BY ONE VOTE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1941, Page 6

BY ONE VOTE

DEFEAT OF CENSURE MOTION IN FEDERAL HOUSE UNION OFFICIAL DEMANDS INQUIRY. DENIES RECEIPT OF ANY PAYMENT. ißy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright I (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) CANBERRA, This Day. The Labour Party’s censure motion against the Government for the manner in which it used a secret fund to combat subversive activities was defeated in the House of Representatives at 3.13 o’clock this moring by 32 votes to 31. Both the Independents, Messrs Coles and Wilson, voted with the Government.

After Parliament had adjourned, the Federal Premier (Mr A. W. Fadden) said he would not appoint a Royal Commission on payments from the fund. “I emphatically repudiate the secret fund allegations in their entirety," he said.

Mr C. H. Nelson (president of the Australian Coal Miners’ Federation), in a statement, said: “A very long and intensive vendetta has been carried out in the Labour movement against me for many years. I am demanding, in, conjunction with my colleagues, an immediate Royal Commission or a Parliamentary inquiry to have this matter thoroughly investigated, and it is my intention to fight with everything I possess to vindicate my honour. I want to say, in regard to the alleged payments, that if any such money was paid it was never received by myself in any shape or form.”