Mr. Lyons's Policy Mr. Lyons's speech at Deloraine, Tasmania, last
Tuesday, contained several features of interest outside Australia. It once more makes abundantly clear that, whatever may be for the best of Australia as a unit, his success at the polls will make Imperial relationships much easier than would that of the Labour Party. He justifies the policy of (comparatively) low custom duties by citing the " remarkable expansion " of secondary industries. He states that adjust- ments of certain arrangements under the Ottawa agreements will be necessary, but considers the agreements as a whole beneficial to the Commonwealth. As against the Labour policy of self-sufficiency in defence, he makes co-operation with the British Navy the keynote of his defence policy. The most striking part of the speech was that in which he dealt with population problems. As the negotiations with the individual States have broken down, he announced the Government of the Commonwealth's intention to attempt to make direct arrangements with the Government of the United Kingdom for assisted immigration. The essential difficulties are not only climatic ; the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth are alike in having populations which will soon be dwindling and in being over-industrialised. Australia needs farmers, of whom we have not enough ; and men who can do manual work in tropical and sub-tropical conditions, of whom we have none. No Australian statesman dare propose large-scale immigration by people with Con- tinental, let alone coolie, standards, and yet Australia cannot forever remain under-populated and under-developed. The solution, of course, should be higher standards of living throughout the world, an aspiration which the Australian memorandum under discussion at Geneva endeavours to formulate into a policy.
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