FUSION OFFER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 222, 20 August 1931, Page 7

FUSION OFFER.

-INDEPENDENT MEMBER’S VIEWS

(By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) v y -WELLINGTON, Aug. 19. “Confusion,” interrupted several Labour members when the Independent representative for Egmont, Mr C A Wilkinson, stated during the Budget debate in the House to-night that he proposed to discuss the fusion proposals, ion „ &aid Mr Wilkinson, “the Leader of the Government made a very good offer to the other members of the House.” Mr J. A. Nash: Is your party in favour of it? , Mr F. Waite: Are you going to get a portfolio? . , . Mr Wilkinson put the mam features of Mr Forbes’s offer on record, describing it as a straightforward statement. Mr F. Langstone: Don’t be deluded k^Mr' Wilkinson retorted that lie saw nothing deluding and lie believed the people of New Zealand were looking for some combination of that kind, but when it came to dealing with it he found members of the Reform Party saving it was impossible. Mr Langstone: It was a swan song. Mr Wilkinson : I think the mainspring of the attitudte of the Reform Party is that in its folly it thinks that after the next election there will be no United Party left, but throughout the Dominion people are wondering at the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition.

reform attitude supported

Per Press Association. HAWERA, Aug. 19. The Hawera branch of the New Zealand Political-Reform League carried a motion supporting the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition, Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, to the fusion proposal.