AN EARLY SESSION?

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2719, 14 March 1916, Page 6

AN EARLY SESSION?

NO DECISION' YET.

Current opinion in well-informed circles is'that an early session of Parliament is inevitable. In addition to the familiar reasons hitherto advanced, that Parliament must meet to pass legislation for compulsory national service, and that it will be necessary for the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward to meet the House prior to their visit to London, it is suggested that there may be financial reasons for callParliament together. Last session a loan of ten millions for war purposes was authorised. Not very much information is vouchsafed as to the rateat which this money, which is all being advanced by the Imperial Treasury, is being spent, but _ certainly the rate of expenditure has increased enormously since the days when the monoy was voted. Such speculations lead 1 very easily to discussions of another possibility, whether a local war loan may bo necessary, and we have had hints_ for months nasfc in the speeches of British statesmen that the British Treasury cannot be dra.wn upon without limit. It is stated that a section of the responsible financial men in New Zealand aro bringing pressure to boar on the Government to take steps to get control of the surplus money abounding in this country now. in order that, it may not ho dissipated in unproductive expenditure or in more or less speculative investment, but really conserved for the purpose for which all the resources of the Empire may yet he needed—the winning of the war. The method by which tho Government can do this is, of course, by the flotation of a local l° nll - . i The Prime Minister said yesterday that- ho would not he able to say for a fortnight yet any more about the possibility of an early session of Parliament. At the end of that period ho hoped that Cabinet would bp able to decide as to tho date 011 which tho House would meet. He would not say whether there was or was not a likelihood that Cabinet would decide thai Parliament should be called together before the usual meeting time—the end of Juno.