DISSENSION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20045, 29 September 1930, Page 11

DISSENSION.

♦— MR HUGHES'S PARTY. MR WALTER MARKS REBELS. (rnois oitb ows coreespondent.) SYDNEY, September 18. There were many who predicted that Mr Walter Marks, one of the breakaways from the Nationalists before the last Federal Election, would not for long bo content with the leadership of the former Prime Minister, Mr W. M. Hughes, who brought into being the Australian Party. This Party, according to its founder, would sweep the polls because of its non-Party character, which sounds as paradoxical as it really is. Petty jealousies and disput6s have crept into its counsels to make it appear erroneous to suggest that it stood for Australia first. Mr Hughes is still as fiery fts ever. Advancing age has not slowed down his brain or made him any tho less willing for a fight. He showed that when he issued a booklet condemning all the homo truths that had been uttered by Sir Otto Niemeyer. It was because of this book that he lost his right-hand man, Mr Walter Marks, and the loss has come at a time when stalwarts can ill be spared, for the Australian Party is just entering on its first .real fight with the commencement of the New South Wales general election campaign. Tho defection will have serious results for the .Party, for above all things there whs need forit to" show that it" was united And in earnest. The statement issued by Mr Marks best exjplftins his action. Hero it is:— _ "I voted against the Bruce-Page Government because it intended to evacuate the field of Federal Arbitration without a .mandate from the people, and also because this matter was not brought before the Party. The same applies to the prosecution of Mr John Brown, and also to the withdrawal of. that prosecution. They did not come before the Party. Mr Hughes has erredin the same manner. As one of the founders of the Australian Party I had no knowledge whatsoover of the advent of his booklet, 'Bond or Free.' Though I was with him in Melbourne throughout last week at the Australian . Party s first Victorian conference, and when the booklet was being published in Sydney, he never mentioned the matter to myself or to the conference. Whilst agreeing with many of his contentions, there are several others on which I cannot follow him, more espocially the bitter, satirical, personal attack on Sir Otto Niemeyer, a distinguished guest of our Commonwealth. "I do not agree with all of Sir Otto's contentions, but he was our guest. The same applies to certain references in the booklet to England herself and to the Bank of England. It is not sporting, and without a doubt it is* nonAustralian. In short, the position 1b not of my making. I was in no way conferred with, and so I cannot be bound to follow the lead set. I will still continue as in the past to wcirk for all the people and not for any one section. '