MORE ABOUT FUSION.

Shannon News, 8 September 1925, Page 4

MORE ABOUT FUSION.

“BARGAINING FOR PORTFOLIOS.”

HAWERA, Last Night,

The lengths to -which th e remnants of tho Liberal Party had allegedly gone in the fusion negotiations -tvas allegedly once more exposed by the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Lands, in a political address here on Saturday night. Mr. McLeod openly suggested that portfolios was the stake the remnant threw for. “Some of our late Liberal-Labour opponents,” said Mr. McLeod, “are making desperate efforts to get onside with the electors by imputing the blame of the break-down of the fusion negotiations entirely to certain unnamed "diohards” in the Reform Party. I say here, as I said at Pahiatua recently that as least as far as three out of four of that party’s negotiators were conncerncd, it was a game of bluff with the stake, portfolios and immunity from opposition at the next election, even in thoso electorates where extreme Labour had no chance, under any set of circumstances. They now say that their demands for a new policy, together with the attitude of the aforesaid “diehards,” was the cause of the failure. Such an argument will not hold water. At least a fortnight before the first fusion meeting, the Liberals were informed in no uncertain way what tho Prime. Minister’s policy would be for the life of the present Parliament.

“The recorded notes of the first two conferences, as brought back to our caucus, showed that although two or three points in policy were discussed such were not pressed in any way in the direction of showing any disparity of political opinion. If such had been pressed, then it is certain that the negotiations would not have gone beyond the first conference, as far as the Reform Party was concerned. 1 If our caucus was informed aright by our delegates, the chief discussion ot the' first two conferences centred rbund portfolios and election contestants. The replies of our caucus show conclusively that two pertinent' points

were made: First, that the question of Ministerial reconstruction must be left in the hands of the Prime Minister, and secondly, that the question of the selection of candidates in the several electorates must be mutually agreed up. 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 agree to the adoption of a new policy, of which it was ignorant at the time of the amalgamation? 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 parly believes that the first two objectives mentioned were the only motives behind the Liberal Party’s anxiety for fusion so the Nationalists fall back on policy as the only way ov.t of tlie awkward/position into wk'jh their real desires have led them.”