THREAT TO LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 93, 21 April 1942, Page 5

THREAT TO LIFE

CURTIN GOVERNMENT

USE OP WAR POWERS FOR PARTY ENDS

MELBOURNE, April 19. Senior Ministers today discussed the possibility that when the Federal Parliament reassembles next week the Curtin Government may face a serious challenge on the Government's failure to discipline the coal miners and on the tendency by some Cabinet members to pursue Socialistic objectives under the cloak of wartime rationalisation. The attitude of the Opposition is> likely to be determined at a joint meeting of the United Australia and United Country parties on Wednesday. If a censure motion is launched, the votes of Messrs. Coles and Wilson, both Independents, would once more decide the issue. It is understood that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. A. W. Fadden, would not be prepared to lead an open attack on the Government unless he was convinced that there was no other way of straightening out the position. The Minister of Labour, Mr. E. J. Ward, is perhaps the most criticised member of the Cabinet, and some of his colleagues feel that he needlessly made the.position worse when he was sent to the coalfields on a peace mission. The Labour caucus originally insisted on his inclusion in the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister could not replace him without a political upheaval. Some Ministers declare that his technique has been to oppose the Cabinet when it had to do things which are unpopular with extreme sections in the unions,