SECRET CONCLAVE

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 15 February 1930, Page 9

SECRET CONCLAVE

LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE EXTREME BITTERNESS SHOWN DEMANDS ON GOVERNMENT. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) Received 2.15 p.m. to T day. SYDNEY, let). 15. New South Wales Federal Labour Members of Parliament sat late in secret conclave with the Australian Labour Party executive. The proceedings, it is understood) were marked with extreme bitterness. Ministers insisted that the meeting should be removed from the trades liall to the Commonwealth offices and even the. “Labour Daily” was excluded. Each member of the Federal Party received a typed copy of tne Labour conference resolutions requiring the Government to commandeer certain mines, to disband and disarm the coalfields police, to prosecute the coal owners and New South Wales members of the Cabinet, and give basic wage relief to all miners affected by the stoppage. Members were also informed of another resolution requiring the executive to compel them to carry out the spirit and letter of the resolutions. War was declared when a Federal member asked the executive how the demands would be given effect to. Mr. James, member for the Hunter coalfields electorate, repeated the attack he made on Rt. Hon. J. H. Scullin and Hon. E. G. Theodore in the House and challenged liis colleagues to move in caucus for liis expulsion. He declared that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer had discouraged miners -»om creating an inter-State strike and had let them down, by appointing Mr Hibble instead of Mr. A. C. Willis to sit on the tribunal. “Mr. Willis would have had his responsibilities to the movement, but Mr. Hibble had none,” ho declared. Here Mr. Curtain, secretary of the conference, blots out the discussion.