FEDERAL POLITICS

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 23

FEDERAL POLITICS

MR HUGHES RESIGNS. MELBOURNE, February 2. The negotiations between the Nationalist and Country Parties for a working agreement have been broken off, a split occurring over the Country Party’s demand for Mr Hughes’s unconditional retirement. It is stated that there is like’ihood of Mr Hughes announcing his resignation at a party meeting to-day. At a meeting of the Nationalist Party Mr Hughes tendered his resignation, and Mr Bruce was elected leader of the partv. Mr Hughes, in resigning, said that he would recommend the Governor-General to commission Mr Bruce to form a new Ministry. SYDNEY, February 3. The newspapers publish editorial eulogies of the past services of Mr Hughes to Australia, and pay a tribute to his successful career in the face of adversity'. He did the right thing (they say) in ,endering his resignation. Mr Bruce ha« three days in which to form a Ministry. The outlook is uncertain whether a Nationalist or a composite Cabinet be formed. February 4. Senator Gardiner (Deputy Leader of the Federal Labour Party), in the course of an interview, strongly condemned the action of the Governor-General in entrusting Mr Bruce, whom he described as a representative of the discredited remnaiit of the Nationalist Party, to form a Government. In doing so, and not sending for the Leader of the Opposition, the Gover-nor-General had departed from the custom of a century. NEW YORK, February 3. The New York Herald, commenting on Mr Hughes’s resignation, declares that the fate that attended Mr Lloyd George has overtaken Mr Hughes. The people have grown weary of his forceful and aggressive personality, and are disposed to question his almost dictatorial proceedings, to which a long term of office with but slender majorities and the prestige acquired in Europe during the war have inclined him.