The Australian Financial Crisis The confusion introduced into Australian politics
by the reinstatement of Mr. Theodore, the Commonwealth Treasurer, has been gradually spreading. Public disap- pointment is all the greater because when Mr. Scullin, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, left Australia to attend the Imperial Conference he seemed to have reduced financial policy to comparative simplicity by accepting bodily Sir Otto Niemeyer's recommendations for retrenchment. No doubt when he brought Mr. Theodore back to the Cabinet he did not mean to do more than adjust the balance between extremists and moderates, and thus re-create a happy ship of State. Unhappily this balancing of the Cabinet reopened the whole question of balancing the Budget. We are con- vinced that Australian good sense and good faith will prevail ; but meanwhile the country is going through an exceedingly anxious time and at no point can those who stand for sound finance afford to relax their efforts against the speculative theorists and the unashamed repudiationists.
