RETENTION OF MINISTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 123, 25 May 1926, Page 8

RETENTION OF MINISTERS

LOYAL TO HIS COLLEAGUES,

The "Wanganui Chronicle" (Reform) says that those who have followed the Hon. B. A. Wright's career in business and public life will agree that ho has qualifications for the rank that he has now attained. Tho "Chronicle" remarks that the Cabinet is not well oft" for debaters, and states tliat Mr. Wright will strengthen the debating power' of the Ministry. Regarding the portfolio ■of Public Works, the "Chronicle" says:—"Mr. Coates has to find, someone to take over, the administration of Public Works, and wo can only suppose that that Minister is already in the Cabinet. The sooner he is installed in his new office the 'better, for the opening of Parliament is near at hand, and it is just as desirable that the new Minister of Public Works should be familiar with his duties as it is that the Prime Minister should be freed of a portion of his heavy burden before Parliament meets." ' , On the question of the Cabinet personnel the "Chronicle" says that Mr. Coates will probably be criticised for his retention of Messrs. Nosworthy and Bollard. Mr. Nosworthy, it says, has gone from one State Department to another without achieving conspicuous success in the administration of any of them, and in regard to Mi-. Bollard the paper declares that he can probably count 79 friends in the House, but most of them would not be blind to the fact that he is by far the weakest memUer of the Ministry. "If the Prime Minister had 'scrapped' Mr. Nosworthy and Mr. Bollard his action would have been widely applauded, buj apparently considerations of that kind do not carry weight with Mr. Coates. Even at the risk of offending some of his supporters he has preferred to bo loyal to the colleagues who have stood by him, and it is impossible not to admire his action when we view it from that angle."