WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1920, Page 1

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(Our Special Correspondent). THE LIBERAL-LABOUR PARt£. MEETING OF MEMBERS. WELLINGTON, Jan. 19.

Considerable interest is being, displayed in the meeting of the members of the Liberal-Labour Party to be held here oh Wednesday next. The old title of Liberal-Labour can bo properly applied to the Party, because Mr Veitch, the Member for Wanganui, Mr S. G. Smith, the Member for Taranaki, and Mr E. Kellett, the Member for Dunedin North, three Labour members who refuse to be pledge-bound aiid caucusruled really stand where the more progressive section of the Liberal Party did under Mr Seddon, co-operating with the Liberals and inspiring much of the advanced legislation the combination placed on the Statute Book. Mr Robert Masters, the new member for Stratford also contested the election as a LiberalLabour candidate, and judging from the reports of his speeches it will not he for lack of sympathy with the workers’ aspirations if he is not closely .associated with* the Radical section of the party in the House. ... THiE LEADERSHIP.

It is being taken for granted in political circles that the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald will he the new leader of the party. Mr MacDonald acted as leader during the absence of Sir Joseph Ward at the Peace Conference and, though tlio existence of the “party truce” and his punctilious observance of the terms of the compact njuch restricted his field of activity, his tact and geniniitv and bis consistent loyalty to his absent chief impressed his political opponents and political friends alike. It is interesting to recall now, what was an open secret at the time, that he was the leader Sir Joseph Ward himself would have chosen in 1912 had he not left his supporters untrammelled in the selection of his successor. There would not bo-much profit in speculating as to wliat might have happened had Mr MacDonald filled the place assigned to Sir Thomas Mackenzie during tlie crisis that terminated in Mr Massey’s accession to office, hut there are people who think this particular page of the Dominion’s political history would have told a very different tale. TI-IE PARTY’S PROSPECTS. An analysis of the figures of the recent general election suggest that the condition of the Liberal Party is not ns parlous as the members of the Reform and Labour parties would make it out to he, or, indeed, as its own friends were inclined to think in their first realisation of defeat. The Refonn Party even after including all Mr . Massey’s, old friends who professed a measure of qualified independence during the election campaign, number no more, than forty-four, which, with one oi' its members in the chair, will give it a working mar "in of 10 or 12 in the House, whichever" way the doubtful Maori votes go. Had not Conterbury after nearly thirty years of almost unanimous Libelalism exchanged three Liberals for three Reformers and lost another Liberal seat by the disappearance of the Selwyn constituency, the election would have left Mr Massev with the very narrowest, margin of the European members of the House behind him and he would have been able to. carry on comfortably only bv tlie grace of liis opponents. THE OPPOSITION.

But taking the figures as they are and not conjuring with them as they might have been, it is obvious that Mr Massey has a majority large enough to ensure him in the possession of the Treasury Benches during the life of the present' Parliament, provided he commits no egregious blunders of policy or administration. But the Opposition assuming the Liberal-Labour Party and the Official Labour .Party work m some measure of neighbourly harmony and Mr Holland and his friends eschew their short cuts to the millenium, * verv capable and active one. It has not a monopoly of the debating power of the House, but it has a distinct • * vantage over the other side in tins respect, and in the Hon A. M. Myersi i has the most capable financier sitting in the present Parliament, an asset that will count for a great deal when finance must loom very largo in the progra of the Government. Altogether the Opposition is promised many oppoitunities of very useful service.