FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Grey River Argus, 20 August 1937, Page 5

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Clash Over Date UNITED AND COUNTRY PARTIES CANBERRA, August 4. It was revealed to-night that there was a sharp differnce of opinion among Ministers when the Federal Cabinet yesterday discussed the probable date of the coming Federal election. So marked was the cleavage of opinion that Cabinet broke up withMinisters in uncertain tempers and, by more or less tacit agreement, the subject was not raised when Cabinet met again to-day. The clash arose over the insistence by the Minister for Commerce, Dr. Page, and his Country Party colleagues that polling day should be in October, while the Prime Minister, Mr. Lyons, with solid U.A.P. support, stood out for a date in November. It was very apparent in the lobbies that the atmosphere was tense. A.T-*? ?

Further, it was significant that when questioned to-night Mr. Lyons made two aspects of the position clear. They were—

(1) That neither the United Australia nor Country Parties would be consulted before the date was finally fixed.

* (2) That the date of polling day was unlikely to be announced before Parliament reassembled on August 24.

Mr. Lyons would offer no further comment on the position except to say that it would not be dealt with by Cabinet at this week’s sittings. It is not expected that Cabinet will discuss the subject further until Mr. Lyons returns from his visit to Tasmania, and his electorate of Wilmot. The next series of Cabinet meetings is scheduled to take place in about a fortnight’s time. Cabinet spent most of to-day on the relatively non-controversial subject of national insurance, discussing the report on the subject by the British expert, Sir Walter Kinnear, in preparation for next week’s Premiers’ Conference.