"Best Day's Work"

The hair of premier James Henry Scullin has turned almost pure white this past year, so crushing were his burdens while the State of New South Wales weltered in a series of defaults which the Dominion Treasury had to make good (TIME. April 6, et seq.). Last week young, buoyant Australia kicked Mr. Scullin, who now seems "old" at 55, into the discard. Triumphantly placed in power by a general election which gave his supporters 51 seats out of the Australian Parliament's 75 was "The Honest Man from Tasmania," Joseph Aloysius Lyons.

Tasmania is a chunky little island lying just below the Australian continent's nether tip. In Tasmania rugged Mr. Lyons worked up from State Treasurer (1914-16) to State Premier (1923-28), acquiring a reputation for honesty and a grasp of budget arithmetic. Three years ago he was merely a prominent island statesman, but in 1929 he graduated to a seat in the continent's Parliament at Canberra, sitting as a Laborite.

Promptly Laborite Premier Scullin made Tasmania's Lyons Postmaster General and Minister of Public Works & Railways in the Dominion Cabinet. His big chance came almost immediately when a stench of scandal arose around the Dominion Treasurer, "Big Boss" Edward Granville Theodore. As a disinfectant "The Honest Man from Tasmania" was appointed Acting Treasurer. It is no secret that during Mr. Scullin's enforced absence of four months to attend the Imperial Conference at London in 1930, the real Premier of Australia was Mr. Lyons. Together he and the nominal Acting Premier, James Edward Fenton, did what they could to curb such prodigal States as New South Wales. They inspired public confidence to the extent that Treasurer Lyons was able to float a $104,000,000 conversion loan without which the Dominion Government might have had to default.

When Premier Scullin returned to Australia he found Boss Theodore fairly fuming at Treasurer Lyons' presumptuous independence. He, Mr. Theodore, felt that the smell of scandal had now been aired out sufficiently for him to resume the Treasuryship. While lurid epithets were hurled by Australia's lively Press, Mr. Theodore was reappointed Treasurer-- this being the decisive mistake of Mr. Scullin's career.

Ousted Mr. Lyons and his friend Mr. Fenton dramatically broke with Premier Scullin, quit his Labor Party and rushed off to achieve remarkable success in winning supporters from Australia's old guard conservative politicians for what they christened the "United Australia Party."

Under this label, similar in popular appeal to the "National Government" tag which helped Scot MacDonald win the British election (TIME, Nov. 9), there fought in Australia's present election campaign such famed Conservatives as doughty old Wartime Premier William Morris Hughes and alert, air-minded Stanley Melbourne Bruce, predecessor of Mr. Scullin as Premier. Mr. Bruce "fought" by cable and radio, having been caught politically short in England on a pleasure jaunt when the Scullin Cabinet was defeated in Parliament on a minor issue. At 13-c- per word moneyed Mr. Bruce cabled a 3,000-word election speech which his friends read and reread scores of times to his constituents in Flinders. Last week as the vote was taken Mr. Bruce was riding a small steamer in the middle of the Red Sea, thanked his lucky stars when Flinders returned him by the record majority of 17,000.

During the campaign Premier Scullin tried to capitalize the recent improvement in Australian business (due to a bumper wool clip and slight advances in the world prices of Australian farm products) by attributing this revival to his Cabinet's protectionist policy. Australian tariffs are already so high as to amount to embargoes on numerous products, but Mr. Scullin promised to up them higher.

Contrariwise, the new United Australia Party promised some reduction of tariff schedules, loudly appealed for a mandate to re-apply the "sound and sane" policies of "The Man from Tasmania" when he was Treasurer. The returns, indicative of a sobering down among exuberant Australians

United Australia Party 37 Scullin Labor Party 16 Country Party 14 Left Wing Labor Party 7 Independents 1

Sounding off by radio after the election, a spokesman for reticent Premier-Designate Lyons boomed: "This is the best day's work Australia has done for a long time! The people will take fresh heart in the knowledge that the new Government is pledged to budget balancing and the maintenance of a financial system which will give security and hope to private enterprise."

Tidying up after the election, Australia's Treasury prepared to collect the $10 fine imposed by Australian law on each registered voter who failed to vote.

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