COUNTRY PARTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 175, 25 July 1940, Page 7

COUNTRY PARTY.

RUPTURE PROBABLE.

Extending Life Of Parliament

In Australia.

CONTROVERSIES RAGING. (Received noon.) SYDNEY, this day. ! The "Sydney Morning Herald" Melbourne correspondent says that a clash has developed in the Federal Cabinet, which may lead to an open rupture between the leader of the Country party, Mr. A. G. Cameron, who is Minister of Commerce and [Minister of the Navy, and several of his party colleagues in the Cabinet.

Mr. Cameron threatened that if the Country party agrees to any proposal to extend the life of Parliament he will resign his leadership and resign from the Ministry. The dispute led to the revelation that the Cabinet had decided some weeks ago that it should seek power to extend the life of Parliament so that it could bo used in the event of a sudden emergency. Another Press controversy has begun, with the Federal Ministry as the target again. The Sydney metropolitan Press, backed by prominent business men and politicians, is severely critical of the growing tendency to centralise Federal Government activities in Melbourne, instead of Canberra, which, they say, was built at great expense for the purpose.

The Prime Minister, Mr. R. G. Menzies, replying to criticism of the Ministry for the frequency of its Cabinet meetings in Melbourne, said that in spite of the fact that the presence of Service Departments in Melbourne made it necessary for the Cabinet to meet there, the Ministry had held more Cabinet meetings in Sydney than any of its predecessors.

The latest complaint is against a proposal to make Melbourne the headquarters of the overseas news and broadcasting cervices, the pretext being that the transfer of these services from Sydney would expedite the rebuttal of false enemy propaganda.

Critics of the Government's policy of "coddling" Melbourne disclaim any desire to foster inter-State jealousy, and point out that considerable inconvenience and loss of time is already experienced by Sydney folk having to make contact with Melbourne for advice or information on affairs of defence, navy, aviation, munitions, posts and telegraphs and the multitudinous boards which deal with wool v and other produce.

The keynote of the criticism is that centralisation in Melbourne has the effect of slowing down the common effort for national safetv.

The Attorney-General, Mr. W. M. Hughes, lias entered the controversy, and declared with characteristic pungency: "Ministers come to Sydney for a day or so, walk about the town as though they were foreigners in a strange land trying to talk our language and looking as though they like it, then fly back to their burrows in Melbourne as quickly as an aeroplane can carry them."