STATE RIGHTS ESSENTIAL FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

"The Prime Minister, Mr. Gorton will face severe financial demands from the States when the premiers meet in Canberra next month. The six State premiers, meeting in Adelaide yesterday resolved they would ask for an immediate grant to cover State budgetary deficits in excess of $30 million for this financial year. The States will also ask the Commonwealth to relieve them of a substantial part of the burden of interest-payments on Commonwealth loans raised on their behalf." - The Australian, January 20.

The Federal system of Government is one in which responsibilities are divided between a number of State Governments and a central Federal Government. Self-government is the most difficult form of government, and is only possible when government is close to the people. Centralised government inevitably ends with government by a centralised bureaucracy. This is a natural law, which no bright theories can overcome.

State Governments have enormous responsibilities, these nearly all concerned with the questions most directly affecting the individual. Education is, for example, one of the major responsibilities. But the States cannot discharge their responsibilities to the individual unless they also have financial autonomy. It is a principle of responsible government that the Government spending the individual's money should also be responsible for collecting that money. This is not the case at present, where the States are almost completely dependent upon financial grants from the Federal Government.

The first attack on the Federal system came in 1928 with the Financial Agreement; this requiring a change in the Federal Constitution, which meant that the States' financial programmes, were dictated by the Loan Council. Then came the imposition of Uniform Taxation during the Second World War (this was, like all taxation, to be only a temporary measure) and the refusal after the war by the Labor Socialists to return income tax to the States. A High Court decision ruled that the Federal Government had the constitutional power to continue imposing uniform taxation in peacetime.

With the election in 1949 of the Liberal-Country Party Coalition Government, pledged to save the Federal system against the centralising Socialists there was raised the hope that something constructive would be done to halt the process of destroying the States. Prime Minister Menzies made a number of brave speeches on his love for the Federal system. But the centralising process continued, and the Federal bureaucracy expanded enormously. The plight of the States has become progressively more desperate, and it was Prime Minister Gorton's barely disguised contempt for the States, which contributed substantially to the political swing, which nearly threw him out of office, and out of the leadership of the Liberal Party, last year.

There are still Members of the Liberal-Country Party coalition at Canberra who at least pay lip service to the importance of the Federal system. But they attempt to justify inaction by various sophisticated arguments, one being that not all the States are prepared, for example, to accept back the responsibility of at least striking their own rate of income tax. Sir Robert Menzies used this argument. But if the Liberal-Country coalition Government at Canberra were a genuine supporter of Federal principles, it would hand to the States their powers, and their responsibilities, irrespective of how some of the States might feel about this.

But in the nature of reality no Government ever voluntarily relinquishes power. Compulsion is necessary, and Australians who wish to have more say in running their own country should get strongly behind their State Governments and insist that the Federal Government starts to disgorge some of its financial power. Those who may have thought that Mr. Les Bury would, as Federal Treasurer, be more sympathetic to the States than was Mr. McMahon, are in for shocks. Yes, Mr. Bury is one of those who pays lip service to federalism, but when it comes to practical steps, Mr. Bury is against relinquishing power. Kenneth Davidson quotes him in The Australian of January 20 as saying: "But State income taxes are dicey. If the States were in a position to levy their own income taxes it could ultimately present problems for the Commonwealth in managing the economy." This summarises the viewpoint of the central planners, most of them the products of Fabian Socialist indoctrination. Irrespective of what they say, their policies of centralism threaten what remains of the Federal system in Australia, and the rights of the individual.

POTENTIAL EXPORTS MAJOR FACTOR IN NEW U.S. CHINA POLICY

"The United States, seeking a new era in its relations with Peking, plans to propose to Communist China in Warsaw this week that the two countries take small, practical steps to open up trade, travel and communications between them." - The Age, Melbourne, January 20.

There has been considerable speculation about why the Red Chinese Government has responded so readily to the initiative of the Nixon Administration for negotiations in Warsaw. Preliminary contacts were with the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw in December. There had been a series of talks between the Americans and Chinese in Warsaw between 1965 and 1968. A London report states that one of Red China's objectives is to obtain oil and manufacturing equipment, as China's industrial development has been hampered by shortages of both commodities. The Nixon Administration has recently eased made and travel restrictions, reflecting the desire of powerful groups in the U.S.A. to open up major export markets in Red China.

Those who do not learn from the past may have no future. The American policy makers are pursuing the same course that they have pursued towards the Soviet Union. The original recognition of the Soviet by the Roosevelt Administration in 1933 was based upon the argument that increased trade with the Soviet would break down isolation from the rest of the world, and that increasing contact would ease tensions. All this had not the slightest influence on the Marxist-Leninists' long-range strategy for world domination, which has progressively unfolded ever since. No doubt the criminals in Peking will be interested to hear the Americans explain to them how they are withdrawing from South-East Asia, and how they have therefore no aggressive designs against Red China. Yes, they will welcome all this, as well as the economic aid - as a clear indication that, like their competitors in Moscow, they can safely intensify their global revolutionary activities.

LEAGUE PLANS AHEAD WITH FAITH

IMMEDIATELY WILSON HEDGES ON COMMON MARKET ISSUE

"The British Prime Minister, Mr. Wilson said yesterday Britain would negotiate to enter the European Common Market with determination to succeed. But he said there were no desperate compulsions on Britain to enter," - The Australian, January 15.

We have previously commented that, Public Opinion polls notwithstanding the British Socialist Prime Minister is still capable of winning the next British General Elections. He knows that British public opinion has been progressively hardening against the United Kingdom joining the European economic Community, and that if he can let dedicated Marketeer Conservative leader Edward Heath firmly commit himself to the Common Market, he can then declare before the elections that he has had second thoughts. Large numbers of British electors voted for Wilson at the last British Elections because they believed he was against the Common Market while Heath had pledged the Conservatives to joining. The surrender of British sovereignty to a bureaucratic despotism operating from Brussels would be a major disaster, not only for the old British Commonwealth, but also for Western Civilisation. Australians and New Zealanders with friends of relatives in the United Kingdom should be encouraging them to stand firm against the plotters striving to strike another major blow against the British family of Nations.

PROBLEM WITH ASIAN STUDENTS

"Many Asian students who completed courses in Australia tried to stay on because they could not get jobs at home, according to the Minister for Immigration (Mr. Lynch)". - The Age, Melbourne, January. 19.

Mr. Lynch made the above comment when referring to publicity given to the delay by his department in granting visas to 15 young men from Malaysia and Singapore to attend a commercial pilots' course. Far-sighted critics of the Colombo Plan stressed that the education of Asians could best be undertaken in their own countries rather than uproot them to bring into an alien environment. Many Asian students have also been contaminated with revolutionary and subversive ideas at Australian Universities. It is pointless Australians contributing to the education of Asian students who are then reluctant to return to their own countries.

DANGEROUS WEST GERMAN POLICY SHIFT

"The rather astonishing appearance of the Soviet Ambassador, Tsaraphin on the Federal German television the other day in the regular internal political feature, 'Report from Bonn' to call on the West Germans for reminiscences of Lenin, is symptomatic of the Brandt administration's endeavours to ingratiate itself with the Kremlin" -Weekly Review, England. January 16.

As predicted in a study in depth published in the League's Intelligence Survey for December the Brandt West German Government is determined to work for a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Brandt is not prepared to flaunt conservative German opinion too much by suggesting that East Germany should be recognised as a separate State, but he is making it clear that he wishes to improve relations with the Communist regime in East Germany. Brandt's criticism of those Germans dissenting from the direction in which he is moving, makes use of familiar terms from the Communist vocabulary. Early Marxist-Leninist strategy envisaged the forces of revolution moving Westwards from the Soviet base, with Germany marked down as the first target. It was only when it proved impossible to reach this target that Lenin formally proclaimed his famous strategy that the shortest route to Paris and London was through Peking. But the Marxist-Leninist strategists have never lost sight of their aim of harnessing the German industrial empire to serve their purposes.

REALITIES BEHIND MIDDLE EAST CRISIS

"In Jerusalem yesterday the Israeli Prime Minister, Mrs. Meir said President Nasser of Egypt was the major obstacle to a peace settlement in the Middle East because of his hatred for Israel. Mrs. Meir told a group of Jewish publishers and editors from the United States that President Nasser was obsessed by ideas of destroying Israel." -Zander Hollander from Tel Aviv, in The Australian, January 15.

Mrs. Meir's statement was typical Zionist propaganda, primarily directed at American Jews in order to persuade them to continue contributing the financial support, which Israel desperately need for survival. No Arab leader can at present refuse to ignore the passionate feeling of the Arab people on the Israeli issue, and much of the propaganda is violent and extreme. But Nasser could disappear from the scene tomorrow, and the basic cause of the Middle East crisis would remain. That cause is the fact that in establishing the State of Israel, and in expanding its borders by major aggression, the Political Zionists have created one of the biggest refugee problems in the world. Arabs driven from the homes and properties they have lived in for centuries are now listening to the blandishments of the Communists in an attempt to get their homes back, or at least adequate compensation.