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This series comprises one file concerning negotiations in early 1923 between the Nationalist and Country Parties to establish a stable composite government. Protagonists involved in the negotiations included Prime Minister William Morris Hughes and Treasurer Stanley Melbourne Bruce (both of the Nationalist Party) and Earle Page (leader of the Country Party). The negotiations dealt principally with the different types of government that could be formed from a coalition between the two parties and with the condition placed on a coalition arrangement by the Country Party that Hughes step down as Prime Minister. The file contains handwritten drafts of correspondence from the National Party to the Country Party and summaries of negotiations written by Bruce, typed copies of memoranda and letters between the two parties, a report dated 1 February 1923 which summarises the various meetings and correspondence between the two parties during January 1923, and two documents summarising the 1923 negotiations between the Country Party and Nationalist Party apparently compiled by Mr Graham of the Australian National University in 1957. As a result of the negotiations Bruce was instated as Prime Minister. Several handwritten agreements between Stanley Melbourne Bruce and Earle Page, affirming the beginning of new coalition arrangements between the two parties, are also in the file.

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