EVE OF PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1925, Page 6

EVE OF PARLIAMENT.

SESSION OPENS THURSDAY LONV SITTING UNLIKELY. THE FUSION NEGOTIATIONS. DEFINITE NEWS AWAITED. (By Wire—Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Last Night. As the session of Parliament opens on Thursday members of Parliament will ■be gathering in the city from to-morrow pnward. Preparations are well forward Parliament House, where the staff has been busy for some time past. The opinion is growing now that the session will not be as short as was at first anticipated, but there is scarcely a chance of it being a long one. This ■wi.l be the last session before the election. While there never" is a desire to end a session soon enough to precipitate an election campaign in the winter or early in the spring, there is never nny wish to keep the business going co long that those who are here attending to the country’s affairs are at a disadvantage compared with their opponents, who, not being members of the House, are free to stump the electorates.

Fusion still is a live topic in the city and everyone is awaiting definite news of the report of the committees which met last week. Though no information is available officially it is understood that the Reformers stood their ground on all, or practically all} points. It is believed the Liberals gave way on several points -which were believed to be of importance to them, and that one of these was proportional representation. Another thing which seems to have been recognised is the futility of a coalition before the election.

Letters received here by to-day’s mail f.om New York state that the Hon. W. Downie Stewart was still, on May 24, concentrating on the Burbank treatment, which he will be able to continue in New Zealand. Mr. Stewart was to have presented the flag from the VA ellington Boys’ Institute to the boys of a similar institute in New York at a banquet in the Hotel Commodore, but in his enforced absence Miss Stewart had been asked to make the presentation. “Pukekohe feels,” said the Hon. R. F. (Bollard, who returned from the district yesterday, “that with the figures registered in the recent by-election it has given New Zealand a signal for the general election. The wonderful feeling which the death of its stalwart member, Mr. Massey, caused is everywhere evident. The traditions for the welfare of the country which Mr. Massey set are held sacred by the whole of the people of the Franklin electorate and they get comfort from the fact that New Zealanders throughout the Dominion recognise the worth of those traditions.”