The Rev 



EYIEWS 



TBMf'EieAJSCE A.ND GHJSERAL LIFE ASSVTiAlSlCE BVILDING. SWAASTOJ* 



STREET. MELBOVRNB. 



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THE HISTORY OF THE MONTH. 



Melbourne, December 24, 191 2. 

 The year closes with the clash of 

 The Clash political arms. Already the faces 

 of Arms. j^£ Federal politicians are turned 



towards a general election. The 

 session has yielded a lot of legislation, good, had 

 and indifferent, but the Government are staking their 

 chances for the future, not so much on what they 

 have done, as on what they propose to do when they 

 get the larger powers, which the Referenda is de- 

 signed to secure. They are asking for power to deal 

 with corporations, including : — (a) The control, dis 

 solution, and regulation of corporations. (b) 

 Corporations formed under the law of a State, 

 including their dissolution, regulation, and control, 

 but not including municipal or Governmental cor- 

 porations, or any corporation formed solely for reli- 

 gious, charitable, scientific, or artistic purpo.ses, and 

 not for the acquisition of gain by the corporation or 

 its members ; and (c) Foreign corporations, includ- 

 ing their regulation and control. Labour and em- 

 ployment and unemployment, including : — (a) The 

 terms and conditions of labour and employment on 

 any trade, industry, or calling ; (b) The rights and 

 obligations of employers and employees ; (c) Strikes 

 and lockouts; (d) The maintenance of industrial 

 peace ; and (e) the settlements of industrial dis- 

 putes, conciliation and arbitration for the preven- 

 tion and settlement of industrial disputes in relation 

 to employment in the railway service of a State. 

 Trusts, combinations and monopolies in relation to the 

 production, manufacture, or supply of goods, or the 

 supply of services. At present the indications point 

 to these Referenda proposals being as ignominiously 

 defeated as on the previous occasion. Should thev 

 be turned down, what will the Government do then? 



The New South Wales Government 



The McGowen have gone into session with almost 



Government. pertain defeat staring them in the 



face. The party represented bv 



Mr. McGowen is torn with internal dissension. With 



a bare majority at the elections, they floundered 

 along for tw^o years, with apparently but one idea in 

 mind, that the secret of political success is to spend 

 money. In that respect they have beaten all State 

 records, and their prodigality has only been limited 

 in recent months by a tightening money market. In 

 endeavouring to please their supporters they have 

 caught hold of some thorny problems. Mr. Beeby 

 grew tired of trying to reconcile trade unionists to 

 the basic principle of arbitration — equal justice to 

 employer and employed — and with another fight 

 pending in the Federal arena with the Referenda as 

 the war-cry, for which he has no taste, he has re- 

 signed ofiice to lead an independent party. Instead 

 of leading a party, he will probably lose his .seat. 

 Outside their strict party platform, the Government 

 have made more than one false tactical move. The 

 culminating act of recklessness was the eviction of 

 the Governor- General from Government House. It 

 will cost them many votes at the next election, and 

 meantime they are threatened with legal proceed- 

 ings, in which a representative citizens' committee 

 will move the Equity Court to recover lands, believed 

 to belong to the Crown in one capacity, being taken 

 away from it by another person not entitled to it. 

 It is a pretty point of law, and one well worth 

 arguing. 



Archdeacon Boyce, the leader 



Liquor of the No - License Party in 



eg s a ion. ^^^^, South Wales, has virtually 



risen from <a sick bed to impeach the 

 State Parliament for its inaction in relation to the 

 liquor laws. He is disappointed that the great vote 

 of 212,889 electors at the last local option poll In 

 favour of No-License should have been ignored by 

 a Government which, representing pre-eminently the 

 working classes as it does, might reasonably have 

 been expected to champion some remedial temperance 

 legislation. The Archdeacon argues that so large a 

 vote for " no bars," and a smaller vote for reduction, 

 may be reasonably accepted as an indication that a 



