Test for Party Loyalty

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 329, 14 April 1928, Page 1

Test for Party Loyalty

REFORM AND LICENSING ISSUE Caucus May Prove Interesting (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. PARTY loyalty and the licensing law may be the subject of lively concern at the caucus of the Reform Party to be held next Tuesday. The caucus has been called primarily for the purpose of discussing legislation for the coming session and affairs concerning the internal organisation of the party. On the surface there is nothing to indicate that other than happy formalities will occupy the caucus, hut there is nevertheless a possibility that decided views on the licensing question may lead to some dissension.

REFERENCE to the disturbing ele- * meat in Reform’s affairs is made by Mr. C. R. Edmond, general secretary of the New Zealand Alliance. “It has been reported In the Press that a caucus of the Reform Party will be held on Tuesday next to consider matters of organisation and internal policy generally,” said Mr. Edmond to a representative of the “Post.” “It is further stated in the report that there is no foundation for the suggestion that members are being called together to discuss the Licensing question. This is no doubt a true statement of the intentions of those responsible for the calling of the caucus, but in view of the position of licensing legislation as it was left last session, it is difficult to imagine the Reform Party discussing general internal policy without specifically dealing with the question of licensing legislation. There is no lack of evidence throughout the Dominion that a large section of the electors is expecting the Government to give Parliament the opportunity of dealing with licensing legislation during the coming session of Parliament. It is also evident that this fact has impressed itself on the individual meihbers of the reform Party in the House so strongly that some are of the opinion that continued obstruction to democratic licensing legislation on the part of the Reform Party loaders will compel them seriously to consider their relation to the party and the Government. “It is well to remember that when the Licensing Bill of last session passed its third reading in the House it contained a provision for a twoissue ballot paper, the question to be decided on a simple majority. In this form it was supported by 32 members of the Reform Party, including six Ministers of the Crown, whereas only 21 members of that party, including the Prime Minister and four other Ministers of the Crown, opposed the Bill. NO CHANGE IN OPINION “On the last day of the last session a strong deputation of those members of the Reform Party who

favour the two-issue ballot paper with the simple majority, waited on the Prime Minister, and requested him to facilitate the passage of a Licensing Bill containing these provisions during the coming session. It was then understood by some of those members that a caucus would be held early this year in order to discuss this question. As far as we are aware, the coming caucus is the first meeting of the party since the close of last session, and there is no evidence that there has been any change in the opinion of those members during the interim. “As the control of the Order Paper in the House is in the hands of the Prime Minister, who is the Leader of the Reform Party, it is obvious that the question of the introducing and passing of a Licensing Bill during the coming session is one which vitally concerns the members of the Reform Party.” It will be recalled that after the close of last session, when there was talk of a Reform caucus early this year, Mr. T. D. Burnett, Reform member for Temuka, stated in an interview that the Prohibition members of the party intended to assert themselves at the caucus, and that while he yielded to no one in his allegiance to the Reform Party, when firmness in a Prime Minister degenerated into obstinacy, and was cutting across the expressed will of the people, he had seriously to cofcsider his position in regard to the party and the Government. At the beginning of this month the Hon. A. D. McLeod, chairman of the New Zealand Political Reform League, stated that suggestions had been made through the Press that certain members previously supporting the Reform Party intended to stand as Independents at the coming election. Mr. McLeod said that although he as chairman of the league had not been definitely informed to that effect by the members in question, unless satisfactory guarantees could be got from the gentlemen concerned that they would support the party on crucial divisions, the Reform Party held itself free to contest their seats.