PARTY INTERESTS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 54, 27 November 1930, Page 12

PARTY INTERESTS

Time for Subordination

PRICE-LEVEL CRISIS

Hon Downie Stewart’s View

LOAN-SPENDING ORGY

By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Dunedin, November 26. "Speaking as an individual member of Parliament,” said the Hon. VV. Downie Stewart tonight, “I regard any measure of fusion as desirable if it will stop the orgy of uneconomic loan expenditure which threatens to land New Zealand in the same mess as Australia if persisted in.”

“I have advocated fusioA ever since I entered Parliament,” said Mr. Stewart, “and when the National Government was formed in 1915 I hoped the union would remain permanent. While I can quite appreciate Mr. Coates’s difficulties in the matter I believe that the soundest men in the United Government realise that party interests ought to be subordinated to the avoidance of the great and real dangers with which the country is faced. “It is not easy for an Opposition to open up proposals for fusion without being suspected of seeking office,” said Mr. Stewart. “In my view Mr. Coates would never take office except as a national duty, and when he believed it was the wish of the electors. The Government is the party that should open up any proposals for fusion. There must be no official fusion of inconsistent elements created solely for the purpose of keeping out Labour, otherwise it will be resented by the electors. j( “So serious are our present problems, added Mr. Stewart, “that if feasible I would support the creation of a real National Government such as Britain had during the war. with representation from Labour. United, and Reform. But the New Zealand Labour Party refused to share the burden of government during the war, and would still refuse to ally itself with other parties. . That is no doubt in accordance with their constitution, so that a real National Government must remain in New Zealand a political dream in the meantime, but that should not prevent some steps being taken to form a strong party to try to cope with the serious price-level situation and to put a stop to ; the huge uneconomic loan expenditure.”