After weeks of finessing and juggling with | portfolios Hughes formally coalesced with the 1914 | defeated and discredited Cook coterie on Saturday | last. The terms of his alliance surely remove the | last lingering doubt in the minds of those who | believed Hughes was a good Labor man victimised by | circumstances. At the last Federal elections the | Australian people deliberately handed the government | of the continent over to the representatives of | Labor. They endorsed in full the official Labor | platform and threw Cook, Irvine, Forrest, and their | associates out of office. The 1914 election | indicated that Cook and his Liberal following were | not to sit on the Treasury benches. Yet because of | the treacherous and perfidious conduct of exposed | renegades Cook and Forrest now command the machinery | of State and are in charge of the administrative | agencies of the nation.
|Let the position be clearly stated. The part of | Labor has not had any expression of no-confidence | from the electors. On the contrary, the men now | sitting behind Mr Tudor were given the greatest vote | ever recorded at an Australian plebiscite. In 1914 | their candidates swept the polls and in 1916 their | position regarding the conduct of the war was adopted | by a significant majority. In no way can it be shown | that Tudor has no right to office and Cook and | Forrest have.
|The new Cabinet is a Tory and reactionary cabinet. | In it the representatives of conservatism | predominate. On every issue demanding a Cabinet | decision there will be a majority for an undemocratic | decision because a majority of the Cabinet are not | democrats and in the Cabinet what the majority says | goes.
| It is as clear as daylight that from now on the
| control of Australia is in the hands of the following
| men
And well indeed may they express satisfaction at | the position. All they need to do is to govern by | regulation and they can hand Australia over as a free | gift to the profiteers who for three years have to | some extent at least been held in check. Already it | is announced that substantial modifications are to be | made in respect to taxation. Wealth is not now to be | called on to do its share in meeting the national | necessities. Repatriation schemes go to the four | winds of heaven and the bowed back of Labor can now | expect to have the stinging lash of unemployment and | sweated industry applied unrelentingly.
| Ever since the verdict of October 28 there has
| been intrigue to keep Hughes in office. And the only
| legitimate claim a man has to the Prime Ministership
| of Australia is that he has been selected leader of
| the party whose policy was accepted by the
| electorates. So long as Hughes was elected leader of
| the Parliamentary Labor Caucus he was properly
| entitled to the Premiership. And it has to be
| remembered Hughes was not the party leader when it
| faced the country. He was elected to fill the place
| vacated by Andrew Fisher. It is surely reasonable
| for the caucus which gave Hughes the leadership to
| take it from him. This is what they did. But Hughes
| abandoned the party when in full exercise of its
| discretion and authority
From that hour Hughes courted any alliance
| enabling him to cling to office. And if Hughes had
| been a straight-going democrat he would not have done
| so. Even now he is unable to show where he objects
| to the policy of Labor respecting the war. Apart
| from the question of conscription neither Hughes, nor
| any of those who have followed him to the Tory Junta,
| can point to anything in the Labor policy they object
| to. In fact the Tudor policy is the policy advocated
| and defended by Hughes, Lynch, de Largie, and the
| rest in September, 1914. If that policy was sound
| enough then
It surely passes understanding. And stripped of | all the balderdash about "winning the war" and the | rest of the generalities which they are putting | forward as the justification of their action there is | not one single argument to be found in support of | such an unholy association of political | antithesis.
| Labor has said
What does Hughes propose to do now as a Fusion | Minister what he was prevented from doing as Labor | Leader? He cannot point to a single proposition he | urged outside conscription which he failed to get | party assent for. And he could not force | conscription on the party because the party knew the | country was opposed to it. In the face of the | democratic plebiscite he cannot resurrect it now. | Where then is the policy? Words are all he has ever | given us so far. And words are all we shall get | until the Ministry is in recess, when the anti-Labor | rule of iron, beloved of the boodlers, will have | unrestricted sway.
|That Cook and Irvine are violently hostile to | Labor aims is established beyond any doubt. | Australian political life teems with the record of | their attacks on the democracy. Already it has been | announced that the price-fixing regulations are to be | modified and ultimately they will be cancelled. Very | shortly the Commonwealth will be the most reactionary | country participating in the war. Every Government | responsible for the mobilisation of the war equipment | except Australia is steadily extending the domain of | direct national ownership. In England the coal mines | have been resumed by the State. The immense profits | accruing from war industries are being gradually | diverted to the provisioning of State necessities. | But Hughes would not nationalise the coal mines in | Australia because he would antagonise Cook and Cook's | masters. And whatever Hughes might have done | heretofore in the company of Tudor is certainly not | likely to eventuate now under the auspices of Watt | and Forrest.
|The Australian people are opposed emphatically to | the alliance now consummated. The first opportunity | given them to pass judgment will result in the utter | destruction of this mixture of Toryism and apostasy | now masquerading as a Government out to win the | war.
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