FUSION OR ELECTION?

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 31385, 14 February 1923, Page 6

FUSION OR ELECTION?

ONLY ALTERNATIVES • AI >DRESS-IN-R EPI. Y DEBATE. t . Electric Telegraph —Press Association Wellington, This Day. The House met at 11 o’clock, when the debate on the Address-in-Reply was resumed by Air Harris, who said that the lesson of the election was that neither Liberals nor Lab- ' our received a mandate from the jieople and there were only two alternatives to the position which had | arisen : (1) fusion of the moderate j sections ; (2) another general election. The issue put to the people last j December was constitutional GovernI merit or revolutionary socialism, and 1 as there was so little difference between tlic platforms of the Liberals and Reformers, it was suicidal that they should remain apart. If the Liberals and Reformers continued to light each other, Labour would bo in power in three years, and it wias the duty of every patriotic man to take steps as would prevent suoh a disaster. The alternative to fusion ! was a general election, which no one ’ wanted Another appeal to the people would probably not give any party, an absolute majority, therefor he favoured fusion as a way out of the present tangle.