NEW MOVE MADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27384, 9 May 1950, Page 7

NEW MOVE MADE

Electoral Pact With Liberals CONSERVATIVE QUEST N ZP A—Copyright Rec. 7.15 p.m. LONDON, May 8. The Conservative Party has made a new move in its quest for an electoral pact with the Liberals, says the political correspondent of the Daily Express. It has set up a committee of three—Mr R. A. Butler, Mr Harold Macmillan and Mr Duncan Sandys—to negotiate with the Liberal leaders. It is probable that the Liberals will insist on two conditions before entering any sort of an alliance-with the Conservatives, first, during an election campaign, the Liberals would fight as an independent party, and secondly, after the election, the Conservatives would support proposals to set up a select committee on electoral reform. On the basis of these' conditions, most members of the Liberal executive would favour an immediate arrangement with the Conservatives, but what they do not favour is the suggest tion, conveyed in Lord Woolton's speech, that the electoral pact should consist of an arrangement by which a joint Liberal-Conservative committee would sit in each constituency and select a joint candidate. It was against such a suggestion that the Liberal Party chairman, Lord Moynihan, spoke on Saturday.