CONFUSED POLITICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 92, 15 October 1940, Page 10

CONFUSED POLITICS

AUSTRALIAN PARTIES

UNITY MANOEUVRES

(By Trans-Tasman Air Mail, from "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, October 12,

In a series of confused and almost bewildering political moves this week, in efforts to provide a solution of the stalemate resulting from the recent General Election, it has become clear that the Labour Party will not serve in a National Government under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies.

Meetings of all the parties early next week are expected to confirm the attitudes taken by their leaders during the last few days. When Mr. Menzies announced soon after the election that he would confer with the leaders of the other three parties, it was expected that all four men would meet round a table. Instead, all that happened was that Mr. Menzies had "talks" with each leader separately. The talks were brief, and there does not seem to have been much sincerity in tryirsg to reach the unity that Australia is expecting.

Briefly, Labour is seeking, as the largest party ,to gain the leadership if a National Government is formed. Mr. Menzies has refused, and will continue to refuse, that demand. The Country Party is willing to join a National, Government under Mr. Menzies.

The most dramatic outcome of the manoeuvrings was the reconciliation between Mr. Menzies and Sir Earle Page, who resigned from the leadership of the Country Party early this year shortly after he had made a vicious personal attack on Mr. Menzies. Differences between these two men have caused much friction in the Ministerial forces. It is now certain that Sir Earle Page will re-enter the reconstructed Ministry.

This reconciliation has weakened the position of the Labour Party, which had hoped, by playing on dissension in sections of the Ministerialists, to have a working majority. Its hopes in that direction now depend on the reaction of a section of Victorian Country Party members in the House of Representatives. A few of these members have always been an independent force, especially where Sir Earle Page is concerned, and Sir Earle Page's return to the Ministry will probably mean the disappearance of an able Minister, Mr. John McEwen. For several years Mr. McEwen and Sir Earle Page have been opposites in Country Party affairs, and the reconciliation between Mr. Menzies and Sir Earle Page may create fresh discord in the Country Party ranks.

The U.A.P. and Country Party muster 38 out of the total of 74 voting members of the House of Representatives, including Mr. A. Wilson, a Victorian Independent, who is a wobbler between Government and Opposition. Labour's 36 members are taken as including the successor to the late Mr. A. E. Green, who died shortly after he had been returned unopposed for Kalgoorlie. The by-election is to be held on November 16. Labour is expected to retain the seat.