Political Gooseberry Season—Mr. Barwell's Plea for Asiatic Immigration—Primary Production—A Hideous Crime—Chinese Propagandists—Civil Aviation—Labour Leader's Death From Our Own Correspondent, Melbourne, Jan. 11.
Having reconstructed his ministry, and thereby spiked for the) time being the guns of his numerous cities, the Prime Minister, Mr. Hughes, has been spending an innocuous year-end holiday. In short there has been nothing doing and the newspapers have had to fall back upon the exciting item that the Prime Minister's hackney has been missing from its stable, and that later on it was impounded. We have yet to hear that the fees have been paid and the animal released, but in the gooseberry season even this is worth a few inches of press space.
With the end of the year has come the publication of the financial returns of the Commonwealth and the States, and with few exceptions the figures are quite satisfactory. Revenue generally is increasing, without additional taxation, and the trade balance has once more been restored. In State politics the only item of immediate interest is the pending general election for the Assembly in New South Wales. This is now expected to take place early in March, and the probable defeat of Labour will be due not to the ce-operation of the opposing elements so much as to the disintegration of the Labour party itself. Already two-ministers have discovered that their proper role is either retirement to rest, or problematical entry into the Federal sphere. Against this is the admitted fact that the campaign directors of the Labour party have been chosen, and these are both moderates, who have hitherto been bitterly denounced by the extremists of the party. In the other States the several parliaments are in recess, and politically there is nothing doing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.