FUSION FAILURE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 July 1925, Page 5

FUSION FAILURE

MR. CORRIGAN DISAPPOINTED

HIS VIEWS ON THE MATTER

BLAMES PRIME MINISTER

(By Telegraph.—Special to Star.) 4VELLINGTOX, July 16. “I am disappointed in the new Prime Minister; he has given way to a small oand of political mutineers, in preference to the country’s wishes,” were the .words used by Mr. J. R. Corrigan (Patea) over hi s disappointment in regard to thg fusion failure. Adressing the House in the last stages of the Address-in-Reply debate, he assured members that the country needed a progressive policy to make it prosperous, but it was an absolute calamity that there should- be such _ a Government when so many economic problems had to be solved. They had talked about a new name, and he would call them “the spineless party.” Mr. Nosworthy: "Would you go to the country on that? (Laughter.) Mr. Corrigan: Yes. It is the truth that the present Government is a curse to the country. It will never be known what it cost the country to keep the administration in power. A flying school at Sockburn, belonging to a syndicate, was offered to the Government prior to the last election, but they would not buy it; but after the result of the election they found that they were in a minority, and the first, thing we knew was that the flying school at Sockburn is purchased and it costs £‘25,000 a year to keep it going. Mr. Nash: They keep flying. Mr. Corrigan wanted to know if the same sort of thing was going to happen after next election. The country needed a stable Government, and the Prime Minister, in missing an opportunity, “had nroved himself a bungler, blown up by'the newspapers and now relentlessly pricked by them, so that his balloon came down with a thud.” The Prime Minister smilingly remarked later that he would not discuss the question of fusion, and the last speaker’s opinion of him was of no concern, though it was a very different opinion to that of a few days ago.