"GAME OF BLUFF."

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18480, 7 September 1925, Page 8

"GAME OF BLUFF."

LIBERALS AND FUSION.

REAL STATUS : PORTFOLIOS. tsryciJU/ TO "THI razsa. 1 ") HATVERA, September o. Tho lengths to which tho remnants of the ono-timo great Liberal Varty have gone in tho fusion negotiations was exposed by the Hon. A. D. MeLeod, Minister of Lands, in a political address hore to-night. Mr McLeod openly suggested that portfolios were the stakes the remnant threw for. ' 'Some of our late Lib-Lab. opponents,'' said Mr McLeod, "aro making desperate eirorts to get on side with the electors \y imputing the blame for the breakdown of the negotiations entirely to certain unnamed diehards in the Reform Party. I say hero, as I said at Pahiatua recently,"that at least a* far as three out of four of the Lib-eral-Labour Party 7 s negotiators were concerned, it was a game of bluff, with the stakes, portfolios and immunity from opposition at the next election. even in those electorates where Extreme Labour had no chance under anv set of circumstances. They now say that their demands for a new policy, together with the attitude of the aforesaid diehards, was tho causo of the failure. Such an argument will not hold water.

"At least a fortnight before tho first fusion meeting, the Liberals were informed in no uncertain terms what the Prime Minister's policy would be for the life of the present Parliament. Tho Prime Minister used the following words:—

"The policy which my lato distinguished predecessor laid down in general, and which a large number of members were elected to support, is to be maintained. Proposals in fuller detail will bo embodied in the financial statement to be submitted to Parliament early in the session. It is not the intention of the Government to propose any radical deviation from that policy.' The Seal Issues. "The recorded notes of the first two conferences as brought back to our caucus showed that although two or three points in the policy were discussed, such were noti pressed in any way in ttyfe direction of showing any disparity of political opinion. If sueff had been pressed, then it is oertaiji that the negotiations would not have gone beyond the first conference, as far as the Reform Party was concerned. If our caucus was informed aright by our delegates, the chief discussion of the first two conferences centred in portfolios and election contestants. The replies of our caucus show conclusively that two pertinent points were made—1. That the question of Ministerial reconstruction must bo left in the hands of the Prime Minister; and 2, that the question of the selection of candidates in the several electorates must be mutually agreed upon. "At the third conference the Liberal Party made a strenuous attempt to get on side by pressing for immediate fusion and for the adoption of a new policy by the amalgamated parties. What policy I ask ? Is it reasonable to expect that a party already having a policy, and claiming a majority in the House would first agree to fusion, and later be asked to acree to tho adoption of a new policy of which they were ignorant at the time of tho amalgamation P

The Afterthought. "As the chairman of our delegation stated at the first conference, fusion, to be complete' and useful, must not alone be a fusion of men, but also a fusion of minds and ideas. If policy was to be the ground upon which fusion depended, the question of policy should have been raised and definitely settled before any other step had been taken, and not, as was the case, at the last conference.

"Rightly or wrongly our Party believe that the first tiro objectives mentioned were the only motives behind the Liberal Party's anxietv for fusion. So the now self-styled Nationalists YaU baok on policy, as the only way out ofi tho awkward position into which their real desires have led them."