UNREST IN PARTY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 43, 13 October 1931, Page 3

UNREST IN PARTY

("Post" Special Commissioner).

REFORM ALLOWED TO PICK ALL THE CABINET PLUMS EARLY ELECTION NOT WANTED

WELLINGTON, Monday. Recent political happenings are said to have caused a good deal of perturbation amongst members of the United Party and it is expected that there will be some plain talk at a caucus of the Party to be held tomorrow morning. The main causes of dissatisfaction are the appointment of Sir James Parr as Leader of the Upper House and the talk of an early election. There has been a feeling amongst members of the United Party ever since the formation of the Coalition Cabinet that the Reform Party had been allowed to piek the plums, so to speak, out of the Cabinet allocations and this feeling became one of indignation when the appointment of Sir James Parr to the leadership of the Legislative Council was announced. The fiame has been fanned by insistent gossip that an early election is contemplated. It is said in the lobbies that one condition of the Coalition agreement was that there should be an extension of the life of Parliament to enable an effeetive programm'e to be carried out, but this is now being disputed and a majority of the Reform members are known to favour an election at the usual time if possible. The statements of the Prime Minister since the publication of the suggestion that opinion is growing in Cabinet circles in favour of an early election are interpreted as meaning only that the date of the elections has not yet been definitely fixed. A large number of the United members are insensed at the apparent abrogation of the pre-coalition understanding that an appeal to the country would be deferred.