PARTY FUSION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19502, 10 June 1925, Page 2

PARTY FUSION.

TO THE KDITOH. Sm, —Despite your strong advocacy o£ an immedito fusion of the Keform and Liberal i'arties and the arguments you adduce, 1 am inclined to think it will in the long run prove a mistake, arid an injudicious step for Mr Coates. Ido not see that a machine-made (“party machine” made) fusion can ever be a true success. What is it but a coalition Government under another name? And experience of coalition Governments has certainly not justified a return to anything of that nature. ■They have always had within them the elements of disruption and disunion. And what has been the history in Australian politics of patched-up party arrangements and pacts—betwixt Nationalists, the Country Party, etc? Nothing but unending confusion and interna! strife. I quite realise that you may argue that a fusion of our two major parties will result in a happy new “chemical compound, ' so to speak, instead of a merely mechanical mixture; but that does not readily happen in politics. Furthermore, one can hardly help feeling that in taking such a step the Reform and Liberal representatives in the House are trenching somewhat upon the rights of the electors. There are throe parties in the House —Reform, Liberal, and Labour. If the leaders of the Coates and Wilford parties can bargain together and unite, there is no reason why Air Coates should not similarly (if he so wished) take Mr Holland and his henchmen into the Cabinet without any reference to the electors —but how would the, electors relish that? Again, to take another point of view, if the two major parties in the House are to go together and elect a Cabinet, is this not going a long way towards adopting tho principle of an elective Ministry Might not an elective Government be the right solution for the trouble which the proposed “fusion” is expected to cure? There are many advocates of an elective Ministry. Looking ahead also, it would appear probable (hat a great deal of dissatisfaction will bo engendered at the forthcoming election. If fusion takes place I anticipate that one of tho first steps will be an agreement that no Reform or Liberal candidate will oppose each other at tho election—will not contest each other’s seats. This in result will bo that each Liberal and Reform member at present in the House will have tho seal of tho newlycombined party, and will in effect bo guaranteed its support to the exclusion of all other candidates. But there are bound to be in many of tho constituencies strong and valued supporters of each party, already declared as candidates—men who perhaps (after long service) lost their soars. at the last election, and others who, 'with tho tacit recognition of their party, have for tho last two years been preparing to contest tho constituency on their party’s behalf. Are Ihoir rightful claims and tho claims of their supporters to Ik- ignored? And if even so, would not such a course of official pre-blootion be far from desirable? ' In conclusion, I do not see .why tho present should be doomed such a.n extraordinarily fitting moment for fusion, any more than six months or a year ago. The contention seonis to carry the implication that tho late head of the Government was heretofore the stumbling-block to fusion, and on that point lam not informed. I may add I am a Reform supporter, and desirous of its welfare. —I am, etc.. Dubious. June 6.