FUSION ADVOCATED

Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1930, Page 3

FUSION ADVOCATED

BY DOWNIE STEWART. (,By Telegiaph—Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, November 26. Speaking as an individual member of Parliament said Mr W. Downie Stewart to-night, “I regard any measure of fusion as desirable if it will stop the, orgy of uneconomic loan expenditure which threatens to land New Zealand in the same mess as Australia if persisted in. I have advocated fusion ever since J entered Parliament, and when the National Government was formed in 1915, 1 hoped that the union would remain permanent. While I can quite appreciate Mr Coates’s difficulties ill the matter. I believe that the soundest men in the United Government realise that the Party interest ought to be subordinated to avoidance of great and real dangers with which the country is faced. It is not easy for an opposition to open up proposals for a fusion without being suspected of seeking office. In my view Mr Coates would never take office except as a National duty, and wlien he believed it was the wish of the electors. The Government is the electors. The Government is the Party that should open up any proposals for a fusion. There must be no artificial fusion of inconsistent elements created solely for the purpose of keeping Labour out, otherwise it will lid resented bv the electors.

I “So serious are our present problems,’,’ added Mr Stewrat, “that, if feasible, T would support the creation of a real National Government,, such as Britain had during tile war. with representation from Labour, United’ and Reform. Rut the ,New Zealand j Labour Party refused to share the biir- [ den of the Government during the war. | and would still refuse to ally itself with the other parties. That is, no doubt, in accordance with their constitution, so that a real National Government must remain in New Zealand a- political dream in the meantime: hut that should not prevent some step being taken to form a strong nartv to try to cope with the serious nriee level situation, and to put a stop to huge uneconomic loan expenditure.”