FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17825, 6 January 1920, Page 5

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

THE BALLARAT SEAT. Prua A«*ocUlton—By T«l«gT»,ph—Copyright. : ' SYDNEY, January 5. The Labour Party has decided to appeal to the High Court in connection with the Ballarat election. SENATE SEATS. SYDNEY, January 5. (Received Jan. 5, at 9.20 p.m.) ■Mr Walter L. Duncan has won the second New South Wales Senate seat. It appears to be certain that the third seat will go to Mr Albert Gar'iiner (Labourite), upsetting the earlier calculation that the Nationalists would win all the scats. LABOUR'S DEFEAT EXPLAINED. COALITION WITH FARMERS' PARTY SUGGESTED. MELBOURNE, January 5. (Received Jan. 5, at 9.20 p.m.) Mr Higgs, Deputy Labour Leader in tl]o Federal Parliament, in returning thanks for his election, said that tho Labour Party had failed dismally in its attempt to win the majority of tho seats. The failure was largely owing to an outside executive controlling the parliamentary party and dictating its policy. Some of these men, who pretended to be revolutionists, were most impracticable and impossible, yet tlipy considered themselves entitled to interpret the Labour platform and. dictate its policy. Ho strongly condemned Labour's attitude against the referendum proposals, and suggested seeking $ coalition with the "Farmers' Party in order to meet the new political situation. The President of the Australian Labour Party declared that Mr Hiirns's suggestion in regard to a coalition with the Farmers' Party was impossible. It meant a compromise, an 3 it was essential that tho Labour Party should* remain free and untrammelled.