LABOUR’S DENIALS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 290, 2 September 1933, Page 8

LABOUR’S DENIALS

Invited to Become Part of National Government CONTROVERSY DEVELOPS By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, September 1. A controversy has developed on the question as to whether at the time the Coalition Government was formed the Labour Party was invited to join in forming a National Government. Today Mr. E. J. Howard, M.P., made a complete denial of the Hon. E. A. Ransom’s contradiction of Mr. Holland's statement made in a political address earlier in the week. He declares that none of Mr. Ransom’s statements is in accordance with fact. Mr. Holland has telegraphed to Mr. P. Fraser, M.P., another complete denial of the statements. Mr. Holland says: “Mr. Ransom’s statement is wholly wrong. No invitation was ever Issued to the Labour Party through me by Mr. Forbes.” Mr. Holland relates at length conversations and discussions preliminary to the setting up of an int,er-party committee, and details some of the discussions at the committee meetings. He states that every proposal made by Mr. Forbes for the formation of a National'Government was accompanied by a condition that the.general election be postponed, to which Labour had declared the strongest opposition. In a telephone conversation from Wellington to-night the Hon. J. G. Coates, gave definite support to Mr. Ransom’s statement. Mr. Coates said: “Mr. Holland is just playing with words, and side-stepping on the question of the postponement of the elections. He is trying to excuse his party’s failure to seize the opportunity which it then had to come in and help the country.” Mr. Coates declares that in words which Mr. Holland himself had quoted Mr. Forbes issued an invitation to the Official Opposition and all other members of the House to join in a National Government. The Labour .Party refused the opportunity. Mr. Ransom, speaking at Sumner tonight, made an emphatic reassertlon of his contention that the Labour Party was invited to join a National Government, and refused. He said he was present when the Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Holland, declined the offer, and Mr. Howard was not.