A POSSIBILITY

Hokitika Guardian, 15 March 1928, Page 1

A POSSIBILITY

AN AUGUST ELECTION. The Prime. Almister's description of the suggestion of ail early election as a “kite” does not dispose of it altogether. Our Wellington correspondent is not given to flying kites. His functions do not carry him into Hi© realms of fancy or of speculation, and when he reports that talk in political circles is tending in a certain direction we may be sure that it is so. One need not go to Wellington, however. for speculation regarding the course of politics. Ministers cannot travel about the country without learning that the Government is unpopular, because wherever they go they will find their own supporters severely critica. The unprecedented Afinisterial invasion of the South Island that has just occurred was neither accidental nor purposeless. Its object was to rally the fast disintegrating Reform forces. There was a gathering of the faithful to meet the Ministers in Christchurch, and if the stories in circulation have any basis of truth, it cannot have been a particularly liappy assembly from the Prime Minister’s point of view. The public arc not without Intelligence. They may he prone to read too much into the recorded facts and to assume that what is really a coincidence is an example of cause and effect. There is no warrant for associating the Prime Alinister'.s visit to Christchurch and Dunedin with the late activity in brewery shares, for instance, but, on the other hand., no one imagines that Air Coates stopped off at Tcmuka merely to view the scenery. The truth is that the political situation is extremely interesting, and ; ,n early election is a distinct possibility. The breach in the Reform Party caused by the Licensing Bill has not been healed, and as the prohibitionists have no intention of compromising it is not at all likely that the Government will have a comfortable life. Added to the pressure of the prohibitionists in the party is the pressure of Reformers who criticise the personnel of the Alinistry, its taxation policy, its trade policy, and its interference with commerce and industry. It goes without saying that the Prime Alinister and his colleagues do not desire a long session. The shorter the session the lower will he the opportunities for criticism, for party rebellion, and for such incidents as that in which the Prime Alinister was, quite unwarrantably, humiliated by his followers, and incidentally by some of his own colleagues. The Samoan troubles have been added to Cabinet’s other difficulties, and as blunder after blunder comes under review, tlie case against the Government will K>' mv stronger and stronger, and the feeling against the Government more and more potent. "What Prime Alinister, in the circumstances, would want to face the terrors.of a long session, adding daily to his own unpopularity, with an election at hand? The suggestion that there will lie an early appeal to the constituencies may have no written guarantee behind it, and it may be false, hut if it is false the Prime Alinister has even less political slirewdno.ss than we had supposed. An early election is his only means of escape from an intolerable situation.