A BITTER MEETING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17185, 15 February 1930, Page 6

A BITTER MEETING

AUSTRALIAN LABORITES

COAL CRISIS DISCUSSED

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received February 15, 2 p.m.) SYDNEY, Feb. 15. New South Wales and Federal Labor members of Parliament sat late in secret conclave with the Australian Labor Party executive. The proceedings, it is understood, were marked with extreme bitterness. Ministers insisted that the meeting should he removed from the Trades Hall lo the Commonwealth offices, and even the Labor Daily was excluded.

.Each member of the Federal Labor Forty received a typed copy of the Labor conference resolutions requiring the Government to commandeer certain mines, disband and disarm the coalfields police, prosecute coal owners and New South Wales members of Cabinet, and give basic wage relief to all miners affected by the stoppage. Members were also informed of another resolution requiring the executive to compel them to carry out “the spirit and letter of the resolutions.”

War was declared when the Federal members asked the executive to outline how the demands were to be given effect to. Mr. .lames, member for Hunter, a coalfields electorate, repeated the attack he made on Mr. Scullin and Mr. Theodore in the House, and challenged his colleagues to move in caucus for his expulsion. He declared that the Prime Minister and Treasurer discouraged the miners from creating an inter-State strike, and let them down by appointing Mr. Kibble instead of Mr. Willis to sit on the tribunal. “Mr. Willis would have had his responsibilities to the movement; Mr. Kibble has none,” he said. Here the secretary of the conference blotted out the discussion.