LABOUR CAUCUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1938, Page 8

LABOUR CAUCUS

FIRST SINCE GENERAL ELECTION. DISCUSSION OF FUTURE PROGRAMME. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party will hold d caucus in Wellington today, when it is expected that several important questions relating to the future programme of the Government will be discussed... The caucus, over which the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, will preside, will be the first since the general election last month. A full attendance is expected. Several Labour members fror; outside centres had already arrived in Wellington yesterday,and others are due to arrive this moning. The caucus is likely to extend over two days. Six members will be attending a caucus for the first time. They are 'he new Government members elected to the House of Representatives at the general election: ‘ Mrs C. Stewart (Wellington West), Mr H. E. Combs •(•Wellington Suburbs), Mi’ C. W. Boswell (Bay of Islands), Mr F. L. Frost (New Plymouth), Mr C. F. Skinner (Motueka), and Mr P. K. Paikea (Northern Maori).

Mr Savage said in an interview last evening that a welcome would be extended to the members of the party who had been returned for the first time. The caucus would also enable them to make the acquaintance of other members of the party. It would give members an opportunity to express their views concerning what should be done in the future. Policy matters had, of course, already been submitted to the electors, and it- was a question of giving effect to them. “If the Government party is to justify its existence at all its members are entitled to take some part in what is happening from time to time,” said Mr Savage. “When you have 50-odd Labour members discussing problems to which they have given a great deal of thought, even long before they-thought of entering Parliament, you- realise you are listening to people who can give some useful and helpful advice.

All members of the Laboui’ Party know something of general fundamental problems, for they are' problems they have been thinking about for years. The individuals chosen as Labour candidates are selected because they know something of the fundamental principles underlying government.”