THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1385, 11 March 1912, Page 4

THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

The Prime Minister has _afc last made something like a definite announcement concerning the plans of the Government. He described as "absurd" and as "not in accord with the constitutional aspect of the question" the suggestion that Parliament should meet again at some early date; and he addscl that "Parliament would not again meet until the end of June." It is difficult to believe that even so _ indifferent a follower of constitutional practice as Sin Joseph Ward would make so positive a statement without haying received an assurance from his Excellency the Governor that the necessary prorogations would be made. At tho same time it is no less difficult to believe that-his Excellency has given a signed blank cheque, as it were, to a Government that is pledged to go out of office and make way for some other Executive combination concerning which nobody has any certain knowledge excepting that it will not command'the confidence of the country and that on meeting _ Parliament it will probably be quickly defeated. If the Ward Government had behind it a solid working majority, such as it had after the 1908 election, there would be nothing to say against the course that it actually intends to follow. But here is . a Government which would have been out of office at this moment had not its leader promised to efface himself—(a promise, by tho way, that our "Liberal" friends are more and more openly urging him to break)— and which only survived a motion of want-of-confidence by the casting vote of the Speaker after two members of the House had cynically broken the pledges to which they owed their election. Nothing could be" more absurd than the Prime Minister's appeal to "the constitutional aspect of the question"; for constitutional principles are all against him. Perhaps, however,' nothing much except time will be lost in the long rim if tho "Liberals" persist in refusing to face an early session. Nothing is more certain than that whatever sort of patchwork Cabinet is arranged at the party caucus on next Thursday week the public will realise more sharply and still more generally that the then Government will simply he tho committee of a political class, consumed by one desire and one fear—the desire for office and the fear of political death. The very constitution of the new Ministry will have an educative value in this direction, and time will do the rest. In the meantime, however, the country will have been deprived of representative government altogether. It will be governed by a Ministry that nobody can trust, and that will be unable to show that it received a mandate to assume office. In that case it will be at no greater disadvantage than the unreconstructed Ward Cabinet, which is already heightening its unpopularity by the fashion in which it, is discharging its functions. Its administration of the Defence Act and of the Arbil ration Act lias every apucaranoe of being dictated by political considerations; and most people will laugh at any suggestion that if is not so__ dictated. Whatever the "Liberal" Government may hope, to gain by paltering with its obvious duty of enforcing the law. it will to?? far racu'c in thr> ivay v { credit, But wo are afraid that oui

"Liberal'" friends have reached the stage when they would gladly pay any price, even the price of complete and permanent disrepute, for a further spell of office. Their reputation does not greatly matter, perhaps; but in the process of throwing it away they are doing damage lo things that do matter—the spirit of law and order, and the tradition of honour and fidelity that sustains British government.