Bruce Defeated

The youngest Prime Minister of a British Dominion, and the only one who keeps an airplane in the cellar of his house, is Australia's brisk, zestful Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 46. Last week he fought and lost on the most vital issue in Australian policies. One vote cost him defeat-- the vote of a rich, debonair yachtsman who raced in Sir Thomas Lipton's defeated Shamrock IV in 1920.

Feud. Yachtsman Walter Marks is a Member of Parliament of the Prime Minister's own party (Nationalist). Since the elections of last year the Government has had only the barest majority. Every vote has been vital. As a matter of course Nationalist Yachtsman Marks has voted with his party leader, Nationalist Bruce. But recently there have been ominous rumors that he had entered into a secret understanding with the Prime Minister's bitterest personal enemy, a third Nationalist, onetime (1915-23) Prime Minister William Morris Hughes.

Revenge. In 1923 Mr. Bruce seized the leadership of the Nationalist Party from Mr. Hughes. Since then the personal feud between them has been relentless. Last week Statesman Hughes had his revenge for what happened in 1923. By persuading Yachtsman Marks to vote unexpectedly against a vital labor measure sponsored by Mr. Bruce, he caused the defeat of the Government. The Prime Minister was obliged to ask dissolution of the Dominion Parliament, thus necessitating a general election. Swan Song. Flushed and angry was the mien of Prime Minister Bruce as he stood up before Parliament in the new Australian Capital of Canberra to announce that the election will be held Oct. 12. He had been in power for six years. Now from the Opposition benches rose shouts of "This is your swan song, Bruce!" Perhaps it was. But if he loses the Prime Ministry after the election Mr. Bruce will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he failed in trying to solve a problem which has baffled every Australian Prime Minister for a quarter-century.

The Issue. Australians have their own conception of what should be the Govern- ment's role in an industrial dispute. Most Englishmen, like most U. S. citizens, shy away from the idea that the State should fix wages. But that idea has been the very cornerstone of Australia's labor policy. Moreover such Best Minds in the Dominion as the late and monumentally famed High Court Justice Higgins have consistently held that it is the duty of the State to apply compulsory arbitration. In trying to enforce these concepts a major issue has arisen: Shall the power of enforcement rest with the several Dominion states or with the central Dominion authority? Back in the early '903 the Australian states set up thei'r enforcement machinery. It functioned unhindered until the Dominion Arbitration Court Act was passed in 19154. Ever since there have been incessant conflicts. It is notorious that the powers of the Dominion Court under the Australian Constitution are not sufficiently broad to allow it to function efficiently. On the other hand, the Dominion Court's powers have often been sufficient to paralyze state labor boards and courts.

Amendment Blocked. Successive Governments have been trying since 1911 to get Australia's Constitution amended to give the Dominion Arbitration Court really sweeping and effective powers. On four different occasions the state legislatures have refused to pass the amendment. Finally last May courageous Prime Minister Bruce announced a totally new and startling policy.

In effect he declared that since the Dominion Government could not get effective power by Constitutional amendment it must largely withdraw from attempting to arbitrate labor disputes and leave that duty to the states. A measure called the Commonwealth Arbitration Abolition Bill was drafted. That was the bill under consideration by Parliament when the crisis came last week.

Nationalist v. Nationalist. Professing himself a better Nationalist than his personal foe the Prime Minister, astute William Hughes took the attitude that it would be the very negation of Nationalism to follow the Bruce plan of handing over the states the whole duty of labor arbitration, simply because the states have again and again refused to give the Dominion Court supreme authority. Instead, he thought that the Nationalist Party should keep resolutely plugging for the constitutional amendment which thus far has proved unobtainable.

Muddle & Stalemate. Though superficially plausible the Hughes stand won over no Nationalist M. P. except Yachtsman Marks. Only the fact that the Government was balanced on a single vote made possible a debacle which throws before Australian voters an issue mixed and muddled as completely as possible by Parliament. The one clean-cut way out would be a sweeping victory for the chief Opposition party (Labor), but few observers believed that possible, last week, because recent state elections have heavily favored the Nationalists. Gloomily, Australians faced the post-election prospect of another Nationalist Government stalemated by the feud between Hughes and Bruce.