NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1495, 18 July 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

_ One of the English papers, by noticing "the June number of that excellent work The Parliamentary Gazette" reminds us that there are some reforms in Parliamentary procedure to which Mr. Massey should apply himself as soon as he can. The Gazette, we should explain, contains alphabetical lists of constituencies, division lobby records, the principal division lists of the session, an index with dates of the chief subjects discussed, and. so on. There is room for something of the kind in New Zealand—something that shall be a sort of Hansard without the speeches; and we are inclined to think that the advantages of substituting such a publication for the official Hansard would outweigh the disadvantages. We are not thinking only of the great saving of money that would bo effected. There would be a great saving of timethe bore and the mere repeater of previous speeches, having no means of distributing (at considerable cost to tho country) his "speeches" amongst his constituents, would talk less often. The idea is worth thinking about. In the meantime the Government ought to consider whether the House might not mfcet in the morning and rise early in the evening—a reform of which the advantages arc very obvious. The plea that the mornings must be kept for the Committees is not at all a final one. The coming session will, of course, be a comparatively short one, and nobody expects much in the way of legislation, sincc all the time available can be well spent in clearing up the left ov cr. controversies and in preparing the Parliamentary ground for the* new order of things. The Government should seize the opportunity to make a beginning with that honest and methodical procedure which was so consistently avoided by the Seddon and Ward Governments that every session ended in a scandalous scramble.

The latest report of an impending split in the British Cabinet and in the rank and file of the Coalition party has a much more serious appearance than any earlier rumour of a like nature. Mr. H. W. Massinoham, who precipitated the present discussion by his ai-ticle in the Daily Aews, is perhaps the most potent force in Radical circles. Mr.J. K. Spender, the brilliant editor of the Westminster Gazette, is an politician than the editor of the at ion,' but the Ration that is the greatest driving forcc of the party. The difference between Mr. Spender, and Mr.'Massinoham- is the difference between a sinc?rc Liberal who would rather go slow than force his party into trouble and an advanced Radical little in love with compromise. It is very much tlv: difference between Mr. Asqijith and Mr. Lloyd-George. When, Mr. Massingham, therefore, conscious of his great influence, and of his correspondingly great responsibility, asks j* 11 ®? a dai 'y journal as extreme and almost as courageous as his own weekly, "Are wc to command the sea or lose Mr. Lloyd-Georce V' it is but natural that Liberals should be perturbed. "If," Mr. Massingham added, Mr. Asquith tries to enchain the soul and mind of the party to Me. Churchill's naval policy, h'e .will lose the Chancellor and ,with him nine-tenths of the Liberal fighters.' Coming from such a quarter, this is a very serious threat, for it is impossible to believe that Mr. Massingham 1 wrote without some knowledge of the Chancellor's mind. The Daihj Chronicle, it is reported to-day, is looking for comfort in the 'Chancellor s Mansion House speech at the time of the Agadir incident, but in that speech Mr. Lloyd-George committed himself to nothing much more than insistence on Britain's right to be heard in Europe. The advanced section of the Liberals liave never concealed their chagrin at Mr. Churchill's emphatic adoption and expansion of the Big-Navy policy. They cannot endure to see devoted to battleships the millions that they require for their "social reform''' schemes. If the split between the moderates and the extremists in the Liberal party does not come now it must como later. Wc at this end of the world can onjy hope that ; if the choice is really between the Chancellor, and the command of the sea,, the Chancellor will be considered the less valuable asset of Britain and the Empire.

An interesting revelation of high Liberal politics in Great Britain is made in the June Notional Review. It will be remembered that towards the end of the "truce" in the Constitutional conflict imposed by Kino Edward's death some Unionist publicists were advocating federalism as a substitute for Home Rule. Lately Mr. Winston Churchill and Sir liuFus Isaacs were making capital out of this intrigue, and it is their taunting of the Unionist party that has justified the National Review's exposure. For it turns out that while no Unionist ex-Minister at all was concerned in the "federalism" intrigue, several members of the Asquith Government were intriguing too. The Review announces that "in order to extract support for some undefined scheme of federalism safeguarding Ulster," some conspicuous members of the Asquitii Government were prepared to throw over some important articles in the Government's political policy, In the first place they "were prepared to acknowledge the soundness of the policy of Imperial Preference by granting preferences on the existing British tariff," and to agree to "the appointment of a Commission of Economic experts by whose decisions tliev would lie bound." Further, they favoured the issue of a big national defence, loan of anoroximately a hundred million sterling; and they were ready to adapt the Swiss national system of.compulsory training to Britain. Nobody has seen any reason to doubt the correctness of the Review's disclosures, which arc a fair retort upon those Liberal leaders whose ethics "permit, them to taunt with considering one fide of n bargain an opponent whom they hold to be unde? ths seal of

silence not to disclose their own side and share.''

The temperate attitude of the de putation from the New Zealand Alliance that waited on Mr. Massey is to be commended. When writing the. other day upon the I{ev. It. S. Gray's praise of Mn. L. M. Isitt for having, by his action at the March caucus of the supporters of the Into Government, prevented the establishment of a Ministry hostile t-o the Prohibition cause, we express ed what is certainly the general opinion: that the main political parties will refuse to allow a contusing dominance to the liquor question. It is very satisfactory, there-.' fore, that Mr. _Mas'sey, in replying to the deputation, was careful to give an equal consideration to his political opponents and his political supporters. There were several tactical horses upon which he could have ridden off if he had chosen, for the embarrassment of the Opposition, He chose, however—and, in the interests of things greater than party politics, he chose wisely—to emphasise the fact that his oppon.cnt-8 while he was in Opposition had been as careful as himself to make the liquor issuo what it ought to be, i.e.an issue alien to party politics. The country is indebted to him for this statement. Every student of rcccnt British politics will note the very close resemblance between the Pjiime Minister's definition of the political place of the liquor question and Mr. Asquith's definition of the political place of the women's suffrage question. It iq somewhat difficult to see how supporters of the Prohibition movement, even if they really thought it advisable to bring the question into the. arena of party politics, could hope to do so with any success. Have .we not witnessed that ardent advocate of the cause of No-License, Mr. L. M. Isitt, in close association politically with such eminent brewers as Mr. Myers ->,nd Mr. Vigor Brown; and so also with other members on that side oi the Housc'._ The possibility of doing anything in the way of licensing legislation duringthe session is most remote —in it is practically hopeless to think of passing any controversial measure of the kind in the" short time that will be available. No doubt the members of the Alliance realise this 1 and arc merely paving the way to legislation next year. The matter will then have to be faced and the decision of the House taken the question of whether there shall be any alteration in the majority which at present decides the No-License and Prohibition issues.