When the last general elections were held in New Sonth Wales, the expo nents of the Labour Party scored a victory that astonished even their most sanguine advocates. The masses of the peopie had just been stirred by the fervid oratory of Sir George Grey, and, smarting from the failure of the great maritime strike, the Trades Unionists hailed with delight the doctrine that their rights were to be secured at the ballot box, and that by returning re presentatives from what was termed sentimentally " the rank and file of the toilers " they would enter upon a new era of prosperity. Their sanguim: an ticipation no doubt far exceeded any result that Sir George Grey intended to point>out as likely to accrue from labour representation. But in times of political .excitement people are not always discriminating. At any rate, the Labour Party announced that in future the great questions in debate between capital and labour were to be threshed out on the floor of the House, and they prosecuted, the electioneering campaign with such energy that a solid

phalanx of labour members was re turned ; not numerous enough, indeed, to carry measures without attaching itself to one or other of the two parties .that struggle for predominance, in the House, but strong enough by forming a middle party to paralyse the hands of the Government. When the labour members occupied, the cross-benches, and announced that they would sink all fiscal questions, and make every legislative measure subsidiary to their own political programme, /a shout of triumph rose from their supporters. | The enthusiasm spread, not only to the neighbouring colonies, but to the mother country. It was confidently predicted that at the approaching elec tions in Victoria the example of New South Wales would be enthusiastically imitated, while the leaders of the Eng lish Labour Party were jubilant that the colonies had set an,example which they intimated their intention of following at the first favourable'oppor tunity.' ..
