Manawatu Daily Times WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1925. The Fusion Conference.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2715, 24 June 1925, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1925. The Fusion Conference.

The Fusion Conference concluded its sitting's on Saturday morning, when the report drawn up by Mr J. A. Young, the loader of the Reform delegates, was approved and passed on to the party leaders. Eater In the day, the Prime Minister stated he would not submit the report to the Reform Caccus, to be held as soon as possible after the meeting of Parliament, but would leave the Reform delegates themselves to present its substance to their fellow members. That, ho believed, would be the correct procedure Meanwhile he had nothing further to say on the subject himself. The leader of the Liberal Opposition will follow a similar course. One or two of the delegates loft town while the report was receiving its final touches, with their approval, and those that remained behind were no more communicative than were the party leaders. The fact that the two sides have agreed to one report, has left plenty of room for conflicting speculations as to the nature of its contents. It may mean that the delegates are so near to- agreement that their views may be expressed in the same words, or that they are so far apart that further negotiations would be futile. Probably, however, the report lies somewhere between- these two extremes, and commits the conference to no more than a pious hope that some basis of co-operation may be discovered. If Fusion Comes. By assuming that in the event of fusion being brought about between Official Reform and Official Liberalism 85 per cent of the votes hitherto cast for Liberal candidates will bo transferred to Labour, Mr J. McCombs. the capable Labour member for Lyttelton, has no difficulty in showing that the new ‘-National Party” will be very hardly pressed at the next general election. Approximately there were 261,000 votes polled for Reform candidates in 1922, 185, 000 for Liberal, .146,000 for Labour, and 25,000 for Independent. Mr McCombs, who should know the disposition of the Labour vote better than most people do, takes it for granted that the 2525 votes cast against Mr Massey in the Franklin electorate three years ago were all Liberal, and

argues from the 2159 votes recorded against the Reform candidate lat the by-election last week that 85 per cent of the Liberal electors changed over from Liberalism to Labour. “With only two parties in the field, and with a re-alignment of the -radical vote." he says, “It will not be very long before New Zealand la rid of a Conservative Government for over.” This is to be brought about, of course, by S 5 per cent of the 185,000 Liberal votes polled in 1922 crossing over to Labour and raising that party’s total, on last year’s figures, to 303,000, 42,000 ahead of Reform and only 5000 or 6000 short of an absolute majority of the votes polled. What Happened In Franklin. All this might sound plausible enough if Mr McCombs's assumptions concerning the transfer of Liberal votes to Labour could be accepted; but the facts being what they are, it is ridiculous to talk of fusion as if only 15 per cent of the Liberals would be prepared to discuss with the Reformers a scheme for removing some of the old party asperities. It is well known that there are many stalwarts on both sides who regard amalgamation in any form with disfavour, but even if fusion were brought about, few of these irreconcilablcs would seek to mend matters by crossing over to the Labour camp. Mr McCombs’s suggestion that 85 per cent of the Liberal electors arc prepared to do so is as absurd as arc his deductions from the Franklin by-election. It is perfectly well known that the Labour vote in the constituency in 1922. was divided between the' Reform and the Liberal candidate and that the other da 7 it was cast solidly for the Labour candidate, while the great bulk of the Liberal vote was cast for Reform, much of it, no doubt owing to the activities of Mr H. E. Holland bf the campaign. Had the Labour candidate been left to his own good common-sense, he probably would have polled even better than he did. Then, however, Mr McCombs might have been able to claim that the whole of the previous Liberal vote had been transferred to Labour. Exceeding The Estimates. It was quite characteristic of the Hon. J. G. Coates that after confessing to a limited acquaintance with the tortuous ways of politics and the intricacies of public finance, he should have devoted his first- Important speech after his assumption of the highest executive office in the Dominion, to a close anaylsis of the Treasury accounts. The courage and the candour of the new Prime Minister are as conspicuous as are his personality and charm. Speaking at Pukekohe during the progress of the Franklin election, however, he told his audience that the increased expenditure for the financial year just closed had been “anticipated In view of the statutory provision for regrading salaries and wages of all public employees and the changes In the working hours of the railway service.” If the increase had been anticipated in this way, it is hard to understand why the anticipation was largely exceeded in so many cases. Industries and Commerce overspent its estimates by £29,600; Post and Telegraphs by £36,817; Internal Affairs by £40,170; Customs by £43,763; the Treasury itself by £18,777, and so on. Of course, Mr Coates himself is not personally responsible for those excesses of ex. penditure. and his attention can be called to them only in the hope that he will impress upon his Minister of Finance the Importance of keeping a tight hand upon the Treasury.