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A RANGE OF PRINT ARTICLES

"Acted on own authority"

Governor Game at the races, c. 1930s
[Courtesy of News Ltd Photo Library]

"Sir Philip Game's step was taken on own responsibility," says the "Times."

"Downing-street and the Dominions Office were not consulted, and would certainly have declined to intervene. Sir Philip Game for months past has occupied a position of the utmost difficulty. The policy on which his Ministers embarked seemed bound to lead to violence and disorder, and possibly even to civil war. Moreover, the Federal elecions gave ground for thinking that Mr. Lang's opponents were in a large majority.

The Governor took the view that there was no ground for him to interfere while his Ministers kept within the bounds of the law. He has now interfered because Mr. Lang exceeded those bounds. It is difficult to see what other course Sir Philip Game could have taken. There could be no security for the rights and liberties of the people if his Ministers were entitled to remain in office while defying and violating the law. The dismissal of Mr. Lang is an unprecedented use of the Governor's powers. It is now for the electorate to pronounce whether it was justified in circumstances which, happily, are also without precedent."

"End of Langism"

Sir Phillip Game at the races
[Courtesy of NewsLtd Photo Library]

The "Daily Telegraph" says:

"There can be little doubt that an end has been put to Langism by Sir Philip Game's drastic action. This exercise of the powers of a State Governorship is without precedent in the latter-day Australian democracy.

Only a sense of the gravest necessity could have induced Sir Philip Game to take so extreme a measure.

The Lang government made itself an outlaw

It flatly defied the superior authority of the Commonwealth Government, and repudiated the Premiers' financial agreement; built was the spectacle of the wreckage Langism was making of New South Wales' finances and the ruinous handicap it imposed on the whole effort to re-establish Australian credit that compelled this remarkable exercise of the prerogative of the Crown.

The incessant legislative warfare between Sydney and Canberra could yield no decision until Sir Philip Game's intervention. The wild delight with which his action was received in Sydney and the immediate rise in Australian securities are indications of what the end of Langism means for both the State and the Commonwealth."

GRAVE MENACE REMOVED: Sir Stanley Argyle's Comment

The leader of the Opposition in Victoria (Sir Stanley Argyle) said last night that he was confident that the people of this State would learn with relief that the lawlessness of the Lang Ministry had ended in constitutional action for its removal. Mr. Lang had proved himself to be one of the gravest menaces which the people of Australia had experienced.

The incubus of his policy upon his own State and the Commonwealth had been the greater because his administration had coincided with an unprecedented depression.

His removal from office would contribute in no small way to the rehabilitation of the Commonwealth, because it would undoubtedly reconcile the largest of the Australian States to the Premiers' plan. The people of New South Wales, he felt sure, recognised the gravity of the mistake which they had made in giving Mr. Lang a mandate. He was confident that the mandate would be overwhelmingly cancelled in the election which would follow Mr. Lang's dismissal.

The Argus
14 May, 1932

Mr. Lang's "Hell's Broth"

SPEECH BY MR. HUGHES

"If Labour is down to-day," said Mr. W.M. Hughes, speaking at Kirribilli last night, "it owes it to Mr. Lang, who is one of the bubbles of a hell's broth, which the workers of this country have eagerly swallowed, and which has proved to them a deadly poison. Mr. Hughes was speaking on "world problems," with which, he said, was closely allied the political situation in New South Wales.

"Lang has left us," proceeded Mr. Hughes, "but the evil he has done remains. It is a tangled skein, that someone has to unravel. The policy of Mr. Lang throughout has been a sham, a delusion, and a snare, especially to those whose cause he professed to herald, the working classes. What has happened is that capital has fled, enterprise has been shackled, and our credit injured. 'Men before money!' What an empty boast! Mr. Lang has posed as the champion of Labour, but he will go down to history as the wrecker of Labour. You will soon be asked to voice your opinion at the polls. I have no doubt as to the result."
The Sydney Morning Herald 17 May, 1932