FEDERAL POLITICS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14760, 2 September 1913, Page 7

FEDERAL POLITICS.

THE DEADLOCK.

(By Cable.— lVes* Association.—Copyright.) MELBOURNE. September 1. Tho Federal Premier, Mr Joseph Cook, stated to an interviewer:—"Wo shall go <o tho country when we aro ready, and not a moment before. I should like, if possible, to make come changes in the electoral law, and shall give Mr Fisher an opportunity of turning down those proposals or passing them as he chooses. "Mr Chirm, who was employed as an engineer on tho Trans-Continental Railway, has been discharged. His friends in tho 'tfenato rushed to his rescue, and set the business of the country aside while they appointed a partisan committee- of enquiry. Tho chairman of that committee prejudged.tho ease by declaring before tho enquiry opened that no iiiare scandalous piece of persecution had ever taken place." Mr Cook added:—"The present position cannot, in tho very nature of things, bo a lasting one.' , Mr Chirm, referred to by Mr O'-Ualley, his Mini.-terial chief, as "Urofcuer Chirm," was the subject of much debate in tho last Parliament. Ho was appointed engineer in charge of tho transcontinental railway construction at the suggestion of the West Australian Labour i'ariy. The Liberals hotly attacked the appointment in Parliament on the ground that it was political. Then one , of the Liberal members brought forward a series of serious charges against Mr Chirm, which were the subject of n Royal Commission. Tho Commission found that these had not been proved, and Mr Chirm continued to hold his billet. When tho new Government came in Mr Chirm was dismissed, and the "Argus" remarked on the fact that the announcement of this in tho llouso was received without any demonstration. Mr 0 Malley, who appointed him and championed him so strongly, did not even look up from the paper he was reading. ,