WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(Our Special Correspondent)

THE LIBERAL PARTY

ITS SUCCESS IN BRUCE.

WELLINGTON, April 16

The Hon. AV. D. S. MacDonald, supplementing this morning an interview he gave to the Press Association yesterday, said he regarded the success of Mr Edic in the Bruce by-election as a very significant indication of the trend of public opinion throughout the country. As far as his own records extended the seat had been held by the Conservatives and Reformers continuously since 1890. He thought it had been held by the- opponents of Liberalism much longer. At any rate a Conservative, Air J. AV. Thomson, was returned in 1890 and when lie resigned in 1892 lie was succeeded hy Sir James Allen, who at the general election had been ousted from the Dunedin seat that first gave him a place in Parliament. Sir James had represented the constituency ever since and had served it, no doubt, faithfully and well, but the political principles he represented had gradually lost their hold upon the electors and now they had been repudiated altogether. POLITICAL PARTIES. Air AlacDonald did not wish for a moment to suggest that the return of Mr Edic had impaired Air Afassey’s strength in the House or his hold upon the Treasury Benches. But it liad to be remembered that seventeen or eighteen of the Prime Alinister’s supporters were “minority” representatives and that Air Massey held office against the wish of a very large majority of the electors in the country. Those facts were slowly dawning upon the public and long before the next appeal to the constituencies came round there would he an insistent demand for some electoral system that would ensure majority rule. Meanwhile it was only natural the electors should resent the gerrymandering of the law that lias practically disfranchised more than three-fifths of them. His own personal preference was for proportional representation, but preferential voting as set out in the late Dr AfcNab’s Absolute Majority Bill would he a vast improvement upon tire present system and would ensure the country against such a shocking example of misrepresentation as it had to-day. LIBERAL CO-OPERATION.

The Liberal leader smiled when shown the suggestion of the ‘.‘Dominion” this morning that he was angling for a position in the Cabinet under the leadership of Mr Massey. “Mr Massey and I,” he said, “are very good personal friends, and T would no more think of making any personal reflection upon him than he would think ol making any personal reflection upon me; l,nt it would take another very big war to drag me into a National Cabinet under Reform leadership. One experience of that kind has been enough for me and I doubt if any of my Liberal colleagues would be willing to repeat the experiment. Coalition on equal terms, is all very well for the party that wants to stand still, but for the party that wishes to progress it is simply intolerable.” But while holding this view emphatically and unalterably, Mr MacDonald desires it to be understood that he is ready to co-operate cordially and earnestly with Mr Massey and Ins friends in dealing with the great national problem si now calling aloud for solution.

NEWSPAPER COMMENT.

The “Evening Post” warns the Government against thinking too lightly of the rebuff it has received in the Bruce electorate. “If the defeat does not have a tonic effect upon the Cabinet,” it says, “Ministers will have under-esti-mated the situation. If, on the other hand, it stirs them up, Bruce will not have been lost in vain. There certainly is need for Ministers to come in closer grip with the essential prohelms of reconstruction. For the Liberals, Bruco is a distinct encouragement. It may serve to recall the fable of Bruce and the spider.” The “Dominion” deals with the matter less seriously. “What the country needs,” it says, “is just the new blood to which Mr MacDonald takes exception. Perhaps the Liberal leader will explain how we can obtain it if novices in offices are to be ruled out. With his suggestion that the reconstruction of the Cabinet should be completed at the earliest possible date wo fully agree.” Mr MacDonald’s point was that the Cabinet consisted of young men just arriving and old men just leaving. The “Dominion’s” retort is quite within the rules.