"It will be remembered that towards the close of last year the withdrawal of its support by the Labour party led somewhat unexpectedly to the defeat and resignation of Mr. Deakin’s Cabinet. A Labour Ministry was subsequently formed, and was enabled by Mr. Deakin’s refusal to combine with the Opposition against it to prorogue Parliament and get into recess. It has since elaborated a programme, announced by Mr. Fisher, the Prime Minister, to his constituents at Gympie, a few weeks ago, and recapitulated yesterday in the Governor-General's speech, which strongly resembles in most particulars the national policy advocated by Mr. Deakin when in power, and includes besides one or two additional proposals, such as ‘the nationalization of monopolies,’ more exclusively the property of the Labour party itself. These latter aspirations are probably more pious than practical, and are certainly not the issues on which the Labour Ministry is now to stand or fall. It will stand or fall by its proposals for the readjustment of the financial relations between the Commonwealth and the States, the establishment of a local flotilla designed for coastal defence, the creation of a citizen army based on universal training, and the imposition of a progressive land tax calculated to bring about the subdivision of large estates. "This latter proposal is the only one in which the Labour party cannot claim to be carrying out the spirit, if not the letter, of Mr. Deakin’s own programme; but, curiously enough, it does not seem to be the question on which Mr. Deakin has taken immediate issue with them. He is taking issue, we gather, first and foremost on the question of defence. The Labour Ministry is to be censured for refusing to make the offer of the Australian Dreadnought in the name of the Commonwealth. In taking this line Mr. Deakin has already made it clear that he has not in any way modified his previous views on the necessity of providing immediately for the creation of an Australian flotilla, but he considers that this necessity should in no way prevent Australia from adding in emergency to the strength of the British fleet. Speaking at Sydney last month, he said: ‘Our defence needs not only our own flotilla but a fleet on the high seas as well. It is for us to recognize that by joining New Zealand and making our offer of a Dreadnought for the Imperial Navy … the Commonwealth must do its share to prove the reality of Australia’s federal unity, to prove the unity of the Empire, to stand beside the stock from which we came.’