The Press Tuesday, June 30, 1925. The Political Situation.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18421, 30 June 1925, Page 8

The Press Tuesday, June 30, 1925. The Political Situation.

Everyone must have expected the noconfidenee amendment moved by the Labour Party in the House of Representatives last night. The amendment was moved, as the Labour members practically admitted, purely for fun, and with no more serious motive than a desire to know what Mr Wilford •would say. Mr Wilford seems to have taken the precaution of writing out what he had to say, but no precautions of pen and ink or anything else could help him in the absurd position into which he has engineered himself. His best plan would have been to say—if ho felt unable to let the amendment go to a vote without saying anything —simply that circumstances dispensed him and his Party from voting. But as he did not take up this attitude we may consider the attitude he did take up. He said that " his Party " could not vote with the Government '•' on a no-confidence motion nor could " they vote for any amendment moved "by extreme Labour." A good many people will wonder why, if the Government is one in which the Liberals have so little confidence as this, the Liberals are ■willing to negotiate for an alliance with it; and it will be surprising if their reflections do not lead them to the conclusion that the fact is that there can be no ground of principle for the antagonism of the Liberal Party in the past or for such antagonism as some of the Party's friends are promising as the alternative to fusion. If the Liberals should complain of our saying this, they should consider that it is the natural and necessary comment upon Mr Wilford's declaration that he has no confidence in the Government. He repeated this declaration, by implication, in the reason ho gave for not votingagainst the Government, which was, that his Party could not vote for an amendment (that is to say, we suppose, a no-confidence motion) moved by extreme Labour. This explanation will merely remind the public of the special absurdity of the Liberal Party's attitude in recent years. Mr Wilford has usually, but not invariably, refused to support a no-confidence motion when it has come from the Labour benches, believing that this would somehow lead people to suppose he would have nothing to do with the Labour Party. Yet he moved no-con-fidence motions himself over and over again in the confident expectation, which was never disappointed* that the Labour Party would support him. Whatever k may have been the line of reasoning Mr Wilford expected the electors to follow from this peculiar conduct, we know well enough the conclusion which all rational observers came to long ago. They concluded that Mr Wilford's only concern was to be the senior partner and not the junior partner in the anti-Reform combination. We shall probably know within a few days what are the prospects of fusion between the Refonu and Liberal Parties, but in the meantime it may be regarded as possible I that Mr Wilford is preparing for a breakdown of the negotiations through the insistence of his Party upon intolerable conditions. Some of the Liberals are telling the public that if [ the negotiations come to nothing the ! country will blame the Government. But they are overlooking the fact which, in such an event, will overshadow all others —namely, the decision of the Liberal Party to continue to operate with the Reds against the great body of moderate opinion, 75 per cent, of which is and will in any case remain on the side of tb« Government.