AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1916, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

HOLMAN MINISTRY CENSURED. <A SPLIT IN THE RANKS, By Cable.—Press Association—Copyright Sydney, April 27. The proceedings of the Labor Conference disclosed a cleavage in the ranks and a strong anti-Ministerial party. The Herald states that between the sittings, between sixty and seventy delegates, a majority of the total delegation, formed themselves into a distinct section, elected a president, and generally instituted an organised attack on the State Government and the Parliamentary Labor iParty. Generally the discussions produced much censure of the Government's administrative acts. Mr. Barclay, delegate from the Australian Workers' Union, moved that the Government- be severely censured for refusing to endeavor to give effect to the first plank of the Labor platform—the abolition of the Upper House. He vigorously attacked the Government.

Mr. Ilolman. replying, declared that if he went to the country that cry would be defeated so clearly that if the opinion of the conference decided it was the right course h e would ask to be relieved of the responsibility of leadership. He had consulted his colleagues, who endorsed his action. Mr. Blacknev, of the. Australian Workers' Union, accepted the Premier's challenge and called on the Ministry to resign. He compared the state of New Zealand, which had never had a Labor Government, yet had a better Workmen's Compensation Act than that Mr. IToluian had given to the people. The motion was carried by 101 to 68, and the conference adjourned.

VICTORIAN LABOR PARTY.

Melbourne, April 27. The Labor Conference deleted the clause, adopted by the Political Labor Council last year, whereby members of the Catholic Federation, the Victorian Alliance, the Licensed Victuallers' Association, and the Orange Lodge were debarred from membership. The deletion ended the intense friction which arose, and the adoption of the clause restores many hundreds, particularly the Catholic Federation, to membership.