COALITION?

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1909, Page 7

COALITION?

THE FEDERAL SITUATION. LEADERS CONFER. STATEMENT BY MR. DEAKIN. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received May 11, 10.25 a.m.) MELBOURNE, This Day. The Hon. J. Cook, Leader of the Opposition iv the Federal Parliament, and the Hon. A. Deakin, ex-Premier, have conferred as to the possibilities of a coalition against the Fisher Ministry. At the conclusion of the conference, Mr. Deakin announced : "All I can say is that the situation is clearer after our talk." Speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet prior to the conference, Mr. Deakin declared that it was the duty of every man to endeavour to reduce the present unstable position in Federal politics to stability. There required to be two parties only to give effect, to the Constitution. To organise and fairly establish two .parties was the great task before them at the present moment. No effort would be wanting on his part, Mr. Deakin declared, to bring about a legitimate state of Parliamentary business. The Federal Government deliberately intends to stand or fall on the Dreadnought issue, which will be brought before the House of Representatives on its assembling al the end of this month. The door opened by the leader of the Liberal party, Mr. Deakin, in his speech at Ballarat recently, has been rejected by the Ministry. It declines to treat the Dreadnought question on non-party lines, and says that if a resolution making the offer to Great Britain be carried it will resign, and ask the Gov-ernor-General for a dissolution. So convinced does the Ministry stem that it will be dismissed early in June, that, it is said, very few Bills have been advanced towards the final revision stage. Every mind in the • Ministry seems centred on platform work. Mr. Mahon, Minister for Home Affairs, has been conducting what is practically an election campaign iv Western Austra- '• lia ; the Prime Minister, Mr. Fisher, has been on tour in Queensland, speaking vigorously in many places; and will follow this up with addresses in the other States ; other members of the Labour Ministry are equally alive to the situation. Mr. Fisher will address meetings in Sydney to-morrow. The Federal electoral rolls are ready for use. Furthermore, polling arrangements are practically complete. The machinery for a general election is therefore in working order. Since the last Commonwealth elections the rolls in all the States have been revised, and more improvements in the method of compilation have been made. The separate roll for each polling booth has been abolished, and a system of grouping has been adopted, so that one list has to serve for a number of booths. j