There is assumed to be a probability that Mr. E. K. Bowden. Will resign office as Minister for Defence, and therefore retire from the Federal cabinet. For him to do 20 will not in itself make a great. deal of difference, except in the fact that his successor may be a ig stork to follow an undoubted King Log. Mr. Bowden is nota jan of robust health, but he drifted into office at the time the combination of Mesars, Bruce and Page wit formed to oust W. M. Hughes. The only explanation of his appointment seemed to be that there was not cing to be any defence, for a time: at least, and it did not much matter who was the Minister. Lately, however, defence matters have been ving. We are about to build or: buy two modern 10,000 cruisers, put our air force and seaplane force fon a proper basis, and possibly build a floating deck Sydney which will take the warship afloat. The cannot be attended to by a physically or mentally weak minister. It also reported from England, where tenders are being called for the building of one cruiser there, or alternatively one there and 0 Australia, that some of the big shipbuilding companies want to get the job of building both cruisers—a. matter of some £2,500,000, and have thrown out feelers as to whether or not they can lease the Cockatoo Dock for the work on one or both the vessels, This is a matter which requires some knowledge of the subject, and it is generally believed] that Mr. Bowden will be succeeded by Mr, C, W. C. Marr, at present [chief ministerial whip in the House fof Representatives, but with a distinguished military record, and the great advantage of having served in 1921 upon a royal commission inquired into. the workings of the Cockatoo Island Dockyard. This seems to mark him out as a able person to deal with the: matters mentioned above. There a growing demand that—the defence policy of Australia shall take a concrete form. It has been largely in the air since the Country party joined with Labour to compel Mr. Hughes to cut down his defence estimates in the latter end of 1922, Mr. Charlton, leader of the Federal Labour Opposition, is now ack from attending the "Geneva Conference of the League of Nations, and he mysteriously hints that] Australia will shortly be faced with great dangers. He further assure us that it is not from the Japanese that we need anticipate - trouble. Some writers are suggesting that} he refers to the Bolshevists, but} that is a form of independence we hardly expect from an Australian Labour leader, Mr. Charlton does not suggest that we should prepare for militant defence, but seems anxious to adopt the Ramsay Donald" plan of ma} friendly Teams o, Buses Melbourne and Sydney, and ina lesser degree Adelaide, are going through what to them is a unique experience. It is not so many months ago that the' Chairman of the Melbourne Tramway Board solemnly informed the public that! buses were no good, that they could not deal with the traffic at what called peak-loading hours. He went abroad to spy out the tramway systems of other count sent us a cheering message to the effect that the Melbourne cable trams were the fastest-in the world—whether he meant faster than the only other cable trams in San Francisco, of faster than any trams he had heard of, was not explained, but by the time he yock in Melbourne private enterprise' had filed the streets with buses, and seriously reduced the faith'in trams. Then he declared against buses on the grounds that they cut up the streets, but he promptly start~! the construction of buses just double the weight, and these are now competing with his own trams in an effort to run private enterprise out. It is a very pretty tussle. Meanwhile in Sydney the Govt. official who directs the Govt. trams and buses is arguing that there should be a law under which persons trying to get to a crowded us should be given in charge to a policeman, and he is tasked to make the n as privately-owned bu: Here in Melbourne there were a number of bus conductresses prosecuted for overloading their vehicles, while at the same time the Govt-owned trams /went by with the travellers clinging to their sides like bees to a rifled honey-comb. The Victorian short-lived Labour ministry decided to tax the private vehicles off the roads, Tt believed in State Socialism, and the public convenience was of little account.: Fortunately for the bus owners the Govt. was thrown out of office, and another govt. arose which was not prepared to sacrifice the private owners to a political fad. And that is why hardly a day passes but the number of independent bus services is increased, and the public demand that the fixed tramlines should be taken out of the city streets grows. The whole tramway Dusiness ix a useful lesson in the longer of, conceding even the reasonable" demand that publi utilities should be under govt. control. Such utilities dig them selves in; the politicians for the most part ave afraid of offending the army of employees; and the voice of the individual is drowned in the ocean of praise which the services sing over themselves. When private enterprise dares to obtrude itself, parliament can be asked to trent'it as it deserves to be treated for its presumption.
July 13,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.