FUSION NEGOTIATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 35, 10 August 1925, Page 6

FUSION NEGOTIATIONS

MR. WILFORD REPLIES TO PRIME

MINISTER,

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. T. M. Wilford) has made a reply to the statement in regard to the fusion negotiation* made by the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives on Thursday night, when Mr. Coates declared that Mr. Wilford had visited him prior to 14th July on the following dates: — sth June, at 3.30 p.m.; 9th June, at 10.15 a.m.; 10th July, at noon) 10th July, at' 2 p.m.,; 12th July, in the morning; 13th July, at 7.30 p.m.; and 14th July, at 10.30 a.m. ' , "Mr. Coates says I saw him on sth June, 9th June, 10th July (twice), 12tb July, 13th and 14tb July," states Mr. Wilford. "Those dates are accurate. Between 9th June and 10th July there is an interval of over a month; in that interval month, namely, on 18th June, the delegates first mot, and also in that interval month, on 7th July, Mr. Coates •wrote me after the meetings of _ the del* 1 gates stating that fusion was impracticable, and aa I stated in.my letter of 9th July to him, he had, on the 7th, barred the door to fusion. My first meeting with Mr. Coates after he said fusion was impracticable, on Ms statement, wu on 10th July—three days after his letter ti> me bolting the door, arid one day after I wrote him saying,he had belted the door. I intended to convey, but perhaps did not clearly do so, that I did not see Mr. Coates to discuss fusion until after the correspondence declaring fusion impracticable on 7th July had been received by me, and after I had written him on the 9th telling him he had ended it. The two first dates mentioned by Mr. Coates were before the conference was held On 18th June, and were mentioned by me in Parliament in my speech of 14th July, and are recorded in 'Hansard.' "