A FUSION GOVERNMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 23 September 1931, Page 8

A FUSION GOVERNMENT

(Otago ‘’Daily Times.”) It is needless to say that the an<nouneement which the Prime Minister niaue in the House of Representatives on Friday that, in consequence of tiie necessity for immediate action in regard to the finances of the country it lias been agreed to .form a Coalition Government is one that, in our judgment, is highly satisfactory, as, we believe, it w ill be also to the majority of the people in the Dominion. The Government will be formed from members or the United and Reform partie; and the Independent group t the Labour Party rerusing, for reasons of it s own, to he represented in it. All along it has seemed to us to be idle to suppose that the Labour Party would associate itself with the other parties in the formation of a Government and in the acceptance of the responsibility for such 'proposals as may be necessary for the adjustment of the finances of the Dominion. The. w'hole conception, of Socialism in politics is one that is opposed to cooperation with other political parties. The Socialist view has been expressed with suffiicent clearness in the official organ of the party. “There is no cure,” it ha s said, “for the modern economic problem except by measures which effect a revolutionary ohange in the control and purpose of industry. Fusion with parties which refuse to admit this is an impossibility for Labour.” The fact that the Socia istsj will, by reason of their own political exclusiveness, not be represented in the Government will detract from the national character of the Administration that is to be formed. It will place them in the position that they will constitute the Opposition to a Government that is being called into existence for the performance of a national duty so important and so urgent as to demand that a united effort shall be directed to the .execution of it. It is not the most happy position that the Socialists will occupy but it is the position that has been deliberately created for them by themselves under their own conception of the place they should fill in the political life of the co.untry. The formation of- a Fusion- Government is the direct and not unnat i'."d outcome of the appointment of an Economy Committee “to decide what remedial steps shouhb-. be -t- ken to adjust the national, expenditure ' an 1 ho provide Jor equality of sacruoe and a proper distribution of the .burden."Mi Holland, who agrees that a coa.ition between the United and Reform parties is a lpgical -step and yet seems to be exceedingly annoyed that the step lias beep taken, complained on Friday afternoon that the Prime Minister had been more deeply concerned at the sitting of the Economy Committee o,ver an attempt to secure the establishment of a National Government and a postponement of the general election than over the particular object for which the committee was set up. <

It is, however, a fact that the committee took a great deal of evidence of a highly disturbing nature, particuarly ip the light which .it threw on the financial condition of those who are engaged in the primary industries. The representations that were made to the committee were, indeed, of such a kind as o show convincingly that the programme that is necessary in order that the stabilisation of finance and in dustry may be effected is one which no Government that is not a su ong Government c.ould. be expected to s-üb- > Thtty afforded the strong", t, possible support to the Prime M’lihter’s repeated statement that it was unreasonable., to. suppose that a Party’s Government, could undertake the responsibility, .of proposing the measures that, ’must be adopted in order that the national, finances should be satisfactorily adjusted and in order also, that relief should be given to the interest which are most seriously affected by the collapse in the prices of commodities.

Thi s consideration has appealed at last to the Leader of the Reform Party and to those of its members who have clung too. tenaciously to the idea that a fusion of parties was not desirable. Their conversion to the view that tjiey could render most effective servics to the country at the present juncture by joining hands with the United Party has admitted of a political development which is of the highest importance and should yield beneficial results. For a Government supported by less than one-third of the House it substitutes a Government, representative of nearly 75 *per, cent, of , the House ard admirably equipped for the performance of tfye necessary though probab’v disagreeable, task of the measures, that shall be adopted to ensure the "economic rehabilitation of the Dominion.