24 OCTOBER 1925, Page 2

The Melbourne correspondent of the Times said in Wed- nesday's

paper that Mr. Hughes has definitely come down on the side of Mr. Bruce in the Australian election cam- paign and has predicted that the Nationalists will win. The Labour Party would have liked to confine the issue to the Deportation Act, but Mr. Bruce and the Nationalist Party have succeeded in enormously widening the issue. Mr. Bruce has, indeed, taken his courage in bOth hands, for there was no certainty of agreement among the parties from which he hoped for support. On the, other hand, a Labour question—and, after all, the elections, even when the issue has been widened, turn on Labour questions—was bound to close the ranks of the unions. * *