opportunity of doing something for. New Zealand and keeping the Dominion a British country by sending baek to the House of Parliament men who were loyal, and who believed in equal rights for all and special privileges for i none. In attacking the policies of the Labor Governments in Australia, the speaker said he did not desire to challenge the right of the real labor unionist to a place in politics. The tests of any Government, he thought, could be placed under four headings—finance, legislation, social and moral conditions. Tested by any one of these the Governments of Queensland and New South Wales must stand condemned. Financially they had brought their States to the brink of ruin. Their legislation had been of a most appalling character. Social conditions were not such as to cause their citizens to be proud of the moral conditions applying to either New South Wales or Queensland. Referring to Queensland, the speaker said that in eight years the Labor Government had incurred the deficits of the Governments of the previous 55 years; yet none of those deficits included any of the war expenditure, for it was borne by the Commonwealth, and on top of this the revenue had doubled in four years. The taxation had crept up from £1 8s 2d in 1915 to £4 14s 3d in 1920. The -Government actually took from every wprking man the sum of 9s per week. In Queensland the Labor Party had destroyed the credit of the State, and it was the* only State that had to go outside the Empire to secure money. Taxation *had increased 300 per cent. ' At the conclusion of the address a vote of thanks to Mr. Elliott waa carried by acclamation. .