AN INTERTERBRATE GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 832, 30 July 1910, Page 5

AN INTERTERBRATE GOVERNMENT.

YIELDING TO PUBLIC CLAMOUR. . Commenting, oh' the. no-confidence lebate in thellouse last night Mr. A. L; Herdman said it must be consida momentous one. Five or six Ministerialists had the courage!' to declare that they had no longer confidence in the Government, at all events so far as its land policy was concerned. There could be no mistake in ; the. matter as the Prime had.' declared ho would 'treat the' motion as one of no confidence, and it was gratifying to find that five'men .had tho courage of their convictions.. .•' A newspaper article on tho division had described the Government as'an invertebrate one. H© thought that adjective precisely summed up the position. It was not only on the land policy that the Government changed front. No matter what the subject was if the cry was loud enough the Government would back *down. It might be the unfortunate trial of . Captain Knyvett. First of all'the Government would stand by the. court martial. Then as soon as. the cry became loud and people came along in. multitudes to the Government it backed down. The 6ame thing had occurred in respect to the Blackball strike -and the bookmaker, 'question. ' Then the .Government adopted a policy of retrenchment, only to abandon it for the old policy of extravagance. The quarterly returns just published in the! Gazette showed an increase in the annual appropriations of £141,663, showing that the Government was going on again with its policy of extravagance. ~